FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Coverage of Amtrak contains two surprises: the details reported about the 31-year-old railroad, and the details that aren’t reported about its competition. Despite the introduction of successful high-speed trains in the Northeast, as well as increased ridership both before and after September 11’s airborne attacks, coverage of Amtrak is surprisingly negative. “You don’t read much […]
The seemingly endless volleys of attack and retaliation in the Middle East leave many people wondering why the two sides can’t reach an agreement. The answer is simple, according to numerous commentators: At the Camp David meeting in July 2000, Israel “offered extraordinary concessions” (Michael Kelly, Washington Post, 3/13/02), “far-reaching concessions” (Boston Globe, 12/30/01), “unprecedented […]
Television networks are abandoning their responsibility to provide educational children’s programming—one of a dwindling few public interest obligations that remain for commercial broadcasters. One after another, major networks have said they are unhappy with the profit they’re making on kids TV, so they’re quitting. As outlined in the 1990 Children’s Television Act, and detailed in […]
Few episodes in American history attracted more conspiracy theories than the Oklahoma bombing case. The idea that Iraq was actually involved with the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City is a theory long ago dismissed–for good reasons. Sadly, after the attacks of 9-11, it reemerged with a vengeance. “A few top Defense officials think Oklahoma City […]
If the Bush administration lets large media conglomerates and local telephone companies have their way, the Internet as we know it—that free-flowing, democratic, uncensored information superhighway—could soon be a thing of the past. The Internet itself is not going away. Rather, technological advances, changes to the rules governing its use and the continued consolidation of […]
It is routine to present the stock market’s performance as a measure of the economy’s health: When it goes up, this is routinely reported as good news, whereas a drop is presumed to be grounds for concern about the strength of the economy. “Here at home some good news from Wall Street today,” Tom Brokaw […]
If you followed mainstream U.S. news coverage of the recent coup in Venezuela, you probably know that people were killed during the April 11 demonstrations against President Hugo Chavez. You also heard those killings cited as a justification for removing Chavez from office. But if you relied on the New York Times for news, you […]
Good evening, I’m Congressman Bernie Sanders and I want to welcome you to what I believe is the first congressional town meeting ever organized to address the issue of corporate control of the media. Thus began the first of two public town meetings in late April 2002, where US Rep. Bernie Sanders (Vt.–Ind.) did what […]
