FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
I have a question for the surprising number of people who are defending Helen Thomas’ comments: Don’t you think, given Thomas’ record, that if she thought she had said something she could stand behind, she would be standing behind it?
Think Progress (6/7/10) claims Sarah Palin’s criticism of the press regarding Helen Thomas is wrong, but I can’t even figure out what she’s trying to say. Here’s Palin’s Twitter statement: Helen Thomas press pals condone racism? Heaven forbid “esteemed” press corps represent society’s enlightened elite; Rest of us choose truth. “Enlightened elite” would seem to […]
The May 31 Israeli attack on the Free Gaza humanitarian flotilla has returned some media attention to the humanitarian crisis faced by 1.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli blockade in the Gaza Strip. But some media figures have sought to deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza at all. The Gaza Strip remains […]
Glenn Greenwald (Salon, 6/3/10), in a compelling blog post on “Victimhood, Aggression and Tribalism,” quotes Noam Chomsky from Imperial Ambitions: In one of his many speeches, to U.S. troops in Vietnam, [Lyndon] Johnson said plaintively, “There are three billion people in the world and we have only two hundred million of them. We are outnumbered […]
On Tuesday (6/1/10), FAIR said this about the New York Times coverage of Gaza: Other news accounts presented misleading context about the circumstances leading to Israel’s blockade. [Isabel] Kershner (New York Times, 6/1/10) stressed that “Israel had vowed not to let the flotilla reach the shores of Gaza, where Hamas, an organization sworn to Israel’s […]
Download MP3 On May 31st the Israeli military attacked a flotilla of boats full of civilians attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza strip, and to call attention to the impact of Israel’s blockade. At least 9 and as many as 16 activists were killed—we don’t know in part due to Israel’s tight control […]
On May 31, the Israeli military attacked a flotilla of boats full of civilians attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip. Reports indicate that at least nine and as many as 16 of the activists on board were killed, though details remain sketchy due to Israel’s censorious limitations on media coverage. Much of […]
The headline of this Washington Post piece today (4/26/10) is certainly not promising: Sharing a West Bank Highway Proves a Tall Order for Israel, Palestinians The highway in question was built by the Israeli government on occupied Palestinian territory. Since 2000, Israeli authorities have barred Palestinians from using the road. They are now offering to […]
Usually propaganda is a little more clever than this (Reuters, 4/20/10): Israel, like the United States, European Union and others, suspects Iran is developing atomic weapons, a charge Tehran denies. Iran, whose president has said Israel should be wiped off the map, says its nuclear program is peaceful.
The New York Times had an odd correction today (4/16/10): A picture caption on Thursday with the continuation of a news analysis article about a shift in the Obama administratio’s Middle East policy referred incorrectly to Ramat Shlomo, the name of a Jewish housing development that Israel says it is expanding despite objections by the […]
New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner has a piece today (4/7/10) headlined “Palestinians Try a Less Violent Path to Resistance,” which attempts to show that there is a new move away from armed resistance to Israeli occupation. You get that message pretty clearly from Bronner’s language: He calls it a “new approach” and argues, “Nonviolence […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The long debate over health care reform might be, at least in some respects, over. Will conservatives still warn of creeping socialism and the end of American freedom? Sure. And many policy analysts are unimpressed with the new law– though those critiques are much harder to find in the […]
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (2/21/10) returns to the issue of Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner having a child fighting on one side of the conflict he’s covering (FAIR Activism Update, 2/12/10): Some Times journalists have taken issue with my position in this case, believing it suggests that no Jewish reporter could […]
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (2/6/10) responded to messages from FAIR activists (Action Alert, 1/27/10; FAIR Blog, 1/27/10) by affirming that a reporter covering a conflict in which his child is an armed participant ought to be reassigned. But Times executive editor Bill Keller (2/6/10) rejected Hoyt’s reasoning, saying that Jerusalem bureau chief […]
FAIR has a new Action Alert out, “Does NYT‘s Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?” (1/27/10), about the New York Times‘ failure to respond to questions about whether Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner’s son is enlisted in Israel’s military, and, if so, whether this poses a conflict of interest. If you send […]
The New York Times refuses to confirm or deny a report that its Jerusalem bureau chief, Ethan Bronner, has a child who is an enlisted member of the Israeli Defense Force–even though such a relationship would pose a serious conflict of interest. The Electronic Intifada website (1/25/10), following a tip, asked Bronner whether it was […]
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 […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin010810 Sam Husseini and Dean Baker @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin010810.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: It had the elements of a nightly news story: Protestors, including some Americans, being abused by officials in an Arab country. But this story was a non-starter with U.S. media. We’ll talk to Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy, […]
The New York Times’ treatment of Iranian and Israeli nuclear programs in recent months is a clear example of the systematic double standard the “paper of record” displays in international coverage (Extra!, 8/09). The Times has devoted tremendous space and resources to covering Iran’s nuclear program. Even though, as the Times itself explained (9/26/09), there […]
The Israeli government’s near-total blockade of the Gaza Strip has been roundly criticized by international human rights groups as a harsh form of collective punishment. Some U.N. investigations have labeled it much worse–that Israel’s actions amount to crimes against humanity. Back in medialand, the Washington Post‘s Howard Schneider has a story today (12/15/09) comparing life […]
