FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Thispast Sunday’s edition of NBC‘sMeet the Press (10/10/10) featuredtwo gueststalking about the midterms, the economy and public sentiment: conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and Time magazine’s Joe Klein. Klein has been on a road trip through the middle of the country to assess how Americans are feeling (that is, Americans who don’t live […]
An important story is happening right now that’s not getting a whole lot of media attention. A military court is investigating claims that members of a U.S. Army Stryker unit randomly killed Afghan civilians. Some of the soldiers say they were pressured by a commanding officer into participating in the crimes. There are also reports […]
Dateline NBC (8/22/10) did a special look back at Hurricane Katrina last weekend in anticipation of the disaster’s five-year anniversary. Watching the collage of 2005 footage and Brian Williams’ present-day commentary, I was struck by his characterization of the violence: You know, I’ve been around a lot of guns and a lot of dead bodies, […]
During an August 18 segment about the Iraq War, anchor Brian Williams said (emphasis added): Let’s bring into this conversation retired U.S. Army Colonel Jack Jacobs. He’s a decorated combat veteran, a recipient of the Medal of Honor and, of course, an NBC News military analyst. Well, at this point, people like me always ask […]
Public support for the Afghanistan war continues to drop. Casualties mount. So why is NBC‘s Meet the Press giving viewers a parade of hawkish pundits and military officials? If you haven’t already done so, please join FAIR’s call to broaden the debate on the war on the most-watched Sunday morning chat show. And while you’re […]
The Afghanistan documents posted by WikiLeaks were obviously the big story of the week. So how did the network Sunday shows react to these disclosures, which have the potential to open up a real debate about the Afghan War? NBC‘s Meet the Press interviewed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen. ABC‘s […]
For those of you not following right-wing non-stories, there is a mini-scandal brewing over something called JournoList, a now defunct private email list started by a liberal blogger named Ezra Klein. It came to include something like 400 members, many of whom were other liberal bloggers, academics and pundits. Someone leaked many of the emails […]
To hear some of the Beltway media tell it,on Sunday White House press secretary Robert Gibbs predicted that the Democrats could lose their congressional majority in the November midterms. The L.A. Times captured some of the sense of crisis (7/14/10), noting that party leaders also tried to improve the gloomy prognosis. White House Press Secretary […]
With Gen. David Petraeus back in the media spotlight after being tapped to take control of the Afghanistan war following General Stanley McChrystal’s fall from grace, the corporate media are trumpeting the “successful” surge in Iraq (Extra, 9/10/08) that Petraeus oversaw and are looking to him as the man to turn around the Afghan war. […]
NBC reporter Ann Curry’s fawning interview with actor Ben Affleck (NBC Nightly News, 5/19/10), about his celebrity activist work in the Congo, is downright embarrassing: CURRY: Why do you pick the place that people think is actually one of the worst places in terms of the number of atrocities, in terms of the level of […]
Brian Williams introduced a report on NBC Nightly News (4/21/10) with this declaration: “Public schools from coast to coast in this country are looking at tens of thousands of layoffs, a lot of them teachers, because the money is not there.” Correspondent Ron Allen went on to report: In Springfield, Illinois, thousands of teachers turned […]
Various forces have been accused of being behind the January 12 killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi–including the Iranian government, the Iranian opposition, the United States and Israel. To sort through this murky subject, MSNBC (1/12/10) turned to Democratic congressmember Jane Harman, who confidently told Andrea Mitchell: I think the logic here is […]
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is getting attention for one rather unusual finding: that the right-wing Tea Party movement is more popular than either the Democratic or Republican parties. The point was made on MSNBC‘s First Read website and on the channel’s Morning Joe program this morning (12/17/09). Don’t buy it. The MSNBC headline– […]
A meeting of the minds between NBC host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (Chris Matthews Show, 11/29/09): IGNATIUS: The long period of analysis, very deliberative, robs this of passion. This is–he was going to be a wartime president now, and he has to sell the country on the idea that our young […]
Mark Weisbrot had a good column in the London Guardian (10/23/09) about the highly circumscribed “debate” over the Afghanistan War (FAIR Action Alert, 8/25/09). He breaks down the lineup of a recent Meet the Press (10/11/09): Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former Army general and drug czar (under President Clinton) turned defense industry lobbyist. In a […]
A bit of NBC Nightly News last night, from reporter Mike Viqueria: But now Mr. Obama faces more friendly fire. After a key committee passed a plan to pay for reform with a tax on high-cost policies, major unions, normally Obama allies, took out full-page newspaper ads complaining that the tax will hit labor hardest […]
The New York Times reported (10/15/09) that rocker Jon Bon Jovi has arranged an unusual deal to become an “artist in residency” on NBC, appearing across the network’s various shows to promote an upcoming album. The deal is all the more striking because it includes a segment on NBC Nightly News–part of the show’s “Making […]
Disapproval and despair over the lost standards of journalistic objectivity are trotted out only for reporters whose opinions are at odds with official views.
One of the items enumerated in Glenn Greenwald’s round-up of “Various Matters” for Salon (9/4/09, ad-viewing required) addresses how NBC‘s “Chuck Todd this week noted the series of petty scandals the right has been manufacturing and remarked: ‘The ability of some conservatives to create media firestorms is still much greater than liberals these days’”–which viewpoint […]
Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill (The Nation, Democracy Now!) appeared on HBO‘s Real Time With Bill Maher alongside NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd. Because Jeremy isn’t the type to let such an opportunity to go to waste, he used some of his time to castigate the corporate media for failing to question the White House […]
