FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
What’s the press saying about the Bradley Manning trial? We take a look at a strange CBS Evening News report about a U.S. atrocity in Afghanistan, and David Gregory thinks he found an Obama flip-flop.
NBC’s Brian Williams called Bradley Manning “the man who may have put U.S. military secrets in the hands of Osama bin Laden.” But giving classified information to the public is something that news outlets–including NBC News–routinely do, and each time they do it they too could be accused of “aiding the enemy.”
If you care at all about war and peace, press freedom, whistleblowers’ rights and the public’s right to know what the government is doing, the trial of Bradley Manning is of enormous consequence. It would have been hard for NBC News to come up with a more hostile framing.
While Meet the Press’s David Gregory is playing “gotcha” by selectively editing Barack Obama’s speeches, the real story here is that the administration’s record of targeting investigative journalism is all too consistent.
If you followed the coverage of President Barack Obama’s May 23 speech at the National Defense University, you would think something big happened to the “war on terror.” That was probably the message the White House wanted the press to send. But is true?
This week: PBS won’t be showing us the documentary Citizen Koch–for some very dubious reasons. Also: The New York Times points out that the U.S. role in supporting genocide in Guatemala was hardly discussed at the trial; the same goes for U.S. media coverage of that trial. And Donald Rumsfeld goes on Meet the Press […]
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams had a most peculiar reaction to revelations that Afghan president Hamid Karzai receives regular deliveries of cash from the Central Intelligence Agency.
When someone says they “broke” with George W. Bush over the Iraq War, you might be inclined to think that they did that sometime before 2006 or so, which is about when Bush strategist-turned-TV pundit Matthew Dowd is saying he left.
It didn’t take long for TV coverage of North Korea to enter the “Retired General Sketches Out War Games on a Big Map” phase. But a recent example of the genre on CNN demonstrated only the alarmism seems to be the order of the day.
To hear U.S. corporate media tell it, there are “exercises” right next door, conducted by the world’s most powerful military, which possesses thousands of nuclear weapons–and then there’s menacing “saber-rattling.”
On two Sunday shows this weekend, the hosts made the same point about the White House’s plan for modest gun control efforts: The public isn’t going along. Oddly, they both ignored their own networks’ polling that would have undermined their argument.
Argentine cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen as the new pope this week. But coverage often glossed over the most intense political controversies about him.
Tom Friedman wrote a column about how government policies are harming the recovery. What we need is some kind of grand bargain to, as the headline puts is, “unparalyze” the economy and spur new growth. What’s that mean? Cuts to Social Security and Medicare, along with “tax reform.”
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.
Ten years ago today, Colin Powell made the Bush administration’s case for going to war against Iraq, and much of what he said was false. Most of the journalists who promoted his justifications for the war paid no price for their failures.
NBC’s Richard Engel report that “what we’ve been able to confirm” is that a Syrian convoy attacked by Israel “was packed with fairly sophisticated Russian anti-aircraft missiles.” It is highly doubtful that Engel could “confirm” any such thing–unless by “confirm” he means that NBC is confirming that government sources are claiming what they are claiming.
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.
USA Today’s point in covering this weekend’s anti-choice “March for Life” is is to note that, 40 years after the Roe v. Wade decision, the country is divided on abortion rights. That’s an odd way of describing a 24-point spread in public opinion
The headline of a recent article posted at the website of the Atlantic–“David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year”–probably tipped readers that something was more than a little off. It wasn’t an article, really; above the headline, in a yellow box, was the phrase “Sponsor Content.” But is what the Atlantic did–and quickly apologized for–really unusual?
NBC Nightly News asked a serious question the other night–and then gave a not-so-serious answer: Why it is so cold where it should be warm, and so warm where it should be cold? What is going on with all this extreme weather?” Its answer was true as far as it went–but it didn’t go any farther.
