FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
It’s never hard to figure out what side the media are on when it comes to corporate-friendly “free trade” deals. They’re for them,because they’re “free,” and people whooppose themapparentlyprefer protectionism over freedom. So Barack Obama’s apparent failure tonegotiate a trade deal with South Korea is bad news–thoughit’s hard to read the papers and figure out […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin111210 William Greider and Ali Gharib @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin111210.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Coverage of the G-20 summit in Seoul is squarely focused on trade deals and U.S. relations with China. But is the whole discussion of globalization, China and trade missing the point? William Greider makes that case in a new piece in […]
Matt Bai (New York Times, 11/9/10), as a standard-issue corporate media political analyst, sees the Democrats being moved to the right as an upside to their disastrous showing in the ’10 midterms. But he’s worried that the party isn’t learning the obvious lesson. If there was any sliver of hope for moderate Democrats on a […]
Whatever lesson you want to draw the midterms, the nation’s top editorial pages want to make one thing perfectly clear: Now is the time to move on bipartisan, corporate-friendly “free trade” agreements. “A time for free trade,” was the Washington Post‘s November 7 headline. “The Democratic majority in the House was heavily influenced by organized […]
Here’s the sentence that sums up what was wrong with election coverage ’10, courtesy of the New York Times‘ Peter Baker (11/3/10): Was this the natural and unavoidable backlash in a time of historic economic distress, or was it a repudiation of a big-spending activist government? Clearly, the economy was the main thing on the […]
TVNewser posts word of a CNN special this weekend hosted by Fareed Zakaria: Fareed Zakaria will debut his first primetime special this weekend, solidifying his new role at CNN. The special, Restoring the American Dream: A Fareed Zakaria GPS Special, will feature Zakaria’s talks with four global CEOs, who provide advice for businesses and political […]
One strand of conventional wisdom among elite D.C. reporters is that losing the midterm elections would be a good thing for the White House. Hence New York Times reporter Peter Baker (10/24/10): WASHINGTON — Let there be no mistake: President Obama wants the Democrats to win next week’s midterm elections. His voice has gone hoarse […]
In the coverage of French retirement protests, you often hear U.S.reporters state the debate is over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. As Dean Baker has pointed out (as did Amitabh Pal from the Progressive, when he appeared on CounterSpin) this is incorrect; the retirement age for most French workers is 65; they […]
Newsweek‘s Eleanor Clift has a new piece headlined”Math Lessons: How Did a Concept as Unsexy and Complicated as the National Deficit Become the Galvanizing Political Issue of the Day?” Sheasks: “Why is the deficit the top issue in voters’ minds?” If she eliminated the word “why,” you’d be left with agood question to ponder. The […]
I was struck by Sen. Sherrod Brown’s op-ed in the New York Times today (10/18/10): For Our China Trade Emergency, Dial Section 301 By SHERROD BROWN Washington TEN years ago this fall the Senate sold out American manufacturing. By a vote of 83 to 15, it established so-called permanent normal trade relations with China, paving […]
The emerging hero of the Chilean miners’ story–in Latin America and elsewhere, if not in the U.S.–is Luis Urzua, a topographer who took a job at the San José mines as a shift foreman while awaiting the start of new a job in his field. NASA officials working on the rescue called Urzua “a natural […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Reporters can always find many themes in election season, but some are saying this time around there’s really only one and that’s money. A new study from the Center for Public Integrity examines the fundraising going into the midterm elections; what impact is the Supreme Court’s Citizen United ruling […]
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein wrote a piece yesterday (10/13/10) headlined “Wage Cuts Hurt, but They May Be the Only Way to Get Americans Back to Work.” The point–in case you didn’t catch the drift ofthe headline–is that workers are going to need to take pay cuts in order to get the U.S. economy back […]
Jodi Jacobson from RH Reality Check joins CounterSpin this week to talk about the media’s decision to let Tea Party activists define their movement as one that doesn’t focus on red meat “social issues.” As Jacobson argues, that distinction doesn’t really square with the far-right views espoused by leading Tea Party Republican candidates. The New […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The New York Times says democrats are “wielding” issues like abortion rights in hopes of frightening voters about Republican victories in upcoming elections, whereas Republicans really just want to talk about the economy. Same goes for the Tea Party: we’re told not to focus on the movement leader who […]
For corporate media, the verdict is already in: The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), the unpopular program that redistributed some $700 billion of U.S. taxpayer funds upwards, to the very financial institutions that contributed to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, is an unabashed success. It is hardly stunning that corporate media would […]
Two things that are true: –The discussion of Larry Summers leaving his job as director of the White House Economic Council often failed to provide any sense of progressive criticism of his tenure, or of White House policy. (Republican criticism was well-represented, though.) –The Washington Post‘s “Topic A” op-ed features are often terrible. On Sunday […]
Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson (9/18/10) has had it with the way we discuss economics: With every election, we descend into soundbite economics. Rhetorical claims grow more partisan and self-serving…. These debates confirm the dreary state of economic discourse. He points his finger at both the right and the left, but then goes on to basically […]
The New York Times‘ Sheryl Gay Stolberg (9/22/10), writing about “brusque and brilliant economist” Lawrence Summers stepping down as President Obama’s chief economic adviser, cited House minority leader John Boehner’s charge that “Mr. Obama’s team lacked ‘real-world, hands on experience,’ a direct shot at Mr. Summers’ career as an academic.” She followed this by writing, […]
The current media fervor for austerity measures instead of stimulus policies at a time when the economy is suffering from insufficient demand is nothing new. John Maynard Keynes’ media criticism in a 1931 letter to a journalist friend (Fabius Maximus; 6/21/10) could have been issued today: To read the newspapers just now is to see […]
