FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Some in the media just can’t let go of John McCain. David Broder’s column today is really headlined, “John McCain, Your Country Is Calling.” He explains that he wasn’t “bothered by the doctrinal compromises the senator made to convince Arizona voters that he was, in fact, a conservative. McCain has always been a realist, doing […]
Yesterday’s New York Times (8/24/10) brought this headline: “Afghans Say NATO Troops Killed 8 Civilians in Raid.” About those claims, we were told this: Maj. Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO force is known, said NATO authorities were unaware of any such attack. Today’s Times (8/25/10) brings this […]
Thousands have signed on to FAIR’s petition–add your voice today and keep the pressure on NBC to have a real war debate! July saw more U.S. troop fatalities in Afghanistan than any month since the war began nine years ago. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was removed from his commanding post amid controversy, and WikiLeaks released a […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: One war is ending, while the other is the subject of a major PR blitz. Right on schedule, we’re told, Operation Iraqi Freedom is winding down, with live TV coverage relaying the images of the final U.S. combat brigades leaving the country. The caveats to the story of the […]
Public support for the Afghanistan war continues to drop. Casualties mount. So why is NBC‘s Meet the Press giving viewers a parade of hawkish pundits and military officials? If you haven’t already done so, please join FAIR’s call to broaden the debate on the war on the most-watched Sunday morning chat show. And while you’re […]
The war in Afghanistan has re-emerged as a major news story, thanks to the controversies surrounding the removal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the WikiLeaks release of classified documents. But on NBC‘s Meet the Press, the opportunity to engage in a robust debate about the war has taken a back seat to promoting the views […]
New Republic blogger Jonathan Chait (4/11/10) criticizes Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas for comparing the Republican Party to the Taliban, noting that the latter engages in “wanton torture and violence.”
USA Today had a piece yesterday (8/5/10) about new rules of engagement issued in Afghanistan by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus. The new rules—much like the old rules—”are aimed at limiting civilian casualties,” the paper’s Jim Michaels reports in its own voice, explaining: At the heart of counterinsurgency doctrine is the principle that winning […]
We often heard during the WikiLeaks controversy that civilian deaths in Afghanistan are well-covered in the corporate media, so the revelations in the documents about such incidents were “old news.” A report in today’s Times from Rod Nordland (“Afghans Say NATO Strikes Killed Civilians,” 8/6/10) teaches a useful lesson in how such reporting appears. There […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The release of the Afghanistan WikiLeaks documents brought the Afghan war back onto the front pages, but much of the attention went to Time magazine’s cover, featuring a disfigured Afghan woman and the headline “What Happens if we leave Afghanistan.” Suddenly the Afghan War debate reverted back to its […]
Every Sunday on ABC‘s This Week there is a feature that names the U.S. servicemembers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan the previous week. Christiane Amanpour is the new host of the show, and the segment continues. But her critics see something sinister at work. This is how previous host Jake Tapper generally introduced the list: […]
The Afghanistan documents posted by WikiLeaks were obviously the big story of the week. So how did the network Sunday shows react to these disclosures, which have the potential to open up a real debate about the Afghan War? NBC‘s Meet the Press interviewed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen. ABC‘s […]
A USA Today story by Susan Page (7/27/10), on the impact of the WikiLeaks revelations, reports that despite some erosion, “Most Americans continue to support the war in Afghanistan.” To back up this assertion, Page cites Gallup poll findings (7/8–11/10) that 58 percent of Americans think it was “not a mistake” for the US to […]
In case you thought the WikiLeaks story might change everything: The forthcoming Time magazine (out tomorrow) has a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” The implication would seem to be that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. You can see […]
Fresh from her comments slamming Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings for reporting things the military wouldn’t like, CBS reporter Lara Logan weighed in on the WikiLeaks story on last night’s CBS Evening News, where she argued that reporters should do more to stress the Taliban’s record of killing civilians: KATIE COURIC: Also mentioned in these documents […]
The stories in today’s Washington Post tell you everything you need to know about the media establishment’s reaction to the Wikileaks Afghanistan documents: WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of Afghanistan War By Greg Jaffe and Peter Finn …The documents’ release could compel President Obama to explain more forcefully the war’s importance, military analysts […]
Former special ops squad leader/current think tank fellow Andrew Exum noisily yawns at the WikiLeaks Afghan document release on the New York Times op-ed page today (7/27/10): The news media have done a good job of showing the public that the Afghan war is a highly complex environment stretching beyond the borders of the […]
New York Times London bureau chief John Burns has joined other high-profile reporters (e.g., CBS chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan) in denouncing fellow journalist Michael Hastings. Hastings’ Rolling Stone expose prompted the dismissal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was relieved of his Afghanistan command following Hastings’ revelations that he and some of his aides had […]
Whenthe news is thatU.S./coalition casualties in June in Afghanistan were the highest monthly total of the war, you’d think it might be an opportunity to quote a critic of the war. Not for USA Today. In the paper’s report today (7/1/10), reporter Jim Michaelsgets a comment from the British defense minister (“We must hold our […]
In the wake of the Rolling Stone/Stanley McChrystal controversy, one might think that there could finally be some space to have a debate about the Afghanistan war–especially considering that the magazine article was really about fundamental questions about the war itself (FAIR Media Advisory, 6/25/10). The Washington Post (6/27/10) ran one of its often–terrible Topic […]
