FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin : a source from a senior citizens group quoted in the Washington Post said the group’s main challenge today is simply to try to keep the record straight about what’s actually in the health care reform bill, as opposed to what’s being claimed about it. That would seem to […]
In this week’s cover story, Newsweek‘s Sharon Begley seems to think Al Gore’s new book is good–but he’s still too wonky: To anyone with bad memories of how Gore’s fact-filled debate performances against George W. Bush in 2000 failed to connect with voters, it may come as no surprise that Our Choice has a graphic […]
Fans of Freakonomics economist Steven Levitt (and his journalistic partner, Stephen Dubner) might well have been surprised to hear about Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm’s devastating debunking (10/12/09) of the climate change nonsense in the duo’s new book, Superfreakonomics. Romm points out wacky assertions in the bestselling authors’ sequel, like this passage they quote approvingly […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: the highest-level conference yet on climate change took place this week at the UN. The press made much of the obstacles faced on the way to any international agreement — but if the front page of the country’s paper of record is saying that temperatures haven’t risen in 10 […]
The Drudge Report (9/16/09) is featuring this headline (in scary red type): Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year… The link goes to a CBSNews.com post, which declares: A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to […]
Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz (9/14/09) writes of the Van Jones controversy, in which Fox News‘ Glenn Beck took credit for the resignation of a White House staffer: In the Jones case, there is little question that the traditional media botched the story of an Obama administration official who, wittingly or otherwise, lent his […]
August 29 marked the fourth anniversary of the day Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The devastation wrought by both the hurricane itself and the government’s inept response prompted remarkably critical corporate media coverage that promised to fight for Katrina survivors and change the way we talk about poverty and race (FAIR […]
On Earth Day, President Barack Obama gave a speech from Newton, Iowa, a town CNN’s report (4/22/09) placed on “the front lines of a wind-power revolution.” During his speech, which focused on energy, he outlined his proposed cap-and-trade program: “Carbon dioxide and other tailpipe emissions are harmful to the health and well-being of our people. […]
Stating quite succinctly how “there is an ongoing issue about whether global warming deniers should be treated seriously by the media, given that they have about as much scientific support for their position as the flat-Earth crew,” economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 7/11/09) notes how the July 11 “New York Times goes them one […]
Reacting to media noise over the economic costs of the Waxman-Markey environmental bill currently before the U.S. Congress, Dean Baker (ZNet, 7/1/09) looks to the damages of a different annual spending bill, this one perpetually unexamined in corporate news: Global Insight projected that after 20 years of higher defense spending, annual car sales would be […]
Tying the urgent present-day topic of economic reporting in with the most pressing global emergency of climate change, Dean Baker has posted at his Beat the Press blog (6/29/09) on “What Does ‘Free Trade’ Have to Do With Taxing Greenhouse Gas Emissions?”: That is the question that the New York Times should have been asking […]
Activist David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet.org, 6/24/09) has some problems with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s and Congressmember Tom Perriello’s recent visit “generating a story and big color photo on page 1 of the Charlottesville Daily Progress” under the headline “In UVa Visit, Democrats Call Deficit Reckless“: The newspaper reported on Congressman Perriello warning that he could […]
Writing for CJR.org (6/16/09), Media Bloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson finds that “former CNN correspondent-turned-PR consultant Gene Randall’s video ‘report‘ for oil giant Chevron might be unprecedented for how it blurred the line between public relations and journalism,” but is still more worried that “the Randall/Chevron production raises not only ethical questions, but also the question […]
Veteran actor and activist Peter Coyote (SFChronicle.com, 5/30/09) writes about big media’s overriding response to the “Largest Environmental Lawsuit in History–Silence.” Taking a look at “the practices that are going on behind Chevron’s carefully cultivated ‘green’ image” as they “drill for oil in the jungles of the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Coyote does give credit to the […]
Jonathan Hiskes of Grist—who recently exposed “The NYT‘s Favorite ‘Climate Change Denier’”—has now (5/13/09) caught Fox News giving airtime to Marc Morano’s charge of Al Gore “profiting off global warming campaign” : Say you’re a harried cable news producer with 24 gaping hours to fill with finished material every day of the week. Say you’re […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Climate change legislation is making its way through Congress, but weirdly, that might not be good news. Some environmentalists are saying that in this case, no law might be better than this bill–that started out as a call to reduce carbon emissions but seems to be turning into something […]
During his regular review of scientific reporting for the Knight Science Journalism Tracker, Boyce Rensberger describes (5/7/09) how the “11-year (give or take) sunspot cycle, associated with a periodic reversal in the sunâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s magnetic poles” means that “the number of sunspots increases in the years just before a reversal.” But Rensberger notes that “Where are […]
New York Times editorialist Lawrence Downes (5/4/09) has some good questions about Pete Seeger‘s big 90th birthday party. The broadcast surely is bound to “be a PBS special made in pledge-week heaven,” but Downes has to “wonder, though, how many of the angry moments will survive”: Will we hear the Native American musicians pleading for […]
An April 24 New York Times op-ed from “Skeptical Environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg contends “that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a hopeless cause and that public money is better spent on research and development of renewable energy”–which Jonathan Hiskes of Grist calls (4/27/09) “a classic Lomborg argument–deliberately provocative and presenting several worthy goals as an either/or […]
Is it possible for the Washington Post to be embarrassed by George Will? After a series of erroneous claims in a column about climate change, Will is at it again today (4/2/09), laughing off the use of compact fluorescent lightbulbs as a poor fix for a nonexistent problem: Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, […]
