Stephen Zunes on Syria, Terry Allen on John Negroponte
Professor Stephen Zunes on US coverage of Syria. And reporter Terry Allen talks candidly about John Negroponte, the Bush nominee for National Director of Intelligence.
Media Omissions on Negroponte’s Record
George W. Bush’s February 17 nomination of John Negroponte to the newly created job of director of intelligence was the subject of a flurry of media coverage. But one part of Negroponte’s resume was given little attention: his role in the brutal and illegal Contra war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the mid-1980s. […]
Ian Williams on UN oil-for-food ‘scandal,’ Chris Paterson on Eason Jordan
How does a recently report from the UN align with the media’s story that the oil-for-food program was a massive scam? Also: how accurate are the claims that the US military killed journalists in Iraq?
Mark Danner on torture
Mark Danner joins CounterSpin to discuss his recent New York Times article entitled “We Are All Torturers Now.”
NY Times Responds to FAIR on Fallujah Killings
On November 16, FAIR issued an action alert about misleading reporting in the New York Times regarding civilian casualties in Fallujah. FAIR noted that in coverage of the recent U.S.-led assault on the city, the Times characterized civilian deaths from the April siege of Fallujah as “unconfirmed” on three separate occasions (“mostly unconfirmed reports of […]
Joy Gordon on UN/oil-for-food scandal, Howard Friel on international law and NY Times
UN Professor Joy Gordon on the scandal surrounding the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq, and how the UN itself has been implicated. Also on the show: Howard Friel on his new book, The Record of the Paper, which explores the New York Times’s history of misreporting US foreign policy.
Rick Perlstein on ‘moral values,’ Richard Garfield on Iraq’s civilian casualties
How did the media’s emphasis on “moral values” swing the election in Bush’s favor? Also on the program: the media’s refusal to critically assess the civilian impact of the Iraq War.
How the New York Times Blew My Lai
“I was in Paris with a delightful, interesting man who works for the Times, John Hess. John was in the Paris bureau, and hewas one of the people who sort of straightened me out about Vietnam. He bugged me about it and told me I had to learn more–and I did. —New York Times columnist […]
Spotlighting (Some) Venezuela Killings
If you followed mainstream U.S. news coverage of the recent coup in Venezuela, you probably know that people were killed during the April 11 demonstrations against President Hugo Chavez. You also heard those killings cited as a justification for removing Chavez from office. But if you relied on the New York Times for news, you […]
Children of War
The Israeli-Palestinian war has a profound effect on the children of the region. As NBC‘s Tom Brokaw put it on the April 11 Nightly News, “All of this is making the children of war, on both sides, grow old before their time.” The piece that followed, however, concerned only children on one side. Correspondent Keith […]
ABC Omits U.S. From Human Rights Report
On its January 16 broadcast, ABC‘s World News Tonight aired this brief item about the annual report released that day by Human Rights Watch: “The international human rights group Human Rights Watch has released its annual report, and it says that several countries are using the U.S.-led war against terrorism as a justification to ignore […]
See No Evil
How many civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of U.S.-led bombing? It’s an admittedly difficult question to answer, but many U.S. media outlets don’t even seem to be trying. None of the major networks’ nightly newscasts are offering even rough estimates of the overall number of civilians killed. It may be some […]
‘We Think the Price Is Worth It’
2001 saw a revival of long-discredited claims that sanctions are not to blame for Iraq’s suffering, but that Saddam Hussein bears sole responsibility
Questions for Kissinger Go Unasked
While visiting Paris in May, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger received a summons to appear at the French Palace of Justice to answer questions about murders and disappearances in Chile in the 1970s. While the story was carried by major European news outlets, it has received relatively little coverage in U.S. media. The French […]
The Myth of the Media’s Role in Vietnam
Of the many myths that mushroomed from the carnage of the Vietnam War perhaps none is more specious than the fable about how a bold, aggressive mainstream media turned America against the war. As the pundit class sinks into a new quagmire debating former Sen. Bob Kerrey’s Vietnam mission, it’s a good time to dissect […]
Obstinate Memory and Pursuit of the Present
Henry Kissinger usually has an easy time defending the indefensible on national television. But he faced some pointed questions during a recent interview with the PBS NewsHour about the U.S. role in bringing a military dictatorship to Chile. When his comments aired on the program last Tuesday night, the famous American diplomat made a chilling […]
ABC’s Military Analyst Calls for ‘Excessive Force’
“Excessive force” should be used against Palestinian civilians, including “interrogation methods that border on psychological and/or physical torture.” These are extreme proposals–but it is their author, Anthony Cordesman, to whom ABC News regularly turns to in wartime to provide military analysis. Cordesman made these recommendations in an October 2000 report released by the Center for […]
CPJ Declares Open Season on Thomas Friedman
As longtime supporters of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ important mission of defending press freedom, FAIR wrote the following letter to the CPJ to protest its exclusion of the 16 Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) employees killed by NATO from its annual list of journalists murdered because of their work. The letter was signed by a number […]
Will CBS Report Amnesty’s War Crimes Charges?
Shortly after last year’s NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, CBS News anchor Dan Rather discussed the war at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (6/25/99). When FAIR associate Sam Husseini asked about possible war crimes committed by NATO forces, Rather explained that “If our government engages in war crimes, it’s at least as important, […]
New York Times on Iraq Sanctions
In a 1998 article (4/23/98), New York Times United Nations correspondent Barbara Crossette critiqued the film Genocide by Sanctions, a documentary produced by a coalition of activist groups opposed to the U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Using footage of dying Iraqi children, the film sought to dramatize Iraq’s desperate humanitarian conditions under the U.N. embargo; more […]
