FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The radioactive plume from Japan wafting from west to east across the U.S. is absolutely nothing to worry about, writes William J. Broad in a New York Times report today (“Radiation Over U.S. Is Harmless, Officials Say,” 3/22/11) about the radiation threats posed by the Japanese nuclear plant disaster. Broad writes: Health experts said that […]
At a time when the Japanese prime minister is describing his country’s nuclear crisis and the growing threat of radiation exposure as “very grave,” it must have been comforting for Fox News watchers to turn on the O’Reilly Factor last night (3/17/11) to see Ann Coulter telling them that radiation is actually good for you. […]
To make his claim that the right hasn’t been responsible for a terrorist act since 1995, O’Reilly even had to overlook at least two domestic terror acts apparently inspired by his Fox News colleague Glenn Beck.
A front-page story in today’s New York Times strongly suggests that Roger Ailes–the News Corp executive who runs the Fox News Channel, the Fox Business Network, and Fox broadcast stations–urged a witness to lie to federal officials in order to protectfriend and politician Rudolph Giuliani. If true, what may be most remarkable about the story […]
Right-leaning pundits play a key role in a growing fad of self-styled “constitutional conservatives” who say Barack Obama is subverting the U.S. Constitution—and brandish pocket-sized copies of the document to prove it. The pundits cite a potpourri of purportedly unconstitutional policies, including healthcare legislation, corporate bailouts and perhaps even a cover-up over where Obama was […]
In addition to his repeated murder fantasies, Glenn Beck harbors apocalyptic fantasies of mass death–suggesting, for instance, that if the direction of the country doesn’t change, “God will wash this nation with blood.” (Barack Obama, are you listening?) But the Fox News host harbors many deranged obsessions. He has long obsessed over Frances Fox Piven, […]
Glenn Beck has expressed on-air desires to strangle Michael Moore with his own hands, beat Charles Rangel to death with a shovel, and once aired a sketch on his Fox News show that had him poisoning then–Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Appearing on the Today show this morning (1/19/11), responding to questions about his […]
In his new book, Ron Reagan says he saw early signs of Alzheimer’s disease in his father, Ronald Reagan, while the late president was still in the White House. When he said as much on ABC‘s 20/20 last Friday (1/14/11), he infuriated many on the right, including his older brother Michael Reagan. Over the weekend, […]
Funny, I thought our legal traditions generally frowned on the notion that powerful government officials, particularly members of Congress, get to declare who is and isn’t a journalist?
In today’s Washington Post (12/2/10), in the news article “Deficit Commission Sets Ideology Aside,” reporters Lori Montgomery and Brady Dennis explain why the commission is not ideological: Confronted with a deficit-reduction plan loaded with political dynamite, members from both parties set aside ideological orthodoxy at least briefly, sparking hope that their work could ignite a […]
On Friday, Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher took a study that says there are 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were before the debate over the state’s disputed anti-immigrant law, and reported it as 100,000 fewer “illegals.” By conflating Hispanics with “illegals,” Gallagher inadvertently illustrates the case made by opponents of the law.
Last Wednesday (Glenn Beck Program, 11/10/10), we got a glimpse of how low Glenn Beck will go to smear a political opponent. Beck’s lie that philanthropist George Soros helped “send the Jews to the death camps” during World War II, was, in essence, an attack on a Jewish child for the heartbreaking things he was […]
Bill O’Reilly‘s recent “joke” about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview. During the cable channel’s 2008 election coverage, in […]
Meet the Press announced that its show this Sunday will feature two conservative Republican guests, Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Gov. Chris Christie (N.J.). Well, that’s only natural, because the GOP did so well on Tuesday, winning back the House…. Right? Oh wait…. Here’s Meet the Press‘s then-host Tim Russert on November 12, 2006: Our […]
A new FAIR study of the PBS NewsHour finds that public television’s flagship news program continues to feature sources drawn largely from a narrow range of elite white male experts. The study, the third FAIR has conducted of the NewsHour since 1990, documents a pattern of failure by the PBS news show to fulfill the mission of public television to provide a broader, more inclusive alternative to commercial news programs.
Monday’s front-page New York Times piece, “‘Culture of Poverty,’ Long an Academic Slur, Makes a Comeback,” is about how it’s okay again for scholars to talk about the “culture of poverty” and to study “cultural” aspects of the subject. It’s a trend reporter Patricia Cohen suggests vindicates Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who popularized the term in […]
The emerging hero of the Chilean miners’ story–in Latin America and elsewhere, if not in the U.S.–is Luis Urzua, a topographer who took a job at the San José mines as a shift foreman while awaiting the start of new a job in his field. NASA officials working on the rescue called Urzua “a natural […]
After the miners’ rescue Wednesday, talk in Chile turned to mine safety and the conduct of Compania Minera San Esteban, the corporation that owns the San Jose mines where the miners were trapped. On Thursday, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera publicly addressed safety issues, vowing “fundamental changes in how businesses treat their workers.” Stories about San […]
How did a local story about a proposal to build an Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan turn into a national controversy about whether a “Ground Zero Mosque” would be a slap in the face to 9/11 victims? It started with a small group of anti-Muslim activists who suggested the proposal was a scheme by […]
