FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The Secret Suspension of the First Amendment “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully.” —The official position of the U.S. government, as outlined in a secret memo from the Office of Legal Counsel, from October 23, 2001 until October 6, 2008 A Wide Range […]
Cancer and the Environment I think Extra! is doing great work and am gratified to receive it. In a recent round-up of how the media treats breast cancer (“Overlooking Evidence,” 2/09), there was no mention made of Devra Davis, whose recent book The Secret History of the War on Cancer I have been reading. She […]
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 3/23/08) recently aired the results of his latest ambush-style interview, which targeted Think Progress blog editor Amanda Terkel. Terkel had dared to point out that O’Reilly, who was invited to speak at a fundraiser for a foundation for rape survivors, had previously suggested that a “moronic” rape/murder victim […]
As the world marks the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, corporate media’s most prominent journalism critic is wondering if Barack Obama’s Iraq policy isn’t being sufficiently scrutinized. As Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz asked recently on his CNN program (3/15/09): What about the previous president? I mean, he famously landed on […]
In one of the few recent corporate media mentions of single-payer healthcare, CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen (3/5/09) explained why healthcare “reform” is more possible now than it was under President Bill Clinton: Fifteen years ago you sometimes heard–actually you heard quite a bit–people saying: “Let’s have a single-payer system like in Canada. The […]
Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning healthcare reform in the week leading up to President Barack Obama’s March 5 healthcare summit rarely mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health insurance program, according to a new FAIR study. And advocates of such a system—two of whom participated in yesterday’s summit—were almost entirely shut out, […]
To hear some in the corporate media tell it, you judge a president by how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is performing–and, thus, Barack Obama is not doing a very good job. As NBC‘s Meet the Press host David Gregory said (3/1/09): The Obama stimulus package, $787 billion. The housing plan, $75 billion. That’s $2.3 […]
Syndicated Washington Post columnist George Will and the Post‘s ombud Andrew Alexander are still failing to address the majority of the inaccuracies in Will’s February 15 column on climate change. Facing down critics (including FAIR–Action Alert, 2/18/09), Will claimed in a new column (2/27/09) that his original “column contained many factual assertions but only one […]
You’ve seen it everywhere. It made the cover of Newsweek, the front page of the New York Times‘ “Week in Review”, and the CBS, NBC and ABC news: Manual Noriega’s mug shot, looking just like the criminals at the end of each “Dragnet” episode after Sgt. Joe Friday had brought them to justice. But what […]
Extra! usually complains about media outlets relying on the same sources again and again, but KTTV-TV in Los Angeles may have gone too far in the opposite direction. Seeking a source to comment on the failed October 1989 coup against Manuel Noriega, the station called what they thought was the Panamanian consulate. In fact, it […]
There’s been a corporate media trope lately that the stimulus bill, despite Barack Obama’s assurances, contained “pork.” CNN’s Lou Dobbs (2/12/09) even offered a detailed statistical breakdown: Tonight we have our own preliminary analysis of just how much of this bill is pork and how much is stimulus…. Of the $800 billion piece of legislation, […]
Amidst the many calls for Barack Obama to abandon campaign promises and move to the right, one set stood out for its ghoulishness: the media pleas for Obama to keep torturing (e.g., Washington Post, 1/10/09; Newsweek, 1/19/09; Wall Street Journal, 1/29/09). News accounts of the new administration’s intelligence plans have tended to leap hopefully on […]
Even before Barack Obama won the November elections, Newsweek (10/27/08) was warning, “America remains a center-right nation—a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril.” (See FAIR Blog, 10/19/08.) If Obama reads corporate media, that’s a warning he won’t likely forget. The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib—one of Forbes.com’s “25 Most Influential Liberals […]
Lessons of Lebanon On January 4, the L.A. Times published a piece on the Gaza conflict (1/4/09) co-authored by Michael Oren, who was identified as “a distinguished fellow at the Shalem Center and a professor at the foreign service school of Georgetown University.” Unmentioned was Oren’s other job; he’s currently serving as a reservist in […]
George Will’s February 22 column in the Washington Post began: “A simple apology would have sufficed.” Alas, this was not a reference to Will’s error-filled column on climate change the week before (FAIR Action Alert, 2/18/09). But the paper’s new ombud did email a response to some of Will’s critics, which managed to reveal how […]
Public broadcaster WNET has responded to FAIR’s Action Alert (2/10/09), “Worldfocus, Brought to You by Economic Fearmongers.” WNET CEO and director Neal Shapiro wrote (2/12/09) in an email to FAIR activists, “While the Peter G. Peterson Foundation has a well-known interest in the issues of Social Security and health care, FAIR’s suggestion that ‘Worldfocus‘ will […]
Washington Post columnist George Will is among the most widely syndicated in the newspaper business—which means that his recent error-filled column about climate change will misinform the readers of hundreds of papers across the country. Will made several specious claims in his February 15 column in an attempt to argue that climate change is not […]
The public television show Worldfocus recently received a $1 million dollar grant to produce “reports examining how other countries have dealt with the challenges facing the United States, like healthcare and Social Security” (New York Times, 2/3/09) from a foundation with a track record of misinformation and fearmongering on these very issues. The Peter G. […]
CNN host Lou Dobbs falsely suggested that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would “end a secret ballot” on his February 4 show. At the conclusion of a report by CNN correspondent Bill Tucker about the Service Employees International Union’s mobilization in support of the legislation, Dobbs said, “The American people voted for lots of […]
To: CBC President & CEO Hubert T. Lacroix Dear Mr. Lacroix I was surprised and a bit puzzled to read the remarks concerning Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (where I am now a contributing writer) in a recent report from the CBC/Radio-Canada Ombudsman. The ombudsman’s report, which deals with the Middle East documentary Peace, Propaganda […]
