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.
On Monday, August 14, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stepped up its assault on free speech rights, using the pretext of a bomb scare to shut down the Independent Media Center‘s (IMC) satellite cast and, later the same night, turning a peaceful, legal concert and rally into what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) […]
A new round of scrutiny directed at a report by ABC’s John Stossel once again raises questions about whether Stossel distorts factual evidence in his reporting. The new revelations, brought to light by the Environmental Working Group and published in the New York Times on July 31, concern “The Food You Eat,” areport that aired […]
Once again, White House Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey is using federal funding to bribe corporations to surreptitiously insert government-approved messages into media content. Salon.com (1/13/00) first broke the story that McCaffrey was giving TV networks a financial incentive to put messages about drugs into entertainment programming. Congress authorized McCaffrey’s Office of National Drug Control […]
Early coverage of the upcoming protests at the Republican and Democratic national conventions has followed a familiar pattern: Mainstream media are stoking fears about the potential for violence in Philadelphia and Los Angeles by rewriting the actual history of police brutality at last year’s anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle. In its place, media are developing a […]
Robert Giles, former editor and publisher of the Detroit News, is a leading candidate for the position of curator at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism. The prospect of Giles overseeing a center that teaches media ethics has alarmed many of those familiar with his role in the long-running labor dispute at the News and the […]
In response to a letter from a FAIR activist protesting the exclusion ofcommunity journalists from the IMF and World Bank’s April meetings, IMFSenior Press Officer William Murray sent the following note: “Thank you for your letter dated June 17, 2000 to Managing Director HorstKoehler regarding our press credential policy. Let me explain briefly whatthe […]
FAIR’s June 22 action alert, “Nader Left Out of Media Websites,” generated well over a thousand activist letters to mainstream news websites, urging them to include Ralph Nader, the leading third party presidential candidate,in their election coverage. Since then, many of the sites FAIR named in its alert have changed some of their election pages […]
When dozens of women were sexually assaulted in and around Central Park on June 11, the story became front page news locally and nationally. While many outlets focused on allegations that police officers did little to prevent the attacks or help the victims, a disturbing trend emerged in coverage of the story. In a media […]
NOTE: Since this alert was written, Nader has been added to the New York Times and MSNBC websites. He is also now on the CBS “Follow the Dollar” page. CNN and Time have made no changes as of 6/27/00. According to recent political polls, the Green Party’s Ralph Nader is now the leading third party […]
Shortly after last year’s NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, CBS News anchor Dan Rather discussed the war at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (6/25/99). When FAIR associate Sam Husseini asked about possible war crimes committed by NATO forces, Rather explained that “If our government engages in war crimes, it’s at least as important, […]
In accepting a deal to tell only one side of an important story in exchange for a “scoop,” editors of the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal violated fundamental principles of journalism and betrayed their readers’ trust. According to Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Washington Post (5/29/00),”a publicist hired by United […]
On the eve of the congressional vote on permanent normal trading relations (PNTR) with China, ABC‘s Nightline (5/23/00) featured a show on the subject with three guests–former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Senator Alan Simpson and former ambassador to China Winston Lord–all of whom were Republicans who favored passage of the trade bill. FAIR urged […]
On the night before Congress was to vote on Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) for China—the most important trade vote of the year—ABC‘s Nightline devoted its broadcast to a discussion of that issue. That discussion, unfortunately, was one-sidedly partisan: All three of Nightline‘s guests were Republican proponents of PNTR. Nightline‘s guests were former House Speaker […]
“PBS reaffirms it commitment to public affairs programming with two new episodes of National Desk,” the PBS website boasted in an overview of public television’s featured March roster. But one of these episodes, “Education–A Public Right Gone Wrong,” is a one-sided attack on teachers’ unions and public education, featuring imbalanced sourcing, factual errors and undisclosed […]
In January, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved a plan to license low power (or “micro”) radio stations in many areas of the country, largely due to a campaign waged by a diverse coalition of public interest groups, churches and labor unions. The FCC planned to begin the licensing process for non-commercial radio stations operating […]
The recent protests against IMF and World Bank policies provoked a deepening and widening of debate on globalization in much of the media, yet the New York Times‘ op-ed page has taken a remarkably one-sided approach to the issue. The Times has run five op-eds critical of the Mobilization for Global Justice, and none that […]
Press credentials to the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, D.C. on April 16 and 17 have been denied to journalists working for community radio and television stations. The denial of credentials has come directly from the IMF Press Office, which has sent the following message to some of those reporters: “We do not provide press […]
Mainstream media have begun to turn their attention to Washington, D.C., andthe Mobilization for Global Justice, a week-long series of protestscoinciding with the meetings of the World Bank and International MonetaryFund (IMF) scheduled for April 16 and 17. Many of the stories draw parallelsbetween the events in D.C. and the World Trade Organization (WTO) protestsin […]
Prompted by Israel’s announced July withdrawal from southern Lebanon, CBS‘ 60 Minutes II aired a March 27 story, “The Killing Zone,” looking back at the 22-year occupation. But the story focused almost entirely on the hardship and suffering of occupying Israeli soldiers, their families and their Lebanese supporters. In the hands of 60 Minutes II […]
FAIR released an action alert on March 15 (“The Commercialization of Children’s Public Television”) that asked members of our e-mail list to write to PBS about the inclusion of advertisements in what is supposed to be non-commercial programming for children. Here is PBS‘s response to those letters, followed by FAIR’s analysis of it: ***** Thank […]
