FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
“I think it’s one thing to say, “We’re going to push the FCC and the telecoms to do the right thing.” It’s a whole other project to validate people’s self-determination by the ownership and governance of their infrastructure.”
For media activists, Hurricane Maria and the official response only underscored the need for the creation of communications systems grounded in community.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has just ruled that workers can be forced to pursue complaints through arbitration sessions, behind closed doors and all alone.
Different people have very different visions of the way forward for Puerto Rico—depending, to put it simply, on whether you think servicing debt matters more than human beings.
The argument that “everyone” owns a piece of Puerto Rican debt is gaining steam in the mainstream news media. It’s corporate media’s attempt to spread the pain that the wealthy would feel from debt forgiveness.
These policies of government neglect, of private sector-only, and increasing climate disasters, are going to create Hurricane Marias in pockets of the First World, and some people are going to be left behind.
Poorer residents tend to be concentrated in areas more prone to flooding
Pointing out that Trump is behaving boorishly is not the same as digging into questions of displacement, privatization and what Naomi Klein has labeled “disaster capitalism”–or offering an alternative vision for Puerto Rico’s recovery.
“These are communities living in some of the worst air conditions in the country, because of all of these facilities, and then during storms, they get hit with an extra load of toxins. And that’s just not fair; these communities shouldn’t be having to live with this toxic burden.”
While plenty of coverage is skeptical of Trump, are media really understanding what the DACA program does—and doesn’t—mean for recipients?
“We’re largely getting the helicopter of the hour, or let’s see the latest rescue, but not actually talking to people being rescued about what got them into this circumstance, and what is going to prevent this from happening in the future?”
As Hurricane Harvey has wreaked devastating flooding across southeast Texas, reporters’ ability to notice the nearly one-third of Americans living in or near poverty has again been put to the test.
How will reporters covering Harvey treat climate change, as well as the role of poverty, racism and the gutting of infrastructure budgets–the things you explore when you want not just to report a disaster, but go some ways toward preventing future ones?
Extreme drought, extreme heat and extremely devastating wildfires in Southern California are big news for TV journalists. But don’t mention climate change.
Climate change caused Typhoon Haiyan–in the basic and obvious sense that Haiyan would not have happened in the absence of climate change.
In a rational world, Typhoon Haiyan would get media talking about climate change. But at the moment, it’s barely part of the conversation.
The word “wildfire” has come up 1,457 times in USA Today’s reporting–and it’s been accompanied by the phrase “climate change” 73 times.
Writing about journalistic treatment of the superstorm and climate change, CJR‘s Curtis Brainard (10/30/12) criticizes the New Yorker‘s Elizabeth Kolbert for the wrong reason. He takes issue with her statement (10/29/12): As with any particular “weather-related loss event,” it’s impossible to attribute Sandy to climate change. However, it is possible to say that the storm […]
On April 14, a massive storm swept down out of the Rocky Mountains into the Midwest and South, spawning more than 150 tornadoes that killed 43 people across 16 states (Capital Weather Gang, 4/18/11). It was one of the largest weather catastrophes in United States history—but was soon upstaged by an even larger storm, the […]
A timeline of the horrific events that unfolded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina hangs on the wall of the conference room in the Treme production offices in New Orleans. The skeletal framework is fleshed out by a team of writers, many of them locals, determined to bring to life the story of people who […]
