FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The release of a new International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran was greeted as an ominous development by some major outlets. But are they playing down what could be the most important news in the report? The IAEA’s latest made it to the New York Times (8/30/12) under the headline, “Inspectors Confirm New Work […]
The Washington Post (8/17/12) has a story on Iran and the threat of war that begins with this: Preparations in Israel for a possible war are focusing new attention on whether Israel will attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and forcing an unwelcome debate in the thick of a presidential campaign about the U.S. role in stopping […]
Right after news of a suicide bombing attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu pointed the finger squarely at Iran. For media outlets that are supposed to evaluate claims based on evidence, this could have been a problem. But many outlets took these claims at face value–and in some cases […]
In recent years, corporate media pundits like Tom Friedman and Nicholas Kristof have expressed deep concern over what they claim is a lack of peaceful elements within the Palestinian resistance to the 44-year Israeli occupation. Where is the “Palestinian Gandhi” who could inspire the violent Arab masses to lay down their weapons and pursue a […]
In death, the U.S. media remembered the late Yitzhak Shamir as “a political hard-liner who served two terms as Israeli prime minster” (CNN, 6/30/12), “the hawkish Israeli leader who balked at the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians” (MSNBC, 6/30/12) and “a man of iron will and simple tastes” (Washington Post, […]
I finally managed to get all the way through Richard Stengel’s fawning cover story about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At a moment when incumbents around the world are being shunted aside, he is triumphant. With his bullet-proof majority, he has a chance to turn himself into the historic figure he has always yearned to […]
A new FAIR Action Alert (5/16/12) calls on the New York Times public editor to address the conflict of interest posed by Jerusalem correspondent Isabel Kershner’s marriage to someone whose job it is to sway the coverage of international outlets like the Times in a pro-Israel direction. Please leaves copies of your messages to the […]
The New York Times‘ Jerusalem bureau was embroiled in controversy two years ago when news broke that bureau chief Ethan Bronner had a son who enlisted in the Israeli army (Extra!, 4/10). As Bronner wraps up his tenure, a new conflict of interest has arisen: Bureau reporter Isabel Kershner’s spouse works to promote favorable coverage […]
The New York Times shouldn’t be trusted to report on future wars if it can’t get the facts about previous wars right. Once again, the Times misleads readers about the lead up to Israel’s invasion of Gaza in late 2008. Isabel Kershner writes (5/3/12): Up to 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during Israel’s […]
After the news broke that New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner had a son who enlisted in the Israeli army (Extra!, 4/10), Times public editor Clark Hoyt (2/6/10) noted that it was problematic for Bronner to continue reporting on “one of the world’s most intense” conflicts while his son took up arms for […]
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor acknowledged on Al Jazeera English (4/14/12) that Iranian leaders have never called for Israel to be “wiped” off the map. Meridor agreed with interviewer Teymoor Nabili’s suggestion that the supposed remarks were never actually made; Iranian leaders, Meridor said, come basically ideologically, religiously, with the statement that Israel is […]
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has delivered a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that calls for a resumption of peace negotiations. Look at the image the Washington Post (4/18/12) used to accompany its story about this : I will admit that a letter might not lend itself to an interesting graphic, but it […]
One of the most troubling aspects of all the media coverage of an attack on Iran is that it can make a radically destabilizing act of unprovoked war seem like just another policy choice. I thought of this when I saw a PBS NewsHour segment (3/28/12) that set out to ponder the consequences of an […]
Coverage of Israel/Palestine often attempts to make an extraordinarily lopsided conflict seem somehow more “balanced.” Take this line from the Washington Post (3/12/12) The fighting has killed 18 Gazans, all but two of them militants, and disrupted the lives of about 1 million Israelis living within range of rocket fire. Why would 18 people who […]
Anyone who doubts the extent of pressure on media outlets when it comes to covering Israel should pick up the New York Times. In yesterday’s Times (3/8/12), we saw this correction: Because of an editing error, an article on Wednesday about a large lobbying effort on Capitol Hill Tuesday by delegates to the annual conference […]
There are plenty of problems with coverage of Iran right now. The most important issue to understand is that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. Since this is the basis for the current “crisis” narrative, it’s important for journalism to try to clearly differentiate what is known and what is […]
Glenn Greenwald wrote recently of the extraordinarily limited media debate on Iran, which seems to consist of U.S. and Israeli officials making threats–attack now or attack later–alongside clinical discussions of the difficulties of bombing Iran. There is plenty missing–actual Iranians talking about what war would mean in human terms, legal experts discussing how preventive war […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin022412 Yousef Munayyer and Dana Frank @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin022412.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Palestinian hunger striker Khader Adnan provided a real-life example of something many corporate pundits say they’ve longed to see: A Palestinian activist pursuing non-violent resistance. And yet his 66 day hunger strike to protest Israel’s policies of detaining Palestinians for months […]
In today’s New York Times report (2/22/12) about Khader Adnan–the Palestinian hunger striker challenging Israeli “administrative detention” practices–reporter Isabel Kershner allows this: An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called the deal over Mr. Adnan “a workable arrangement” since ultimately he will be almost completing his four-month term of detention. “We faced a […]
Bombing Iran could be a real strain for Israel, reports Elisabeth Bumiller in the New York Times (“Iran Raid Seen as a Huge Task for Israeli Jets,” 2/19/12). No one’s sure they can pull it off, what with the logistics involved: Should Israel decide to launch a strike on Iran, its pilots would have to […]
