FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Of course Newt Gingrich (you know, the “big thinker” in the Republican campaign) made a lot of news by declaring that the Palestinians are an “invented” people. As As’ad AbuKhalill–aka Angry Arab—pointed out, the New York Times ran a piece on this controversy on December 10 quoting exactly two sources: former U.S. ambassador to Israel […]
In today’s Washington Post (12/13/11), Jerry Markon reports on the news that the White House “will wade into the increasingly divisive national debate over new voting laws.” But the article’s explanation of the concept of “voter fraud”–the ostensible rationale for these Republican efforts to restrict voting–leaves a lot to be desired. Markon writes that liberal […]
Three moments, actually: —NBC‘s Chuck Todd yesterday on Meet the Press (12/10/11), commenting on Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich: Well, first of all, those are a couple of nimble debaters. They are pretty good. I think we have seen it. This is the final two. I’m old enough to remember when Todd had the campaign […]
The Washington Post launched a series of Republican presidential candidate profiles on Sunday (12/11/11). First up was Mitt Romney, and right away you sense there’s something a little off here. Here’s the headline and subhead: The Problem Solver Mitt Romney doesn’t want to talk about feeling voters’ pain. He just wants to get to work […]
We know by now that Newt Gingrich thinks he’s smart. And we know there are plenty of people in the corporate media who believe the same thing. How do they show their love for the brainy Republican presidential candidate? Time‘s Joe Klein shows the way in this week’s issue (12/19/11) of the magazine. He doesn’t […]
Political campaign watchers seem to agree that the election will be about the economy, and that Republicans probably won’t have much to say about Obama’s foreign policy (partly because it doesn’t much differ from what a Republican president might be doing). The New York Times‘ Richard Oppel has a piece today headlined, “Republican Candidates Aim […]
Imagine that the company founded by the frontrunning Republican presidential candidate also owned a massive radio company–say, the largest one in the country. And imagine that said company announced, right as the election season started, that it was ditching its progressive talk format in a major city for a mostly conservative lineup. Stop imagining–Brad Friedman […]
Is Fox News Channel going soft? In an election year? Some media figures seem to think the hard-right channel is going to the “middle,” but this seems to be a figment of the centrist imagination. New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman has a short piece trying to make this case. His first bit of evidence is […]
Many big papers have rules about when reporters can use anonymous sources. It should be rare, and the information generated should be important and difficult to get without granting a source the privilege to speak anonymously. Of course, reality is different–as Janine Jackson documented in the new issue of Extra!. Anonymous sources supposedly aren’t allowed […]
USA Today‘s front page today (12/2/12) seemed to know– their “Newsline” headline was, “Flip-Flops by Gingrich Fail to Alarm His Conservative Base.” The piece inside by Jackie Kucinich–which is actually fairly comprehensive–unfortunately bore this headline: Gingrich Endures Shifts in Policy Candidate sees no backlash from base So he’s able to endure himself?
If you’ve paid attention to the presidential campaign season, you’ve no doubt been entertained by the string of embarrassments and gaffes: Rick Perry blows the voting age! Herman Cain can’t remember what to say about Libya! Mitt Romney talks about the upside of a murderous dictatorship! Wait–what? In the November 22 debate, Romney gave this […]
The New York Times today (11/29/11) has a somewhat cheeky piece about Republican candidate Newt Gingrich‘s background as a historian–which, according to reporter Trip Gabriel, means he’s unusually smart: In an election season rife with factual misstatements, deliberate and otherwise, Mr. Gingrich sometimes seems to stand out for exhibiting an excess of knowledge. I don’t […]
Huffington Post reporter Jon Ward did what reporters should do when covering political campaign ads. He told readers, at the top of his story, that the new Mitt Romney ad was based on a lie: The 60-second Romney ad quoted Obama as saying, “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” It […]
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry’s new TV commercial is based on a lie. Will reporters say so? The ad starts with a Barack Obama quote: ”We’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades.” To which Perry responds: ”Can you believe that? That’s what our president thinks is wrong with […]
The Michele Bachmann presidential campaign–formerly treated as atop-tier juggernaut by Beltway media–has been floundering for weeks. Which makes right now as good a time as any for them to grab some headlines by shouting about liberal media bias. The Bachmann campaign was furious about email correspondence concerning a possible Bachmann appearance on a CBS Web […]
Just because he wears cowboy boots and drops his G’s doesn’t mean he’s a dummy. Perry may be a small-town boy who went to an ag school (Texas A&M University), but he’s an extremely cagey and strategic politician who has been among the state’s most successful governors at getting what he wants. Put another way: […]
ABC This Week host Christiane Amanpour (11/6/11) kicked the show off with a pretty funny joke: Clash of the titans in Texas last night, as Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich met for the first of a series of one-on-one Lincoln/Douglas-style debates. Less funny was the show‘s very imbalanced roundtable discussion: So let’s bring in our […]
NBC’s Chris Matthews Show (10/30/11): CHRIS MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Bob, tell me something I don’t know. BOB WOODWARD: That the White House has a secret plan to win the election and it’s complex and it’s secret, but it–look, Barack Obama wants to win so badly, as I understand it, everything in the White House is […]
After kicking off the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination by devoting serious time to real estate developer Donald Trump’s publicity-stunt non-campaign (FAIR Blog, 4/26/11), corporate media election coverage had nowhere to go but up—right? Never underestimate the power of establishment media to make electoral coverage ever more trivial and undemocratic. Early coverage of […]
When he’s not sharing his thoughts about Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is apparently unveiling a tax plan. It’s a flat tax, with a few other details explained by the Washington Post (10/26/11): Perry also would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent; eliminate taxes on dividends […]
