FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Charlie Rose is a correspondent for CBS News’s 60 Minutes II in addition to hosting his own talkshow on PBS. But those journalistic duties didn’t stop him from MCing this year’s Coca-Cola shareholders’ meeting. Held at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in New York, the star-studded extravaganza featured celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi and […]
In the latest example of PBS‘s inconsistently applied underwriting guidelines, the network is premiering a six-hour series about the global economy which was sponsored by major corporations– including Enron– that have a clear interest in the show’s content. Titled Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, the series is based on the eponymous book […]
In response to reports that ABC is considering plans to replace “Nightline” with a David Letterman show, FAIR issued the following statement: “If Disney/ABC replaces Nightline with more entertainment programming, it will be strong evidence of the threat to journalism represented by TV networks that have been taken over by entertainment conglomerates,” said FAIR’s Peter […]
Introduction Fear & Favor is FAIR’s annual review of incidents that reflect the range of pressures on reporters to use something other than journalistic judgment in deciding what goes in the news and what gets left out. The year 2001 presented special challenges in this regard. The horrific September 11 attacks on the World Trade […]
On June 28, 1995, FBI agents swarmed the headquarters of Archer Daniels Midland, “Supermarket to the World,” in Decatur, Illinois. So began the sensational unraveling of the biggest price-fixing scandal ever, involving a secret FBI informant, a suicide attempt, top ADM officials being sentenced to prison and the largest criminal anti-trust fine in history. Throughout […]
Introduction Surveys of working journalists have found that they experience pressure from powerful interests, outside and inside the news business, to push some stories and ignore others, and to shape or slant news content. The sources of pressure include the government, which enlists media to support its actions and policies; corporate advertisers who may demand […]
Blurring the lines ever further between programming and advertising, ABC‘s The View recently agreed to turn eight shows into paid infomercials for Campbell’s Soup. Co-host Barbara Walters, one of ABC‘s most prominent news personalities, joined her colleagues in introducing pro-Campbell’s themes into the talkshow’s discussions, with Walters asking in one show, “Didn’t we grow up…eating […]
During the past three decades, the religious right has slowly chipped away at women’s access to safe, legal reproductive services with a multi-tiered approach to anti-abortion activism. Legislative efforts have resulted in funding restrictions, waiting periods, parental consent and notification bills, as well as so-called “fetal protection” bills and “partial birth” abortion bans attempting to […]
Can we trust what we see on CBS news broadcasts, even when reports are filmed live? Not necessarily; certainly not on New Years Eve. Viewers who tuned into Dan Rather’s live-from-Times-Square New Years Eve broadcast saw the CBS logo prominently displayed on billboards over Times Square. A savvy advertising purchase? Not quite. As news reports […]
Confronted by protests from the NAACP and others about discrimination in their primetime lineup, the four leading TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) did what powerful institutions often do in such situations: They feigned affront, denied the facts, made excuses and attacked the messenger, then offered patchwork “solutions” and returned to business as usual. […]
Another election cycle is completed, and once again the local television news industry has let the voting public down, offering newscasts Filled with political advertising but little meaningful election news. Rocky Mountain Media Watch`s national network of volunteers taped their local evening newscasts on three consecutive nights (10/20-22/98) two weeks before election day and examined […]
Since Channel One was introduced into high school and middle school classrooms in 1990, the commercial television program has been the focus of ongoing controversy. Purchased in 1994 for $250 million by K-III Communications, Channel One beams 12 minutes of programming (including two minutes of ads) into more than 12,000 schools in the United States, […]
News, of course, is not the point of Channel One-any more than it’s the point of those commercial TV newscasts that many of us watch at home night after night. If the basic aim of all such TV shows were really journalistic, it might be possible to glean from them some simple daily understanding of […]
You don’t get product ads unless you praise the product. –Gloria Steinem, founding editor of Ms. In his book Adverse Reactions, Thomas Maeder recalls the philosophy of Harry Loynd, an old-time president of Parke-Davis who was legendarily blunt. Loynd’s oft-repeated motto was “Pills are to sell, not to take.” He regarded physicians as extremely gullible, […]
Journalists pushing their newspapers and broadcast companies to move into online publishing say the Internet promises an exciting new type of media—interactive, democratic, instantaneous, multi-modal and many-layered. Yet there is new evidence that the very qualities that make online publishing so intriguing to journalists are spawning subtle new approaches to advertising that may threaten the […]
Patrick Buchanan’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination presented the establishment media with a dilemma: How do you present someone as an extremist when you’ve employed him as an opinion-shaper for many years? The need for most media to label Buchanan as out of the mainstream may not stem from his well-documented record of bigotry […]
Amid teenage girl magazines’ standard fare of earnest advice about boyfriends, self-esteem and cosmetics purchases, Sassy was always a stand-out. Take how Sassy dealt with the issue of flirting. The cover of the September 1994 issue might not have stood out on the newsstand—”How to Flirt Like an Animal” was the main story. But rather […]
“How come the cars on television commercials can’t seem to find the road?” my Aunt Sue asked me a couple of years ago. Indeed, TV cars and trucks are found splashing through creeks, climbing rocky slopes, parked in wetlands, invading deserts and even perched on needlelike pinnacles, but rarely are they shown actually driving down […]
It’s been estimated that a typical American TV viewer sees 100 commercials a day. That’s 36,500 a year, or perhaps 2.5 million over the course of the viewer’s lifetime. Just about every one of those commercials is carefully crafted to convey the message: If you buy our product, you will be complete. Part reviewer, part […]
In The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power, the eight-part series which aired in January 1993, PBS promised to reveal the real history of petroleum politics. But despite its impressive scope, and the wealth of archival film footage, the series is little more than an official oil company history with high production […]
