FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The website Gawker (6/9/09) caught Newsweek making some sneaky changes in an online article—changes that were ordered by Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, and which just happened to favor the host of a show that Meacham appears on regularly. On the afternoon of Friday, June 5, Newsweek‘s website put up an interview with Joe Scarborough, the […]
MSNBC‘s Morning Joe program seems to have turned its conspicuous consumption of Starbucks drinks into a paid commercial for the coffee chain, according to this morning’s New York Times (6/1/09). As Brian Stelter put it, Joe Scarborough “sips Frappuccinos on camera so often that some viewers have wondered whether it is a form of product […]
It is quite telling that, even considering how in Ed Schultz’s May 7 MSNBC interview of Physician for a National Health Program Margaret Flowers and Sen. Debbie Stabenow, he “slaps a gratuitous insult on the heroines of Code Pink” and “says he’s against protesting and “getting arrested” as a rule but thinks it’s OK if […]
During coverage of the Obama administration’s 100-day mark, MSNBC had war reporter Richard Engel and anchor Tamron Hall interview MSNBC analyst Barry McCaffrey, who CJR.org‘s Clint Hendler (4/29/09) calls “the retired army general whose many conflicts of interest have been analyzed by David Barstow’s now-Pulitzer Prize winning reporting for the New York Times.” When asked […]
Noting that, “for the last decade or so, Washington has indulged Pat Buchanan as a sort of crazy political uncle” by having “agreed to forget about his long track record of racially questionable commentary and writing,” TPM Muckraker‘s Zachary Roth and Justin Elliott (4/24/09) have caught a column “for the far-right web magazine, Human Events,” […]
Political Animal blogger Steve Benen (4/8/09) asks if maybe it’s “Already Too Late for the Truth” in cable news coverage of U.S. military spending, considering that directly “after Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled his recommendations for restructuring military spending–and boosting the Pentagon budget by $21 billion (4 percent)–the response was immediate: The Obama administration is […]
With Fox News Channel relentlessly promoting—and MSNBC mostly mocking—the right-wing “tea party” demonstrations around the country today, middle-of-the-road media critics are making a typically middle-of-the-road complaint: Yes, Fox shouldn’t be sponsoring such events, but the rest of the corporate media shouldn’t just ignore these allegedly newsworthy events. As Howard Kurtz put it in the Washington […]
Blogger Brad Jacobson gives play-by-play (MediaBloodhound, 1/28/09) for an epic attempt by MSNBC‘s Chris Matthews to live down his one-time confession to having “felt this thrill going up my leg” during a Barack Obama speech. Matthews’ reparation strategy: “How about facilitating a discussion about Obama’s proposed stimulus plan with two lawmakers from the same party, […]
By way of suggesting that corporate media should make even more aggressive efforts to tie President-elect Barack Obama to a politician who called him a “motherfucker” for refusing to try to bribe him, MSNBC‘s Contessa Brewer remarks: I know that there are journalists who are taking a lot of heat for not being aggressive and […]
A recent New York Times article (11/29/08) offers fresh documentation of conflicts of interest involving one of TV’s most famous retired generals, Barry McCaffrey, who continues to be employed as an NBC military analyst even as he rakes in profits from military contractors. The story of how McCaffrey and at least 74 other retired generals […]
New York Times TV reporter Jim Rutenberg (11/2/08) tries to make a case that Fox News and MSNBC are (in Tom Rosenstiel’s words) “reverse images of each other.” Here are the actual quotes used by Rutenberg to demonstrate this supposed parallelism—first, Ann Coulter on Fox (10/30/08): I feel like we are talking to the Germans […]
The affliction that causes national political commentators to project their own perceptions onto the public– let’s call it Pundit Projection Syndrome–is affecting David Gregory’s ability to come to grips with the fact that the public just wasn’t as into John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s debate performances as he was. Last night on his MSNBC show, […]
Why do CBS, NBC and top media pundits seem to feel no embarrassment over associating with Don Imus’s racism?
Michael Savage’s MSNBC show, The Savage Nation, was cancelled today because of homophobic remarks made by the host on the July 5 edition of the show, according to an Associated Press (AP) report. Those comments—labeling a caller “a sodomite” and telling him to “get AIDS and die”—were the subject of a FAIR action alert earlier […]
MSNBC‘s claim to be championing free speech by hiring hate-talk radio host Michael Savage is disingenuous in the extreme. Defending its decision to give a weekly program to a commentator who specializes in diatribes against various groups, the MSNBC cable network called hiring Savage—whose show will premiere on Saturday, March 8—”a legitimate attempt to expand […]
If you’re concerned about bigotry on the syndicated radio show Imus in the Morning, the host thinks you should just “get over it.”
