FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
It’s bad enough when media refer to civilian deaths in U.S. wars as “collateral damage,” but it was jarring to see how the phrase was used in a Washington Post headline today: Obviously, they’re talking about the sex-and-emails scandal. How could dead Afghan civilians ever threaten the career of a high-ranking U.S. official?
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 […]
Newsweek (7/17/11) begins a piece on David Petraeus becoming CIA director with an account of how he got the “short-term job done” after he was named commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan: Now, after 13 months, the 58-year-old Petraeus is coming home to head the Central Intelligence Agency. Since that day in the Oval Office, […]
Washington Post Dana Milbank (3/19/11) skewers the Republicans for their “emergency meeting” to defund NPR: This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it—or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the […]
David Ignatius of the Washington Post (12/29/10): I’ve seen Petraeus give many briefings over the years, and it’s a bit like watching a magician at work. Even though you’ve seen the trick before, and you know the patter, you still get mesmerized. He has the ability to make people believe the impossible might be doable, […]
USA Today had a piece yesterday (8/5/10) about new rules of engagement issued in Afghanistan by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus. The new rules—much like the old rules—”are aimed at limiting civilian casualties,” the paper’s Jim Michaels reports in its own voice, explaining: At the heart of counterinsurgency doctrine is the principle that winning […]
The Washington Post (6/23/10) allows an anonymous voice inside the White House to spill the beans on the decision to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus: Said a senior administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations: “It’s as seamless as it could be, […]
There’s been a discussion (some of it neatly summarized on the Daily Show) of elite journalists’ reaction to the explosive comments made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staffers to Rolling Stone freelancer Michael Hastings. One admission came via a Politico story, captured by NYU’s Jay Rosen (6/24/10): And as a freelance reporter, Hastings would […]
With Gen. David Petraeus back in the media spotlight after being tapped to take control of the Afghanistan war following General Stanley McChrystal’s fall from grace, the corporate media are trumpeting the “successful” surge in Iraq (Extra, 9/10/08) that Petraeus oversaw and are looking to him as the man to turn around the Afghan war. […]
