Gullibility Begins at Home
The New York Times failed to mount a functional degree of skepticism toward city and federal government pronouncements about the safety of the air and dust around Ground Zero.
Imperial Projection
The horror with which U.S. television personalities and newspaper columnists have responded to the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s skewering of George W. Bush at the United Nations is just the latest in a long series of media portrayals of Chávez as a destabilizing force in the hemisphere. While op-ed pages scarcely mention the Bush administration’s […]
Lives in the Balance
On August 14, the New York Times addressed one of the significant worries for U.S. media outlets covering the Israeli bombing and invasion of Lebanon: Civilians in Lebanon were the primary victims, dying in far greater numbers than Israeli military personnel and civilians combined. (Amnesty International estimated that the fighting killed about 1,000 civilians in […]
CBS, NBC Clean Up Bush’s ‘Happy’ Talk
During his August 21 press conference, George W. Bush responded to a question about the Iraq War by saying that “sometimes I’m happy” about the conflict. But many readers and TV viewers never heard the remark, since journalists edited the statement to save Bush any possible embarrassment. Bush’s unedited comment was as follows: Q: But […]
If You Don’t Like Voters’ Views, Just Use Republican Spin Points
When congressional Democrats in June proposed a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, this was portrayed by the New York Times as a real problem—for Democrats. The underlying assumption in the reporting was that this position was a risky one, playing right into the hands of Karl Rove and the GOP. A June […]
Invisible Violence
In an eight-minute report (6/5/05) in which she rode in a U.N. armored personnel carrier and extolled the bravery of U.N. soldiers, NPR correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro cited “human rights organizations” as saying that “things have improved since the Aristide days.” The NPR report interviewed two members of the U.N. force, one U.S. police trainer, one […]
Impeachment Not on Media Radar
There is a growing grassroots campaign demanding the impeachment of George W. Bush. Across the nation, towns and cities have been passing pro-impeachment resolutions. Websites promoting impeachment keep springing up. In several states, bills have been introduced in state legislatures that, if passed, would become formal bills of impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives, […]
The Morales Moral
To several observers in the U.S. media, Latin America’s leftward shift is the misguided product of a naïve populace that can’t understand economics and demagogic leaders who need to be scolded back into line.
Eric Boehlert on ‘Lapdogs,’ Ryan King on meth craze
Author Eric Boehlert joins to discuss his new book, which centers on how– and why– the Beltway press corps has done its part to prop up the Bush presidency. Also this week: Ryan King of the Sentencing Project on the media’s misleading methamphetamine coverage.
Michael Klare on Iran, Fawaz Gerges on Journey of the Jihadist
This week on CounterSpin: A new proposal to Iran and how this has changed the tone of media coverage, with Professor Michael Klare. Also on the show: Fawaz Gerges of Sarah Lawrence College discusses his new book, Journey of the Jihadist.
Aaron Glantz on Iraq, Doug Henwood on immigration
Independent journalist Aaron Glantz on Bush, Iraq, and the media. Also this week: Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer joins to discuss the economic side of the immigration debate.
Rumsfeld Challenged
It is not often that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finds himself aggressively questioned about the Iraq War. When that happened at a May 4 event, many in the media seemed not to know what to make of it. During an appearance at the Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta, Rumsfeld was confronted by […]
Intelligence Manipulation at the Washington Post
Newspaper editorial pages are entitled to their own opinions—but not to their own facts. That seems to be a distinction that the Washington Post has a hard time making these days. The paper’s April 9 editorial, “A Good Leak,” defended the White House’s actions amid new revelations in the investigation of the leaking of an […]
Washington Post responds to critics
On April 16, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell responded to critics—including FAIR—who questioned her about the paper’s puzzling April 9 editorial, “A Good Leak.” While Howell’s attention to the matter is appreciated, her response avoided the most important issue: whether the paper’s editorial page got its facts right. Much of Howell’s column (headlined “Two Views […]
Intelligence Manipulation at the Washington Post
(NOTE: Please see the Activism Update regarding this alert.) Newspaper editorial pages are entitled to their own opinions—but not to their own facts. The Washington Post‘s editorial page, however, seems to want to have it both ways. The paper’s April 9 editorial, “A Good Leak,” defended the White House’s actions amid new revelations in the […]
Wrong on Iraq? Not Everyone
When former UN chief weapons inspector David Kay told the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2004, “We were all wrong,” he was admitting that officials had been wrong to claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The we-were-all-wrong trope entered the political lexicon as a mea culpa, but today the White House and its […]
Fear & Favor 2005 — The Sixth Annual Report
In 1896, New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs laid out standards by which journalism is still judged today, declaring that his paper would “give the news, all the news . . . impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interest involved.” Unfortunately, mainstream media often fail to live up to that goal; […]
Good News! The Rich Get Richer
The Bush administration made a concerted effort to trumpet a “booming” U.S. economy in early December, widely understood as an attempt to reverse what polls indicate to be the public’s largely negative views on the matter. There are, of course, obvious reasons the majority of Americans dissent from the White House’s rosy presentation of the […]
A Record of Journalism in Crisis
BOOK REVIEW Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11 By Kristina Borjesson Prometheus Books, 2005 Kristina Borjesson lost her producing job at CBS News as a consequence of her unsuccessful struggle to air a report about the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800. Many people, including scores of eyewitnesses, still believe that a missile—possibly […]
Brian Ross ‘Completely Aware’ of WMD Context
Two recent reports on ABC raised the possibility that 10-year-old tapes of Saddam Hussein might show that he “did hide weapons of mass destruction”–giving the White House’s rationale for the March 2003 invasion a boost. But as a February 17 FAIR action alert pointed out, ABC‘s reporting omitted evidence that undermined this argument. The tapes […]
