FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Noting that “Republicans and their adjunct outlets have been touting one specific lie above all others lately”–that of a fictitious “$8 billion earmark in the stimulus package to build a high-speed rail connector between Las Vegas and Disneyland”–Political Animal blogger Steve Benen reports (WashingtonMonthly.com, 3/3/09) that “yesterday, Fox News gave the story a twist, changing […]
Bill O’Reilly explainsthe diversity of viewpointsavailable on the Fox News Channel (2/27/09): The Fox News Channel features a variety of opinions. We parade in scores of guests each week with all kinds of views. Glenn Beck believes the nation is in crisis. Alan Colmes believes Obama could be the next FDR. Sean Hannity believes the […]
Keeping tabs on the “Fair and Balanced” network, Mark Howard (News Corpse, 3/2/09) details how last year, prior to the election, Fox News was already fortifying its right flank. New multimillion dollar contracts were handed out to Roger Ailes, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Hannity’s show shed the dead weight of alleged liberal Alan Colmes. […]
Immigrant rights advocate and independent journalist Roberto Lovato is worried (Huffington Post, 2/26/09) that Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Department Detective Aaron Douglas “deals with the world’s media more than most” when flacking for Joe Arpaio–“America’s Toughest Sheriff”–“Though he is a local official, his is often the first voice heard by many of the foreign correspondents […]
Sean Hannity is a great American. You can hear it every day on his national radio show, where the standard caller greeting to the host is, “Sean, you’re a great American!” The catchphrase is so well-known, it’s been commercialized! And who is more patriotic than Hannity, who uses his daily radio and Fox News Channel […]
The February 18 Democracy Now! segment on Fox reality TV star Sheriff Joe Arpaio features Arizona’s East Valley Tribune reporter Ryan Gabrielson telling Amy Goodman exactly how Arpaio’s officers went to the homes of the two publishers for Phoenix New Times, which—there was an investigation being conducted into a case where New Times published Joe […]
Noting that “news organizations often encourage their journalists to appear on other platforms for promotional purposes,” former TVNewser Brian Stelter reports (New York Times, 2/15/09) that, “when the National Public Radio analyst Juan Williams speaks on the Fox News Channel‘s highest-rated program, the radio network doesn’t want any attention”: Mr. Williams, a longtime political analyst […]
Media Matters writer Eric H. Hananok notices (2/10/09) something fishy about an airing of the Fox News show Happening Now in which host Jon Scott introduced an overview of the government stimulus bill’s development thus: “We thought we’d take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, […]
After President Obama’s press conference last night, Fox host Bill O’Reilly saw one to scorepoints against the White House–by mocking Obama forrelying ona list of pre-approved journalists when he took questions. Unfortunately for O’Reilly, his guest at the time was former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who had to point out that this was… well, […]
The folks at Think Progress recently brought us “a report showing that, in the debate over the House economic recovery bill on the five cable news networks, Republican members of Congress outnumbered their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of 2 to 1.” Now that the legislation “passed the House last week with zero Republican votes, […]
We noted recently Fox News‘ peculiar understanding of the Fair Use doctrine, which allows writers, artists and others to make reasonable use of copyrighted material so long as they don’t infringe on the copyright owners’ commercial rights; Fox interprets this to mean that critics should only be allowed to make use of Fox video if […]
In a top-of-the-show rant about the dangers of the Guantanamo detainees, Fox‘s Bill O’Reilly declared (1/25/09): Just hours after President Obama announced he was going to shut down Guantanamo Bay, the feds confirmed that a released Gitmo inmate, 35-year-old Sahid al-Shahiri, had resumed terrorist activities in Yemen. Now if this isn’t a warning, ladies and […]
Two things strike me about this appearance by Alan Colmes on the Colbert Report: One, the fact that he would take part with good humor in a humiliating joke that’s on him illustrates why he was the perfect person to play the role of the Liberal To Be Named Later. Second, it’s remarkable that even […]
New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg tells (12/5/08) of being targeted by Fox‘s Bill O’Reilly for connecting Newt Gingrich to “anti-gay bigotry.” O’Reilly’s grievance against Hertzberg sparks from this passage in the writer’s December 1 New Yorker piece: Like a polluted swamp, anti-gay bigotry is likely to get thicker and more toxic as it dries up. […]
At a screening of the film Frost/Nixon, Fox News Channel‘s Chris Wallace defends George W. Bush against the assertion—which doesn’t seem to have been made by anyone present—that Bush’s crimes were worse than Richard Nixon’s (Salon, 12/2/08): It trivializes Nixon’s crimes and completely misrepresents what George W. Bush did. Whatever George W. Bush did was […]
Commenter milo janus reacts to a Michael Calderone Politico.com piece (11/24/08) on Alan Colmes’ arguably inconsequential departure from Fox News‘ long-running Hannity & Colmes: Word had it some years ago that Jeff Cohen, founder of the liberal media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (who was also producer of the Donahue show on MSNBC […]
The announcement that Alan Colmes is leaving Fox News Channel‘s Hannity & Colmes show, where he serves as co-host to Sean Hannity, raises the pressing question: Will anyone notice? Fox News executives have long represented the show as an evenhanded nightly debate. Yet a reviewer in Britain’s Sunday Business Post (8/24/03) perhaps summarized the peculiarity […]
Glenn Beck has been telling a personal story illustrating what he says is a particularly intense level of hatred on the left. According to the newly signed Fox News host, he was verbally assaulted by a truck driver while standing in line at a Wendy’s restaurant at a truck stop. Writing on his blog, Beck […]
On Fox News Sunday (11/16/08), NPR reporter Mara Liasson offered her take (which was essentially the same as neo-con co-panelist Bill Kristol) on why picking Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State would be good for Barack Obama: In terms of Obama, I think he wants–it would send a lot of important signals. Number one, she […]
Interesting catch by digby from Broadcasting & Cable (11/10/08), which was talking to Fox News chief Roger Ailes about what happens to Fox‘s ratings post-election: “I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama,” says Ailes. But he sees light at the end of the tunnel: Historically, the dawning of […]
