FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
After Russia bombs what it says are Islamic State sites near Homs in Syria, the New York Times declares, “Homs is not under the control of the Islamic State”–contradicting atrocity stories published just last week.
The outlandish rhetoric of Republican presidential wildcard Donald Trump has left many journalists at a loss for words—words such as bigotry, xenophobia, racism, sexism and demagoguery.
Exploring the particular struggles that affect gender non-conforming people requires asking some difficult questions, not just about this country’s attitudes toward gender but about its respect for human rights. How deep are media willing to go?
The New York Times’ Ross Douthat acknowledges the obvious parallel between gay and interracial marriage–and meets it head on with a full helping of historical ignorance.
How can media cover the backlash against the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act just passed in Indiana without resorting to “some say, others differ”? Plus: The Hollywood press argues that white actors are now being discriminated against.
The first (and longest) section of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics is titled “Seek Truth and Report It.” It encourages reporters to be “honest, fair and courageous” in their work and to “test the accuracy of information from all sources.” This is what journalists do: They dig. When sports writer Caleb […]
Michael Sam may have just announced to the sports world that he’s a gay man, but it seems that it’s the NFL itself that may be forced to come out of its closet.
This week on CounterSpin: Congress passed the nearly trillion dollar farm bill on Feb. 2nd—with more than $8 billion in cuts to food stamps, or the SNAP program as it is now known. What does this mean for people dealing with food insecurity, and where did the rest of the money go? We’ll talk to Joel Berg, the director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.
Also on the show: When the Olympics begin in Sochi, US viewers are likely to hear at least a little about Russia’s crackdown on LGBT people and protests against it. If so it will be a rare instance of media acknowledging that politics are part of the Olympics story and not a detraction from it. We’ll talk about Olympic activism with author and political science professor Jules Boykoff.
“I played a role…in helping tear the country apart,” Glenn Beck says. Indeed–not just from his time at Fox, but from years of talk radio broadcasts, and a stint at CNN’s Headline News–not to mention his work at his current outlet, The Blaze.
The New York Times offers readers a lengthy obituary for racist New York talk radio icon Bob Grant. But can they call a racist a racist?
The transgender community has long been disrespected and mocked in the corporate media, and the summer of 2013 was no exception. Nowhere was this more evident than in the willful misgendering of US Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Bradley. The day after she was sentenced to 35 years in prison, Manning came […]
Private Chelsea Manning will be serving out a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth prison for revealing classified information to WikiLeaks. Are you confused by that sentence? Not sure what case we’re talking about here? Maybe there were two Private Mannings who are now tied for the record of longest prison sentence in the history of […]
Chelsea Manning’s announcement that she identifies as female and would prefer to be referred to that way seemed to befuddle many in the media, with some outlets apparently unclear about how to identify her.
George W. Bush doesn’t speak to the press much, but based on the fawning treatment he got from ABC News’ Jonathan Karl, he might want to re-consider.
With the tagline “The Magazine for Men,” it is almost unsurprising that Port magazine, a British quarterly, celebrated “A New Golden Age: The Increasing Importance of Print Media” by putting six white men on its cover. Not surprising, but also not excusable.
When the law finally starts to catch up with the promise of equality for all, does one stop to wonder if anti-equality bigots feel left out? That’s the question that NPR’s All Things Considered tried to answer.
Concealing a Spy Who Hid Torture; Misremembering Thatcher; PBS’s Debate on Social Security
USA Today‘s front-page headline (5/31/13): Churches Sever Scout Sponsorship The online headline, over Bob Smietana’s piece on the reaction of church groups that sponsor Boy Scout troops to the Scouts’ announced plan to accept gay Scouts was longer but no less sweeping: Religious Regretfully Sever Scout Sponsorships That’s bad news for the Scouts, since as […]
As the Supreme Court finished hearing oral arguments on two same-sex marriage cases, the Wall Street Journal editorial page (3/27/13) proclaimed what has become a mantra of the right on this subject: The liberal media frame opponents of marriage equality as bigots. America’s cultural and media elites are attempting to browbeat the High Court into […]
The New York Times (2/13/13) reported that in the last few years, several elite U.S. universities have begun to cover sex reassignment surgery and/or hormones for trans-gender students. On the one hand, it’s great that they’re reporting news like this. After years of extremely disrespectful coverage of transgender issues (Extra!, 11/07), it feels like a […]
