FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In the wake of the horrific shooting at Forth Worth’s Wedgwood Baptist Church, pundit-evangelist Jerry Falwell assumed his usual position in the center of the media story and offered this assertion: “Most hate crimes in America today are not directed toward African-Americans or Jewish people or gays or lesbians,” he told Time magazine. “They are […]
A national coalition of over 30 feminist, progressive groups and individuals– including Barbara Ehrenreich, Gloria Steinem, the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and women and men from the labor, black, Latina and South Asian grassroots communities– has met with PBS to discuss why a recent […]
On November 9, 1999, representatives from a national coalition of over 30 feminist, progressive groups and individuals–including Barbara Ehrenreich, Gloria Steinem, the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and a variety of women and men from the labor, black, Latina and South Asian grassroots communities–met with […]
A decade after writing The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS, Michael Fumento of the Hudson Institute continues to minimize and skew the AIDS crisis. Fumento is a virtual poster child for what right-wing institutions can foster: Prior to joining Hudson, he’s had stints at the American Enterprise Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He was legal […]
In recent weeks, Patrick Buchanan has vehemently denied accusations of bigotry that stem from his new book questioning U.S. intervention in World War II. And he has accused the news media – including CNN, which provided the national platform from which he has repeatedly catapulted into presidential politics — of distorted reporting. Since Buchanan sees […]
For over a decade, conservatives in Congress have threatened to cut or eliminate funding for public broadcasting because of its supposed “liberal bias.” Since then, corporate funding of public television has increased markedly. These pressures have inspired a rightward shift in public television’s programming– FAIR studies have consistently found that the sources, hosts and guests […]
Many conservative politicians and pundits are now struggling with disappointment. Some can’t understand why voters confounded expectations and refused to move the country rightward. But the election results might seem less mysterious after pondering why the new movie “Pleasantville” has resonated with audiences across America. In state after state, the Republican candidates who lost on […]
Executive Summary The conservative critique of the news media rests on two general propositions: (1) journalists’ views are to the left of the public, and (2) journalists frame news content in a way that accentuates these left perspectives. Previous research has revealed persuasive evidence against the latter claim, but the validity of the former claim […]
The topic of sexuality received unprecedented news media attention in the 1990s–in part due to the AIDS crisis, in part because of a national fight to bring down centuries of legal, social and cultural bias against people who are bisexual, transgendered and/or lesbian and gay. In many year-end round-ups, the media remembered 1997 as a […]
How much change should you get back after putting down $3 to pay for a 60-cent cup of soup and a $1.95 sandwich? Would you believe that exactly 56.3 percent of American college graduates were unable to figure this out? Would you believe more than half can’t even read a bus schedule? Syndicated columnist John […]
The Public Broadcasting Service last year refused to air Out At Work, a film about workplace discrimination against gays and lesbians, because it was partially funded by unions. The rejection was an unsettling example of the obstacles labor advocates face in participating in media discussion. PBS‘s defense of the funding double standard—which penalizes not just […]
The “Promise Keepers” rally in Washington, D.C., was, if nothing else, a victory of public relations over professional journalism. Media coverage was decidedly skewed toward the shallow end of the press pool. At best, both print and broadcast journalists glossed over the Keepers’ homophobic agenda. At worst, they supported it. Promise Keepers was founded nearly […]
Reporters who covered the funeral of Britain’s Princess Diana were mystified by the mourners (e.g., New York Times, 9/7/97). “Why are you here?” one journalist after another asked the people adding bouquets to the mountainous flower pile outside the palace gates. Sikhs and Rastafarians, Londoners and tourists, women and men, gay and straight, responded in […]
By the time you read this, the sober cynicism of summer will probably have settled in, but now, it’s spring. I’m as excited about “Ellen” coming out as I am about the budding leaves. By summer, I’ll remember that the obstacles to lesbian equality remain intact long after Ellen DeGeneres and her TV character said […]
Sixty years ago, reporter and press critic George Seldes wrote in Freedom of the Press that advertisers, not government, are the principal news censors in the United States. Not only do advertisers pressure newspapers to kill or alter stories, he concluded, but newspapers censor stories out of deference “toward the sources of their money” without […]
It’s easy to tell what makes folks in the establishment media nervous. When black men came together in Washington, D.C. for 1995’s Million Man March, most journalists scrutinized with healthy skepticism the political agenda fueling the Nation of Islam–led event. Many came down hard and heavy on the organizers’ exclusion of women and whites. Similarly, […]
Around 300 journalists, activists and critics crowded into a room at the Media & Democracy Congress in San Francisco on March 1 to discuss the coverage of issues related to gender. For once, alternative and progressive media came under as much fire as the commercial mainstream. Nation columnist Katha Pollitt recalled that in 1995 she […]
Here is a sampling of Buchanan’s views: On African-Americans After Sen. Carol Moseley Braun blocked a federal patent for a Confederate flag insignia, Buchanan wrote that she was “putting on an act” by associating the Confederacy with slavery: “The War Between the States was about independence, about self-determination, about the right of a people to […]
The topic was women. The place was China. And mainstream media in the United States still managed to focus on men and politicians in D.C. Consider any topic, from the global economy to health care, to education and technology–the women in China were discussing it. Looking for a variety of perspectives on those issues? The […]
After the Oklahoma City bombing, the New York Times (4/24/95) reported surprise at the existence of right-wing terror-gangs: “New Images of Terror… A suspect, a white drifter, evokes new fear.” But right-wing terror is hardly surprising to those who’ve been on the receiving end of it over the years; nor would the pale image of […]
