FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
A decade after writing The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Michael Fumento of the Hudson Institute continues to minimize and skew the AIDS crisis. Fumento is a virtual poster child for what right-wing institutions can foster: Prior to joining Hudson, he’s had stints at the American Enterprise Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was legal […]
ABC’s John Stossel‘s recent 20/20 report (10/11/99), “Lobbying for Lives,” presented a simplistic look at a very complicated matter– the allocation of medical research dollars by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The show’s basic premise is that Beltway politicking controls which diseases receive funding; Stossel states early on in the segment that “Congress makes […]
June 16, 1999, Carthage, Tennessee. Vice President Al Gore has just held his presidential campaign launch rally, and CNN goes live to on-scene reporter Jeanne Meserve, who begins: Bill, as you know, these political events are very carefully choreographed, and the Gore campaign cannot be happy about the fact that heckling broke out at the […]
You don’t get product ads unless you praise the product. –Gloria Steinem, founding editor of Ms. In his book Adverse Reactions, Thomas Maeder recalls the philosophy of Harry Loynd, an old-time president of Parke-Davis who was legendarily blunt. Loynd’s oft-repeated motto was “Pills are to sell, not to take.” He regarded physicians as extremely gullible, […]
On ABC‘s Nightline, from July 1993 until the November 1994 election, there were only two mentions of the Canadian single-payer healthcare system: On a March 1994 show, an insurance representative made dire, unsupported predictions that with single-payer “there will definitely be limitations on your selection options in your future.” On a September 1993 broadcast that […]
From dioxin to Whitewater, from Rodney King to Reaganomics, Rush Limbaugh has a finely honed ability to twist and distort reality.
Listeners to National Public Radio‘s Morning Edition are familiar with two regular pundits–former U.S. Representatives Tom Downey (D.-N.Y.) and Vin Weber (R.-Minn.)–who are supposed to give contrasting viewpoints on congressional events. But on the healthcare issue, NPR‘s point-counterpoint team are working for the same side–the side of the health insurance industry and healthcare companies who […]
Journalists pride themselves on presenting “both sides” of a story. But if establishment media can decide which positions get to take part in debate, then telling “both sides” may be a way of keeping news consumers on the outside.
In an October 1992 editorial, the New York Times proclaimed that “the debate over healthcare reform is over. Managed competition has won.” This outcome, the Times announced (10/10/92), was “delicious” and “wondrous.” In fact, the debate over healthcare reform still goes on, but you might not know it from establishment media. While the New York […]
Back in 1990, the grassroots group Neighbor to Neighbor called for a boycott of Folgers coffee to protest human rights abuses in El Salvador, a country Folgers bought coffee beans from. When Neighbor to Neighbor tried to run ads publicizing this boycott, however, nearly every TV station turned the group down. The reason stations were […]
FAIR’s four-month study of National Public Radio found that All Things Considered and Morning Edition devoted less than 2 percent of stories — 45out of 2,296 — to the environment. This parallels commercial broadcasting trends, where coverage of the environment has been declining since 1990 (Tyndall Report1/92). Here, as in other subject areas, NPR tended […]
Not long ago, I had the occasion to discuss health care with reporters and editors of the Washington Post. Entering the Post‘s conference room, I encountered as many as 20 writers on health-related issues from the Post‘s national staff, the business pages and the weekly “Health” section. As I looked around the room, recognizing faces […]
Once labeled “the most trusted man in America,” former CBS anchor and current board member Walter Cronkite has come under attack for accepting $25,000 from the extremist, industry-sponsored American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). For that fee, he narrated the pro-pesticide documentary, Big Fears, Little Risks, which aired on PBS stations this summer. In […]
Most mainstream human rights organizations place a de facto priority on questions of physical integrity and violations of political and civil rights. Social and economic rights are addressed only insofar as they have a direct bearing on the political and civil issues; labor organizing, for example, is a form of free association, and restraints on […]
