FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
MediaBloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson (10/8/08) catches a CNN website headline he calls “extremely misleading”: “Ticker: Obama Actions Called ‘Not Presidential.’” Reasoning that “naturally, readers might think this refers to something Barack Obama did or said during last night’s debate” or at least “possibly a response from a cross-section of undecided voters in a new poll,” […]
Over the past several weeks, 28 million copies of an anti-Muslim propaganda film, Obsession, have been delivered to the doorsteps of newspaper subscribers in swing states. Unfortunately, as a new report by FAIR documents, the media’s complicity in smearing an entire religious group goes far beyond the role of the 70 newspapers that participated […]
Here’s George Packer in the New Yorker (10/13/08) seeming to debunk Tom Frank: Until the mid-’70s, the white working class—the heart of the New Deal coalition—voted largely Democratic. Since the Carter years, the percentages have declined from 60 to 40, and this shift has roughly coincided with the long hold of the Republican Party on […]
The affliction that causes national political commentators to project their own perceptions onto the public– let’s call it Pundit Projection Syndrome–is affecting David Gregory’s ability to come to grips with the fact that the public just wasn’t as into John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s debate performances as he was. Last night on his MSNBC show, […]
Salon‘s media blogger Glenn Greenwald gives a fresh example (10/7/08, ad-viewing required) of news pundits failing up in corporate media: Two weeks ago, Dick Morris was running around proclaiming McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign and make the bailout happen as a “brilliant move” that would pay off “big time” for McCain because he would […]
Describing an age-old political stategy–“John McCain….and Sarah Palin are going to try their best to make us talk about anything but the big issues facing our country”–the Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson asks a question (10/5/08) as obvious to the electorate as it is rare in corporate news: “Are we in the media going to aid […]
Here’s Sarah Palin misquoting her coffee cup: I’m reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, okay? The quote of the day…. It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and UN ambassador…. Now she said it, I didn’t. She said, “There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.” It’s […]
Many corporate media pundits seemed to grade the Biden/Palin debate on a rather extreme curve; if Palin could manage to show up and not embarrass herself, the event could be deemed a “tie”–as in the AP analysis headlined “Palin Tops Debate Expectations.” In USA Today, Susan Page wrote, “Both candidates exuded confidence and determination–a victory […]
Brad Johnson presents another argument (Think Progress, 10/3/08) against the “liberal media bias” myth: “These tired claims ignore the reality that the right-wing agenda actually benefits the ‘mainstream media’”: The multinational corporations that run the mainstream media–GE (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Walt Disney (ABC), News Corporation (FOX), and Viacom (CBS)–stand to benefit hugely under a […]
Writing on the Progressive Democrats of America website (10/6/08), media critic and FAIR associate Norman Solomon is wary of the fact that “poll numbers so far in October, combined with ample media hype, have fostered the belief that the economic crisis is close to dooming the McCain campaign.” Solomon warns that “any crystal ball that […]
The latest instance of the classic politician-journalist-politician feedback loop is completed when the New York Times‘ David Carr quotes Michael Bloomberg (10/5/08) citing a Times editorial that backed their rich mayor friend’s bid to legalize a third term for himself: “‘But as newspaper editorialists and others have pointed out,’ he said, ‘the current law denies […]
New York Times reporter Michael Gordon, analyzing the major-party candidates’ positions on Iraq (10/6/08), writes the sort of article you would expect from someone who has already taken a public position in favor of the policy embraced by one of the candidates and against the policy adopted by the other.
The New York Times splashed the Barack Obama-Bill Ayers “connection” story on the front page of Saturday’s paper. Obama’s practically non-existent ties to former Weather Underground figure William Ayers have been the subject of endless speculation among folks like right-wing yakker Sean Hannity, who suggested to ABC‘sGeorge Stephanopoulos that he should ask about Obama about […]
Calling the New York Times out for contributing to another “Pundit/Viewer Divide” on debate performances, Editor & Publisher‘s Greg Mitchell writes (10/3/08) of how Adam Nagourney “was among those who seemed to give it to Palin slightly, and some hailed Palin’s ‘knockout’ performance”: One problem: virtually all of the surveys afterward, by CBS, CNN and […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin100308 Phyllis Bennis and Wendy Weiser @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin100308.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: There’s been a lot of discussion about who won or lost the September 26th presidential debate, but little discussion of how it served the voters. What was and wasn’t talked about in a debate that focused largely on war and military […]
Citing plentiful evidence that “John McCain has been supporting torture for years now… dragging world opinion of the United States into the gutter, making us less safe,” David Swanson uses an American Chronicle piece (9/28/08) to point out a different, “parallel universe”:
Founder and senior editor Paul Jay announces (9/25/08) the Real News‘ move from Toronto to Washington, D.C., to better “focus on money and corruption”: Taking on the industrial-military complex is what real change requires. Even former presidents and high administration officials have said so, but corporate television news treats such positions as marginal. Well, we […]
The funny thing about the New York Times editorial yesterday about getting rid of term limits (10/1/08) is that the Times editorial board members no doubt tell themselves that they make up their own minds on issues based on the merits, not on whom their boss has had dinner with. Editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal […]
In yesterday’s New York Times (10/1/08), Steven Erlanger had a piece looking at the French reaction to the U.S. presidential election. He quoted French writer Bernard-Henri Levy: Obama is, certainly, black…. But not black like Jesse Jackson; not black like Al Sharpton; not black like the blacks born in Alabama or in Tennessee and who, […]
The latest TomDispatch (9/30/08) features historian Ira Chernus ruminating on “How Forgotten Iraq May Elect the Next President”: Even before the present financial meltdown hit the news, the Iraq War had slipped out of the headlines and off the political stage. Now, as investment houses totter and bailout plans fill the headlines, it will be […]
