FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In a one-hour ABC News special titled “Is America #1?,” 20/20 correspondent John Stossel compared the economies of Hong Kong, the United States and India in an attempt to show that laissez-faire economic policy is “what makes a country work well for its people.” The program was filled with so many factual inaccuracies, Limbaughesque distortions […]
A front-page New York Times article (9/12/99) about the precarious situation in East Timor in September began by reporting that Gen. Wiranto, Indonesia’s top military commander, “conceded Saturday that he had lost control of elements of his military” that were operating on the island. The article’s headline, “Jakarta Concedes a Loss of Control,” echoed this […]
The reality of global warming and climate change are setting in, but major U.S. media outlets have thus far failed to examine the implications of what will be perhaps the most important issue of coming decades. It is not that no coverage occurs. But it is fragmented and confusing. Media cite bits and pieces of […]
Recent media responses to a Department of Justice (DOJ) study on domestic violence raise an interesting question: What makes some DOJ studies less “scientific” than others? How can the same agency at times be a bastion of impartial science, and at others be a purveyor of questionable, ideology-driven data? The answer can be found not […]
A decade after writing The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Michael Fumento of the Hudson Institute continues to minimize and skew the AIDS crisis. Fumento is a virtual poster child for what right-wing institutions can foster: Prior to joining Hudson, he’s had stints at the American Enterprise Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was legal […]
After the bombing of Yugoslavia, the U.S. media held up the safe return of Albanian refugees as proof of the success—and righteousness—of NATO’s war. How the bombing had affected the region’s chances for long-term stability was rarely discussed. The important thing, according to most mainstream pundits, was that the “Western world” had shown it wouldn’t […]
In the 1930s, legendary hockey owner Conn Smythe was displeased by newspaper coverage of his Toronto Maple Leafs. Smythe’s solution: He approached Toronto Star publisher Joe Atkinson with a promise to take out $20,000 in advertising annually. In exchange, Atkinson would raise his hockey writers’ salaries by $20,000 — as a reward for more “honest” […]
