CEO Evening News?
CBS Evening News has decided the best experts on the “fiscal cliff” are corporate CEOs who want to cut Social Security and Medicare. Let’s tell them what we think about that.
What’s Missing from CBS’s Gaza History?
Giving viewers a quick sense of context and history is important in any story, but especially in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Doing a bad job of it is perhaps worse than not doing it at all. CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley gave this summary on November 19: We wanted to remind you tonight of what […]
You Think You’re Getting Social Security But You’re Not, Says Multimillionaire Banker
What should the U.S. do about the so-called “fiscal cliff”? Who better to ask than Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, “one of the world’s most influential bankers”? That’s what CBS Evening News must have been thinking, anyway, when they did a segment last night (11/19/12) all about Blankfein’s opinions. CBS‘s Scott Pelley began: “When we […]
Syrian Civil War Strays Into…Syrian Territory
After Syrian mortar fire from Syria’s civil war reportedly strayed into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights last weekend, some U.S. journalists seemed confused about the political geography of the region. For instance, CBS Evening News reported (11/12/12) reported: Syria’s civil war has now touched Israel. For the second straight day, a shell from Syria landed in […]
Corporate Media Lose Their Favorite ‘Warrior Scholar’
There’s no doubt that the sex scandal that prompted CIA director David Petraeus’s sudden resignation late last week is a big story. New details–verified or not–seem to arrive almost by the hour. But the reason it seems to have shaken so many media figures is because Petraeus was uniquely beloved by many in the corporate […]
Has Nate Silver Ruined Campaign Journalism?
The presence of reliable projections should free journalists to do the kind of issues-based reporting that could actually help voters.
Schieffer’s Nightmare World Didn’t Look So Bad at the Time
CBS‘s Bob Schieffer revealed his greatest fear on yesterday’s Face the Nation (11/4/12): Let me just say, David Gergen, I think the worst of all worlds would be if one of the candidates won the popular vote and other won the Electoral College. As the two made clear, they were talking about the possibility that […]
Worst Media Moment on Hurricane Sandy?
CNN reporter Erin Burnett‘s comment (10/29/12) that it was “kind of neat” to see New York City break its flooding record as the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy flooded Battery Park was bizarre, to say the very least: I just want to give everyone an update of where we are right now in terms of […]
CBS Libya ‘Factcheck’ Will Live in Infamy
CBS Evening News (10/17/12) provides another example of corporate media’s through-the-looking-glass media “factchecking” of the Libya exchange at the second Obama/Romney debate (FAIR Media Advisory, 10/18/12). CBS‘s Jan Crawford set up the issue this way: For weeks, Republicans have said the president’s reluctance to call the attacks terrorism is a sign his administration doesn’t have […]
CBS Factchecks Romney’s Tax Plan: Maybe, Who Knows?
Mitt Romney has a multi-trillion dollar tax cut plan that he says won’t add to the deficit. How does that work? He won’t say, other than to pledge that he’d close some loopholes and deductions, but that none of those would harm “middle-class” Americans. Analysts have argued that this is not mathematically possible. So how […]
Factchecking the Minnows and Letting the Whales Swim Away
In an attempted factcheck of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention, AP‘s Calvin Woodward (8/30/12) takes on Romney’s big laugh line: President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family. Woodward looked into it and found […]
Harry Reid, the New Joe McCarthy
Senator Harry Reid started a whole lot of trouble on the campaign trail when he told some Huffington Post reporters that he’d heard that Mitt Romney paid no taxes. As in zero. For an entire decade. Now there are reasons to be skeptical of Reid’s account. As Dana Milbank pointed out, Reid’s record does not […]
Not So Fast on Fast and Furious
When it comes to ginning up scandals, the Obama administration has been a disappointment for the right-wing media, which had much more luck in the Clinton era. But they’ve found some red meat with “Fast and Furious”—thanks in large part to CBS Evening News, the story’s most prominent platform. Like most Clinton scandals (Extra!, 9–10/95, […]
Fast & Furious Conspiracies: Not Just at CBS
The “Fast & Furious” scandal has been a staple of right-wing media, where it is either evidence of a White House dodging accountability (a legitimate argument) or a plot to create chaos in order to pass more stringent gun laws (a bizarre and nonsensical conspiracy theory). But a recent Fortune investigation (6/27/12) showed that the […]
Corporate Media Untells the ALEC Story
Independent media outlets have basically owned the ALEC story over the past few years. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a corporate-sponsored “bill mill” that works with state legislatures to pass the kinds of laws corporations want. Thanks to investigations in Mother Jones, the Nation, Extra! and continued attention from the likes of AlterNet and […]
Not So Fast on Fast & Furious
If you’ve paid much attention to media reports about the “Fast and Furious” scandal, you may be under the impression that government agencies inexplicably allowed guns to be purchased in the United States and shipped across the border to drug lords in Mexico, where they ended up being connected to the December 2010 death of […]
The Race to Be First to Be Wrong at the Supreme Court
In corporate media there is always a race to be first to report a breaking story seconds before your competitors. It means nothing to the rest of the world–we’re talking a matter of seconds, much of the time–but it’s a point of pride in the news business to be first. Being right is more important, […]
Give Friedman a Chance–to Rewrite His Own History
Thomas Friedman on Face the Nation this past Sunday (5/20/12): You know, I believed from the beginning we had four choices in Afghanistan, Bob: lose early, lose late, lose big, or lose small. And, you know, my hope was that we would lose small and early. Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, November 2, […]
Media, Austerity and Bad Medicine
The election results in Greece and France sent a clearer message about austerity: Voters don’t like it. That sentiment isn’t hard to fathom; massive spending cuts and pay cuts aren’t fixing the problems in their economies–they’re making things worse. Media coverage seems to be clearer these days about what the public thinks of austerity. But […]
Now They Tell Us: Iran Didn’t Actually Threaten to Wipe Israel Off the Map
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor acknowledged on Al Jazeera English (4/14/12) that Iranian leaders have never called for Israel to be “wiped” off the map. Meridor agreed with interviewer Teymoor Nabili’s suggestion that the supposed remarks were never actually made; Iranian leaders, Meridor said, come basically ideologically, religiously, with the statement that Israel is […]
