FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
It’s hard to imagine news coverage of military regulations that excludes Pentagon officials, or a discussion of derivatives trading that leaves out Wall Street executives—those directly affected by policy outcomes. But that’s how corporate media cover the minimum wage story, according to a new study by Extra! that finds low-wage workers are largely excluded from […]
The Washington Post‘s Wonkblog has a hopeful headline (5/28/13): The Economy Is Holding Up Surprisingly Well in a Year of Austerity And a version of this piece landed on the front page of the Post‘s print edition, under the headline “Economy Shows Some Endurance.” And here’s the good news in a nutshell: Americans with higher […]
The “center” doesn’t usually indicate where most of the public is, but rather where elites have determined an appropriate middle between opposing arguments.
‘How Short Our Memory Is’ Looking back at the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough (Morning Joe, 3/19/13) scorned media outlets and others who failed to acknowledge their responsibility for leading the country into war: “The very same people who spent years beating up George Bush were the very ones beating the […]
The Washington Post presents a “paradox” wrapped in a “conundrum” inside a “quandary”–all on top of a big heaping of right-wing policy advice for the left.
New York Times reporter John Burns admires Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. But when he claims she lifted millions to prosperity, does he have any evidence?
If USA Today is presenting an objective record of the Chavez years, how on Earth did he win so many elections? By that score, Venezuela must also have an especially ill-informed populace–or maybe Venezuelans know a different reality.
The White House plan to cut Social Security benefits has been praised by major media as a brave move towards the “middle” by Obama, as well as an effort to use a more “accurate” measure of inflation. Neither claim is credible. Part of the White House plan is to change how inflation is calculated, by […]
Household wealth is on the rebound, USA Today reports–but mostly because of the stock market. Which means it means next to nothing to the vast majority of us.
Former Reagan budget director David Stockman is outraged–outraged I tell you!–by the Federal Reserve increasing the money supply. In a lengthy op-ed on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Review (3/31/13), he condemns “the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve” with their “egregious flood of phony money” and “a radical, uncharted […]
The Washington Post’s Howard Schneider asks, “In Europe’s grand battle over growth vs. austerity, has Ireland proved that austerity works?” If so, keeping unemployment more than 10 percentage points above pre-recession levels is an odd sort of “working.”
If It Weren’t for Those Meddling Iranians “This demonstrates the ever pernicious Iranian meddling in other countries in the region.” —unnamed U.S. official complaining to Reuters (1/28/13) about Iran allegedly sending arms to Yemen, where the U.S. is conducting a secret drone war Extreme Weather, Unexplained NBC Nightly News (1/13/13) asked a serious question, […]
CNN.com had an odd piece of analysis of the Italian election results, arguing that austerity “is necessary by any calculation to actually start moving Italy out of the recession.” That’s not the calculation of Paul Krugman, who for what its worth is a Nobel Prize-winning economist.
I suppose we might ignore that the first lady of a country appeared at an awards show, flanked by members of the military, to present a prize to a film about the heroism of U.S. intelligence. No, the real problem is Iran’s Photoshopping.
The polls showed that Ecuadoreans weren’t “apprehensive” about giving Correa another term. So why was the New York Times? Probably because his policies are the kind that institutions like the Times tell us aren’t supposed to work.
This week on FAIR TV: Why is raising the minimum wage considered “divisive”? And a Washington Post pundit gives Obama State of the Union advice: Skip climate change and go big on the deficit. Plus a look at the way the New York Times framed police brutality in a story about Charles Dorner. Remember: If […]
It’s important to step back and figure out what “divisive” means here. Republicans and corporate interests are opposed to this idea, but the American people say they overwhelmingly support the concept of paying people at the bottom of the wage scale more.
If there’s one thing the media seem to be convinced of—or at least seem to want to convince the public of—it’s that rules that protect workers kill jobs and are therefore to blame for high European unemployment rates.
When reporters give strategic advice, they tend to reveal what they consider preferable policy goals. A discussion of taxes and spending on Meet the Press revealed a lot about host David Gregory’s worldview.
On the new FAIR TV: The Washington Post says France had better slash wages and benefits in order to be more like Spain. Why would they want to do that? The New York Times erases a headline referring to the occupation of the West Bank. And when the Wall Street Journal wanted to show what […]
