FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Heard the one about the $16 government muffin? That story originated with a Justice Department inspector general report that claimed $16 muffins were served at a conference for immigration judges and attorneys. That was reported on the front pages of the September 21 Washington Post. But the story fell apart in a matter of days, […]
Today the New York Times (4/3/12) has a long report detailing how the Obama White House has politicized the regulatory process, apparently partly out of a fear of being portrayed by Republicans as “an overzealous and job-killing regulator.” It’s an interesting piece, covering an array of regulatory decisions. One of the more interesting media anecdotes […]
Remember when the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama was going to usher in a new “post-racial” era in American politics? It was obvious at the time that that was a pipe dream, but it’s remarkable how much the U.S. discourse on race has actually gone backward–as illustrated by Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera’s comments on […]
Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh used to tell his listeners that the government was trying to silence him, based on a completely bogus tale about what the Fairness Doctrine would do. This time around, it’s an ad campaign by the liberal group Media Matters for America directed at some of the stations that air Limbaugh’s show. […]
Newspaper columnists often seem to get to write what they want. So it’s interesting when two of them are writing about the same thing on the same day—and arriving at the opposite conclusion. In the Washington Post (3/23/12) , conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote this about the Affordable Care Act’s costs, as tallied by the […]
From Politico (3/20/12): David Gregory, host of NBC‘s Meet the Press, and Bret Baier, host of Fox News‘s Special Report, are among the latest applicants to the Chevy Chase Club, the historic social club that has catered to Washington’s wealthiest for over a century. The Club’s recent “Membership Report” shows that both Gregory and Baier […]
Last night Fox‘s Bill O’Reilly (3/1/12) asked guest Tamara Draut from the think tank Demos to name just one green energy success story. She tried to resist the question, explaining that in some cases, the benefits of government funding can come much later. Like, she mentioned, what happened with the Internet. But O’Reilly wasn’t going […]
Liz Trotta, a Fox News contributor and former Washington Times editor, drew attention this week (2/12/12) when she suggested that women serving in the U.S. military should expect to be sexually assaulted by their male counterparts: But while all of this is going on, just a few weeks ago, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented on […]
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly celebrated the release of the White House budget by demonstrating on last night’s program (2/13/12) that there are a lot of things doesn’t understand. Or at least pretends not to understand. He started by making the same point many others in the press have seized on: Obama promised to cut […]
It was inevitable that Fox host Bill O’Reilly would weigh in on the Planned Parenthood/Komen Foundation controversy. And perhaps just as inevitable that he’d mangle the facts along the way. Here he is, on Friday night (2/3/12): Last year the Komen Foundation gave Planned Parenthood $680,000. Now, that is the source of controversy because as […]
Mitt Romney might need some help defending his considerable wealth or controversial career in private equity. But he doesn’t need the kind of help Bill O’Reilly is offering. Mitt Romney’s declaration that he pays about a 15 percent tax rate on his income has generated plenty of chatter, in part because it confirms that much […]
In its new issue, Newsweek puts this as #4 on their list of “31 Ways To Get Smarter In 2012”: 4. Get News from Al Jazeera Don’t shut yourself out from new ideas. A 2009 study found that viewers of Al Jazeera English were more open-minded than people who got their news from CNN International […]
Sean Hannity got his start in radio on UC Santa Barbara’s KCSB in the late 1980s, where he got in trouble for promoting homophobia and disinformation about HIV and AIDS. I wrote about this in a 2003 Extra! profile of the then-Fox News show Hannity & Colmes: After airing for less than a year, Hannity’s […]
The Monday broadcast of CBS Evening News (12/19/11) began with big news, with anchor Scott Pelley announcing: The secretary of Defense says tonight that the United States will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. In an interview with CBS News, Leon Panetta says that despite efforts to disrupt their nuclear program, the Iranians […]
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly claims he was accosted by a “screaming” man “armed with a cell phone camera” on December 7 while walking to a media party at the White House in Washington, D.C. On his show the next night (O’Reilly Factor, 12/8/11), O’Reilly explained, I told the guy to get lost, but he […]
Is Fox News Channel going soft? In an election year? Some media figures seem to think the hard-right channel is going to the “middle,” but this seems to be a figment of the centrist imagination. New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman has a short piece trying to make this case. His first bit of evidence is […]
Conservative David Frum writes in the new issue of New York: Back in 2009, I wrote a piece for Newsweek arguing that Republicans would regret conceding so much power to Rush Limbaugh. Until that point, I’d been a frequent guest on Fox News, but thenceforward some kind of fatwa was laid down upon me. Over […]
Just because he wears cowboy boots and drops his G’s doesn’t mean he’s a dummy. Perry may be a small-town boy who went to an ag school (Texas A&M University), but he’s an extremely cagey and strategic politician who has been among the state’s most successful governors at getting what he wants. Put another way: […]
On his Friday night show, Bill O’Reilly took his viewers to a magical place–one where the right-wing Koch brothers have no connection to the Tea Party movement, while Occupy Wall Street is a secret project directed and financed by the likes of Moveon.org, SEIU and George Soros. At the top of his broadcast, O’Reilly wondered […]
The country is on the brink of bankruptcy, Fox host Bill O’Reilly warned last night—all because Barack Obama is spending too much money. Drastic cuts are required, but “the far-left loons want to spend more.” And he’s got the number to prove it: In 2007, during the Bush administration, federal deficit spending was $161 billion, […]
