FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Democracy in America is a strange thing. Campaigns focus on trivialities, while the big issues–especially those involving lots of money–are decided by elites and presented to the public as faits accomplis. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the “debate” over Social Security reform. I’ve written here before (7-8/95) about the dubious predictions of the […]
The media have been duped by a clever campaign whose intention is to get rid of those nasty Social Security programs.
You don’t get product ads unless you praise the product. –Gloria Steinem, founding editor of Ms. In his book Adverse Reactions, Thomas Maeder recalls the philosophy of Harry Loynd, an old-time president of Parke-Davis who was legendarily blunt. Loynd’s oft-repeated motto was “Pills are to sell, not to take.” He regarded physicians as extremely gullible, […]
Not too long ago, it was often said that Social Security was the third rail of politics: Touch it and you die. Nowadays, Social Security is beginning to look more like a piñata for Wall Street interests: Bash it hard enough and a bounty of lucre falls into your lap. This transformation would never have […]
The rescue of Social Security has been a staple of American journalism for 20 years now—a story all the more remarkable in that Social Security has never been in peril except from its rescuers. The rescues have all been based on faulty arithmetic. First, in 1977, the rescuers humbly confessed that they had made a […]
A daily misdemeanor of our media is their election of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) as the voice of the nation’s elderly. A quick visit to any good newspaper morgue would reveal that this is a fiction. AARP was exposed by Consumer Reports in 1976 (1/76) and by 60 Minutes in 1978 (5/14/78) […]
Where does the man find the time to earn all that money? You can’t turn on the tube but there’s Peter G. Peterson, telling some awestruck talking head that Social Security and Medicare are gobbling up our kiddies’ porridge. Or he’s writing it on your favorite op-ed page, or in magazines, or relaying the message […]
