FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Since the beginning of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, the war has been presented by the media as the consequence of Yugoslavia’s stubborn refusal to settle for any reasonable peace plan–in particular its rejection of plans for an international security force to implement a peace plan in Kosovo. An article in the April 14 New […]
(Posted here with the NWLC’s kind permission) The National Desk program “Title IX and Women in Sports: What’s Wrong with This Picture?” was filled with misinformation, myth, and fabrications. In short, it was an irresponsible broadcast masquerading as serious journalism. Virtually every aspect of the program, from the title, host Larry Elder’s repeated untruths about […]
On April 20th, CounterSpin, the national radio show produced by the media watch group FAIR, was taken off the air while in-progress by WPFW, the Washington, D.C.-based Pacifica affiliate. The show included a segment on media coverage of the use of depleted uranium weapons by NATO forces in the Balkans, followed by an interview with […]
FAIR’s extensive research into the mass media has led us to see the connection between unaccountable corporate structures at news outlets and declining commitment to the public interest. While FAIR considers Pacifica to be one of the most important independent media outlets in the country, we feel the need to express our belief that Pacifica […]
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 […]
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 […]
Executive Summary The conservative critique of the news media rests on two general propositions: (1) journalists’ views are to the left of the public, and (2) journalists frame news content in a way that accentuates these left perspectives. Previous research has revealed persuasive evidence against the latter claim, but the validity of the former claim […]
Here is a sampling of Buchanan’s views: On African-Americans After Sen. Carol Moseley Braun blocked a federal patent for a Confederate flag insignia, Buchanan wrote that she was “putting on an act” by associating the Confederacy with slavery: “The War Between the States was about independence, about self-determination, about the right of a people to […]
Rush Limbaugh‘s long-touted “5,000 word response” to FAIR’s “Reign of Error” report has been released—after nearly three and a half months. Unfortunately for Limbaugh, it doesn’t rebut; mostly it changes the subject, dodges and wastes thousands of words on tangents and what-I-really-meant-to-say digressions. Whereas the FAIR report offered facts to specifically rebut Limbaugh’s claims, his […]
“Reign of Error: From AIDS to ozone, from Whitewater to the Bible, Limbaugh seems to be able to dissemble and disinform on virtually any subject.” — report from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), listing “dozens of [Limbaugh’s] statements and writings it says are inaccurate,” Associated Press, June 28, 1994. “Limbaugh’s Reign of Error” was […]
A new study of public television programming challenges many of the premises of the conservative-dominated debate over public television bias. The independently conducted study, a version of which will appear in the September/October issue of FAIR’s magazine Extra!, is the first ever to examine public TV’s full evening schedule. It focuses, in particular, on the […]
A study of National Public Radio commissioned by FAIR indicates that public radio’s leading news programs fail– in reporting, analysis and commentary– to reflect the diversity of the public. The study, conducted by Charlotte Ryan of the Boston College Media Research and Action Project, examined transcripts of all weekday broadcasts of All Things Considered and […]
Recent media coverage of immigration has been dominated by anti-immigrant voices; immigrant and refugee rights advocates have been slighted. In this often one-sided discussion, no group has enjoyed more exposure than the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Retorm (also abbreviated as “FAIR,” not to be confused with the media watch group FAIR). Media outlets have […]
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 […]
FAIR’s new study– “Lost in the Margins: Labor and the Media”– surveys coverage of U.S. workers and their unions in 1989. Based on various methods of analysis– including a minute-count of nightly network news shows and a questionnaire circulated among the country’s leading dailies– the study concludes that “the lives of 100 million working people […]
As part of its ongoing examination of television news, FAIR is releasing the results of its new study, “All the Usual Suspects: The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and Nightline.” After FAIR’s February 1989 study of Nightline, members of the public joined journalists in urging the media watch group to compare Nightline with other news programs and to […]
The media watch group FAIR is issuing the results of its exhaustive study: “ARE YOU ON THE NIGHTLINE GUEST LIST ? – An analysis of 40 months of Nightline programming.” The 45-page report concludes that one’s likelihood of appearing on Nightline‘s guest list is enhanced by being a white, male member of the government, military […]
