FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
If there is one image that has come to epitomize the abortion debate, it is pro-choice and anti-abortion demonstrators shouting at each other, brandishing placards. Mainstream media specializes in “extremists of both ends” coverage, bemoaning the “angry rhetoric” of both sides. The search for “compromise” has long been a staple of abortion reporting, and in […]
Coverage of the 1992 Democratic convention often drew sharp contrasts with earlier conventions–that were covered in almost exactly the same terms.
It was fashionable to bemoan the networks’ lack of gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Democratic conventions. ABC‘s Peter Jennings (Washington Post, 7/12/92) said it was “a little sad” that the networks were passing up “a chance to present the democratic process in the purest sense.” Of course, modern stage-managed conventions are anything but a democratic process—and […]
News media repeatedly told the U.S. public that Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas were two equally credible people with conflicting stories. And if we believe the polls, most of the country found his version more persuasive. But if the press had given the public more information, would they have doubted Thomas? Numerous stories that raised […]
Portrayed as either billionaires, bombers, or belly dancers, Bedouin bandits or bundles in black—Arabs are hardly ever seen as ordinary people practicing law, driving taxis or healing the sick. Featured since the early 1900s in more than 500 feature films and scores of television programs, Arabs still lack a human face. The typical screen Arab can […]
‘Politically Correct’ Since 1990, some news outlets have seemed less concerned about racism than about the allegedly overzealous activists who challenge inequality—denounced as “politically correct” in countless media stories. A computer search of the Los Angeles Times for the phrase “politically correct” or “political correctness” during the six months before the Rodney King case verdict […]
To see how papers were following through on their promise of more substantive reporting, FAIR surveyed all news articles on the presidential election in three national papers.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs, a conservative media research group, timed the release of its study of public TV programming to coincide with the congressional debate over public broadcasting reauthorization. The group’s report lends what appears to be empirical support to those who claim that PBS is biased to the left: “On the […]
News media consistently deferred to David Duke when framing his candidacy for governor of Louisiana, calling him a “former Ku Klux Klan leader” and an “ex-Nazi.” Such descriptions are deceptive, for there is little that is “former” or “ex-” about Duke’s white supremacist beliefs.
The New York Times was up to a bit of demagoguery recently (11/3/91), under the headline “Why Older People Are Richer Than Other People.” Reporter Iver Peterson began by presenting a well-established fact—”the notion that some Americans will be the first generation to live at a lower level than their parents”—as a campaign slogan being […]
The enormous press coverage generated by the recent coup attempt in the Soviet Union soon resolved itself into several recurring themes: the lionization of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin that obscured his troubling political history; a misrepresentation of the history of the Baltic states coupled with a shallow explanation of resurgent nationalism in the Baltic […]
Many newspaper sections exists solely to serve specific types of advertisers—what Sunday paper would be complete without a Car or a Travel section? But in few sections of the paper does the advertiser have as much power as in the Real Estate pages.
The latest trend in intellectual (and not-so-intellectual) magazines, lest you have been asleep, is a widespread denunciation of the Tyranny of the Politically Correct.
“Even though a story can be incredibly preposterous in the Western mind, it can resonate deeply in other parts of the world,” Todd Levanthal, a U.S. Information Agency specialist on disinformation, told the New York Times (9/16/90). “The key is predisposition to believe, not the crudity of the charge.” While the point of the article […]
For years, FAIR wondered what would happen if he were actually interviewed by Robert MacNeil. On September 11, 1990, the mystery ended.
The lives of 100 million working people—those who make the US economy and society run—are being routinely ignored, marginalized or inaccurately portrayed in the media.
For years, the anti-abortion movement has pressured the media to adopt its terminology and worldview. Recent months have shown this pressure is working. In the renewed war over abortion coverage, the pro-choice side is on the defensive. The first shots were fired by Richard Harwood, the Washington Post‘s conservative “ombudsman.” On March 25, Harwood’s […]
After the New Republic was purchased in 1974 by Martin Peretz, it moved sharply to the right, becoming conservative on foreign policy, and centrist or moderately liberal on domestic issues.
Right: Pat Buchanan, Fred Barnes, John McLaughlin, David Gergen, Robert Novak, William F. Buckley, George Will. Center: Sam Donaldson, Mark Shields, Michael Kinsley, Morton Kondracke, Al Hunt, Jack Germond, Hodding Carter. The power to define the political spectrum is an awesome one — determining who gets to speak and who gets censored, which positions gain […]
Documents obtained by FAIR, released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), show that George Bush, as head of the CIA in 1976, tried to bottle up a news story that exposed the apparent duplicity of another former CIA chief, Richard Helms. The story, broken on October 1, 1976, by David Martin (now CBS Pentagon […]
