FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
When people think of the most environmentally devastating industries, the print media may not come immediately to mind. But unfortunately for everyone who gets their news this way, the cost of the morning paper that lands on our stoop—and even the magazine you are now reading—may include “denuded landscapes, toxic rivers, foul air, bulging landfills […]
Booknotes is an entertaining program on the C-SPAN cable network. Hosted by general manager Brian Lamb, the show features hour-long author interviews every Sunday evening. Lamb is an intelligent interviewer, choosing guests who have written informative, politically interesting non-fiction and presenting them in a conversational, audience-friendly format. Unhappily, Booknotes also displays a pronounced conservative bias […]
The success of the Washington, D.C. demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank can be measured in part by how well activists communicated their message to the general public. Without a doubt, the Mobilization for Global Justice succeeded in intensifying the national debate on globalization. This April, mainstream media featured a more sustained and substantive […]
Commercial talk radio, like television punditry, is politically lopsided, dominated by the likes of Dr. Laura Schlesinger and Rush Limbaugh. The airspace for voices that tackle political issues from a progressive perspective even seems to be shrinking; two progressive shows–Pat Thurston of Santa Rosa, Calif., and Chicago’s Mike Malloy–were canceled earlier this year. The February […]
National Desk continues to feature undisclosed relationships between funders and sources, one-sided advocacy packaged as balanced journalism, and serious factual errors.
A funny thing happened on the way to the PBS National Desk episode “Education: A Public Right Gone Wrong”: After inviting more than three dozen free-market enthusiasts, the production crew seems to have run out of invitations. The show’s version of investigative reporting is to pit 38 conservative foundation wonks, for-profit and religious school employees, […]
The dominance of right-wing think tanks and policy analysts in the media is a quantifiable fact. (See Extra!, 5-6/00.) But how does this happen, and what are the consequences? Those questions are explored by Trudy Lieberman in Slanting the Story: The Forces that Shape the News (New Press). Lieberman, the director of the Center for […]
If any groups deserve high marks, they are the disciplined men and women of the Metropolitan Police Department. . . . The city should be grateful for the professional manner in which they handled the week-long protests. — “Hail to the Chief—and His Cops,” Washington Post editorial (4/19/00) Police sought to create an atmosphere of […]
