FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Private corporations care very much about the content of the news they sponsor or, as outlet owners, produce—that it not be too downbeat, or provide a platform for anyone asking hard questions about corporate America.
It’s a fair indication of the current state of play in U.S. media that, in 2012, TV newscasts were acknowledged to be “increasingly seeded with corporate advertising masquerading as news” (Washington Post, 1/3/12)—and the regulatory response was to call, not for an end to the practice of deceiving audiences, but for broadcasters to make note […]
At a mandatory-attendance office party celebrating his first year as publisher, the Daytona Beach News Journal’s Michael Redding announced a new idea over marble cake and fruit: The paper’s newsroom staff, including reporters and editors, should also start selling advertising and subscriptions (Flagler Live, 3/31/11). Redding offered incentives to staffers who haven’t had a raise […]
U.S. media consumers are used to magazines where ads outnumber stories, to on-air hosts who contractually consume brand-name drinks, to “consideration provided by” this and “brought to you by” that. But when it comes to the news, many still maintain at least the kernel of expectation that reports in the paper or on TV have […]
By now, the structural deficiencies in a corporate media system heavily dependent on commercial advertising and controlled by sprawling conglomerates should be obvious. Dramatic reductions in advertising and subscription revenue in recent years mean news outlets are even less likely to push back against commercial intrusions in the functioning of the newsroom. Journalists trying to […]
Note: This article is a sidebar to “Fear & Favor 2008.” From time to time we get a peek behind the corporate media curtain, thanks to anecdotes shared by those in a position to know how the news business works. Some are remarkably candid, if lacking in specifics—as when former CBS anchor Dan Rather declared […]
The broad downturn in the U.S. economy has hit the media industry especially hard, as corporate owners who gambled on debt-financed expansions have seen their business models head south on the back of shrinking subscription and advertising revenue. In any economic climate, there are pressures on working journalists, but the current problems in the industry […]
U.S. journalists seeking to fulfill the profession’s traditional goal of telling the truth and “letting the chips fall where they may” have powerful forces to contend with, starting with the corporate owners who employ them, and the corporate advertisers who fuel the enterprise, both of whom have an investment in maintaining a political conversation and […]
“Fear and favor” describes the various pushes and pulls on journalists to use something other than journalistic values in producing the news. The intense corporatization of media makes the precise contours of such compromise difficult to trace. Pressure to cut costs and please financially powerful players is, as it were, “in the air” in corporate […]
In 1896, New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs laid out standards by which journalism is still judged today, declaring that his paper would “give the news, all the news . . . impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interest involved.” Unfortunately, mainstream media often fail to live up to that goal; […]
“We can get five reporters a month to do news stories about your product. If you want to be interviewed by 10 to 20 reporters per month, we can arrange that, too. . . . Media Relations, Inc. has placed tens of thousands of news stories on behalf of more than 1,000 clients.—Media Relations, Inc. […]
Introduction It’s no secret that advertisers, media owners and powerful political figures pressure journalists to ignore critical stories or sing the praises of a corporate pet project. With diminished journalistic resources available due to corporate cost-cutting in the media industry, news outlets often put commercial or political priorities ahead of journalistic ones. Each year, FAIR […]
(NOTE: Please read the update to this alert.) Journalist Christian Parenti was invited to talk about Iraq on the March 2 broadcast of PBS‘s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. But Parenti’s criticism of the reconstruction contracts granted to corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel apparently crossed a line for the program’s host. According to a report by […]
Introduction It would be hard to overstate the impact of news media in shaping public opinion, on issues from healthcare to plans for war. With media such an influence on us, it’s crucial that we understand who’s influencing media. FAIR’s annual Fear & Favor report is an attempt to chart some of the pressures that […]
Introduction Fear & Favor is FAIR’s annual review of incidents that reflect the range of pressures on reporters to use something other than journalistic judgment in deciding what goes in the news and what gets left out. The year 2001 presented special challenges in this regard. The horrific September 11 attacks on the World Trade […]
Introduction Surveys of working journalists have found that they experience pressure from powerful interests, outside and inside the news business, to push some stories and ignore others, and to shape or slant news content. The sources of pressure include the government, which enlists media to support its actions and policies; corporate advertisers who may demand […]
