FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
“Suharto is no Saddam,” the New York Times’ “Week in Review” assured us on March 8. How so? The Indonesian dictator’s rule is no less autocratic than Saddam Hussein’s. Like Hussein, Suharto has attempted to annex a smaller neighbor–in fact, his ongoing occupation of East Timor has been far bloodier than Hussein’s assault on Kuwait. […]
Nobody, but nobody, gets to use network news as a soapbox to proselytize for his personal ideological views like ABC‘s John Stossel does. His messianic fervor for the “free market” has often been displayed on his regular 20/20 gig as well as on several ABC Newsspecials–but never with as heavy a hand as on his […]
Which is more noteworthy: representatives voting with the opinions of their constituents, or against them?
(From “The Global Media Giants,” by Robert W. McChesney, Extra!, November/December 1997) $24 billion – 1997 sales Disney is the closest challenger to Time Warner for the status of world’s largest media firm. In the early 1990s, Disney successfully shifted its emphasis from its theme parks and resorts to its film and television divisions. In […]
(From “The Global Media Giants,” by Robert W. McChesney, Extra!, November/December 1997) $5 billion – 1996 sales General Electric is one of the leading electronics and manufacturing firms in the world with nearly $80 billion in sales in 1996. Its operations have become increasingly global, with non-U.S. revenues increasing from 20 percent of the total […]
(From “The Global Media Giants,” by Robert W. McChesney, Extra!, November/December 1997) $10 billion – 1996 sales The News Corporation is often identified with its head, Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls some 30 percent of its stock. Murdoch’s goal is for News Corporation to own multiple forms of programming–news, sports, films and children’s shows–and beam […]
As of this writing, it’s still unclear which factors were most responsible for the deaths of Diana Spencer–Intoxication? Excessive speed? Poor highway design? But in the days after the Paris crash, the spotlight was focused most intently on the paparazzi and the tabloids. There’s no doubt that celebrity-stalking photographers engage in obnoxious, invasive and sometimes […]
After suicide bombers killed four people in a Jerusalem shopping district, the New York Times ran an elaborate chart as part of its coverage: “Making War on Israelis: A Deadly Rhythm Since Arab Autonomy.” The chart featured a time line marking each fatal attack on Israeli civilians since the Cairo Agreement established the Palestinian Authority […]
On December December 12, 1996, New York-based syndicated radio host Bob Grant singled out immigrants from India as the target of his vitriol: It wasn’t too many years ago that most people could walk down the street and never have the pungent, sickening aroma of curry wafting up their nostrils. I don’t mean to single […]
It’s a rare day when Noam Chomsky’s name surfaces in mainstream media. But Anthony Lewis’ June 23 New York Times column on the reported arrest of Pol Pot took a passing swipe at the MIT linguist and social critic. “A few Western intellectuals, notably Prof. Noam Chomsky, refused to believe what was going on in […]
“The inheritance tax now has a lot of enemies and almost no friends,” Tom Brokaw declared on the April 14 NBC Nightly News. At least, it has no defenders that NBC was willing to let viewers see. Correspondent Mike Jensen opened his report with the statement that “thousands of farmers and small business owners face […]
It was a shocking story: The White House, driven to paranoia by unfriendly press coverage, was claiming to be the victim of a “conspiracy,” a “cabal of right-wing extremists” bent on Bill and Hillary’s destruction. It was straight out of The Caine Mutiny; one half-expected Mike McCurry to issue a statement accusing Bill Kristol of […]
How much more of public television’s integrity can be sold off? A proposed documentary by San Francisco’s KQED–abandoned after its funding scheme was publicly exposed–provides a glimpse into a frightening future. In April 1996, the station’s marketing department approached the Robert Mondavi Winery, suggesting various programs that the winery could sponsor. One option was a […]
The permissible spectrum of opinion in major newspapers seems to be narrowing. In July 1995, USA Today fired its only progressive columnist, Barbara Reynolds. Now the Washington Post has unceremoniously dumped its one consistent voice for peace and justice, Colman McCarthy, who has written for the paper since the late ’60s. Like Reynolds, McCarthy represented […]
Why do you need media critics when you’ve got Bob Dole? In the final weeks of the campaign, as Dole groped for some theme that would prevent him from being buried under a Clinton landslide, the Republican candidate hit on his party’s favorite imaginary enemy: the “liberal” media. At campaign stop after campaign stop, Dole […]
When two of the world’s most powerful media outlets fight, who do you root for? Are you cheering for Time Warner, the $7 billion-a-year conglomerate, which provides monopoly cable service to 40 percent of the U.S.—and which has used this position to block competitors to CNN, which Time Warner long had a large investment in, […]
John Stossel, the evangelist for laissez faire economics at ABC News, gave a revealing talk in September to the Federalist Society, a group of conservative lawyers (reported in Corporate Crime Reporter, 9/23/96). Stossel told the audience why he quit doing consumer reporting: “I got sick of it. I also now make so much money I […]
Phil Gailey was shocked by the thesis of the book he had been assigned to review: “To charge that reporters have got just about everything wrong is astounding,” he wrote in the New York Times Book Review (8/4/96). Gailey, a former New York Times reporter who now writes editorials for the St. Petersburg Times, was […]
Gary Webb’s Mercury News reporting has provided solid evidence that the contras were not just involved with the cocaine trade, they were major players in it. But the New York Times still seems to be more worried about shattering republics than reporting the truth.
Nightline‘s Ted Koppel left the Republican convention in San Diego early, complaining that no news was happening. It’s certainly true that little journalism was being practiced. “This convention is more of an infomercial than a news event,” Koppel pronounced (Nightline, 8/13/96), explaining his decision to go back to Washington after two days of on-site convention […]
