Centrist Pundits Paved Way for Trump’s ‘Alt-Left’ False Equivalence
As it turns out, there’s no way to suggest that unruly leftists are as bad as neo-Nazis without suggesting that neo-Nazis are no worse than unruly leftists.
Media Mourn End of CIA Killing Syrians and Strengthening Al Qaeda
Spin doctors at major news outlets depicted the Trump administration’s announcement that it was halting support for Syrian rebels as variously a spineless concession to the evil Russian puppet master and/or a wretched abandonment of a supposedly noble US commitment to “freedom and democracy.”
In Trump’s America, Protest Is Criminalized While Reporters Are Literally Assaulted
better than adding slogans about democracy dying in darkness and truth mattering more than ever would be vigorous, sustained, principled defense of the right to protest and report, including while wearing black.
Saudi Arms Deal Stories Omitted Who the Weapons Would Be Killing
The vast majority of reports on Trump’s Saudi arms deal omitted a key piece of context—namely, whom the weapons will be used to kill.
‘Let’s Get Back to Russia’: Media’s Interest in Narrowing the Trump Story
By placing the Russia story at the head of reporting about the Trump administration, CNN, MSNBC and other major news outlets have fostered the impression that they view other stories affecting real people’s lives—including climate, healthcare cuts and the travel ban—as being of lesser importance.
In a Dozen Interviews, Media Never Bothered Asking President Trump About Climate Change
Given the opportunity over the past four months of his presidency to ask Trump a question on climate change, no outlet has bothered to bring up the topic at all.
Soundbites June 2017
Violence Makes Editors Happy… For Friedman, Geopolitics Tops Genocide… Impossible to Verify—or to Resist Reprinting… Think Tank Licks the Hand That Feeds… At Reuters, ‘Not Refuting’ Is Believing… Nice Work if You Can Get It… Journalism Disrupts ‘Governmental Processes’… Trump Becomes President – Because Bombing
Media Served as Echo Chamber for Trump Nominees
A new FAIR study finds that Republicans dominated coverage of Donald Trump’s appointments, with GOP partisans making up 47 percent of total sources and outnumbering their Democratic counterparts by a 5-to-2 ratio.
Why Advocating Torture Is OK, but Single-Payer Is Beyond the Pale
The New York Times’ op-ed page’s latest right-wing hire, Bret Stephens, doesn’t like Donald Trump—but he loves Trump’s worst ideas.
NYT, Reviewing Trump’s ‘100 Days,’ Shows Folly of ‘Both Sides’ Journalism
If reporters, like historians, can find the bright side of genocide, then the “both sides” ethos knows no bounds.
Elite Media Need to Recognize Assaults on Reporters as a Pattern—and a Threat
It is heartening that Montana newspapers withdrew their endorsements of Republican congressional candidate Greg Gianforte, after he was charged with assault against Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. More heartening would be a full recognition across elite media that the incident is far from isolated.
‘It’s the Most Misogynist, Gender-Segregated Country in the World’
“The Saudis could not do their devastating bombing campaign in Yemen were it not for the US…. It could simply pull out, stop the weapons sales, stop the logistical support, stop the refueling of the Saudi planes.”
Media to Trump: Don’t Cozy Up to Dictators—Unless They’re the Right Dictators
Nice words to the wrong dictators unleash a torrent of outrage from our pundit class. Nice words to the right dictators—along with billions in military hardware, which unlike nice words will be used to continue to slaughter residents of a neighboring country and suppress domestic dissent–result in uniform silence.
13 Resets in 13 Months
The White House’s latest self-inflicted scandal represents another damning rebuttal to a recurring, fictional narrative that has been propagated by the press for well over a year—that Trump is just one new policy or staff shake-up away from being a normal president.
Trump Uses Power of FCC to Pay Back Friends at Sinclair Broadcasting
Sinclair Broadcast Group, the conservative media behemoth that owns more local news stations than any other company in the country, just got even bigger. It announced it was buying Tribune Media for $3.9 billion, creating what Bloomberg calls a “TV goliath.”
NYT’s 100 Day Apologism Shows Danger of ‘Both Sides’ Reporting
New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker appears to have set out in earnest to write a “balanced” review of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. In doing so, he exposed the futility of such an exercise.
Syrian Airstrikes Rekindle Media’s Love Affair With US Violence
Find someone who looks at you the way US media look at bombs.
100 Days of Media Hoping for a New, Improved Trump
Pundits have begun considering Trump as mostly a problem of manners and refinement to solve. The press helpfully reimagines Trump as he might be, rather than analyzing him for what he really is (and always will be).
Out of 47 Major Editorials on Trump’s Syria Strikes, Only One Opposed
Of the top 100 US newspapers, 47 ran editorials on President Donald Trump’s Syria airstrikes last week: 39 in favor, seven ambiguous and only one opposed to the military attack.
Five Top Papers Run 18 Opinion Pieces Praising Syria Strikes—Zero Are Critical
Five major US newspapers—the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and New York Daily News—offered no opinion space to anyone opposed to Donald Trump’s Thursday night airstrikes. By contrast, the five papers ran a total of 18 op-eds, columns or “news analysis” articles (dressed-up opinion pieces) that either praised the strikes or criticized them for not being harsh enough.
