FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The problem with Rupert Murdoch’s proposal to create an online news consortium, in which major publishers would all band together to put their news content behind pay walls (L.A. Times, 8/21/09), is that it’s not illegal to discuss news events online. And you don’t want to make it illegal to discuss news events online. And […]
Diligent media reformers Free Press (8/19/09) have announced a nifty new “online interactive tool to expose phony grassroots groups hired by big phone and cable companies to advance their political agenda.” They’re talking about “‘astroturf‘ organizations–many of which also work for the health insurance, energy and tobacco industries”– that “are mobilizing to spread misinformation about […]
Eater blog editor Amanda Kludt (8/20/09) has a sneak look at an embarrassingly fawning New York Times review of a new book by their own recently resigned food critic, Frank Bruni–and, “according to a tipster with a copy (not yet online), it’s a looooovefest”: Exhibit A: His writing has always been muscular and clear. Now […]
Women In Media & News has reposted Veronica Arreola’s (8/15/09) elucidation of exactly “why women need to be at the freaking table, in the newsroom and holding the editor’s red pen.” To her, “it’s just as simple as women see things differently. Not better, not worse, just differently”: The latest example is the WaPo “Mouthpiece […]
Media Matters research director Jeremy Schulman (8/12/09) writes that “Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaughand Lou Dobbs have used their radio and television shows to incite hatred and push wild conspiracy theories, leading several of Beck’s advertisers to reportedly pull out of his broadcasts”–one of the hazards inherent in for-profit media. But “many advertisers have nonetheless sponsored […]
News Corpse blogger Mark Howard (8/10/09) calls the fact that “industry sources are reporting that Don Imus is in talks with the Fox Business Network to simulcast his Imus in the Morning radio program” a “de facto admission by FBN that they have failed to attract an audience capable of sustaining the network.” Howard sees […]
In a wide-ranging ZNet interview on both the history and future of U.S. media, Robert McChesney (8/11/09) gets to the kernel of reform activism: The media is one of the key areas in society where power is exercised, reinforced and contested. It is hard to imagine a successful left political project that does not have […]
Foreign Policy In Focus analyst Conn Hallinan (8/6/09) has yet another debunking of “the story most U.S. readers are getting about the coup” in Honduras, being “that Zelaya–an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez–was deposed because he tried to change the constitution to keep himself in power.” Calling this dominant media narrative “a massive distortion […]
Glenn Greenwald has responded via his regular Salon feature (8/6/09, ad-viewing required) to Rush Limbaugh, “speaking to his audience of 15 million, compar[ing] Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler and Nancy Pelosi to Nazi leaders,” by asking you to instead compare (a) the way that a single anonymous person’s comparison of Bush and Hitler swamped our […]
Reporting for Associated Press (7/3/09), David Bauder has an update on CNN‘s insistence on “standing behind” Lou Dobbs, who has “become a publicity nightmare for CNN, embarrassed his boss and…on top of all that, his ratings are slipping.” Bauder asks outright: “How does Lou Dobbs keep his job” while plugging the conspiracy theory that Barack […]
Quipping that “usually newspapers are big defenders of free speech, but not the Washington Post,” economic reporting critic Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 8/2/09) takes down the paper’s recent piece giving over “nearly 2,000 words to complain that a website had ripped off” one reporter’s story. Careful to say that “the problem was not that […]
Free Press’s newest release (7/31/09) touts some fresh congressional legislation that “Would Protect Net Neutrality Once and for All.” According to the media reform activists, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 “would protect Network Neutrality under the Communications Act, safeguarding the future of the open Internet and protecting Internet users from discrimination online.” Policy […]
Having recently “published a report on 1,200 photos of U.S. torture that I have examined but the public at large has not seen,” activist David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet.org, 7/21/09) now relates how he talked about the photos on a few progressive radio shows. I received calls from some advocacy groups that have been trying for years […]
Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher (7/21/09) is reporting that newspaper union representatives claim a victory of sorts in the Boston Newspaper Guild’s refusal to accept a deal that “called for smaller benefit cuts and a furlough, but a higher 8.3 percent salary reduction.” The Boston Globe eventually agreed instead to “a 5.94 percent salary […]
Toxic Avenger creator Lloyd Kaufmann has a new McClatchy column (7/16/09) “speaking out on behalf of the little guy–or, in the case of independent film and TV producers, the belittled guy,” who generally is still “at the mercy of a handful of vertically integrated network-studio conglomerates, powerful giants that exercise control over the entertainment and […]
I give Peter Osnos credit for not being as nutty as Richard Posner or as self-pitying as Dana Milbank; his piece from CJR on “Whatâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s a Fair Share In the Age of Google?” (7-8/09) is the most reasonable version I’ve seen of the news industry’s case against the search engine company. Still, I can’t help […]
Arianna Huffington’s latest column (Huffington Post, 7/13/09) presents a compelling portrayal of the power of new democratic media–versus the self-preserving corporate model of news gathering–in the Chinese government response to major riots last week: “It choked off the Internet and mobile phone service, blocked Twitter and Fanfou (its Chinese equivalent), deleted updates and videos from […]
Viewing “two excellent pieces by the American News Project about the Fed’s astonishing actions during the current meltdown,” A Tiny Revolution‘s Jonathan Schwarz (7/12/09) confirms that “ANP does great work, and I commend them for taking on this subject–especially since it’s covered nowhere else, including on progressive blurms.” But he’s nonetheless reminded of a June […]
A Seattle Times op-ed column (7/4/09) by Free Press’ Victor Pickard and Joseph Torres discussing the fact that “the public’s changing media habits have eroded the newspaper industry’s monopoly on the local ad market” describes the corporate response thus: “The big media companies are pressuring Congress to prop up their failed business models by allowing […]
Brad Jacobson is resurrecting the “NYT Front|Back” feature of his Media Bloodhound blog (7/10/09)–spotlighting the New York Times‘ “penchant for placing a supremely unnewsworthy story on its cover while burying a vital one in its back pages”–only for “the most egregious and absurd examples.” The current example being their July 7 front-page headliner, “In Sex […]
