FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
When the Washington Post’s David Ignatius writes a column headlined “Putin Steals the CIA’s Playbook on Anti-Soviet Covert Operations,” is that supposed to be a criticism or a compliment?
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos paid $250 million for the Washington Post—but Amazon is being paid more than twice that by the CIA.
60 Minutes’ interview with former CIA official Mike Morell was more like a press briefing than an interview with a powerful figure who has never been asked questions by a TV journalist.
Concealing a Spy Who Hid Torture; Misremembering Thatcher; PBS’s Debate on Social Security
The compelling interest in the public knowing that a high-ranking public official has taken part in highly controversial and perhaps even illegal actions, in the view of these news outlets, is apparently outweighed by their duty, as they see it, to keep the government’s secrets.
TV news is often not all that informative. Sometimes that’s because the reports are so short–a few hundred words. But then there are TV reports that manage to use their short space to garble the details of a story completely. ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl’s piece about the Senate confirmation hearing for Obama’s CIA pick John Brennan fit into the latter category.
This week on FAIR TV we take a look at the the “informal arrangement” between several media outlets–including the New York Times and the Washington Post– to not report news about a CIA drone base.
We also talk about the curious standard for “confirming” news from Israeli government officials, and we take a look at the 60 Minutes softball interview with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Last night, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews hosted a discussion on the Obama administration’s recently disclosed “white paper” justifying its policy of using drones to strike at U.S. citizens. Matthews ultimately deciding that the policy was defensible–on the grounds that the CIA director Leon Panetta goes to church.
The Obama administration has pursued an unprecedented campaign to prosecute whistleblowers. The fact that John Kirikaou is facing such punishment reinforces the sense that he should be viewed as such a whistleblower, someone who was trying to expose the CIA’s torture practices. But was that really his motivation?
Reporting on the news that President Barack Obama plans to nominate his terrorism adviser John Brennan to be head of the CIA, the New York Times writes that critics had been “claiming that…Brennan had supported, or at least had failed to stop, the use of interrogation techniques like waterboarding.”
That Brennan was a torture supporter is not a claim, though–it’s a matter of public record.
A Los Angeles Times editorial (2/7/12) begins: When the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism released a report Sunday claiming that U.S. drone strikes have killed dozens of civilian rescuers and mourners in Pakistan, the American media scarcely noticed. It’s a good point.The Bureau‘s report got remarkably little media attention. A New York Times story (which […]
The new issue of Time magazine promises on its cover “Essential Info for the Year Ahead.” One apparently essential report: U.S. drones are awesome. The report–written by Mark Thompson, available to subscribers only explains that a “hot military trend” this way: Today’s generals and admirals want weapons that are smaller, remote-controlled and bristling with intelligence. […]
Documents discovered in Libya suggest a close relationship between the Libyan government and the CIA. The New York Times described it this way on September 3: TRIPOLI, Libya — Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the […]
The New York Times has a long piece (8/12/11) looking at the question of how many civilians in Pakistan are killed by CIA drones. The agency doesn’t even speak about the program on the record, except to make the far-fetched claim that no civilians have died in the past year or so. The article, written […]
Every so often reports surface about the Justice Department’s prosecution of CIA whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling–often due to the government’s attempts to convince New York Times reporter James Risen to testify about his interactions with Sterling. The Times reported on the latest such efforts yesterday (5/25/11): Federal prosecutors are trying to force the author of a […]
On the release of CIA agent Raymond Davis, who was held in Pakistan on charges of killing two Pakistani men on a street in Lahore, the Times explains the reaction (3/17/11) The Davis episode was particularly sensitive because of the resentment among Pakistanis who believe that a growing American security contingent roams the country with […]
Yesterday the Guardian reported that Raymond Davis, the American held in Pakistan on charges of killing two men last month in Lahore, was working for the CIA. The Davis case has received sustained coverage in the U.S. media and is the subject of intense U.S lobbying. All the while U.S. officials referred to Davis as […]
A Newsweek report (2/21/11) looks at the CIA’s aerial drone assassination program through the agency’s eyes–leaving questions about civilian deaths and the effort’s dubious legality for a couple of brief paragraphs at the end. To encourage Newsweek to take critics of the drone program seriously, see FAIR’s new Action Alert. Please leave copies of your […]
Apparently not, judging by theWashington Post‘s October 3 story (“Military Drones Aid CIA’s mission”) about the CIA’s expansion of its drone war in Pakistan.It is “part of a high-stakes attempt by the Obama administration to deal decisive blows to Taliban insurgents,” and also “a significant evolution of an already controversial targeted killing program.” Post readersget […]
“CIA Sees Increased Threat in Yemen” is the Washington Post‘s headline today (8/25/10) over astory thattells of a”sober new assessment” of Al Qaeda-related activities that has “helped prompt senior Obama administration officials to call for an escalation of U.S. operations there–including a proposal to add armed CIA drones to a clandestine campaign of U.S. military […]
