FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The New York Times ran a story on May 4 that advanced a rather unusual argument: BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill was probably bad, but not that bad. Helping the paperflesh out that line was a group called the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, which the Times dubbed”a conservation group in Corpus Christi, Texas. ” […]
Do you want to know what environmentalists think of the “compromise” climate bill unveiled by senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman yesterday? Ifso,don’t read the New York Times today. Times reporter John M. Broder (5/13/10) quotes Kerry, Barack Obama (a supporter of the bill) and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (formerly a somewhat iffy supporter). He […]
The formula for “contrarian” journalism was aptly summed up by Wonkette (1/6/09): Take a widely accepted belief (e.g., “Dogs make good pets”) and write a cool 600 words arguing why its opposite is SECRETLY truer (“Why all dogs should die”). Of course, it helps if the upside-down world you’re proposing turns out to be one […]
We noted last week that the PBS NewsHour‘s coverageof the Gulf oil disaster one night includeda one-on-one interview with a spokesperson from BP. Going through the show’s coverage since then, a remarkable fact emerged: The show hadnot interviewed an environmental advocate opposed to the White House plan to increase offshore oil drilling. The reticence to […]
The New York Times’ May 2 Week in Review section leads with a piece from Jad Mouawad headlined “The Spill vs. a Need to Drill.” You get a sense of the tone of the piece early on: Readers learn that “emotions are running high” as the disaster gets worse. And this has led to predictable […]
When FAIR released a study of the PBS‘s NewsHour (then known as the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour) in 1989, one finding stood out: The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the major environmental story of the period. MacNeil/Lehrer had seven segments on the spill; not one included an environmental representative. Several discussions were limited to Exxon officials and […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: April 29 headlines suggest the oil spill from the explosion of a Deepwater Horizon oil rig may be as much as 5 times larger than originally predicted. But according to some media observers, TV news anyway, has kept the focus on the disaster story, and the human story, but […]
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 […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A New York Times report gives the impression that the debate over genetically engineered foods is largely over; the paper’s writeup of new research says that, despite some caveats and critics’ warnings, GE crops are good for the environment and the economy. Others come away with more questions than […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A dramatic videotape of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack was published by the website Wikileaks on April 5—prompting waves of coverage across the world, though only sporadic attention from the US corporate press. The attacks killed 12 Iraqis, including 2 journalists working for Reuters. Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill will […]
Implicit in much coverage of the offshore drilling debate is that such oil has the potential to lower gasoline prices. The L.A. Times‘ report (3/30/10) on the Obama administration’s new offshore drilling plan provided this context: The announcement will come in the run-up to summer driving season, as gasoline prices have begun a national march […]
As we depart from the ’00s and enter a new decade, the multi-faceted issue of climate change remains a high-stakes, highly contentious and high-profile challenge for understanding and engagement. Mass media are vitally important to public understanding of climate change, as they translate what can often be alienating, jargon-laden, formal climate science and policy; they […]
The sweeping bill to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions that moved through Congress over the last year received relatively scant media attention, taking a distant back seat to the healthcare reform bill and its attendant public uproar. And, much like the healthcare debate (Extra!, 10/09), coverage of climate-change legislation ended up obscuring the issues as much as […]
With the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) was intended to make new international commitments to reduce emissions and fight the effects of global warming. But instead of discussing measures, deadlines and the urgency of international action, the overriding media story going into Copenhagen was whether scientists […]
The need for informed and nuanced environmental reporting has never been greater: The scientific evidence of global warming demands urgent action, climate change already underway affects every corner of society, and climate issues unavoidably arise in economic and energy debates. That a recent poll showed declining concern about the planet’s state (Pew, 10/22/09) only accentuates […]
A New York Times piece seemed designed to bolster one of the key messages from the climate deniers.
Green energy advocates, environmentalists and anyone concerned with climate change can breathe a deep sigh of relief—the battle against the oil barons has been won. At least, that’s what Newsweek would have its readers believe. Under the provocative headline “Big Oil Goes Green for Real” (Newsweek.com, 9/19/09), Newsweek International senior editor Rana Foroohar argued that […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin121809 Michelle Chen and Joe Conason @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin121809.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Walkouts and protests at the Copenhagen summit have highlighted the political friction in responding to climate change. But is the press corps that brings us headlines like the New York Times‘ “Poor and Emerging States Stall Climate Negotiations” the right place […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin121109 Curtis Brainard and Corie Wright @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin121109.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The so-called “Climategate” email scandal seems to have thrown media coverage of climate change back a decade, with news outlets giving warming deniers more or less equal time alongside actual climate scientists. Part of the problem has been the media’s general […]
The New York Times‘ reporter on the climate beat, Andrew Revkin, had a front-page story this weekend (11/20/09) detailing the contents of climate scientists’ private emails discussing global warming. Predictably, the emails are being taken out of context by climate change deniers—but more interesting to me is the fact that the focus is on the […]
