FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Right-wing pressure played a major role in prompting PBS to review its programing policies. The heat came from extremist groups such as AIM and from the Reaganite-dominated Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which had threatened its own investigation of PBS program content. In support of independence for public television, FAIR executive director Jeff Cohen addressed the […]
On March 11, NBC News broadcast a documentary, Nuclear Power: In France It Works, that could have passed for a lengthy nuclear power commercial. Missing from anchorman Tom Brokaw’s introduction was the fact that NBC’s owner, General Electric, is America’s second-largest nuclear power salesman and third-largest producer of nuclear weapons systems. The NBC News crew […]
FAIR: How would you compare Watergate and Contragate and the role of the media in each scandal? HERSH: If you consider Nixon’s first term there’s an obvious analogy with the first six years of the Reagan administration. Nixon was able to bomb Cambodia relentlessly for 14 months. He wiretapped 17 American citizens, including Marvin Kalb, […]
Since 1985, reports linking Contra arms suppliers to cocaine smuggling have run in progressive publications and a few mainstream outlets. But CBS West 57th’s well-documented segment on the CIA/Contra drug connection (4/6/87) was the first serious network probe.
In 1982, when I completed research for my book, The Media Monopoly, 50 corporations controlled half or more of the media business. The last time I counted, it was down to 26.
FAIR is a media watch organization offering constructive criticism in an effort to correct media imbalance. We advocate for media access on behalf of those constituencies in our society that do not have the wealth to purchase their own TV stations or daily newspapers. We scrutinize media practices that slight public interest, peace and minority […]
