FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
From Rush Limbaugh to G. Gordon Liddy, commercial radio has long been a megaphone for right-wing talk-show hosts. And even NPR mostly mirrors mainstream news (Extra!, 4-5/93). But now some left/populist static for Limbaugh and his ilk is as close as your AM dial. We the People with Jerry Brown airs the renegade former California […]
The article “The ‘Stolen Feminism’ Hoax” in the September/October ’94 issue of Extra! misstated the number of seats on the National Council on the Humanities board. There are 26 seats on the board. President George Bush made eight appointments to the board, of whom three were members of the National Association of Scholars. The September/October […]
Several years ago, a Central America activist asked the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Who on his opinion page was the leftist who offset his regular offerings of George Will and Charles Krauthammer? David Broder, the editor replied. Broder himself would quite properly deny this designation of “leftist.” But it is true that in the […]
As this issue of Extra! reaches subscribers, Californians will be going to the polls, voting not only for political candidates but on a variety of ballot initiatives. One of these initiatives, Proposition 188, was placed on the ballot by a group with the healthy-sounding name of “Californians for Statewide Smoking Restrictions.” But don’t let the […]
General Electric‘s ownership of the NBC TV network has been in the news in recent months. As Extra! went to press, companies like Time Warner, Disney, ITT and Turner Broadcasting have reportedly been negotiating to either buy NBC outright or enter into some kind of partnership with GE. But a little-noted aspect of communications law […]
Editor’s Note: George Seldes is one of the premier journalists and press critics of the 20th Century. In his reporting on World War I, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Fascism and the Spanish Civil War, he always displayed a commitment to telling the whole truth — which often got him into trouble. From 1940 […]
“I, Rush Limbaugh, the poster boy of free speech, am being gang muzzled.” The broadcaster was crying censorship (Limbaugh Letter, 10/93) over congressional efforts in 1993 to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine — which he labeled “The Hush Rush Bill,” “The Get Limbaugh Act” and “The Rush Elimination Act of 1993.” Limbaugh’s daily on-air crusade generated […]
The August 21 Mexican elections, which the U.S. media have characterized as “generally fair and clean” (New York Times, 9/27/94) despite widespread protests to the contrary, have presented establishment media in the U.S. with a serious problem: how to make people believe that a ruling party, which could only win elections through massive fraud in […]
Both are nationally recognized. Both have written best sellers. Both are articulate and at the top of their fields. Which woman did PBS choose to host a show? Charlayne Hunter-Gault or Peggy Noonan One has 16 years of PBS experience. The other has no PBS experience. One is an award-winning journalist. The other is a […]
“The Cairo Conference will probably be remembered as the Great Abortion Showdown,” exclaimed a Wall Street Journal report (9/13/94) as the International Conference on Population and Development drew to a close this September. But whose fault is that? For all the “isn’t it a shame” tone of journalistic commentary, most of the mainstream media allowed […]
Fund-Raising Tall Tales “If you enjoyed Tales of the City and you’d like to see more programming like that, please become a member,” host Rafael PiRoman declared during a fund drive for New York PBS affiliate WNET (9/13/94). PiRoman didn’t mention that PBS, in the face of right-wing attacks, has refused to fund the sequel […]
It would be hard to imagine more inaccurate and biased economic reporting than the coverage of international trade issues. Those who get their information on trade issues solely from the major media outlets are almost certainly more misinformed and confused than those who never pay any attention to trade issues at all. This is not […]
The front page of the New York Times Week in Review section is a platform that both reflects and helps set the conventional wisdom. Michael Wines, one of the Times‘ top political reporters, used that space on September 11 to amplify the claims by “Mr. Clinton’s loyal critics in Congress and Democratic research circles…that only […]
“When I was growing up,” says Tara VanDerveer, “the only female athlete I remember reading about was Billie Jean King, but I kind of always felt that there would be something more, eventually, for women.” VanDerveer, 41, has been a basketball coach at Stanford for 10 years (winning two national championships), and before that she […]
As corporate concentration of media ownership has increased, the labor beat has all but disappeared in the U.S. press. Very few media outlets have a reporter dedicated to regularly covering workers’ issues, unions and the labor movement. When working people do find their way into mainstream news, it’s often in the form of “workplace” coverage […]
On June 12, the Washington Times ran an editorial noting that presidential elections had been scheduled to take place in Russia that day, but were in fact not going to be held. “So, the Russians will not be going to the polls today,” it began. “After the turmoil of the past year, it’s unlikely that […]
