FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
This week on CounterSpin: Investigative reporter Dave Lindorff on the impeachment of George W. Bush. Also this week: Dean Baker, author of the new book The Conservative Nanny State, discusses how the media botched its coverage of Bush’s tax cuts.
What’s the deal with gas prices and how effectively are media outlets explaining the situation? We’ll hear from Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. Also on the show: Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage discusses George Bush’s “signing statements.”
This week on CounterSpin: How serious is the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act, with Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy. Also this week: Africa Action’s Ann Louise Colgan discuss the media’s shifting coverage of the World Bank.
The April 10 New York Times devoted half its op-ed space to an elaborate attempt to demonstrate the benefits of globalization, with charts showing that “more globalized” nations do better than “less globalized” on measures ranging from average inflation to the rule of law. But one obvious measure of economic health, the economic growth rate, […]
Video news releases– are they just PR stunts or actually news reports? Daniel Price with the Center for Media & Democracy joins to discuss VNRs. Also on the show: Jeff Faux of the Economic Policy Institute talks his new book, The Global Class War.
The Bush administration made a concerted effort to trumpet a “booming” U.S. economy in early December, widely understood as an attempt to reverse what polls indicate to be the public’s largely negative views on the matter. There are, of course, obvious reasons the majority of Americans dissent from the White House’s rosy presentation of the […]
FAIR was founded on the belief that journalism matters—that getting out the truth can improve the world, while news that distorts or denies reality can have terrible consequences. To illustrate this conviction, we’ve compiled a list of 20 news stories published since FAIR’s 1986 debut that had a major impact on society—for good or for […]
This week on CounterSpin: Continuing debate about Hurricane Katrina and how the government has responded to its aftermath. Also on the show: Discussion with Rolling Stone contributing editor Eric Boehlert on what he is calling a media “boycott” on coverage of the K Street Project.
Does American reporting on Iraq paint a misleadingly optimistic narrative? Also on CounterSpin: The NYT and corporate press on Sago.
This week on CounterSpin: The media versus the public on the economy. Also: James Bamford joins to discuss his recent report “The Man Who Sold the War,” which investigates the powerful Rendon Group and its role in manufacturing public consent for the Iraq War.
Nothing rankles bigfoot journalists more than seeing the conventional wisdom they so painstakingly craft, distill and disseminate each day simply ignored—or worse, rejected en masse—by large numbers of people. That seems to be how most U.S. pundits and correspondents interpreted this spring’s rejection of the proposed European constitution by voters in the Netherlands and France. […]
In March 1997, a joint poll by the Washington Post, Harvard University and the Kaiser Family Foundation asked Americans which area of federal expenditure they thought was the largest. Was it Social Security (which actually constituted about a quarter of the budget)? Medicare? Military spending? Sixty-four percent of respondents said it was foreign aid—when in […]
In an August 10 action alert, FAIR wondered if ABC‘s reporting on corporate giant Wal-Mart was improperly influenced by Wal-Mart’s status as a major advertiser on the network’s news programming. While ABC failed to answer FAIR’s charges, a September 20 World News Tonight report on Wal-Mart’s business practices in China once again suggests favoritism toward […]
This week Jamie Court of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights joins the show to discuss the market and profiteering post-Katrina. Also on the program: We’ll talk to Knight-Ridder reporter Johnathan Landay about who was really in charge of the federal response to Katrina.
How could some of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina have been prevented? Philadelphia Daily News reporter discusses how many– including some in the media– had warned that federal spending cuts would spell disaster for New Orleans. Also this week: Christopher Martin speaks on the biased coverage of the Northwest Airline strike by corporate media.
Over the past few years, the war over the Digital Divide has spread to a new technological turf: “broadband” Internet access. Broadband allows for much faster and more efficient data transmission than traditional dial-up modems. The catch: The telecommunications companies that offer broadband don’t necessarily offer it to all customers, and for those who can […]
On June 6, a years-long civic battle over plans to build a combined NFL/Olympic stadium atop publicly owned rail yards on Manhattan’s West Side ended with a thud. After a hard-fought lobbying campaign that saw more than $42 million spent on both sides (Newsday, 6/16/05), New York state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver used his power […]
Antonia Juhasz on Iraq’s U.S.-imposed economic structure. Also this week: Brian Komar discusses media coverage of the Darfur genocide in Sudan.
Media coverage tends to focus solely on the suffering of Israeli settlers, largely failing to include Palestinian views and the larger context in which the withdrawals of settlers are taking place. Also this week: business lobbyists and conservative politicians like to push the narrative that frivolous lawsuits are leading to unfair payouts to plaintiffs. Myron Levin, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, shares that those groups often benefit from misleading media coverage of the civil justice system.
This week, the largest class action suit in U.S. history goes to court in California, as plaintiffs representing over 1 million workers accuse Wal-Mart of sex discrimination. In addition to being the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart also spends considerable money advertising on mainstream media outlets–including regular spots on network newscasts like ABC‘s World News Tonight, […]
