FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
One of the most common criticisms of the PBS NewsHour is that it too often mimics the elite bias of the commercial media. A recent broadcast of the NewsHour (6/8/11) had two segments about the debate over the Afghan War–the first a news report covering the Senate nomination hearings for Ryan Crocker, Obama’s nominee to […]
Some mystical power forces the corporate media to cover Donald Trump. In the New York Times today: But White House officials concluded about a month ago that the falsehoods had moved from “the nether regions of the Internet” into the mainstream political arena, thanks in large part to the efforts of Mr. Trump, the real […]
The bombing of Libya has sharply divided public opinion, but the PBS NewsHour has avoided a wide-ranging debate by overwhelmingly featuring the views of current and former government and military officials. If you’d like to see a more diverse group of voices arguing the pros and cons of intervention, see FAIR’s Action Alert. Please leave […]
Last night (3/24/11) Jim Lehrer introduced a NewsHour discussion segment about the Libya War: Now, how it looks to two former U.S. senators, Democrat Gary Hart of Colorado and Republican Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Senator Hart is now a scholar in residence at the University of Colorado and chair of the Defense Department’s Threat Reduction […]
From the Friday broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (2/4/11) came a discussion about how the U.S. supports dictators–which elicited some chuckles. Remember, Mark Shields is the one who plays the “left” on the program. MARK SHIELDS: Just one little point of personal privilege on Joe Biden, who did take a hit for not being able […]
Joe Biden on non-dictator Hosni Mubarak and “high-tech terrorist” Julian Assange.
In FAIR’s recent study of the PBS NewsHour, we found that discussions of the Afghan War were incredibly narrow–no opponents ofa war that isbroadly unpopular among the American public were allowed to make their case. Last night’s NewsHour (12/16/10) offered a chance to see that narrow sourcing yet again. The showfeatured areported segment on the […]
As you may have heard, the White House-backed deficit commission failed to gain a supermajority vote to support a proposal from co-chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Their suggestions came under sharp criticism from liberal and progressive critics. Butthe December 3 broadcast of the PBS NewsHour, a short report on that failure was tilted heavily […]
New York Times columnist David Brooks is a regular on TV talk shows–including his weekly appearance on the PBS NewsHour (allowing the public to hear regularly from a widely syndicated columnist and commercial TV pundit, just aspublic TV was intended to do!). On a NewsHour midterm election post-mortem discussion (11/3/10), Brooks made this point about […]
In the coverage of French retirement protests, you often hear U.S.reporters state the debate is over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. As Dean Baker has pointed out (as did Amitabh Pal from the Progressive, when he appeared on CounterSpin) this is incorrect; the retirement age for most French workers is 65; they […]
On Wednesday night’s broadcast of the PBS NewsHour (9/23/10), Gwen Ifill announced: “Now to the first of several conversations on whether or not to extend tax cuts that expire at the end of the year.” The first guest was Republican Glenn Hubbard, who Ifill told viewers “was the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers […]
PBS ombud Michael Getler, inspired at least in part by this post on FAIR Blog, addressed Dick Armey’s recent appearance on the PBS NewsHour in his September 17 column. Getler wrote that the Armey segment, which was paired with a later interview with Arianna Huffington, “didn’t work,”since the guests seemed to havevery different agendas. The […]
There was something depressing about a recent discussion on the PBS NewsHour Monday night (9/13/10) about the debate over what to do with the Bush-era tax cuts. The politics of the tax debate is well-known; most Democrats want to extend them for all but the top brackets, while the Republicans want to renew the cuts […]
We noted last week that the PBS NewsHour‘s coverageof the Gulf oil disaster one night includeda one-on-one interview with a spokesperson from BP. Going through the show’s coverage since then, a remarkable fact emerged: The show hadnot interviewed an environmental advocate opposed to the White House plan to increase offshore oil drilling. The reticence to […]
When FAIR released a study of the PBS‘s NewsHour (then known as the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour) in 1989, one finding stood out: The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the major environmental story of the period. MacNeil/Lehrer had seven segments on the spill; not one included an environmental representative. Several discussions were limited to Exxon officials and […]
PBS‘s NewsHour‘s Gwen Ifill (9/15/09), quizzing Richard Goldstone on his U.N. fact-finding mission that found that both Israel and Palestinian fighters had committed war crimes in the Gaza conflict: The term “even-handed” is the problem that Israel has with the conclusions in the report. Your criticism of Israel seems so much harsher than that of […]
Regular NewsHour left/right panelists Mark Shields and David Brooks were off on April 18. Sitting in on the right was former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson. In the liberal chair was Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, who is not exactly known for her strong progressive views. And in fact, Marcus established that fact right from the […]
Calling a PBS NewsHour budget plan segment by Judy Woodruff “a primer on how to conduct an interview relying almost solely on Republican talking points,” Brad Jacobson (Media Bloodhound, 2/27/09) says her “first question isn’t necessarily a Republican talking point, but it might as well be”: “$3.66 trillion, is that a number you can actually […]
For years, FAIR wondered what would happen if he were actually interviewed by Robert MacNeil. On September 11, 1990, the mystery ended.
