FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
On Monday’s edition of the NewsHour (1/28/13), host Gwen Ifill referred to concerns about the “threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program,” and told viewers that a story “looks at the debate in Israel over how to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.” How hard is it for NewsHour to understand that allegations are not facts?
Even stranger is the New York Times going on to point out that Iran’s uranium stockpile that could even be used for a weapon is getting smaller.
There are plenty of problems with coverage of Iran right now. The most important issue to understand is that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. Since this is the basis for the current “crisis” narrative, it’s important for journalism to try to clearly differentiate what is known and what is […]
Evaluating reporting and commentary about Iran could be reduced to one simple rule: There is no evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear weapon. Statements that suggest otherwise are misleading. Reports that fail to point this out are doing readers/viewers/listeners a disservice. That sounds simple enough. But don’t tell that to the outlets that […]
Last month the group Just Foreign Policy alerted readers to a Washington Post feature that was headlined “Iran’s Quest to Possess Nuclear Weapons.” The Post changed the headline, and ombud Patrick Pexton weighed in with a column (12/7/11) saying that the IAEA report does not say Iran has a bomb, nor does it say it […]
The Monday broadcast of CBS Evening News (12/19/11) began with big news, with anchor Scott Pelley announcing: The secretary of Defense says tonight that the United States will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. In an interview with CBS News, Leon Panetta says that despite efforts to disrupt their nuclear program, the Iranians […]
When the International Atomic Energy Agency is about to release a report on an official enemy like Iran, you can be fairly confident that contents of the report–or what people believe should be in it–will be leaked to elite newspapers by anonymous sources in or near the IAEA, who will tend to make more alarming […]
The New York Times’ treatment of Iranian and Israeli nuclear programs in recent months is a clear example of the systematic double standard the “paper of record” displays in international coverage (Extra!, 8/09). The Times has devoted tremendous space and resources to covering Iran’s nuclear program. Even though, as the Times itself explained (9/26/09), there […]
When “journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling stepped back onto American soil after being detained in North Korea for over four months. Their safe return was covered widely in the American media, and rightfully so,” writes Women In Media & News guest blogger Tristin Aaron (8/12/09), “yet their reason for traveling to North Korea has […]
Hiroshima in America author Greg Mitchell (Editor & Publisher, 8/6/09) has taken a hard look at “the suppression of film and photographic evidence of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki” that “would play a key role as America embarked on a nuclear era with severe impact still with us today.” He gives us a […]
FAIR associate Sam Husseini has blogged his reaction (Husseini.org, 7/4/09) to a Barack “Obama Photo Op with Helen Thomas” in which the president “came with cupcakes to wish Helen Thomas a happy birthday”: “Now, if only he’d take her questions.” Obama claimed they have a “common birthday wish”–for a “real healthcare reform bill”–but Thomas is […]
Noticing that “many of the headlines greeting North Korea’s nuclear blast yesterday carried the phrase ‘as big as the Hiroshima bomb’ or words to that effect,” media writer and Hiroshima in America co-author Greg Mitchell (Editor & Publisher, 5/26/09) says “that’s not the only reference point that Hiroshima should evoke”: Simply stated: The fact that […]
U.S. news media outlets have largely decided to echo White House charges despite the shortage of facts.
News Zero: The New York Times and the Bomb By Beverly Ann Deepe Keever Common Courage Press Reviewed by Karl Grossman The New York Times has for decades downplayed—indeed suppressed—the dangers of radioactivity, according to an exhaustive study by a professor of journalism at the University of Hawaii. Beverly Ann Deepe Keever is a former […]
UPI Washington staffer John Hanrahan subsequently expanded upon Norman Solomon’s report that the Nevada test site’s top official lied.
Shouldn’t we demand that media disclose their financial ties when they produce news stories that could impact the profits of their corporate parent?
