FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Many PBS stations around the country will begin airing a three-part, three-hour documentary tonight (7/12/10) about Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz. According to the New York Times (7/12/10), the unusually lengthy, completely uncritical tribute is partially sponsored by corporations linked to Shultz’s corporate career. The special, Turmoil and Triumph, was funded by the Stephen […]
A long New York Times Magazine piece (5/16/10) about start-up online journalism outlets brings us some troubling news about the wall between editorial content and advertising: One thing many of these new strategies have in common is a willingness to transgress time-honored barriers–for instance, by blurring the division between reporting and advertising. True/Slant offers to […]
This week on CounterSpin: A new law in Utah says some women who miscarry should go to jail. You may have seen some coverage, but are journalists asking the right questions about the law’s implications, and is there a bigger story here that’s being missed? We’ll hear from Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A new law in Utah says women who miscarry, in some cases, should go to jail. You may have seen some coverage, but are journalists asking the right questions about the law’s implications, and is there a bigger story here that’s being missed? We’ll hear from executive director of […]
Washington Times, the paper of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, has announced it will be going to free distribution and laying off at least 40 percent of its staff. Which positions won’t make the cut? Well, one that’s been mentioned is that of editor. That’s right; former editor John Solomon resigned last month after […]
What standard for truth in advertising does the New York Times use in publishing advocacy ads? A double standard, an exchange of letters received by FAIR suggests. The first letter was sent by Sam Husseini, media director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (and former FAIR staffer), when he saw an ad in the New York […]
The American Medical Association Alliance issues periodicreports on depictions of smoking in popular movies. The group seemed to come up with agoodway to publicize their findings–that is, until corporate reality intervened: In May, the organization, working with the Los Angeles Department of Public Health, announced that the studio found to be the biggest smoking offender […]
A Tiny Revolution‘s John Caruso (9/5/09) caught an instance of the Public Broadcasting System “Putting the ‘BS’ in PBS” when they recently “took a break to blandish us thusly: ‘If you are seeking a unique sponsorship opportunity for your business and want to reach a prime demographic group through multiple platforms email us today.’” Reacting […]
If you had any doubt that the elite Washington press corps is too close to the political and corporate elites they are supposed to be scrutinizing, a recent scheme cooked up by the Washington Post might close the case. The plan, as revealed by the website Politico (7/2/09), would have seen Post publisher Katharine Weymouth […]
Laura Northrup of Consumerist.com (8/15/09) reports that, after 40 years at the Hartford Courant, consumer affairs columnist George Gombossy now says he “‘was fired for doing [his] job,’ after his last column exposed the bedbug-infested mattresses sold by a major Courant advertiser.” The Connecticut paper killed Gombossy’s account of an Attorney General investigation into Sleepy’s–though […]
Media Matters research director Jeremy Schulman (8/12/09) writes that “Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaughand Lou Dobbs have used their radio and television shows to incite hatred and push wild conspiracy theories, leading several of Beck’s advertisers to reportedly pull out of his broadcasts”–one of the hazards inherent in for-profit media. But “many advertisers have nonetheless sponsored […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Healthcare reform is still the top political story of the moment. But the coverage seems to have gone from bad to worse, with noisy town hall meetings standing in the way of any coherent discussion of the dysfunctional healthcare system in this country, and what can be done about […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Some 25 million Americans, nearly 9 percent of the population–rely on food pantries. But with rare exceptions, and despite its devastating impact, big media just don’t seem to find a reportable story in chronic hunger. A new book hopes to make the issue more visible, by actually talking to […]
The business department at the Washington Post has gotten into trouble in what may be a case of too much truth in advertising. As reported by Politico (7/2/09), the Post circulated a flyer offering–for the low, low cost of $25,000–an “intimate and exclusive Washington Post salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of […]
When critics talk about “saving journalism,” the image one gets is of ink-stained toilers bringing important truths into the light of public scrutiny. But this bears little relation to most people’s experience of news media. For one thing, most people get their news from TV, not generally the poster child for journalism worth saving. Certainly, […]
Ishmael Reed’s contextualization (CounterPunch, 6/29/09) of the epic demonization of Michael Jackson within historical U.S. media racism also takes a swipe at CNN‘s Black in America program, “an exercise meant to boost ratings by making whites feel good by making blacks look bad, the marketing strategy of the mass media since the 1830s“: In preparing […]
Linking to a Felice Pace piece of June 14 that connects the near-absence of single-payer-focused NPR reportage to millions of dollars in underwriting the broadcaster has received from insurance industry heavies, NPR Check‘s Mytwords (6/17/09) includes his own comment left under Weekend Edition Saturday‘s “Health Care Reform From The Insurer’s Perspective” segment: Congratulations NPR—as a […]
MSNBC‘s Morning Joe program seems to have turned its conspicuous consumption of Starbucks drinks into a paid commercial for the coffee chain, according to this morning’s New York Times (6/1/09). As Brian Stelter put it, Joe Scarborough “sips Frappuccinos on camera so often that some viewers have wondered whether it is a form of product […]
Current Anti-Advertising Agency CEO Steve Lambert and founder Jordan Selier have posted (AntiAdvertisingAgency.com, 5/12/09) their letter to the New York Times responding to a May 11 piece that cites one NYC advertising executive asking, “All you have to do is walk out the door for lunch and notice the number of vacant storefronts… so why […]
New York Times editorialist Lawrence Downes (5/4/09) has some good questions about Pete Seeger‘s big 90th birthday party. The broadcast surely is bound to “be a PBS special made in pledge-week heaven,” but Downes has to “wonder, though, how many of the angry moments will survive”: Will we hear the Native American musicians pleading for […]
