FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Sometimes very little can tell you a lot. Here’s Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News, updating viewers on protests that are linked to that famous anti-Islamic video: Overseas tonight, new and deadly retribution from that amateur Internet film that’s enraged much of the Muslim world. The “Muslim world” is, well, enormous–somewhere in the neighborhood of […]
The protests and violence in Egypt, Libya and Yemen have caused a notable uptick in media discussions about, as Newsweek‘s cover puts it, “Muslim Rage.” Part of the corporate media’s job is to make sure real political grievances are mostly kept out of the discussion. It’s a lot easier to talk about angry mobs and […]
Republican hopeful Mitt Romney is portrayed by online bigots as a Manchurian Candidate for a secretive cabal of Mormon elites—echoing anti-Catholic conspiracy theories about John F. Kennedy being a wind-up toy for the Vatican. Meanwhile, a chain letter currently being circulated warns that the “American Government is under the command and control of…the Freemasons and […]
Last night’s on CBS‘ 60 Minutes, viewers got to see an encore broadcast of an embarrassingly sycophantic tribute to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Glenn Greenwald takes it apart at Salon.com, explaining how CBS regaled viewers with “news” about “the heart of the man with a world of worry,” and documented—through dogged investigative work—how Panetta “stays […]
On the popular Fox News show the Five (6/6/12), co-host Eric Bolling blasted Muslim advocates who are suing the New York Police Department over its spying program targeting Muslims, saying that in the last 15 years, “Every terrorist on American soil has been a Muslim.” In fact, Muslims are responsible for a tiny fraction of […]
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 […]
There are different ways media talk about how you can’t trust Iran. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, for one, went straight for bigotry: “These Persians lie like a rug,” he wrote in 2009. The New York Times took a slightly different route on Saturday (4/14/12): Maybe Iran can’t be trusted because their religion permits—or perhaps […]
Fareed Zakaria wrote in Time magazine (4/16/12) that “the Arab Spring is looking less appealing by the week.” The problem is a “messier reality,” and he zeroes in on Egypt: And now, as Egypt’s presidential election approaches, we see the rise of two candidates from Islamic parties, Khairat al-Shater and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail. The […]
I felt like there was something slightly off about this New York Times story yesterday (3/15/12), “In Reactions to Two Incidents, a U.S.-Afghan Disconnect.” Reporter Rod Nordland wanted to explore why Afghans seemed so much more outraged over the recent burnings of the Quran than they were about a massacre of 16 civilians by a […]
As he loses advertisers by the handful over his comments about Sandra Fluke, Rush Limbaugh’s supporters (there are a few!) and a few other commentators have found what I guess they believe is a good counter-argument: If you’re so offended by Limbaugh’s sexist, demeaning rants, they why are you silent about Bill Maher? Some see […]
I think most sensible people understand that the current uproar in Afghanistan over the desecration of the Quran isn’t really just about the defiling of a holy book. But if there’s sense in the world, there’s also nonsense. Enter Tom Friedman’s New York Times column today (2/29/12): U.S. troops accidentally burned some Qurans, and President […]
A cover that declares a “War on Christians” is bound to get some attention. Writing in the February 12 issue of Newsweek, author Ayaan Hirsi Ali‘s argument is just as blunt. Enough with all this talk “about Muslims as victims of abuse,” because really it’s the other way around: A wholly different kind of war […]
Anti-Muslim bigotry has been around in the U.S. for decades, but why the rise now? At least part of the answer resides in the emergence of a highly organized national Islamophobic propaganda network.
When the Center for American Progress (CAP) released the report Fear, Inc. in September (8/26/11), alleging that U.S. anti-Muslim propaganda is largely driven by a well-funded network of groups and individuals, confirmation of its claims came quickly. Just four days after publication, the Fox Business Network aired a wildly inaccurate two-part feature on Follow the […]
The national hardware chain Lowe’s pulled its advertising from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim—explaining that the question of whether Muslims can be presented as regular human beings is a “hotly contested debate.” All-American Muslim is a reality show described by TLC, the cable channel that airs it, as “a look at life in Dearborn, […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin090211 Lorne Stockman and Faiz Shakir @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin090211.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Why have more than 700 people been arrested at the White House in recent days? Don’t ask nightly news– they’ve so far yet to find anything newsworthy in the largest environmental action in years: a massive protest against the proposed Keystone […]
When someone acts out in reality the violent fantasies that are far-right bloggers’ stock in trade, they pretend to have nothing to do with it.
Recently on Fox Business (8/30/11; cite by Think Progress, 8/31/11), host Eric Bolling tried to discredit the Center for American Progress’s excellent new report on Islamophobia with this colossal falsehood: I need to point this out–I’m reading directly from this report: “The Obama-allied Center for American Progress has released a report that blames Islamophobia in […]
Right-wing terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik reportedly killed 76 people in Norway on Friday, by all accounts driven by far-right anti-immigrant politics and fervent Islamophobia. But many early media accounts assumed that the perpetrator of the attacks was Muslim. On news of the first round of attacks—the bombs in Oslo—CNN‘s Tom Lister (7/22/11) didn’t know […]
Last night’s broadcast of the O’Reilly Factor (5/19/11) provided ample evidence–if more were needed–of Bill O’Reilly’s bigotry. He started by trying to explain why Barack Obamais unpopular in Muslim countries: The answer is complicated but does reflect my opinion that there is a Muslim problem in the world. The United States and the West are […]
