FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Corporate media have been absurdly receptive to the McCain campaign’s charge that Barack Obama “played the race card” by predicting that his opponents in the presidential race would try to use his race against him. The fact is that racialized attacks are a standard part of the Republican playbook—and the strategy has been employed by […]
When Barack Obama decided to reject public financing in the general election, corporate media and Republican partisans made an identical attack, claiming that Obama broke a promise to take public funding. Unfortunately, this claim was demonstrably untrue: Obama hadn’t made an unconditional promise to take public financing. The New York Times (6/20/08) referred to Obama’s […]
Pundits frequently gave Obama a pass for ostensibly shifting his positions because they preferred what seemed to be his new, less progressive position.
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin071108 Robert Dreyfuss and Amanda Marcotte @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin071108.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama’s image as a harbinger of change has many hoping his election will bring change in foreign policy. He certainly differs from George Bush on the need for diplomacy. But what about issues such as the projection of American power […]
It’s safe to assume that Barack Obama knew he could expect certain lines of attack when he decided to run for president: whispers about his religious beliefs, for example, or questions regarding his patriotism. And sure enough, those issues came up almost as soon as the campaign started. But it’s difficult to imagine that Obama—whose […]
[Note: This is a sidebar to “Obama the Snob?: Hanging the ‘elitist’ label on another Democratic candidate“] In the 2004 election, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was crowned by an influential Beltway publication with an unexpected designation: He was, according to its calculation, the most liberal member of the Senate (National Journal, 2/28/04). The ranking […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin062708 John K Wilson and Aziz Huq @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin062708.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama flip-flops on public financing. The media was in an uproar over the Democratic presidential candidate’s decision to forego public funding for the general election—a sign to many pundits that Obama’s reformer rhetoric is an illusion. But was it […]
In politics, as in so many other aspects of life, anger is a combustible fuel. Affirmed and titrated, it helps us move forward. Suppressed or self-indulged, it’s likely to blow up in our faces. With the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination coming to a close, there’s plenty of anger in the air. And […]
This week on CounterSpin: Bill Fletcher of The Black Commentator joins to discuss Obama and the Wright controversy. Also on the show: How establishment media has neglected to report on Sami al-Haj’s Guantánamo imprisonment, with journalist Andy Worthington.
National media have echoed presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s criticism of Democratic candidate Barack Obama for failing to promise to participate in the public financing program for the general election–even though McCain’s campaign has said it may not participate in the program either. At issue is whether Obama will participate in the public financing […]
This week on CounterSpin: Establishment media and the crisis in the U.S. housing market, with economist Dean Barker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Also on the program: Recently the press has dedicated a lot of time and energy to conversation about Obama’s voting record. Keith Poole, Professor at University of California at San Diego and co-founder of Voteview, joins for a discussion on this and more.
Media coverage of the presidential campaign has lately been dominated by discussions of videotaped comments made by Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Pundits and reporters are questioning to what lengths Obama must go to distance himself from some of Wright’s more controversial remarks. This is not […]
Now that the unusually lengthy presidential campaign is starting to close in on the first primary contests, one would hope the national press corps would focus on the candidates’ policies pertaining to the issues that Americans are most concerned about–such as the war in Iraq, the economy and healthcare. Or they can choose to direct […]
The day after he formally announced he was a candidate for the 2008 presidential race, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) took a shot at the media. Alluding to the perception that he avoids taking strong positions on important political issues, Obama told reporters (Washington Post, 2/12/07): “The problem is that that’s not what you guys have […]
On March 16, 1827, the first African-American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, began publication in New York. During its short but significant two-year run, Freedom’s Journal established the central role of the independent black press in the United States. In particular, the editors pledged to serve their readers in ways that the white press would not, by […]
