FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
(NOTE: Please see the Expanded version of this article.) There is always intense pressure in wartime for media outlets to serve as propagandists rather than journalists. While the role of the journalist is to present the world in all its complexity, so that people can make up their own minds, the propagandist simplifies the world […]
Conservative critics often accuse mainstream media of being hostile to religion. But a quick survey of cover stories in the leading newsweeklies puts an end to that notion. Religion is one of the favorite cover subjects of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Religion is an important force in social life that deserves […]
Any time a broadcast outlet adds new programming, it’s an opportunity for new perspectives and opinions to be aired. So it’s disappointing when “new” offerings turn out to be the same old thing. A case in point is MSNBC, which has recently added two new shows to its political lineup, and reformatted another. And what […]
The Journal of Counterterrorism and Security International–a publication that features the work of freelance journalist Steven Emerson–released a press release responding to the magazine Extra!, which ran an article critical of Emerson’s reporting. The press release features the same kind of inaccurate and reckless charges that Extra! said were characteristic of Emerson’s work. Extra! is […]
In a statement published the day that ABC‘s 20/20 aired his report on the case, Sam Donaldson called for the death of death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. “Everything that we looked at compellingly points to the fact that Mumia shot [Philadelphia police officer Daniel] Faulkner in cold blood . . . and was convicted properly, […]
Following a series of FAIR press releases and syndicated columnists covering Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s associations with the CCC (Council of Conservative Citizens), CNN‘s Inside Politics presented a thorough summary of the scandal on January 13. The very next day, the New York Times‘ John Kifner focuses considerable attention on Lott’s lies about his […]
UPDATE to December 15 News Advisory On December 19, Washington Post editorial board member Colbert I. King began a column by calling on the Senate to reconsider Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s “fitness” for the job. The reason, wrote King, was Lott’s involvement with the racist Conservative Citizens (CCC), which serves as a forum for […]
UPDATE to December 11 News Advisory: Emerging evidence shows Trent Lott addressed a white supremacist group at least twice in the 1990s and is on record praising the group, contradicting statements the senator’s spokesperson made to reporters this past weekend. When charges surfaced that Senator Trent Lott supported a racist organization, the Senate leader’s spokesperson […]
During the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings on Dec. 1, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) clashed with Prof. Alan Dershowitz after Dershowitz accused the lawmaker of using rhetoric laced with “bigotry” and “racism.” Barr had stated: There really are, I think, two Americas. And there is a real America out there. And I think our military witnesses […]
On August 14, FAIR asked media activists to write to ABC News producer Harry Phillips concerning a special segment Phillips was preparing about death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. Noting FAIR’s criticism of biased coverage of Abu-Jamal’s case over the years, media activists wrote to Phillips to express their hopes for a fair, balanced account of […]
Two stories involving politically motivated crimes received substantial—and substantially different—media attention in October. On October 23, Dr. Barnett Slepian of Buffalo, New York, was shot by a sniper, apparently because the obstetrician was one of the few doctors in his area who performed abortions. On October 19, several unoccupied buildings at a Vail, Colorado, ski […]
FAIR’s October 16 Action Alert criticized mainstream media silence following the October 8th release of a second CIA report detailing the agency’s knowledge of Contra drug trafficking. Activists were encouraged to write directly to journalists at the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to inquire about each paper’s treatment of the new […]
Clinton Worse Than Reagan “Clinton used his office to thwart an investigation sanctioned by his own attorney general…. Ronald Reagan waived all executive privilege…[and] turned over his documents and diaries…because he said he wanted the facts to come out.” —Time news article (8/24/98), conveniently forgetting the cover stories and document-shredding of Iran-Contra. Clinton Worse Than […]
The recently de-classified second volume of the CIA’s internal investigation of Contra-drug connections was released last week (still censored in parts), and found the CIA had knowledge of allegations linking many Contras or Contra associates with drug trafficking. But how did the major media cover the story? It’s a good question to put to the […]
The New York Times (9/4/98) sent Washington reporter Lizette Alvarez to Manchester, New Hampshire, to cover a series of campaign speeches by House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt (D.-Mo.). Early in the article, headlined “Gephardt Trumpets ’98 Agenda of His Party,” Alvarez noted that “the word ‘scandal’ or the name Monica Lewinsky did not drop […]
A common theme in media analysis about terrorism is that the U.S. has been specially targeted because of its support for democracy and other lofty principles. The Chicago Tribune‘s R.C. Longworth, for example, made this observation on August 30: Most Americans see their nation and its ideals as benign and positive, and they assume that […]
As evidence continues to emerge that global warming is already occurring (Nature, 4/23/98), the oil industry is gearing up to try to convince the public that science is still uncertain. Representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon, Chevron and from corporate-backed think tanks got together to produce a “Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan,” a […]
While David Croteau’s study demonstrates that Washington journalists are to the right of the general public on many economic issues, it needs to be stressed that the personal views of news reporters do not translate directly into the slant of news coverage. Reporters have editors or producers who play a key role in how the […]
Pundit-watchers never tire of the sport of spotting establishment, status quo commentators posing in their none-too-convincing camouflage as representatives of the left. While right-winged pundits cackle in full-throated yelps and are frequently leaders of their flocks, the specimens that serve as their competition often have their left wing clipped, teeter precariously on the fence and […]
On April 28, millions of American television viewers saw a news story about Iraq receiving humanitarian aid from a Connecticut-based relief group called AmeriCares. Both CBS Evening News and ABC‘s World News Tonight did reports on the shipments; each network described the AmeriCares mission as in some way “a first” or “pioneering.” “This is the […]
