FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Free Press‘ Craig Aaron and Joseph Torres (Guardian.co.uk, 3/26/09) promptly knock down the scary development in which Nancy Pelosi recently “asked attorney general Eric Holder to consider loosening antitrust laws to help out struggling newspapers by allowing more media mergers. Holder responded by saying he is open to revisiting the rules”: Pelosi’s request sounds innocuous […]
David Sirota has a new column (Creators Syndicate, 3/27/09) chronicling the nature of “newspapers’ self-inflicted blows”: First, financially strapped newspapers undermined their comparative advantage by replacing audience-attracting local exclusives with cheaper national content. Then the providers of that national content diverted resources from tough-to-report investigative journalism that builds loyal readership and into paparazzi-like birdcage liner […]
Reporting that “L.A. Times blogger Andrew Malcolm started a web freakout” by suggesting “that the White House was blocking press access to a ceremony with the National Newspaper Publisher’s Association,” American Prospect blogger Adam Serwer (3/20/09) writes that, “in fact, part of the ceremony was an exclusive interview which naturally, the NNPA didn’t want other […]
The media activist group Free Press has a new release (3/19/09) warning of the latest threat to free speech online: “a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) that offers Internet service providers unprecedented control over Internet content.” DPI, says Free Press, “could spell disaster for the free market online,” AKA Net Neutrality. According to […]
If you look at the front page of the New York Post today (3/23/09), you see a big headline about New York State’s “Secret Deal to Tax ‘Rich.’” The scare quotes are there to indicate, presumably, that the taxpayers in question–whom the Post refers to as “anyone making more than $500,000 a year”–are not really […]
Journal-isms writer Richard Prince is highlighting (3/19/09) an article in the current issue of GQ headlined “You Think Your Job Sucks? Try Working for Lenny Dykstra”–the title of which might be an understatement, considering some of its reporting therein: A photo editor’s unflattering portrait of baseball-player-turned-financial adviser Lenny Dykstra as a racist, sexist and homophobe […]
Writing that “an astonishing number of North American dailies are gasping their last,” veteran Mexico journalist John Ross (CounterPunch, 3/18/09) cites “a recent survey by the New York Times, itself on its last legs,” that “lists 75 daily newspapers of being at risk from sea to stinking sea,” and singles out how San Francisco Chronicle […]
Today’s Democracy Now! (3/9/09) features Amy Goodman reporting that “a House Appropriations subcommittee has… asked the FCC to look into the allegations” of media activists across the country: Community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation, and the deadline for public comment is midnight […]
Keeping tabs on the “Fair and Balanced” network, Mark Howard (News Corpse, 3/2/09) details how last year, prior to the election, Fox News was already fortifying its right flank. New multimillion dollar contracts were handed out to Roger Ailes, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Hannity’s show shed the dead weight of alleged liberal Alan Colmes. […]
Reporting on last week’s closure of the 150-year-old Denver Rocky Mountain News, Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!, 2/27/09) give us the financial backstory behind the fact that “the newspaper industry is going through a major, major upheaval in these last few days”: “A lot of the papers ended up being bought in recent […]
Jeff Cohen journalism student Christopher Lisee has a blog post (myxomatosis, 2/27/09) with video of an independent reporter’s question to University of Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun. Asked to justify his being the “highest-paid state employee” during “a $2 billion budget deficit,” the coach’s belligerent response–“my best advice to you… shut up”–has the questioner responding […]
Ira Forman set off a furor in the blogosphere this week when he reported that CBS‘s pick for senior VP of communications, Jeff Ballabon, had once suggested “that Democrats are inherently bad people.” (Forman—who is the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council—maintains that this is what Ballabon had stated during a debate between […]
Lamenting the fact that “commercial radio stations everywhere have been swallowed up by a handful of giant corporations, playlists have shrunk and local and independent acts have been drowned out,” Free Press activist Timothy Karr (MediaCitizen, 2/26/09) also lets us know that the good news is that your rescue is at hand. On Tuesday, Reps. […]
Media writer Nat Ives (AdvertisingAge.com, 2/23/09) throws some cold water on overheated reportage of “all the apocalyptic news about newspapers”: Even as they take blow after blow from recession and digital media, newspapers themselves still earn decent profits…. “Not a lot of papers are operating at a loss,” said John Morton, the veteran industry analyst. […]
Industry news outlet TV Predictions has a commentary from Phillip Swann (2/22/09) telling us that when “roughly 36 percent” of local television stations recently stopped broadcasting ahead of the digital conversion deadline (“stations save money by switching early because they would no longer have to transmit both analog and digital signals”), “the FCC received more […]
David Gregory sticking up for bank stockholders on Meet the Press (2/22/09): There’s a larger point here, which is, first of all, the more…the shares of…these banks gets talked down…the closer you get to wiping out the shareholder completely. And it’s, it’s not clear to me that everybody understands that the investor in this country, […]
The Sacramento Unit of the California Media Workers Guild has published (BeeGuildNow.org, 2/16/09) an open letter to McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt describing how, in quick succession, our salaries and our pensions have been frozen. The company match has been eliminated from our 401K plans. Weâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢ve gone through two rounds of buyouts. Our ranks are thinner. […]
Expressing “concern that these deals could break FCC rules about commercial clients within news programs,” the New York Daily News‘ Richard Huff reports (2/10/09) a local scandal related to the WPIX/Channel 11 Pix Morning News program that “features a local restaurant chef whipping up a meal and often an anchor talking about a chance for […]
FAIR has a new action alert out calling on New York public TV station WNET to reject a $1 million grant to report on Social Security and healthcare from a foundation that supports cuts in Social Security and opposes universal healthcare. Please post letters that you send to WNET in the comments section of this […]
Washington Post TV writer Lisa de Moraes’ report (2/6/09) on a Barack Obama speech planned for networks’ cherished prime-time hours gives plenty of room to TV executives’ grievances–namely, Obama is going on national TV to talk about the economic crisis–during primetime, when some of their best shows are on! “His economic stimulus package apparently does […]
