FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Reporting that “marketers are running advertisements on the covers of some publications,” Stuart Elliott (New York Times, 3/11/09) reviews past precedents–“the February issue of Esquire broke ground with a window, or flap, in the middle of the cover under which [was] an ad for…a series on the Discovery Channel” and “a hole in the [1990] […]
Neurologist Robert Burton warns Salon readers (3/12/09, ad-viewing required) of PBS‘s latest infomercial. “By airing another self-help show disguised as medical science–the dubious UltraMind Solution–the public network continues to undermine its credibility,” Burton writes: In May I reported that PBS stations were airing medical programs that weren’t adequately reviewed or vetted by either the local […]
Los Angeles Times reporter Mike Dorning has some important information (3/6/09) absent from coverage of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s recent surgeon general candidacy–“For several years, Gupta has been co-anchor of a CNN-produced healthcare show distributed monthly via flat-screen TVs provided free to doctor’s offices”: The show is sponsored by healthcare, consumer and pharmaceutical companies that want […]
Media writer Nat Ives (AdvertisingAge.com, 2/23/09) throws some cold water on overheated reportage of “all the apocalyptic news about newspapers”: Even as they take blow after blow from recession and digital media, newspapers themselves still earn decent profits…. “Not a lot of papers are operating at a loss,” said John Morton, the veteran industry analyst. […]
Public broadcaster WNET has responded to FAIR’s Action Alert (2/10/09), “Worldfocus, Brought to You by Economic Fearmongers.” WNET CEO and director Neal Shapiro wrote (2/12/09) in an email to FAIR activists, “While the Peter G. Peterson Foundation has a well-known interest in the issues of Social Security and health care, FAIR’s suggestion that ‘Worldfocus‘ will […]
Expressing “concern that these deals could break FCC rules about commercial clients within news programs,” the New York Daily News‘ Richard Huff reports (2/10/09) a local scandal related to the WPIX/Channel 11 Pix Morning News program that “features a local restaurant chef whipping up a meal and often an anchor talking about a chance for […]
FAIR has a new action alert out calling on New York public TV station WNET to reject a $1 million grant to report on Social Security and healthcare from a foundation that supports cuts in Social Security and opposes universal healthcare. Please post letters that you send to WNET in the comments section of this […]
The public television show Worldfocus recently received a $1 million dollar grant to produce “reports examining how other countries have dealt with the challenges facing the United States, like healthcare and Social Security” (New York Times, 2/3/09) from a foundation with a track record of misinformation and fearmongering on these very issues. The Peter G. […]
Walter Isaacson’s Time cover story (“Howto Save Your Newspaper”) finds the magazine’s former editor offering advice for the ailing corporate media. As he (and others in the business) see it, the problem is that newsis now being consumed onlinefor free, which of course makes it difficult to turn a profit (or, more to the point, […]
Yesterday the New York Times reported on the status of a new PBS news program Worldfocus. Amidst budget cuts at the New York station where it originates, the program has received some unusual financial support–a $1 million grant from thePeter G. Peterson Foundation. What does the funder expectto get out of it? The Times reported […]
Is the total frenzy over post-Thanksgiving shopping a recent creation? That’s what David Carr writes in the New York Times today: Media and retail outfits are economic peas in a pod. Part of the reason that the Thanksgiving newspaper and local morning television show are stuffed with soft features about shopping frenzies is that they […]
TV reporter Michael Schneider updates us (Variety, 11/25/08) on Fox‘s race to the ethical bottom of media programming. The real losers? Kids, as usual: In an unprecedented move, Fox will program two hours of longform commercials on Saturday mornings starting in January. That’s believed to be the first time a major network has slated full-blown, […]
Analysts have projected that Barack Obama’s ad spending would this week “surpass the $188 million Mr. Bush spent in his 2004 campaign.” During the last two weeks of the election, the Obama campaign has budgeted $30 million for ads in contested states, according to MSNBC. Last week alone, he also spent about $12 million on […]
Expanding on her blog post of October 8, FAIR Communications Director Isabel Macdonald details (Common Dreams, 10/13/08) “one small glitch” in “the Obsession campaign‘s marketing plan [that] has been quite slick”: The public doesn’t seem to be buying it. Newspapers that carried the DVD have faced floods of complaints from readers, and the past week […]
An Inter Press Service piece (9/24/08) on the U.S.-press-distributed anti-Muslim video Obsession gives kudos to major metropolitan newspapers solicited to insert the paid advertisement into their product [that] have refused to do so…. “Despite the perilous state of American newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising department took an ethical stand and refused to distribute the […]
Ecology blog LiveGaia posts another entry (10/8/08) in the annals of corporate media’s poor advertising ethics: Last night in America, after the presidential debate the ads shown were as follows. ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run WeCanSolveIt’s Repower America […]
In an update on the furor over U.S. newspapers’ distribution of a virulently anti-Muslim DVD supplement, Anick Jesdanun of the Associated Press reports (10/4/08) that “the New York Times distributed it on the grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsor’s right to free speech.” Left unexplored is corporate outlets like the Times‘ history of […]
Reporters of integrity quitting their jobs over what amount to unidentified ads in local news has prompted journalist groups to condemn “broadcast outlets using video news releases that are produced by pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers to look like news reports.” Emily Udell of In These Times has (9/18/08) more on the matter:
U.S. journalists seeking to fulfill the profession’s traditional goal of telling the truth and “letting the chips fall where they may” have powerful forces to contend with, starting with the corporate owners who employ them, and the corporate advertisers who fuel the enterprise, both of whom have an investment in maintaining a political conversation and […]
Most “fear and favor” shown by media outlets takes the form of slanted or incomplete news coverage. But media companies’ zeal to please the advertisers, who are, after all, their main client, goes beyond covering news to making it. In 2007, congressional debate on a big Food and Drug Administration bill touched on pharmaceutical ads, […]
