FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
George W. Bush’s success in manipulating information would not have been possible without the collaboration and/or incompetence of the major U.S. news media. However, that cozy relationship began to shift in spring 2006 as the bloody war in Iraq dragged on and the U.S. public grew restless over the steady rise in the death toll. […]
“The science of DNA on Monday cleared the 200th person wrongfully convicted of a crime in the United States, a record that demands that the criminal justice system fix its serious flaws,” editorialized the Philadelphia Inquirer (4/25/07), after Jerry Miller of Illinois became an American exoneration milestone. As milestones often do, Miller’s exoneration gave the […]
A potential attack by Al-Qaeda, accompanied by red and orange shockwaves of terror, provided an urgent lead for Fox Special Report on July 26, 2007. The news? A claimed glitch in the program of electronic surveillance established for collecting foreign intelligence. The law needed an immediate “fix,” host Brit Hume said. “The nation’s intelligence chief […]
Historians analyzing the phases of the Iraq War might find one period particularly striking. The midterm elections of 2006 removed the Republican Party’s grip on Congress, and exit polls and political analysts agreed that the Iraq War was the principal cause for their defeat. And yet the public’s dissatisfaction produced, oddly enough, an escalation of […]
Imagine how the press corps would react if an important member of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team were indicted for selling crack. If the story were true, it would be bannered by major papers and network newscasts. If merely a rumor, it would likely begin life as a garish headline on, say, the Drudge Report before […]
The disastrous end to the Vietnam War served as a historical reference point for many pundits urging Democrats to forget pulling out of Iraq. But the history lesson was shaky. Presenting the congressional fight over war funding as indicative of “what will likely become post-Iraq politics in America,” ABC World News (4/26/07) reported that Republicans […]
The DDT Debate The quality of the science in Aaron Swartz’s article on DDT (Extra!, 9-10/07) is exceptionally poor. It suggests a lack of understanding of the issue. The inaccuracies are numerous; in fact, virtually every statement is at best slanted. For instance, “there is no global ban on DDT” is at best deliberately misleading. […]
The June 2007 Supreme Court decision sharply limiting the use of race in public school admissions was viewed with dismay by many educators, civil rights activists and others who support diversity in our nation’s public schools. As Ted Shaw, the director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, explained, “In the context of segregated […]
Does Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani have some dirt on the press corps? How else to explain the free pass journalists have repeatedly granted him on stories that would threaten to sink less-favored candidates, particularly of the Democratic variety? (See sidebar.) If Ronald Reagan was the “Teflon president” to whom no bad news would stick, […]
Transgender is hardly a new concept, but until recently it’s been considered by the media to be a topic for tabloid talkshows, not serious news programs. The tide is turning, though; as more and more public figures are coming out as having a gender identity different from their birth-assigned sex, and transgender characters are finding […]
Demonstrators Not Our Kind On NBC Nightly News (9/15/07), reporter Patty Culhane dismissed the September 15 anti-war protests, saying, “Some say demonstrations like this will have little effect.” “Some” turns out to be pollster Stuart Rothenberg, who said, “The kind of people who have impact are middle-class Americans, many of whom are inclined to support […]
