FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In today’s New York Times, Jennifer Steinhauer notes the remarkable number of Congressmembers– more than 80–who are heading to Israel thanks to a program affiliated with AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying force. Steinhauer sizes up the political backdrop– the White House has strained relations with the current Israeli government, and there’s more: the Palestinians are […]
The New York Times has a long piece (8/12/11) looking at the question of how many civilians in Pakistan are killed by CIA drones. The agency doesn’t even speak about the program on the record, except to make the far-fetched claim that no civilians have died in the past year or so. The article, written […]
Much of the media coverage of the riots in England dwells on the issue of police restraint. There is a “public backlash against police restraint,” the Washington Post explained (8/11/11), with some wanting “a tougher response to the rash of disturbances that has sullied Britain’s image.” The problem is the “seemingly halting, even timorous, policing,” […]
Today New York Times reporter Helene Cooper (8/10/11) surveys the bad economic situation and asks of Barack Obama: Is he willing to try to administer the disagreeable medicine that could help the economy mend over the long term, even if that means damaging his chances for re-election? What’s that mean, exactly? The first person she […]
Labor disputes are often about compensation– salary and/or benefits. Management claims its employees are actually doing just fine, workers say otherwise. 45,000 Verizon workers are on strike on the East Coast over salary, pension and health benefits and collective bargaining rights. One would hope that reporters would try to referee such disputes over compensation. In […]
If the White House encouraged Americans to prevent colds by wearing sweaters, one would hope that media outlets would point out that there’s no evidence that being chilly has anything to do with catching a cold. Likewise, if the Interior Department green-lights a plan to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean in order to […]
New York Times reporter Dan Barry has an “outsider visiting the Capitol” piece (8/3/11) about the strange things one encounters in the legislative sausage factory. In some rooms you are required to wear a necktie; others have no such rules. The place is confusing in other ways, too: “To reach the third level from the […]
There was an interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday (8/1/11) by Elizabeth Jensen about plans to ship PBS programming across the pond. It’s a hard concept to get your head around, especially if you’re under the impression that Britain’s public broadcasting system is superior to our own. That might not be the strangest […]
“Iran arming Iraq insurgents”was last month’s story. Today’s papers are telling a different story; the new line being pushed by U.S. officials is that Iran is supporting Al-Qaeda. Today’s Washington Post: Iran Allows Money, Recruits to Reach Al-Qaeda, U.S. Says ‘Secret deal’ allegedly supports activities of terrorists in Pakistan In the New York Times: Treasury […]
In the debt ceiling debate, Republicans and corporate media have somewhat similar strategies: The GOP can’t reach an agreement with the Democrats, because that would be a win for Obama. The media, meanwhile, can’t say that the Democrats are doing the right thing, even when they’re doing exactly what media pundits demand that they do […]
In a piece today, the Washington Post’s Greg Miller reports on a CIA base that will be used to conduct drone strikes in Yemen: The agency is building a desert airstrip so that it can begin flying armed drones over Yemen. The facility, which is scheduled to be completed in September, is designed to shield […]
“Make Way for the Radical Center” is exactly the sort of headline that suggests a story one might want to skip. But this is a Tom Friedman column (7/24/11), so you know it’s going to be good for…something. This time around, the jet-setting third party advocate is writing about something called Americans Elect, which Friedman […]
Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is now speaking out publicly–weeks after press coverage took a turn against her, based on the notion that something about her made her allegations less credible. “Strauss-Kahn Prosecution Said to Be Near Collapse” was the July 1 New York Times headline. One of the strongest […]
The first sentence of Mark Landler’s piece in the New York Times today (7/21/11): It is a truism of Middle East peacemaking that the United States is the pivotal player–the most credible broker between the Israelis and the Palestinians. If by “truism” he means “something most people don’t believe to be true,” then this makes […]
The convention in mainstream journalism is that the new stories give you the facts, and the columnists give you their opinions (hopefully backed by facts). But in the coverage over the debt ceiling and budget debates sometimes you’re better off heading straight to the columns. Today offers a good example. In the Washington Post (7/15/11), […]
The headline in today’s New York Times (7/13/11): Plenty of Action Before the Game, but No Immigration Law Protests The Paper of Record reported that the much-discussed protests against Arizona’s SB 1070 law fizzled: In the end, commerce trumped conscience. It was no mystery why the fervor over the immigration law was as flat as […]
A New York Times piece by C.J. Chivers (7/13/11) presents a scary picture of Libyan rebel behavior: Rebels in the mountains in Libya’s west have looted and damaged four towns seized since last month from the forces of Col. Muammar el-Gadhafi, part of a series of abuses and apparent reprisals against suspected loyalists that have […]
As we pointed out here and Monica Novoa pointed out here, Jose Antonio Vargas came out in the pages of the New York Times Magazine as an undocumented immigrant. In that piece and in some follow-ups, he seems to be aware of the distinction between “undocumented” and “illegal.” His Times piece was headlined, “My Life […]
The current Status of Forces agreement calls for U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by the end of the year. The U.S. government wants to stay longer, and would seem to be pressuring the Iraqi government to ask them to do just that. But the Iraqi government hasn’t done that yet–leading to stories like […]
Reporter Jose Antonio Vargas wrote a moving piece for the New York Times magazine about his status as an undocumented immigrant. One hope is that his story might improve the tone and substance of media coverage of immigration; Vargas has suggested as much, at one point tweeting this message: Undocumented Immigrant trending. So let’s drop […]
