FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
One issue that comes up in much of the coverage of the Newtown massacre is the notion that the public’s view on gun control has shifted towards the “pro-gun” side in recent years. It’s important to look at that assumption.
The “Fast & Furious” scandal has been a staple of right-wing media, where it is either evidence of a White House dodging accountability (a legitimate argument) or a plot to create chaos in order to pass more stringent gun laws (a bizarre and nonsensical conspiracy theory). But a recent Fortune investigation (6/27/12) showed that the […]
If you’ve paid much attention to media reports about the “Fast and Furious” scandal, you may be under the impression that government agencies inexplicably allowed guns to be purchased in the United States and shipped across the border to drug lords in Mexico, where they ended up being connected to the December 2010 death of […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin011411 Chip Berlet and Ladd Everitt @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin011411.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: What do we know about alleged Tucson killer Jared Lee Loughner’s world view, which has been described as rambling, incoherent and non political in various news media reports? And what of the right-wing backlash attacking anyone who even suggests that vitriolic […]
Right-wing pundits have come out vociferously against the idea that they, their colleagues and the political movement they identify with have anything to answer for in the wake of the Tucson massacre. David Brooks (New York Times, 1/11/11) asserted that “the evidence before us suggests that [shooting suspect Jared] Loughner was locked in a world […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The release of tens of thousands of Afghan War documents by the organization WikiLeaks has met with some confusion in the media, who seem to want to downplay its importance but who also insist that WikiLeaks and its founder are dangerous and irresponsible. Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked The Pentagon […]
For Americans watching TV news, March began in typical fashion. When five people were shot on the first day of the month in a town near Pittsburgh, cable networks swiftly jumped into action. They devoted hour after hour to the tragedy — giving viewers plenty of live footage from helicopters, interviews with terrified eyewitnesses and […]
In June of 1999, two weeks after Rosie “The Queen of Nice” O’Donnell used her TV talk show to confront Tom “I’m the NRA” Selleck about gun violence, she was calling in to Larry King Live to promote gun control on CNN. Asked by King if she favored amending the Second Amendment to the Constitution, […]
On April 5, 1996, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed down its ruling in Hickman v. City of Los Angeles. Ray Hickman had argued that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave him a right to keep and bear firearms, and that this right was infringed by the city’s […]
