Matthews: Obama Needs to Break a Union Like Reagan
Praise for a conservative president’s breaking the air traffic controllers’ union–that’s what you hear on the liberal cable channel.
Jeff Cohen on Media Missing the Costs of Militarism
“Today there’s an elephant in the room: a huge, yet ignored, issue that largely explains why Social Security is now on the chopping block…. That problem is U.S. militarism and perpetual war.”
FAIR TV: Scarborough’s War, Steubenville, Drone ‘Debate’
This week on FAIR TV: Joe Scarborough remembers some things about the Iraq War–but forgets the things he said back then. We’ll take a look at the CNN Steubenville coverage that had so many critics outraged. And the Washington Post presented two takes on drone deaths in Pakistan.
Scarborough Remembers Some Iraq Words—But Not His Own
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough’s commentary looking back at the Iraq War took aim at some politicians and media outlets who were supportive of removing Saddam Hussein from power. But somehow he forgot to include his own words.
EXCLUSIVE: Bill O’Reilly Does Not Have Access to the Internet
On last night’s O’Reilly Factor, the Fox News host wondered why NBC has failed to cover the new revelations about the White House drone program. The real question here is why Fox doesn’t let O’Reilly have access to the Internet.
When It Comes to Drones, Trust the Churchgoing CIA Director
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.
David Gregory: Obama Should Trick Republicans by Being More Like Them
When reporters give strategic advice, they tend to reveal what they consider preferable policy goals. A discussion of taxes and spending on Meet the Press revealed a lot about host David Gregory’s worldview.
Corporate Media Lose Their Favorite ‘Warrior Scholar’
There’s no doubt that the sex scandal that prompted CIA director David Petraeus’s sudden resignation late last week is a big story. New details–verified or not–seem to arrive almost by the hour. But the reason it seems to have shaken so many media figures is because Petraeus was uniquely beloved by many in the corporate […]
It’s Awkward for NBC When MSNBC Tells the Truth
The New York Times has a news piece today (11/6/12) reporting that MSNBC is just like Fox News, and isn’t that awful. Now, MSNBC, for all its flaws, is not really anything like Fox News. And most of Times reporter Jeremy Peters‘ evidence for their similarity comes from a Pew study of “positive” and “negative” […]
Yes, You Can Talk About Climate Change on TV
FAIR’s new alert takes aim at the Sunday morning chat shows (Meet the Press, This Week, Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday) for ignoring climate change this weekend– right after “superstorm” Sandy devastated the East Coast. As we noted, NBC host David Gregory said early on his program: “Should more attention be paid to […]
Politico Makes You Glad Election Is Almost Over
The gossipy, horse race-obsessed outlet Politico ran a story on October 29 about the credibility of polling expert Nate Silver, whose 538 blog at the New York Times is a must-read for people interested in election forecasting. What Silver does isn’t, on one level, all that tricky–his model combines national and state polls and generates probabilities […]
FAIR TV: Killer Drones Stop Terrorism, PBS Gets Iran Wrong, New Obama Ad Is…Racist?
On the new episode of FAIR TV: Is a new Obama ad…racist? We’ll take a look at how PBS is misreporting Iran, and also take a look at Joe Klein’s remarkable defense of killing four-year-old girls in other countries. Take a look–and please spread the word.
Morning Joe’s Drone Debate: Whose Four-Year-Old Girls Should Be Killed?
MSNBC‘s Morning Joe had a remarkable discussion of U.S. drone attacks today (10/23/12). Here’s a clip of the most intense moments of the exchange between the conservative-leaning Joe Scarborough and Time columnist Joe Klein, who is occasionally mistaken for a liberal: Scarborough offered up a more passionate critique of drone attacks than you’re likely to […]
FAIR TV: Factchecking Moderators, Chris Matthews Wants a King, When Advertisers Write the “News”
This week on FAIR TV: Who factchecks the debate moderators? What Does Chris Matthews Think is in the Constitution? And why not just let advertisers write the “news”? Please take a look– and spread the word.
When Candidates Lie, REAL Journalists Say They ‘Finessed the Facts’
On the subject of why politicians aren’t worried about corporate media factcheckers, a New York Times article from last week (8/31/12) by Alessandra Stanley is worth a second look. Under the headline, “How MSNBC Became Fox‘s Liberal Evil Twin,” Stanley wrote: “You can agree with everything that Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz say on MSNBC […]
Shamir Remembered—With Selective Amnesia
In death, the U.S. media remembered the late Yitzhak Shamir as “a political hard-liner who served two terms as Israeli prime minster” (CNN, 6/30/12), “the hawkish Israeli leader who balked at the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians” (MSNBC, 6/30/12) and “a man of iron will and simple tastes” (Washington Post, […]
MSNBC: No Time for Obama’s Kill List?
The New York Times‘ lengthy report (5/29/12) on Barack Obama’s drone “kill list” should provoke serious questions: Is such a program legal? How does it square with Obama’s criticism of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” policies? What does it tell us about how the administration identifies “militants” who are targeted for assassination? But those […]
On Chris Hayes and Heroism
It is a very good thing that the Nation‘s Chris Hayes has a weekend show on MSNBC. The panelists are smart and the lively conversations dig deeper than virtually anything else on cable news. (The same can be said for MSNBC‘s Melissa Harris-Perry.) In other words, sounds like a recipe for trouble. And trouble arrived […]
Chris Matthews and the Awesome Power of Cable Television
Here’s the video of MSNBC host Chris Matthews speaking at a cable industry conference this week. We noted here the odd notion that, as Matthews argues, 24-hour cable news would have stopped the Iraq War lies—despite the fact that 24-hour cable news had been around for more than 20 years at the time of the […]
Chris Matthews: Cable News Would Have Stopped Iraq War Lies
(UPDATE: See the video of Matthews’ comments here, along with some discussion of what it all means.) Reporting from the big cable TV industry event this week, Broadcasting & Cable‘s Andrea Morabito writes (5/22/12): Hardball host Chris Matthews argued that because of the rise of opinion-based news networks, the non-critical aspect of the media is […]
