FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
At a time when millions of Americans are are experiencing massive unemployment, a painfully slow economic recovery, wage stagnation and the after-effects of the bursting of a multi-trillion dollar housing bubble, isn’t it time someone demanded that they suffer a little bit? Of course not, you might say. But that’s why you don’t work in […]
By the tone of some of the media coverage, you might have thought Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a plan to slash military spending yesterday. On the front page of USA Today (1/27/12), under the headline “Panetta Backs Far Leaner Military,” readers learn in the first paragraph: The Pentagon’s new plan to cut Defense spending […]
The fact that Time magazine named “The Protester” its Person of the Year was maybe a little surprising. Totally unsurprising, though, was the choice of a runners-up: Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, a hero to many in the corporate media for his bold calls to slash government spending on the poor. It’s hard to know where […]
The Republican Party is in something of a bind. Many oppose White House efforts to extend–and perhaps increase–a Social Security payroll tax cut next year. This might sound strange, since if conservatives are supposed to be fond of anything, it’s tax cuts. So they have some explaining to do. They’re given a valuable assist when […]
Paul Krugman argues in the New York Times today (11/18/11) that the failure of the Congressional supercommittee might be a good thing, and that public understanding of what’s really happening is hampered by a familiar media problem. He also makes a pretty safe bet about what coverage is going to look like if they fail […]
The country is on the brink of bankruptcy, Fox host Bill O’Reilly warned last night—all because Barack Obama is spending too much money. Drastic cuts are required, but “the far-left loons want to spend more.” And he’s got the number to prove it: In 2007, during the Bush administration, federal deficit spending was $161 billion, […]
Today the New York Times (1/18/11) reports a big scoop. A “Tea Party commission” convened by Freedom Works is set to announce its crowd-sourced $6 trillion debt reduction plan—”A copy of the preliminary findings was provided to the New York Times,” Kate Zernike reports. The story’s second paragraph critiques the plan from the right for […]
Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn’t running for president after all. This is bad news for the journalists who seemed so eager to promote his candidacy, but also for establishment pundits like New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who thought a Christie/Obama contest would have been a victory for…. wait for it… centrism! He […]
Politicians beware: Thomas Friedman is still threatening to launch a third party. In his New York Times column today (9/21/11), Friedman moans: One would hope that our politicians would rise to the challenge by putting forth fair and credible recovery proposals that match the scale of our debt problem and contain the three elements that […]
Columnist Michael Barone, best known for editing The Almanac of American Politics, wrote a piece (Boston Herald, 9/20/11) declaring that Barack Obama’s “Sellout to Unions Staggers Economy.” After noting that “some pro-union moves have a certain ritual quality,” he got down to the really troubling behavior: Other steps are more important. Fully one-third of the […]
When a super-wealthy guy like Warren Buffett talks about taxing the rich– in the pages of the New York Times, no less– it gets the rest of the media talking. But that doesn’t mean that talk will get things right. Here’s one example from ABC World News (8/15/11): BIANNA GOLODRYGA (ABC NEWS): Much of Buffett’s […]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has named his picks to the “super committee” charged with making deficit reduction recommendations. Reid named Washington Sen. Patty Murray and center-right Max Baucus, who the Post‘s Rosalind Helderman today (8/10/11) calls a “natural choice,” given that he chairs the Finance Committee. The New York Times is a little more […]
It’s an article of faith in mainstream media discussions of the budget: Social Security and Medicare are the “entitlements” driving our debt problems. That’s not really true, but that’s overwhelmingly the starting point for these discussions. Occasionally, perhaps by accident, someone questions that assumption. That’s what happened on NPR‘s Morning Edition on Monday (8/8/11), when […]
There is no shortage of pundits like Robert Samuelson who demand cuts to Social Security and Medicare, usually in the name of balancing the budget. These political decisions are usually labeled “hard choices” in media discussions–as if politicians who favor making people pay more for their healthcare or cutting their retirement funds are only bravely […]
New York Times reporter Dan Barry has an “outsider visiting the Capitol” piece (8/3/11) about the strange things one encounters in the legislative sausage factory. In some rooms you are required to wear a necktie; others have no such rules. The place is confusing in other ways, too: “To reach the third level from the […]
There’s been plenty written about how reporters skew reality by treating “both sides” as equally intransigent or inflexible when it comes to the budget deficit battle. Another example, from the L.A. Times today (8/2/11): For Republicans, it was preventing any tax increase to upper-income families. For Democrats, it was ensuring no cuts to Social Security, […]
When your column is headlined “It’s the Elderly, Stupid,” I guess readers should know what to expect. Robert Samuelson delivers in today‘s Washington Post (a column that will appear elsewhere around the country, unfortunately), in a nasty diatribe about the kind of debt debate he thinks the country should be having–one that blames older people: […]
In the debt ceiling debate, Republicans and corporate media have somewhat similar strategies: The GOP can’t reach an agreement with the Democrats, because that would be a win for Obama. The media, meanwhile, can’t say that the Democrats are doing the right thing, even when they’re doing exactly what media pundits demand that they do […]
Some of the media commentary around the debt ceiling bemoans the state of the partisanship in Washington. Much of the chatter is about a supposed failure to compromise. As Josh Marshall argues, “this is simply false, even painfully so.” By any reasonable standard, the White House and the Democratic leadership have made an array of […]
Forget about “winning the future”–Barack Obama wants to win the center. That’s what the Washington Post is telling readers (7/25/11): Obama ‘Big Deal’ on Debt a Gamble to Win the Center Advisers think securing his plan would ensure general-election victory The Post‘s Zachary A. Goldfarb (who can’t be held responsible for the headline) explained that […]
