FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Crooks & Liars (9/26/12) notes Bill O’Reilly is proposing a naval blockade of Iraq: Says O’Reilly: We’re going to block it, nothing in, nothing out. OK? That’s what we’re going to do. And if you challenge the blockade, we’ll do what we have to do like the Cuban missile crisis, same thing—not gonna do […]
Part of being a journalist–the most important part, perhaps–is deciding which information is most relevant to readers. So take a look at today’s New York Times piece (9/14/12) on Iran’s nuclear program. The focus is on Israeli threats and where it says it is drawing its “red line” for military action. But this focus is […]
The popular media theme that Iran “can’t be trusted” is often presented as being based on “intelligence” about the country. But sometimes pundits cut right to the chase, as Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen (9/29/09) did when he wrote in 2009, “These Persians lie like a rug.” The New York Times (4/14/12) fancied that idea […]
Getting independent, skeptical coverage of official claims about Iran—from its supposed nuclear weapons program (Extra!, 9-10/05, 1/12) to its alleged plans to launch terrorist attacks across the world (Extra!, 3/12)—is essential. One place you might expect to see more critical coverage is on supposedly left-leaning MSNBC. But when it comes to Iran, in what little […]
SPECIAL SECTION: IRAN & WAR The drums of war beat ever louder as President Barack Obama talks of “all options” being “on the table” if Iran doesn’t halt its nuclear fuel processing program, and as Israel keeps threatening an air attack on Iran’s nuclear sites. But nowhere, perhaps, is this drumbeat louder than in the […]
ABC World News was responsible for a flagrantly propagandistic report about Iran on January 31. They’re still at it. At the top of the March 5 report, anchor Diane Sawyer announced that Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were talking about “the growing nuclear threat from Iran.” Sawyer warned that it might be […]
Claims that Iran has a nuclear weapons program are allegations, not facts (Extra!, 1/12)—but are treated as established background material in the corporate media: “The president, as you know, has been trying to force Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program,” explains CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley (2/6/12). The Washington Post editorializes (1/11/12) […]
The media coverage of Iran is terrible, and seems to be getting worse—see Glenn Greenwald’s latest piece on the ABC and NBC nightly newscasts. And today the New York Times (2/15/12) tells readers this about Iran’s nuclear program: The new uranium enrichment plant, known as Fordo, has raised Western concerns because it is buried deep […]
The January 31 ABC World News broadcast featured a blatantly propagandistic report on the supposed threat from Iran. The newscast focused on that day’s Senate testimony by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who told lawmakers that the U.S. intelligence community believes that Iran may be “now more willing to conduct an attack in the […]
Alarmist corporate media coverage of the “threat” from Iran is everywhere, thanks to a Senate appearance yesterday by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. But Clapper said very little in his remarks that would justify the propagandistic coverage we’re seeing. His main point was that Iran could launch attacks if it felt threatened. It is […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin011312 Cyrus Safdari and Jake Johnston @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin011312.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: As a covert war against Iran seems to be intensifying, the U.S. media have looked like willing partners in an anti-Iran propaganda campaign, helping US officials project dishonest claims, rs. We’ll speak with Cyrus Safdari of Iran Affairs about coverage. Also […]
In two articles yesterday (1/5/12), the New York Times misled readers about the state of Iran’s nuclear program. On the front page, the Times‘ Steven Erlanger reported this: The threats from Iran, aimed both at the West and at Israel, combined with a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran’s nuclear program […]
Certain editions of the New York Times (12/3/10) published today an update to its reporting on Iranian weapons with a much more skeptical tone than its original article. The first article (11/29/10), headlined “Iran Fortifies Its Missilies With the Aid of North Korea,” presented the case in definitive terms: Iran now possesses powerful missiles with […]
A November 29 New York Times article alleging that Iran possesses powerful missiles with “the capacity to strike at capitals in Western Europe” appears to rest on incredibly shaky evidence–amounting to a German newspaper article that did not fully corroborate the U.S. claims the Times was touting. The piece relied on one of the cables […]
WikiLeaks document dumps are largely what media want to make of them. There’s one conventional response, which goes something like this: “There’s nothing new here, but WikiLeaks is dangerous!” But there’s another option: “There’s nothing here, except for the part that confirms a storyline we’ve been pushing.” In those cases, WikiLeaks is deemed very, […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin111210 William Greider and Ali Gharib @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin111210.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Coverage of the G-20 summit in Seoul is squarely focused on trade deals and U.S. relations with China. But is the whole discussion of globalization, China and trade missing the point? William Greider makes that case in a new piece in […]
Washington Post columnist David Broder sees one way for Barack Obama to demonstrate leadership after the midterms–push for war with Iran. Lest one be accused of misrepresenting his argument, this is what he wrote in his October 31 column, which starts out talking about the how a president can influence the economy: What else might […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When Brazil and Turkey brokered a deal to get Iran to ship much of its Uranium abroad for enriching, much of the world saw it as a positive step. But not so U.S. officials, who saw it as a threat to their efforts to impose UN sanctions on Iran—though […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen says it’s time to “fight crazy with crazy” on Iran’s nuclear policy. If that passes for discussion of diplomacy in the corporate press, maybe we should look beyond them for interpretation of the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report. We’ll be talking with analyst […]
Various forces have been accused of being behind the January 12 killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi–including the Iranian government, the Iranian opposition, the United States and Israel. To sort through this murky subject, MSNBC (1/12/10) turned to Democratic congressmember Jane Harman, who confidently told Andrea Mitchell: I think the logic here is […]
