FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Assange has already been arbitrarily detained for several years, according to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Now Assange could be punished even more brutally if the UK extradites him to the US.
Where is the outrage, or even recognition, that someone whose goal was to reveal what actions—illegal and unconscionable—were being carried out in US people’s name, and whose revelations led in fact to debate and interrogation of those actions, is once again taking the fall for reporters happy to report those revelations and claim awards for doing so?
As Chelsea Manning walks free after seven years and 120 days (or “just seven years,” as USA Today had it), sometimes in solitary confinement, it’s worth remembering that corporate media did virtually nothing in support of her clemency.
Whistleblower Chelsea Manning speaks in the pages of the Sunday New York Times. But was anyone else in the media listening?
Whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and mass shooters Nidal Hassan and Aaron Alexis: Time wonders how these four dangerous individuals managed to slip through the system?
Private Chelsea Manning will be serving out a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth prison for revealing classified information to WikiLeaks. Are you confused by that sentence? Not sure what case we’re talking about here? Maybe there were two Private Mannings who are now tied for the record of longest prison sentence in the history of […]
Chelsea Manning’s announcement that she identifies as female and would prefer to be referred to that way seemed to befuddle many in the media, with some outlets apparently unclear about how to identify her.
The government says Bradley Manning helped Al Qaeda when he revealed information about civilian casualties. By that logic, didn’t George W. Bush do a lot more by causing those casualties?
The government isn’t having much luck showing the real world harm done by Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks. Perhaps they should call in Time columnist Joe Klein–he knows “for a fact” that bad things happened.
Attacking Edward Snowden’s character with an amateur understanding of mental health medicine not only distracts from the the secret mass surveillance of U.S. citizens, it also further marginalizes an already highly stigmatized portion of our society.
Covering the Manning verdict on NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams said that Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski had “covered this story from the start.” But you’d have a hard time believing that when you heard the way he described one of the most talked-about aspects of the trial.
The New York Times reports that Wikileaks’ “journalistic reputation was…undercut by two prominent articles published by the New York Times.” But if anyone’s journalistic reputation was hurt by those articles, it was the Times’.
To Washington Post columnist Walter Pincus, something about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden just doesn’t smell right. Lucky for him he gets space in a prestigious newspaper to work out his hunch–apparently without any editors or factcheckers to get in his way.
Snowden, in Marshall’s view, is the kind of leaker who belongs in prison: “I do not see how you can’t prosecute Snowden.” For Marshall and other journalists who fundamentally identify with the state, it’s OK to help journalists to debate surveillance policy—it’s just not OK to try to change it.
What’s the press saying about the Bradley Manning trial? We take a look at a strange CBS Evening News report about a U.S. atrocity in Afghanistan, and David Gregory thinks he found an Obama flip-flop.
As Bradley Manning’s court martial trial gets underway, journalists face real obstacles in trying to report on it, and they should be facing the constitutional issues the case raises. We’ll be joined by Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and U.S. attorney for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
Also on the show: Are parents keeping their kids from learning how to read, so they can get a disability check from the state? The claim has come from some high places in elite media, which you won’t be surprised to learn, doesn’t make it true. We’ll speak with author and journalist Neil deMause about this not-so-new media canard.
NBC’s Brian Williams called Bradley Manning “the man who may have put U.S. military secrets in the hands of Osama bin Laden.” But giving classified information to the public is something that news outlets–including NBC News–routinely do, and each time they do it they too could be accused of “aiding the enemy.”
If you care at all about war and peace, press freedom, whistleblowers’ rights and the public’s right to know what the government is doing, the trial of Bradley Manning is of enormous consequence. It would have been hard for NBC News to come up with a more hostile framing.
This week on CounterSpin: Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is dead but his independence and help for Venezuela’s poor remains unforgiven in the US press.
The stories that came out due to the information Bradley Manning allegedly leaked have been explosive, front page news. But his trial? Not so much. And Maria Bartiromo told Meet the Press that tax increases on the wealthy are really tax increases for everyone. And why was a Starbucks $450 gift card front page news […]
