FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The latest segment to be made available online (7/7/09) from Robert Greenwald’s Rethink Afghanistan documentary features the president of the Global Fund for Women Kavita Ramdas challenging U.S. media tropes about improved women’s conditions since the U.S. invasion: “The perception of the women of Afghanistan having been severely oppressed only under the regime of […]
The Women’s Media Center has a new action (7/10/09) asking you to support “Media Justice for Sotomayor” against the fact that ,”since the announcement of [her] nomination to the Supreme Court, some in the media have engaged in sexist and racist attacks against her” which are “often packaged as ‘news’ and endlessly discussed in mainstream […]
Jennifer L. Pozner has a version of her new NPR commentary on the Women In Media & News website she founded (7/8/09), in which she asks you to “think carefully: Can you remember any passionate TV news debates about whether journalists or voters might want to get naked with former vice president Dick Cheney?” If […]
Sports media critic Dave Zirin has posted on his Edge of Sports blog (7/6/09) about Wimbledon tennis tournament host All England Club having “blithely admitted that for women players ‘physical attractiveness is taken into consideration’ when it comes to court assignments” and how “several players, including some of these ‘easy-on-the-eye unknowns,‘ were upset with the […]
Reading Caitlin Flanagan’s Time magazine cover story (7/2/09) on the “increasingly fragile construct” of marriage—which claims that “the divorce culture became a fact of life” over “the past 2½ decades”—one would never guess that U.S. divorce rates have actually dropped by almost a third since 1992, from 4.8 per thousand people to 3.5.
In Women In Media & News‘ announcement (6/18/09) that former FAIR staffer Jennifer Pozner has won a New Leaders Council “40 Under 40” Award–given to those “who exemplify the spirit of progressive political entrepreneurship”–Women’s Rights blogger Jennifer Nedeau spells out why “women in media are crucial to the future of progressive leadership”: Because they can […]
Blogging about a male-only film promotion contest at San Diego’s Comic-Con, Charlie Jane Anders (io9.com, 6/15/09) also notices the “L.A. Times published an insulting ‘guide for girls‘” about the convention–which starts out by assuring readers that contrary to what you might believe, the event “is not just for nerdy guys anymore. And it’s not all […]
Columnist Katha Pollitt (Nation, 6/10/09) has examined the extent to which, “in the immediate aftermath of Dr. Tiller’s murder, it was astonishing how many men were called upon to weigh in on abortion on national television”: CNN featured William Schneider, Sanjay Gupta and Bill Press. On Fox, Bill O’Reilly defended his use of “baby killer” […]
In wonderment that, as “Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is making the rounds of the Capitol this week,” corporate pundit “jackasses are still saying she has to explain her ‘wise Latina’ comment,” Laura Flanders (Women In Media & News, 6/4/09) remarks that “the money-media have spent the week making the comment ‘controversial’ (and then calling […]
In Tuesday’s New York Times online edition, the paper’s neo-neo-con columnist Ross Douthat laid out a sprawling argument that seemed to conclude that pro-choice activists and the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling were responsible for violence against women’s healthcare providers, including the murder of Dr. George Tiller last week. “If anything, by enshrining a […]
The website Gawker (6/9/09) caught Newsweek making some sneaky changes in an online article—changes that were ordered by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, and which just happened to favor the host of a show that Meacham appears on regularly. On the afternoon of Friday, June 5, Newsweek‘s website put up an interview with Joe Scarborough, the […]
Writing at Salon (5/31/09, ad-viewing required) on the murder of “Kansas doctor George Tiller, who was killed Sunday while attending church services with his wife,” Gabriel Winant wants us to know that there’s no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly […]
Attempting to add appropriate context to mainstream reportage of Sunday’s murder of Kansas doctor George Tiller, the Media Justice Fund blog has reprinted (6/1/09) an October 8, 2006, Women In Media & News post by Jennifer Pozner titled “The Terrorists Who Aren’t in the News: Anti-Abortion Fanatics Spread Fear by Bombings, Murders and Assaults, but […]
Claiming that he doesn’t “know at this point whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a good choice for Supreme Court justice or a bad one,” critic Dave Lindorff (ThisCantBeHappening.net, 5/28/09) does note that she “is a lousy judge for writers and other creative people” for ruling “that the [New York] Times and periodical publishers could reprint, […]
Charlie Savage did some good reporting on the Bush signing statements, but his front-page story in today’s New York Times on reproductive rights groups’ reaction to Sotomayor is way off course. His lead explains that abortion rights advocates are worried about Sotomayor, because “when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she […]
In a column on media treatment of Michelle Obama, Katha Pollitt (Nation, 4/20/09) points out this forehead-smacking quote from New York magazine’s David Samuels (3/15/09): There are clear limits to Michelle’s ambition. She went to excellent schools, got decent grades, stayed away from too much intellectual heavy lifting, and held a series of practical, modestly […]
Author and journalist Sheila Gibbons has some regrettably foreseeable news (Womens eNews, 3/30/09) on how female reporters who “worked hard to establish themselves in what had long been a male-dominated field” are faring in a time of massive media cutbacks and layoffs: By the end of 2009, a quarter of all the newsroom jobs that […]
Guest blogging at Women In Media & News (3/25/09), professors Jamii Claiborne and Susanne Gubanc write that, while most “mass media voices had good intentions” and “seemed genuine in their desire to make the alleged February domestic violence incident between the seemingly perfect young celebrity couple, singers Rihanna and Chris Brown, into a ‘teachable moment,’” […]
A new FAIR action alert calls on the Fox News Channel to answer for host Bill O’Reilly’s pattern of ambushing his critics. O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 3/23/08) recently targeted Think Progress blog editor Amanda Terkel while she was on vacation, sending his producer Jesse Watters to confront Terkel in one of the ambush-style interviews that he […]
Last night (3/23/08) Bill O’Reilly aired the results of his stalking expedition against Think Progress blogger Amanda Terkel, who had dared to question (3/1/09) the appropriateness of O’Reilly speaking at a fundraiser for a foundation for rape survivors in light of his suggestion (Radio Factor, 8/2/06) that a “moronic” rape/murder victim had invited assault by […]
