FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Last night, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews hosted a discussion on the Obama administration’s recently disclosed “white paper” justifying its policy of using drones to strike at U.S. citizens. Matthews ultimately deciding that the policy was defensible–on the grounds that the CIA director Leon Panetta goes to church.
The implication of Martha Raddatz’s quotation of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is that Syria has loaded chemical weapons at the ready, and that it would take a matter of hours for the Assad government to use them. But that’s not what Panetta told…well, Raddatz herself.
Part of the 2011 Congressional debt reduction deal called for automatic cuts to social spending and military budgets over the next 10 years. The idea was that a deal to avoid these cuts would be struck, because Republicans wouldn’t want to cut the Pentagon, and Democrats would try to protect safety net programs. That didn’t […]
Evaluating reporting and commentary about Iran could be reduced to one simple rule: There is no evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon. Statements that suggest otherwise are misleading. Reports that fail to point this out are doing readers/viewers/listeners a disservice. That sounds simple enough. But don’t tell that to the outlets that […]
As if tensions between the United States and Iran weren’t high enough, here’s PBS NewsHour anchor Margaret Warner (1/9/12): The Iranian government insists that its nuclear activities are for peaceful energy purposes only, an assertion disputed by the U.S. and its allies. On CBS yesterday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta repeated international demands that Iran […]
The Monday broadcast of CBS Evening News (12/19/11) began with big news, with anchor Scott Pelley announcing: The secretary of Defense says tonight that the United States will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. In an interview with CBS News, Leon Panetta says that despite efforts to disrupt their nuclear program, the Iranians […]
NBC Nightly News (10/7/11) marked the 10th anniversary of the Afghan War on October 7 with a segment that linked the war to the Occupy Wall Street protests. As anchor Brian Williams put it in the introduction: Tonight protesters remain in the streets of a dozen U.S. cities, angry over what’s happened to their lives […]
You may have heard about new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta‘s trip to Iraq–mainly because while in the country he told some U.S. soldiers that they were there because of 9/11. That led to coverage like this in the Washington Post: On Monday, in his first visit to Iraq as Pentagon chief, Panetta appeared to justify […]
Deeming “the battle against baseless, worthless grants of anonymity by journalists” to be “at this point, probably futile,” Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald (6/15/09, ad-viewing required) is exasperated to see how “even many of the nation’s best and most valuable reporters–such as the New Yorker‘s Jane Mayer–seem helplessly addicted to it.” Greenwald points to “an otherwise solid […]
Nightline‘s Ted Koppel left the Republican convention in San Diego early, complaining that no news was happening. It’s certainly true that little journalism was being practiced. “This convention is more of an infomercial than a news event,” Koppel pronounced (Nightline, 8/13/96), explaining his decision to go back to Washington after two days of on-site convention […]
