FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Some writers were able to accurately depict the entire truth of Kobe Bryant’s legacy while still honoring the tragedy of his and his daughter’s death and the positive impact Bryant had on sports.
The New York Times chose to focus more on David Koch’s love for the ballet than on his pollution and profiteering.
You know you’ve lived well—well enough to rattle the establishment—when the New York Times smears you in the obituary it runs about you (FAIR.org, 6/20/13). That distinction was achieved by William Blum, historian and critic of US foreign policy. Once a State Department computer programmer who aspired to “take part in the great anti-Communist […]
It isn’t merely that it’s no part of journalists’ job to stoke misty visions of powerful public figures, dead or living; asserting that George H.W. Bush was America’s lovable Grandpa—that only the insolent would gainsay such an image—erases the many people harmed grievously by his actions and inactions.
That so many corporate media outlets can uniformly whitewash a right-wing war hawk with links to fascists as a “human rights champion” and “defender of democracy” is a testament to just how beholden corporate media are to US government interests.
Bourdain’s death should be a wake-up call to people from documentary filmmakers to independent media outfits wanting to use the internet in creative ways: There’s a hunger among regular people in the US for the unvarnished realities of the rest of the world, and major media are serving up precious little to feed it.
Anthony Bourdain’s programs were in sharp contrast to corporate media’s typically cliched depiction of other countries, frequently shown as synonymous with their caricatured rulers, with canned images tirelessly repeated.
Journalism lost one of its most valuable investigators when Robert Parry died on January 27, from pancreatic cancer, at the age of 68. He was the first reporter to reveal Oliver North’s operation in the White House basement (AP, 6/10/1985), and the co-author of the first report on Contra drug-smuggling (AP, 12/21/1985). He did some […]
Ed Herman was the main author of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, written with Noam Chomsky—the 1980s masterwork that exposed how elite US media typically function as propaganda organs for US empire and militarism.
FAIR thanks the activists who contacted the New York Times, and the Times for correcting the record.
Ask the New York Times to correct the claim that Herman and Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent was criticized for “having soft-pedaled evidence of genocide” that hadn’t happened yet.
One of the greatest and sweetest media critics ever, Edward S. Herman, has passed away. Ed was the main author of Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, written with Noam Chomsky.
The July 27 CounterSpin noted the passing of one of media criticism’s greatest writers: FAIR was saddened to hear of the death of radical journalist Alexander Cockburn. He was one of the writers to whom FAIR is most indebted, inspiring a revival of hard-hitting political media criticism with the Press Clips column in the Village […]
In death, the U.S. media remembered the late Yitzhak Shamir as “a political hard-liner who served two terms as Israeli prime minster” (CNN, 6/30/12), “the hawkish Israeli leader who balked at the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians” (MSNBC, 6/30/12) and “a man of iron will and simple tastes” (Washington Post, […]
NPR ombud Alicia Shepard responded to the over 1,500 activists who wrote to NPR regarding the Howard Zinn obituary that aired on All Things Considered. Her response is below. Thanks to all of those on the list who wrote to NPR. Activist Historian Howard Zinn’s Obit Causes a Firestorm There’s a taboo not to speak […]
When progressive historian Howard Zinn died on January 27, NPR‘s All Things Considered (1/28/10) marked his passing with something you don’t often see in an obituary: a rebuttal. After quoting Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond, NPR‘s Allison Keyes turned to far-right activist David Horowitz to symbolically spit on Zinn’s grave. “There is absolutely nothing in […]
The Washington Post‘s editorial (7/7/09) on the death of Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara managed to outdo even the New York Times‘ victim-erasing obituary. The Times cited the number of invading troops killed by McNamara’s war of aggression while ignoring the vastly larger number of Indochinese deaths—but for the Post, neither the aggressors nor their […]
In the sixth paragraph of his front-page obituary of Vietnam War–era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (7/7/09), the New York Times‘ Tim Weiner tries—and fails—to give some idea of the human cost of McNamara’s war: Half a million American soldiers went to war on his watch. More than 16,000 died; 42,000 more would fall in the […]
The Associated Press‘ Shawn Pogatchnik (5/12/09) has the incredible and deeply alarming story of Dublin sociology student Shane Fitzgerald having “posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia” just as the world’s reporters were writing up the March 18 death of composer Maurice Jarre. Intended for “testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding […]
As the media spend the week memorializing Ronald Reagan, journalists are redefining the former president’s life and accomplishments with a stream of hagiographies that frequently skew the facts and gloss over scandal and criticism. Reagan’s Popularity “Ronald Reagan was the most popular president ever to leave office,” explained ABC anchor Elizabeth Vargas (6/6/04). “His […]
