FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
National Public Radio monitor mytwords (NPR Check, 8/9/09) has observed what he dubs a “Blackwater Blackout” on the publicly funded “alternative” to corporate radio: On Tuesday, August 4 Jeremy Scahill broke the story about two sworn statements implicating Blackwater (now Xe) founder Erik Prince in the murder of employees or former employees who were cooperating […]
In a previous post “showing Fox News‘ tendency to mislabel badly behaving Republicans as Democrats,” one of Canadian blogger Joey deVilla’s commenters has pointed out “this map of the Middle East shown on a Fox News in segment where Neil Cavuto interviewed John Bolton.” Noting a problem with the country marked “Egypt”–“that’s not Egypt, that’s […]
Under the succinct Consortium News subhed “Too Late the Leak” (7/24/09), former CIA analyst Ray McGovern revisits the Downing Street Minutes–which he says should represent the kind of documentary evidence after which trial lawyers, intelligence analysts–and serious investigative journalists–lust. Though the unauthorized disclosure did not come early enough to head off the war, which had […]
The Media Bloodhound blog’s Brad Jacobson has a post (7/22/09) adding some depth to the Walter Cronkite as belated-Vietnam-War-critic story: Following his death last week, various network news tributes replayed footage of Cronkite’s influential ’68 on-air editorial. Yet scrubbed from the memorializing were similar instances of Cronkite’s journalistic candor regarding Iraq, such as his 2006 […]
Arianna Huffington’s latest column (Huffington Post, 7/13/09) presents a compelling portrayal of the power of new democratic media–versus the self-preserving corporate model of news gathering–in the Chinese government response to major riots last week: “It choked off the Internet and mobile phone service, blocked Twitter and Fanfou (its Chinese equivalent), deleted updates and videos from […]
New York Times reporter John F. Burns turned in a piece on Sunday about the debate in Britain over the Afghanistan war (“Criticism of Afghan War Is on the Rise in Britain,” 7/12/09), in light of the increase in British casualties in recent weeks. Burns writes: So far, however, the reaction in Britain has not […]
Independent investigative journalist John Pilger recently (7/6/09) gave Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman his view of the broad media landscape, informed by the fact that “we have many alternative sources of information now, not least of all your own program, though I wouldn’t call that alternative“: But for most people, the primary source of their information […]
Michael Schwartz’ (TomDispatch, 7/9/09) quote from a New York Times Baghdad report that “much of the complicated work of dismantling and removing millions of dollars of equipment from the combat outposts in the city has been done during the dark of night” includes the reason for this secrecy having to “take place at night”: “Fewer […]
Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald (7/9/09, ad-viewing required) is extolling “The Significance of McClatchy‘s Act of Journalism” when reporting that recently released six-year Guantanamo prisoner Haji Sahib Rohullah Wakil–one of many who supposedly “returned to or are suspected of returning to terrorism after their release”–“far from being in hiding, operates openly among officials of Afghanistan’s U.S.-allied government.” […]
Media blogger Eli Stephens (left i on the news, 7/2/09) has posted on a Washington Post lede claiming that “Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran.” Stephens explains how, as […]
Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald has an update (7/2/09, ad-viewing required) on “several noteworthy developments since I wrote on Tuesday about the refusal of NPR‘s ombudsman, Alicia Shepard, to be interviewed by me about NPR‘s ban on using the word ‘torture’ to describe the Bush administration’s interrogation tactics”: Given the utter vapidity of her rationale (“there are […]
As Barack Obama and his pliant media pundits are “talking up the achievements of the six-year occupation,” Consortium News‘ Robert Parry (7/1/09) is writing of the “public celebrations by Iraqis marking the American pullout from Iraq’s cities.” Parry’s look back the last six years’ reality clearly recalls how, “relying on false intelligence and laughable legal […]
Reacting to media noise over the economic costs of the Waxman-Markey environmental bill currently before the U.S. Congress, Dean Baker (ZNet, 7/1/09) looks to the damages of a different annual spending bill, this one perpetually unexamined in corporate news: Global Insight projected that after 20 years of higher defense spending, annual car sales would be […]
In Dan Froomkin‘s last column for the Washington Post (6/26/09), he promises to “continue doing accountability journalism”–as good as any self-description to distinguish his work from his typical Post colleague’s obsequiousness–and tries “hard to summarize the past five-and-a-half years” in which “George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes”: In the days […]
Activist David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet.org, 6/24/09) has some problems with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s and Congressmember Tom Perriello’s recent visit “generating a story and big color photo on page 1 of the Charlottesville Daily Progress” under the headline “In UVa Visit, Democrats Call Deficit Reckless“: The newspaper reported on Congressman Perriello warning that he could […]
Blogger Jane Hamsher (FireDogLake.com, 6/19/09) thinks that Salon‘s “Glenn Greenwald says most of what needs to be said about the Washington Post‘s firing of Dan Froomkin,” on June 18, but has her own “insight into “the early rounds of this battle” over the left-leaning columnist, having “watched it ferment over the years.” Hamsher explains that […]
Norman Solomon uses his most recent Creators Syndicate column (6/19/09) to call for journalism that “is open scrutiny of the dynamics of power. Reporters should shine a bright light on behind-the-scenes maneuvers that block congressional oversight of administration policies”: Last Tuesday, when the House of Representatives approved a supplemental spending bill for more war in […]
Finding the May 21 New York Times article on unconvicted (often even uncharged) former Guantanamo prisoners supposedly “rejoining” terrorist groups “especially troubling” in that “it turns the truth upside-down,” Dan Kennedy (UTV, 6/9/09) explains how reporter Elisabeth “Bumiller’s story played into the darkest fears promoted by Cheney and his fellow conservatives by making it appear […]
Pratap Chatterjee‘s new TomDispatch essay (5/31/09) explores how Dick Cheney’s mercenary corporation Halliburton recently has managed to largely “Stay Out of Sight While Profiting From the War in Iraq” despite what Tom Engelhardt’s introduction calls “hatfuls of charges against the company for a laundry list of alleged misdeeds“: There were no protesters outside the [annual […]
“Amid all the recent negatives in the worlds of intelligence and journalism,” Consortium News‘ Robert Parry (6/2/09) has spotted “one encouraging development”: “the recognition of common ground between two beleaguered groups, honest U.S. intelligence analysts and honest American journalists, two groups that previously had been on opposite sides of the secrecy divide.” The strangeness of […]
