FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Over the weekend, the New York Times (3/18/12) published an article pondering why no one has taken Gloria Steinem’s place as ubiquitous spokesperson for women’s rights: Over the last 40 years, Gloria Steinem has almost always been at the other end of the phone when some member of the news media has sought comment about […]
As he loses advertisers by the handful over his comments about Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh’s supporters (there are a few!) and a few other commentators have found what I guess they believe is a good counter-argument: If you’re so offended by Limbaugh’s sexist, demeaning rants, they why are you silent about Bill Maher? Some see […]
There seems to be a popular line emerging in the Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke controversy that says his comments are especially harmful because they distract attention from the real issues. Kathleen Parker (Washington Post, 3/4/12): Inadvertently, Limbaugh also helped advance the argument from the left that Republicans are waging a war against women…. He has given […]
Rush Limbaugh’s attack on Georgetown student Sandra Fluke–calling her, among other things, a “slut” for advocating for contraceptives coverage–has caused some stirrings on the right that are worth looking at. One outcome is the idea that Limbaugh’s an outlier who sensible people repudiated. Kathleen Parker‘s Washington Post column on Saturday (3/2/12) cheered Limbaugh for uniting […]
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 […]
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 […]
More Bombs, Less Debate NBC correspondent Richard Engel (Meet the Press, 6/19/11), calling for more bombing in Libya and less democracy in the U.S.: I just came from Libya before I came here, and the fact of the matter is the war in Libya right now is not very serious, that NATO is not doing […]
Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is now speaking out publicly–weeks after press coverage took a turn against her, based on the notion that something about her made her allegations less credible. “Strauss-Kahn Prosecution Said to Be Near Collapse” was the July 1 New York Times headline. One of the strongest […]
MSNBC host Ed Schultz has been suspended without pay for a week for calling right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut” on his radio show. Schultz apologized on MSNBC last night, calling his words “terribly vile.” This is not a new thing at MSNBC. In 2006, Keith Olbermann did a bit about Paris Hilton being […]
Newsweek‘s cover story this week is on the plight of college-educated white men aged 35-64. The magazine laments that “this hitherto privileged demo isn’t just on its knees, it’s flat on on its face.” The subhead of the piece asks, “Can manhood survive the lost decade?” Now, I have much sympathy for all who are […]
ABC reporter Jonathan Karl clarifies the budget stalemate that nearly shut down the federal government (ABC World News, 4/7/11): KARL: And believe it or not, the issue of abortion could be what causes the government to shut down. GRAPHICS: DEMOCRATS CLAIM KARL: Democrats say Republicans are trying to use the funding bill to force new […]
I wrote a letter to the New York Times in 1991 after they ran a piece by Fox Butterfield (4/17/91) that invaded the privacy (literally peering into her daughter’s bedroom window) and scrutinized the personal life of a woman who accused a member of the Kennedy family of raping her. Clearly some people inside the […]
In late 2009 and early 2010, right-wing activist James O’Keefe concocted a story that got widespread media coverage. The tall tale went like this: O’Keefe and his associate went to offices affiliated with the community organizing group ACORN in order to solicit advice on running a brothel and evading taxes. The problem was that nothing […]
New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney has a long piece (10/29/10) about California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, the Republican candidate for Senate. Both are expected to lose on Tuesday, which leaves Nagourney wondering why women aren’t more eager to support female politicians. The piece poses a lot of big questions–the fact […]
You may remember James O’Keefe as the video hoaxter who fooled media into thinking ACORN gave tax advice to a man wearing a pimp costume (FAIR Action Alert, 3/11/10). Or as the miscreant whose attempts to interfere with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones got him arrested (Extra!, 4/10). Now O’Keefe has a new claim […]
There’s a push for the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act before Congress adjourns for the season, which has sparked some pushback from right-wingers given prominent platforms in the corporate media. The Act, which already passed the House, would help enforce and close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963; under the law, […]
A recent FAIR study (Extra!, 8/10) looked at politically themed books reviewed by the New York Times Book Review and the C-SPAN show After Words and concluded that both outlets heavily favored white male authors and reviewers. The Times came off particularly badly in the study, which revealed 95 percent of the U.S. authors reviewed, […]
The New York Times‘ Susan Dominus, writing an article (8/24/10) entirely about a congressional candidate’s footwear, makes an attempt at self-inoculation: I know. We, the news media, are not supposed to ask female candidates about their hairstyle or their choice of pantsuits over skirts or their shoes. It is irrelevant. It is trivializing. It is […]
As France’s lower house of parliament approved a ban on wearing full-face Islamic veils such as the burqa or niqab, many U.S. news outlets left out a key voice in their reports: the Muslim women in France who are actually affected by the ban. Several major outlets, including the New York Times (7/14/10), Washington Post […]
No, that’s not a typo: Only 1.6 percent of sports coverage on L.A.’s three major network affiliates went to women’s sports. On ESPN Sportscenter, it’s 1.4 percent. It’s just slightly higher when you add in ticker-tape coverage. And it’s getting worse, not better: Those numbers are down from about 5 percent in 1989. And a […]
