FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The Vatican is lashing out at mounting news reports suggesting that, before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger used his positions to cover up the the church’s sex abuse scandals, with little regard for the child victims of the abusers or the law. A Vatican spokesperson denounced the reporting as an “ignoble attempt” […]
Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the end of the historic British miners strike of 1984-85. The BBC has a special broadcast in commemoration, The Ballad of the Miners Strike, featuring the voices of miners. But where can Americans turn for commemorations of our progressive history? There is always Howard Zinn’s excellent book, A People’s […]
That George W. Bush kept America safer from terrorism than Barack Obama is a conservative article of faith these days—and corporate media seem little inclined to challenge the blatant falsehoods used to advance this childish GOP talking point. The most prominent example came on Good Morning America (ABC, 1/8/10) during a discussion of the failed […]
White House interim communications director Anita Dunn’s characterization of Fox News Channel as “a wing of the Republican Party,” and her announcement that the administration would henceforth treat Fox News as part of the “opposition,” created a media stir. Washington Post columnist (and Fox contributor) Charles Krauthammer announced, “The White House has declared war on […]
At the end of January, Obama education secretary Arne Duncan told a cable news show (TV One‘s Washington Watch, 1/31/10), “I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.” In reporting on Duncan’s remarks, the January 30 Washington Post apparently couldn’t find anyone to challenge the notion […]
Here’s a classic example of how the conservative media smear machine works. In a video less than four minutes long, Rep. Barney Frank describes how the Wall Street Journal‘s John Fund lied about him, how that lie was amplified by the right’s media echo chamber, and how, when he called Fund on the lie, Fund […]
Following a 2006 incident in which three Guantanamo detainees had apparently taken their own lives, the Pentagon responded by describing the suicides as “asymmetrical warfare” against the U.S. Here’ s how the BBC reported it at the time (6/11/06): Rear Adm. Harris said he did not believe the men had killed themselves out of despair. […]
On the January 15 edition of his show, while chatting with Ray Stevens, who recorded the song “Ahab the Arab” nearly 50 years ago, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly seemed to become nostalgic for a time when making fun of Arabs was acceptable: Forty-eight years ago in this country we could make fun of Arabs. […]
While many are opening their hearts and purses to Haiti’s suffering, it’s important to note the corporate media’s high profile exceptions. Televangelist Pat Robertson, carried on Disney‘s Family Channel, suggested Haiti invited the disaster by making a deal with the devil 200 years ago (FAIR Blog, 1/14/09). Radio big Rush Limbaugh discouraged donating to Haiti […]
While other cable news programmers responded to the grim news out of Haiti by calling for emergency aid and furnishing directions for how to help, right-wing religious broadcaster Pat Robertson took to the air with commentary disparaging the earthquake victims in a way that could very possibly discourage needed aid to the stricken nation. Robertson […]
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert shook things up at the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner on April 29. In the right-wing, Bill O’Reilly-like persona made famous on his Colbert Report, Colbert skewered George W. Bush and the press, ironically congratulating journalists for giving cover to Bush on tax cuts, WMD and global warming, and chiding them […]
The Obama administration, having increased the number of troops in Afghanistan by 21,000 in March, is engaged in a contentious internal discussion about whether to send an additional 40,000 more. There is growing anger over Afghan civilian deaths, and July and August were the deadliest months for U.S. soldiers since the U.S. invaded in 2001 […]
Following the 1992 GOP convention, FAIR’s magazine Extra! (11/92) highlighted remarks made by Rich Bond in which the then-Republican national chair explained the strategy behind the right’s relentless charges of liberal media bias: There’s some strategy to it. I’m the coach of a kids’ basketball team and Little League Teams. If you watch any great […]
In a 2001 study, FAIR found that in its regular one-on-one interviews, Fox News‘ flagship news show Special Report With Brit Hume favored Republican guests over Democrats by a greater than 8-to-1 ratio. After the FAIR report, Hume told the New York Times (7/2/01) that if the data warranted, he would rectify the bias: “If […]
Disapproval and despair over the lost standards of journalistic objectivity are trotted out only for reporters whose opinions are at odds with official views.
“Rush the Racist?” is the headline over a commentary written by retired NFL receiver Keenan McCardell on the Washington Post‘s sports blog, the League–and the question many football fans might ask upon hearing the news that Rush Limbaugh is bidding to become co-owner of the St. Louis Rams. That’s because Limbaugh has a long record […]
Michael Moore says he won’t appear on Glenn Beck’s or Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show to promote his new film Capitalism: A Love Story because there’s too much hate speech on those shows. Last night, O’Reilly strengthened Moore’s argument in a segment in which he discussed Michael Moore’s body language with regular guest Tonya Reimer: […]
As negotiations begin in Geneva between Iran, Germany and the U.N. Security Council permanent members, Juan Cole debunks the prevailing myths about Iran. Myths that could not endure if U.S. news outlets took journalism seriously and challenged U.S. officialdom on Iran.
The selling of the Afghanistan War and the whitewashing of the Colombian military came together in a recent CBS Evening News report (7/27/09), a story so faithful to the U.S. propaganda lines that one might have mistaken it for state television. “U.S. forces are about to get some much-needed help as they fight the Taliban […]
On June 29, the day he was installed by Honduran coup leaders as the country’s new interim foreign minister, Enrique Ortez Colindres repeatedly used racist slurs to describe U.S. president Barack Obama. Using the word “negrito,” a well-recognized and profoundly racist epithet, whose literal translation means “little black man” or “little black boy,” Ortez referred […]
