The ‘Center’ Always Holds
Corporate media always recommend Democrats move to the right after an election.
Impeachment Not on Media Radar
There is a growing grassroots campaign demanding the impeachment of George W. Bush. Across the nation, towns and cities have been passing pro-impeachment resolutions. Websites promoting impeachment keep springing up. In several states, bills have been introduced in state legislatures that, if passed, would become formal bills of impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives, […]
White House Responds to Vandalism Charges, Fox Responds to FAIR
A May 21 FAIR Action Alert addressed the stories of White House “vandalism” during the transition in January. According to anonymous Bush administration sources, Clinton staffers had looted Air Force One and vandalized the White House on their way out of office. The rumors exploded after earlier, more light-hearted stories about minor pranks, such as […]
New York Times Ignores Violation of War Powers Act
The indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes is the story of the day–the New York Times ran two front page pieces on it on the day the announcement was made (5/27/99). And Milosevic’s indictment is an important story for the American media to cover. But isn’t it at least as important for the press […]
Clinton Worse Than Reagan, Nixon…Everyone
Clinton Worse Than Reagan “Clinton used his office to thwart an investigation sanctioned by his own attorney general…. Ronald Reagan waived all executive privilege…[and] turned over his documents and diaries…because he said he wanted the facts to come out.” —Time news article (8/24/98), conveniently forgetting the cover stories and document-shredding of Iran-Contra. Clinton Worse Than […]
Feminists, Prostitutes and Nazis
The mainstream media’s campaign to discredit feminist leaders has been a dominant and consistent element of 1998’s ongoing sex spectacle. Feminist politicians and organizational leaders have arguably been opinion leaders for many women voters who elected Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and who support social issues such as abortion rights and affirmative action. These leaders […]
In Hot Pursuit—or in Heat?
MSNBC, the cable news channel, has a headline for its breathless, round-the-clock coverage of the Clinton sex scandal: “The President in Crisis.” A better headline might be: “The News Media in Heat.” In the media environment of 1998, when it comes to a sex-related scandal, many national news outlets can’t seem to avoid binge coverage. […]
Hast Seen the Whitewater Whale?
“Above all it is about hypocrisy,” the Wall Street Journal editorial page explained (3/21/94) in one of its dozens of commentaries on the Whitewater scandal. Robert Bartley and his conservative editorial crew meant the “hypocrisy” of President Clinton who denounced the 1980s as “a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness” while himself trying to get […]
Paula Jones and Sex Harassment:
It seemed like May madness had hit–at least as far as sexual harassment was concerned. Hoards of previously unreconstructed misogynists supported a working-class female who charged a powerful man with grimy sexual misconduct. New Republic editor and PBS pundit Fred Barnes, who once derided Anita Hill as”delusional,” claimed that Arkansas state employee Paula Jones’ accusations […]
Whitewater Under the Bridge
Supporters of the Clintons suggest that Whitewater, a failed real estate venture from Bill and Hillary’s Little Rock days, is old news. The election campaign is over, the argument goes, and the voters chose Clinton. But Whitewater never really became a campaign issue in 1992. Most media gave a great deal of space to allegations […]
Sex, Polls and Campaign Strategy
To see how papers were following through on their promise of more substantive reporting, FAIR surveyed all news articles on the presidential election in three national papers.
