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. Get involved in the FAIR fight for better media coverage – sign up today.
The indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes is the story of the day–the New York Times ran two front page pieces on it on the day the announcement was made (5/27/99). And Milosevic’s indictment is an important story for the American media to cover. But isn’t it at least as important for the press […]
In the latest in a series of “accidental” bombings of Yugoslavian civilians by the U.S., some 80 ethnic Albanians were killed May 13 in the Kosovo village of Korisa. But the Pentagon did not admit that it had in fact bombed the village until several days later; during the first news cycle, when the story […]
Time magazine’s May 17 issue ran a feature on the funding of the Kosovo Liberation Army, titled “A Fighting Chance,” suggesting that the KLA is sustained by donations from ethnic Albanians outside of Kosovo. The article reports that the Republic of Kosova Fund holds “more than $33 million” in a bank in Albania, yet in […]
Forty-seven civilians die when the bus they’re riding on is hit by a missile and incinerated. Fifty-eight people are murdered in an attack on their village. The two killings, occurring in the same region, comparable in scale, must be equally worthy of investigation and condemnation, right? Not at the New York Times. “Survivor Tells of […]
A FAIR analysis of sources on ABC‘s Nightline and PBS‘s NewsHour during the first two weeks of the bombing of Yugoslavia found an abundance of representatives of the U.S. government and NATO, along with many other supporters of the NATO bombing. Opponents of the airstrikes received scant attention, however; in almost all stories, debate focused […]
Howard Stern, a radio host whose program is syndicated by a CBS subsidiary, responded to the massacre in Littleton, Colorado by suggesting that female victims should have been raped as well as murdered. Here are Stern’s comments, as reported by the Rocky Mountain News (4/24/99): “There were some really good-looking girls running out with their […]
FAIR’s Action Alert on April 8 encouraged media activists to contact CNN in response to a report by Bill Schneider that there was “no action out there on the streets or on campuses — no marches, no demonstrations, no teach-ins.” On April 9, FAIR associate Norman Solomon appeared on CNN‘s “TalkBack Live” to discuss media […]
It might as well. Throughout April, the PBS program National Desk is presenting a three-part series on “the gender wars,” in which they aim to address “whether the advancement of women in virtually all areas of society can be achieved without a retreat, in some way, on the part of men.” This manipulative framing of […]
A shattered apartment block, a gutted passenger train, a devastated refugee convoy–scenes of destruction caused by U.S. bombing are becoming more and more common as the war with Yugoslavia drags on. Whether you hold Slobodan Milosevic or Bill Clinton more to blame for the consequences of NATO bombing, one group of people has so far […]
On April 1, ABC‘s Nightline did a segment that criticized the one-sided coverage of the war—on Serbian TV. Reviewing supposedly absurd claims, ABC aired what it described as “this astonishing claim” from a Belgrade news account: They even use radioactive weapons…which are forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Astonishing, perhaps—but is it true? The fact is, […]
(NOTE: Read the update to this alert.) On April 7, CNN‘s Bill Schneider offered this analysis of the anti-war sentiment in the country: “What’s missing from the Kosovo story is anti-war protest, at least on the left.” Schneider continued by saying that there was “no action out there on the streets or on campuses — […]
(NOTE: Please see the Expanded version of this article.) There is always intense pressure in wartime for media outlets to serve as propagandists rather than journalists. While the role of the journalist is to present the world in all its complexity, so that people can make up their own minds, the propagandist simplifies the world […]
Any time a broadcast outlet adds new programming, it’s an opportunity for new perspectives and opinions to be aired. So it’s disappointing when “new” offerings turn out to be the same old thing. A case in point is MSNBC, which has recently added two new shows to its political lineup, and reformatted another. And what […]
Following a series of FAIR press releases and syndicated columnists covering Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s associations with the CCC (Council of Conservative Citizens), CNN‘s Inside Politics presented a thorough summary of the scandal on January 13. The very next day, the New York Times‘ John Kifner focuses considerable attention on Lott’s lies about his […]
UPDATE to December 15 News Advisory On December 19, Washington Post editorial board member Colbert I. King began a column by calling on the Senate to reconsider Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s “fitness” for the job. The reason, wrote King, was Lott’s involvement with the racist Conservative Citizens (CCC), which serves as a forum for […]
UPDATE to December 11 News Advisory: Emerging evidence shows Trent Lott addressed a white supremacist group at least twice in the 1990s and is on record praising the group, contradicting statements the senator’s spokesperson made to reporters this past weekend. When charges surfaced that Senator Trent Lott supported a racist organization, the Senate leader’s spokesperson […]
On August 14, FAIR asked media activists to write to ABC News producer Harry Phillips concerning a special segment Phillips was preparing about death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. Noting FAIR’s criticism of biased coverage of Abu-Jamal’s case over the years, media activists wrote to Phillips to express their hopes for a fair, balanced account of […]
FAIR’s October 16 Action Alert criticized mainstream media silence following the October 8th release of a second CIA report detailing the agency’s knowledge of Contra drug trafficking. Activists were encouraged to write directly to journalists at the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times to inquire about each paper’s treatment of the new […]
The recently de-classified second volume of the CIA’s internal investigation of Contra-drug connections was released last week (still censored in parts), and found the CIA had knowledge of allegations linking many Contras or Contra associates with drug trafficking. But how did the major media cover the story? It’s a good question to put to the […]
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 […]
