FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Senate Democrats are having trouble passing a spending bill that would, among other things, extend unemployment benefits and deliver much-needed financial aid to cash-starved states. Today the New York Times (6/18/10) explained the legislative logjam this way: The spending and tax measure has become caught up in intensifying politics around deficit spending as members of […]
This weekend the New York Times (6/13/10) reminded me once again that I am not the paper’s target audience. While supporters say the estate tax affects only the richest members of society and helps counteract the concentration of wealth, that million-dollar limit would seem to ensnare many people who consider themselves decidedly middle class–especially in […]
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argued yesterday (6/13/10) that, when it comes down to it,we’re all to blame for the BP disaster. And that’s not all we’re to blame for: We cannot fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles in creating our own problems. We–both parties–created an awful set […]
You know, the fact of the matter is we have to change how we do things. We are on an imprudent and unsustainable path in a number of ways. You talk about debtors’ prisons, we used to have debtors’ prisons, now bankruptcy is no taint! Bankruptcy is an exit strategy! Our society and our culture […]
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) organized protests in Maryland at the homes of several bank executives, along with follow-up rallies in Washington, D.C., at bank branches and offices. The events went largelyuncovered by the Washington Post, whichled Post ombud Andrew Alexander(5/29/10) to wonder why the paper missed a major labor story that was covered […]
No sooner had the unemployment rate dipped from its January high of 10 percent than the media drumbeat began: What will the Obama administration do about looming deficits? The danger, it was made clear, was both imminent and mammoth: The federal deficit, warned the New York Times (2/2/10), was on pace by 2020 to “equal […]
The Insight Center for Community Economic Development (3/8/10) released a stunning report about the wealth gap for women of color: Single black women have a median wealth of $100 and Hispanic women of $120—dramatically lower than white men ($43,800), white women ($41,500) or black men ($7,900). The median wealth for single white women in their […]
“Beset by accusations of securities fraud, Goldman Sachs nevertheless showed Tuesday that it was still very good at what it does best: making money.” So began an April 20 New York Times online article. By the time the story went to print, the lead had changed, to suggest that the fraud charges do, in fact, […]
On March 12, a front-page article in the New York Times warned that the value of the federal government’s debt, if Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security obligations are included, totals $79 trillion—yes, with a T. Less than three weeks later, another front-page Times article (3/30/10) alerted readers that states’ pension obligations to public employees tops […]
Peter G. Peterson is on a crusade to end Social Security as we know it, and he’s spread his tentacles throughout the media. Peterson, investment banker and co-founder of the Blackstone Group, is also a co-founder of the Concord Coalition, a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development and a board member of the Committee […]
Remember predatory lending? The deceptive and discriminatory lending practices that were a driving force behind the housing bubble and disastrous collapse? Well, CNBC would like you to forget about it. Critics pointed (CJR.org, 3/4/10) to a March 2 segment in which all assembled excoriated a guest for referring to the very idea. In a discussion […]
Last week the Washington Post informed us that voters are “up in arms over the mounting federal debt”—and thus politicians were being forced to scale back a new bill that would, among other things, extend unemployment benefits and send money to state governments facing serious budget shortfalls. This made little sense, since polls do not […]
In a piece about European countries adopting austerity measures in response to the Greek financial crisis, the New York Times (5/26/10) acknowledges that some people think this is a terrible idea: In most European capitals, the case for fiscal rectitude is now trumping fears that pulling away those props will hobble the fragile recovery. The […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When Brazil and Turkey brokered a deal to get Iran to ship much of its Uranium abroad for enriching, much of the world saw it as a positive step. But not so U.S. officials, who saw it as a threat to their efforts to impose UN sanctions on Iran—though […]
The Washington Post has a story today (5/19/10) that leads with this: With voters up in arms over the mounting federal debt, congressional Democrats are growing increasingly queasy about adding to the nation’s tab,with some arguing that additional spending to prop up the economy and help the unemployed should be paid for or abandoned. The […]
Newsweek‘s Jacob Weisberg is tired of people picking on Robert Rubin. Sure, his critics to point to his involvement in the financial deregulation of the 1990s and his disastrous tenure at Citibank, but they’re wrong. At least that’s what Weisberg tries to argue in his column “In Defense of Robert Rubin” (5/10/10). Weisberg admits early […]
A Washington Post article (4/23/10) about the International Monetary Fund focused on the advice it is offering for the United States. The piece notes that this is somewhat unusual. Even stranger, though, is the Post‘s description of IMF officials as folks who “have a long history of stabilizing economies and solving global financial problems.” This […]
And that someone is Fareed Zakaria, in columns published in the Washington Post (“Cool the Goldman Rage”) and in the Post-owned Newsweek. Zakaria is unimpressed by the SEC’s fraud case against Goldman Sachs; he likens the firm’s mortgage securities bonds to someone placing a bet against the New York Yankees. Then he writes: But the […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama is in New York City to wag a finger at Wall Street, but do the details of financial reform legislation really look like they’ll make serious change in an industry where Goldman Sachs, for example, can rack up earnings double those of last year’s first quarter while […]
Brian Williams introduced a report on NBC Nightly News (4/21/10) with this declaration: “Public schools from coast to coast in this country are looking at tens of thousands of layoffs, a lot of them teachers, because the money is not there.” Correspondent Ron Allen went on to report: In Springfield, Illinois, thousands of teachers turned […]
