FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
It’s no secret that U.S. media outlets–particularly television news shows–did not devote anywhere near the same attention to civilian casualties and suffering in the Iraq war that overseas outlets did. But the nuances of how U.S. media framed war’s impact on civilians are worth a closer look. Generally, the problem was not a total blackout […]
Boston Herald correspondent Jules Crittenden, who covered the Iraq War as an embedded journalist, is a writer whose blunt prose deals in absolutes: good vs. evil, life and death. But there’s one dichotomy that Crittenden doesn’t draw so clearly: reporter vs. participant. Frequently drawing comparisons between “embeds” such as himself and the troops with whom […]
If the media seem surprised by the U.S. military’s failure, as of this writing, to find any hidden chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, maybe it’s because they virtually ignored a critical story that was lost in a flood of stories about the dangers of a chemically armed Saddam Hussein. Weeks before the war began […]
In the following quotes, well-known cable news hosts express anti-war feelings to hawkish guests. Can you guess which quote is “anti-American”? * “Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?” * “We’re sending 250,000 of our […]
The media build-up to war presented a military attack on Iraq as an overwhelming natural force whose momentum could not be stopped. “The clock is ticking,” NPR reported in early March (3/8/03), with soldiers in Kuwait complaining that there was “too much waiting around.” Military preparations were like a “huge gun and every day you […]
We hope you depend on us for the truth, because we’re going to report the situation in Iraq without an agenda or any ideological prejudice. —Bill O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 1/17/03) Not so long ago, Bill O’Reilly had no particular interest in the threat Iraq posed to the world (2/16/01): “You know, I don’t take Saddam […]
Senior Pentagon adviser Richard Perle abruptly announced his resignation on March 27 as chair of the Defense Policy Board, an influential Pentagon advisory panel. Not coincidentally, Perle had shortly before his resignation described the respected journalist Seymour Hersh as a “terrorist,” and threatened to sue Hersh for libel in Britain. Pulitzer-winner Hersh’s report in the […]
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that bureaucrats and politicians exaggerate their accomplishments; news media exist, in part, to check government claims against reality. But when reporters don’t bother to look for answers beyond the press conference, they can turn an official fiction into a documented “fact.” Perhaps the most significant embellishment repeated over the past couple […]
Since the invasion of Iraq began in March, official voices have dominated U.S. network newscasts, while opponents of the war have been notably underrepresented, according to a study by FAIR. Starting the day after the bombing of Iraq began on March 19, the three-week study (3/20/03-4/9/03) looked at 1,617 on-camera sources appearing in stories about […]
