FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
FAIR’s Action Alert network is a powerful activism tool that encourages the public to become critically engaged with media. FAIR distributes timely, focused reports via email, critiquing a particular instance of media inaccuracy or bias, and encourages members to communicate directly to journalists to demand more responsible reporting. This activism get results! With the help of our readers and podcast listeners, FAIR has forced rewrites of stories, propelled important but under-reported stories from the sidelines to the mainstream and succeeded in getting different perspectives into the news.
The cover of the November 17 U.S. News & World Report reads: “Bush’s Way: The Promise and Peril of Seeing the World in Black and White.” But the article inside provides an evaluation of the Bush administration’s foreign policy that relies primarily on the Bush administration itself, to the exclusion of Bush critics. The piece […]
Though never mentioning FAIR by name, Fox News Channel‘s Bill O’Reilly responded to a recent FAIR action alert correcting statements the host made about the L.A. Times and its coverage of Arnold Schwarzenegger. O’Reilly was harshly critical of the paper for reporting allegations that Schwarzenegger had a long record of groping and harassing women. This […]
(NOTE: Please read the update to this alert: O’Reilly “Responds” to FAIR) In his continuing criticism of the Los Angeles Times for printing stories about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s alleged record of groping and sexual assault, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly (10/8/03) pointed to what he saw as a double standard: “Do you think the L.A. Times […]
(NOTE: Please see the update to the alert). On a weekend when the Bush administration’s pre-war intelligence on Iraq was a major topic on the Sunday talkshows, Secretary of State Colin Powell re-circulated a false story about United Nations weapons inspectors being kicked out of Iraq in 1998. Some major media outlets let Powell’s comments […]
A recent FAIR action alert (8/20/03) pointed out that National Public Radio and television network news broadcasts were often reporting a tally of U.S. deaths in Iraq that included only “hostile-fire” or combat deaths, which at present number roughly 64 since May 1, but account for less than half of the total fatalities. In segments […]
With U.S. forces under consistent attack in Iraq, months after George W. Bush declared “major combat” over on May 1, media routinely refer to the number of American soldiers killed. But many of those reports dramatically undercount the actual number of U.S. deaths since Bush’s May 1 address. A recent NPR report (8/7/03) was typical: […]
Michael Savage’s MSNBC show, The Savage Nation, was cancelled today because of homophobic remarks made by the host on the July 5 edition of the show, according to an Associated Press (AP) report. Those comments—labeling a caller “a sodomite” and telling him to “get AIDS and die”—were the subject of a FAIR action alert earlier […]
(NOTE: Please read the update to this alert—Savage has been fired by MSNBC.) When radio talkshow host Michael Savage was given his own show by the cable TV channel MSNBC, network executives said that the new show should not be judged by Savage’s previous hate-filled remarks, but by what he said on the TV show […]
In a June 16 editorial, U.S. News & World Report editor Mort Zuckerman provided anecdotes to make the point that nowadays “anyone…can haul anybody into court for just about anything.” But Zuckerman’s facts turned out to be fiction — and now U.S. News is refusing to issue a correction. Zuckerman claimed: “A woman throws a […]
Over the protests of hundreds of thousands of Americans, a range of public interest advocacy groups and two dissenting Democratic commissioners, the FCC on June 2 voted to repeal or weaken some of the few remaining checks on the dominance of big media companies. Attention now moves to Congress, as a number of lawmakers attempt […]
In January, New York Times Venezuela correspondent Francisco Toro resigned his post after acknowledging that he “can’t possibly be neutral” about the political situation in that country (Narco News Bulletin, 1/14/03). Now the same reporter is covering Venezuela for another prestigious paper, the Financial Times, contributing reports on May 29 and June 3. The Financial […]
The FCC’s plan to alter or eliminate media ownership limits has been getting increased media attention in the past week. Since a FAIR action alert (5/20/03) drew attention to the lack of coverage on the broadcast networks, CBS Evening News (5/29/03) aired a report focusing on the threat to local TV news posed by the […]
Starting tonight, ABC reporter John Stossel will have a new job at 20/20: co-anchor. Barbara Walters’ former partner John Miller departed in January, and ABC chose Stossel to fill his role. According to a recent report in TV Guide (5/10/03), one source at ABC says that picking Stossel makes sense: “These are conservative times… the […]
A majority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intends to ratify a sweeping plan to weaken or eliminate rules that limit the size and power of media companies. Among other things, the FCC’s three Republican commissioners hope to revoke the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule, which prevents a company from owning a newspaper and a TV station […]
Media have been quick to declare the U.S. war against Iraq a success, but in-depth investigative reporting about the war’s likely health and environmental consequences has been scarce. Two important issues getting shortchanged in the press are the U.S.’s controversial use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons. According to a May 5 search of […]
On April 26, ABC‘s World News Tonight led with a major scoop. Anchor Claire Shipman announced at the top of the broadcast, “U.S. troops discover chemical agents, missiles, and what could be a mobile laboratory in Iraq. An ABC News exclusive.” But ABC‘s “exclusive,” as it turns out, appears to be false. The April 26 […]
In two separate incidents last week, dozens of Iraqis were killed by what eyewitness survivors claim were U.S. airstrikes. U.S. officials, however, offered a range of denials and evasions about what may have caused the explosions. Despite evidence uncovered by one British newspaper about the second (and more deadly) of the incidents, however, most U.S. […]
The Pentagon can be expected to claim that its bombing campaign against Iraq is accurate. But without independent verification, reporters should be skeptical about these claims about “precision” bombing. Recent reports on NBC News illustrate the opposite tendency. Correspondent Bob Faw (3/20/03) described a Florida town as “a community which very much endorses that surgical […]
AP has frequently used the terms “pro-war” and”pro-troops” interchangeably–a practice that distorts the views of anti-war demonstrators and contributes to the media marginalization of the peace movement.
A lack of skepticism toward official U.S. sources has already led prominent American journalists into embarrassing errors in their coverage of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, particularly in relation to claims that proof had been found that Iraq possesses banned weapons. On March 20, the second day of the invasion, U.S. military sources initially described […]
