FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In the weeks leading up to the November 2 election, the New York Times was abuzz with excitement. Besides the election itself, the paper’s reporters were hard at work on two hot investigative projects, each of which could have a major impact on the outcome of the tight presidential race. One week before Election […]
A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a…frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others…. It is the right […]
Audience Member: I was wondering if you felt there was a difference between balanced reporting and objective reporting? And the thing that kind of sticks in my mind frequently is when President Bush on the stump would frequently pull out the “global test” that John Kerry mentioned in the debate, but he would completely twist […]
In the run-up to the pivotal 2004 presidential election, reports of an unprecedented flood of new voter registrations (especially in electoral vote-rich swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania) filled papers and newscasts in local media and the national mainstream press. But looming over this exercise in democracy was the shadow of the disputed 2000 […]
Media have a funny way of rewriting the history of presidential debates. After the first debate in 2000, all five network polls that night showed most viewers agreeing that Vice President Al Gore had beaten George W. Bush (Daily Howler, 8/19/04). But as the debate worked its way through the media echo chamber, the outcome […]
The Tolerance Controversy At first it sounded like a bad joke, but it turned out to be true: CBS and NBC both rejected an ad from the United Church of Christ because they deemed the ad’s message of tolerance “too controversial.” The ad emphasized that the church welcomes everyone, regardless of ability, age, race, economic […]
An Apparent Inconsistency I know in these dangerous times it’s best to keep one’s head down and not pay too much attention, and better still to keep quiet if by chance one should happen to notice anything interesting or unusual. Most important of all, of course, no matter what one might observe, is not to […]
George W. Bush has announced that Social Security privatization will be one of the top priorities in his second term. Luckily for him, much of the media have already bought into the key premise on which his policy is based: the erroneous notion that Social Security is about to go bust. Scaring the public about […]
