FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Tom Friedman, writing today about the Arab Spring (4/13/11–the same column Jim Naureckas critiqued for FAIR Blog here): Another option is that an outside power comes in, as America did in Iraq, and as the European Union did in Eastern Europe, to referee or coach a democratic transition between the distrustful communities in these fractured […]
One thing Thomas Friedman demonstrates over and over is that you don’t need to know much to be an expert. Take today’s column (New York Times, 4/13/11), which is based around a contrast between the European wave of democratization in 1989 and the current “Arab spring”: Think about the 1989 democracy wave in Europe. In […]
A headline in yesterday’s New York Times (4/10/11): Violence Rises as Israel and Hamas Trade Blows This “blow trading” has resulted in18 deaths, all in Gaza–roughly half civilians and half militants. On the Israeli side, one boy was seriously injured. The Times account tells us: The Israeli military said that if civilians were hit, it […]
This New York Times piece by Jeff Zeleny on the budget deal was actually headlined: President Adopts a Measured Course to Recapture the Middle Zeleny explained: President Obama opened the week by calling on Democrats to embrace his re-election campaign. He closed it by praising Republicans for forging a compromise to cut spending this year […]
In coverage of the budget negotiations in Washington, which have largely revolved around how much money will be cut from the federal budget, it’s rarely acknowledged that the standard economic assumption is that reducing government spending at a time of diminished economic activity will destroy jobs. As a rule of thumb, every $1 billion in […]
Afraid of NATO killing civilians in Libya? The New York Times editorial page (4/8/11) sees the way forwardby ramping up the war: There is a much better option: the American A-10 and AC-130 aircraft used earlier in the Libya fighting and still on standby status…. But no other country has aircraft comparable to Americaâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s A-10, […]
In a mostly informative “news analysis” (“Ohio’s Anti-Union Law Is Tougher Than Wisconsin’s,” New York Times, 4/1/11) comparing new anti-union laws that restrict collective bargaining rights in Ohio and Wisconsin, New York Times labor and workplace correspondent Steven Greenhouse seems at one point to adopt the framing and language of anti-labor politicians and pundits: Moreover, […]
The New York Times‘ Helene Cooper on President Obama’s speech last night (3/29/11): To the democracy protesters across the Middle East, he vowed that the United States would stand by them, even as he said that “progress will be uneven, and change will come differently in different countries,” a partial acknowledgment that complex relations between […]
In a New York Times science article (3/29/11) about the CIA and Pentagon’s psychological profiling of foreign political figures, reporter Benedict Carey adds a note of caution: Yet the assessments can also be misleading, even embarrassing. Profiles of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq that circulated in the early 1990s suggested that he was ultimately a […]
In his New York Times column today (3/24/11)–headlined “Hugs From Libyans”–Nicholas Kristof boils down the argument in favor of the war in Libya: Then, on Wednesday in Benghazi, the major city in eastern Libya whose streets would almost certainly be running with blood now if it weren’t for the American-led military intervention, residents held a […]
The New York Times‘ reassuring reporting on the radioactive plume drifting across the U.S. continues the paper’s troubling tradition of parroting comforting words from officials in the midst of modern-day environmental crises–like the environmental fallout post-9/11. Let’s compare headlines: “Radiation Over U.S. Is Harmless, Officials Say” (3/22/11) “Workers and Residents Are Safe, Officials Say” (11/2/01) […]
The radioactive plume from Japan wafting from west to east across the U.S. is absolutely nothing to worry about, writes William J. Broad in a New York Times report today (“Radiation Over U.S. Is Harmless, Officials Say,” 3/22/11) about the radiation threats posed by the Japanese nuclear plant disaster. Broad writes: Health experts said that […]
Here is Michel Martelly, one of the two conservative candidates vying to be next president of Haiti, courtesy of Kim Ives in an Institute for Public Accuracy release: In the years following Aristide’s restoration to power in 1994, Martelly became obsessed with hatred for the man. In a video from not too long ago, which […]
The New York Times (3/17/11) presents a look at the Japanese government’s lack of candor about the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At first we’re given the impression that this is something cultural: “The less-than-straight talk is rooted in a conflict-averse culture that avoids direct references to unpleasantness.” We don’t have that problem, I guess. Then, we’re […]
On the release of CIA agent Raymond Davis, who was held in Pakistan on charges of killing two Pakistani men on a street in Lahore, the Times explains the reaction (3/17/11) The Davis episode was particularly sensitive because of the resentment among Pakistanis who believe that a growing American security contingent roams the country with […]
If you’ve tracked media coverage of nuclear power, you know that every few months or so nuclear power is about to enjoy a comeback. The “nuclear renaissance” has always been right around the corner, we’ve often been told. Take the New York Times, for example: -Few industries have enjoyed the kind of renaissance that nuclear […]
Five members of a family in the West Bank settlement of Itamar were killed in their home on Friday night. Nothing is known about the perpetrators or their motivation. But much of the media coverage assumes the killers were Palestinians, and the murders were apolitical act. The New York Times on March 13: It was […]
Will the unfolding crisis in Japan lead to a debate over the safety of nuclear power in the United States? Initial signs are not encouraging. NBC‘s Meet the Press(3/13/11)had an interview with Marvin Fertel of the Nuclear Energy Institute.Host Chuck Todd prefaced one question with, “Iunderstand that you represent the industry’s interests in this….” Later […]
It was great to see this letter in the New York Times from Edward Said’s widow (3/11/11): To the Editor: I smiled when I read “Huntington’s Clash Revisited,” by David Brooks (column, March 4). Eighteen years after Samuel Huntington wrote his Foreign Affairs essay “The Clash of Civilizations,” Mr. Brooks has arrived at a conclusion […]
I wrote a letter to the New York Times in 1991 after they ran a piece by Fox Butterfield (4/17/91) that invaded the privacy (literally peering into her daughter’s bedroom window) and scrutinized the personal life of a woman who accused a member of the Kennedy family of raping her. Clearly some people inside the […]
