On Iran Policy, America Is Not ‘the World’
When reporters talk about what “the world” thinks about Iran, they really just mean the United States.
When ‘Confirmed’ Means ‘An Official Told Me So’
NBC’s Richard Engel report that “what we’ve been able to confirm” is that a Syrian convoy attacked by Israel “was packed with fairly sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missiles.” It is highly doubtful that Engel could “confirm” any such thing–unless by “confirm” he means that NBC is confirming that government sources are claiming what they are claiming.
Iran’s ‘Nuclear Weapons Program,’ Again
On Monday’s edition of the NewsHour (1/28/13), host Gwen Ifill referred to concerns about the “threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program,” and told viewers that a story “looks at the debate in Israel over how to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.” How hard is it for NewsHour to understand that allegations are not facts?
PBS and the Poor Pentagon
When the PBS NewsHour took a look at military spending cuts, the segment unfortunately presented a very narrow view of the issue–one that mimics the kind of coverage we see elsewhere in the corporate media.
Debating the Big Issues, NewsHour Style
One of the most common criticisms of the PBS NewsHour is that it too often mimics the elite bias of the commercial media. A recent broadcast of the NewsHour (6/8/11) had two segments about the debate over the Afghan War–the first a news report covering the Senate nomination hearings for Ryan Crocker, Obama’s nominee to […]
Public TV and Libya: Govt. Officials, Current and Former
Last night (3/24/11) Jim Lehrer introduced a NewsHour discussion segment about the Libya War: Now, how it looks to two former U.S. senators, Democrat Gary Hart of Colorado and Republican Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Senator Hart is now a scholar in residence at the University of Colorado and chair of the Defense Department’s Threat Reduction […]
NewsHour’s Tax Cuts Series Off to a Bad Start
On Wednesday night’s broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (9/23/10), Gwen Ifill announced: “Now to the first of several conversations on whether or not to extend tax cuts that expire at the end of the year.” The first guest was Republican Glenn Hubbard, who Ifill told viewers “was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers […]
When the Umpire Won’t Call Balls or Strikes
There was something depressing about a recent discussion on the PBS NewsHour Monday night (9/13/10) about the debate over what to do with the Bush-era tax cuts. The politics of the tax debate is well-known; most Democrats want to extend them for all but the top brackets, while the Republicans want to renew the cuts […]
NewsHour Poses a Moral Conundrum
PBS‘s NewsHour‘s Gwen Ifill (9/15/09), quizzing Richard Goldstone on his U.N. fact-finding mission that found that both Israel and Palestinian fighters had committed war crimes in the Gaza conflict: The term “even-handed” is the problem that Israel has with the conclusions in the report. Your criticism of Israel seems so much harsher than that of […]
PBS’s ‘Washington Bubble’ Invisible to Inhabitants
Noticing how PBS‘s Gwen Ifill has a penchant for “filling her Washington Week program with journalists who almost invariably agree with each other instead of actually debating the issues of the week,” critic Charles Kaiser decided to contact her (CJR.org, 5/8/09) about a recent “discussion of torture in which the only issue the panelists identified […]
