FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
On May 1, a week before the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, the New York Times ran a front-page article by Stephen Kinzer under the headline, “Germans More Willing to Confront Nazi Crimes.” Referring to “a month of observances at former Nazi concentration camps” in the lead of his […]
For those fearing inflation, analysts said, one of the most reassuring elements of today’s report [of rising employment] was that average hourly earnings declined by 2 cents, after an October surge of 7 cents. —New York Times, Dec. 3, 1994 A common complaint is that the media favor bad news, but that isn’t fair. Given […]
The front page of the New York Times Week in Review section is a platform that both reflects and helps set the conventional wisdom. Michael Wines, one of the Times‘ top political reporters, used that space on September 11 to amplify the claims by “Mr. Clinton’s loyal critics in Congress and Democratic research circles…that only […]
There’s good news and bad news, America. The good news is that toxics in the environment are much less dangerous than once thought; the bad news is the government’s exorbitant over-regulation of chemicals. The solution? Wait patiently for more definitive data and then apply strict cost/benefit analysis. That’s the growing consensus among a new “third […]
New York City’s shelter system for homeless families has become so livable that hundreds, if not thousands, of families who could stay elsewhere are flocking to shelters so they can move to the top of the list for permanent subsidized housing, city officials say. Dorian and Renita Steeley and their three children, for example, were […]
So you want to be a big-time city editor like Lou Grant? Well, fine, but remember what happened to Lou Grant. He got cancelled. In real life these days, city news is bad news: taxes up, jobs and wages down; no money for schools, parks and bridges; banks in trouble, business threatening to leave; homelessness […]
The New York Times is fond of running chronologies to explicate history for its readers. Often these chronologies provide a very selective version of events. Take a Jan. 8, 1990 example headlined “Two Decades of Suffering in Cambodia”. It begins on March 18, 1970 (“Prince Norodom Sihanouk is ousted by Lon Nol…”) and then skips […]
A wall exhibit, “A people in Print: Jewish Journalism in America,” held in 1987 at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, featured enlarged photocopies of articles from the New York Times about the Holocaust–the most terrible stories–but given short shrift, relegated to the back pages of the paper. Included were items like […]
The day after a Soviet interceptor plane blew up a Korean passenger jet, a New York Times editorial was unequivocal: “There is no conceivable excuse for any nation shooting down a harmless airliner.” Confronted with the sudden reality of a similar action by the U.S. government, the New York Times inverted every standard invoked with righteous indignation five years earlier.
On Jan. 23, 1988, FAIR sent a questionnaire — excerpted below — to senior New York Times editors and correspondents covering Central America. It challenged Times coverage following the signing of the Esquipulas (“Arias”) regional peace accord, which required all Central American countries to respect human and political rights, and called for an end to […]
Argentine military officers feel they are victims of an ungrateful society, reports Shirley Christian in the New York Times (6/7/87). They feel their role in “putting down leftist subversion during the 1970s” is unappreciated—but not by Christian, who quoted unnamed army officers at length, with no comments from human rights activists or victims of the […]
An otherwise excellent New York Times Magazine article on Nazi fugitive Klaus Barbie failed to mention Barbie’s continuing role as a CIA asset.
