FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Sometimes the facts that need checking are pretty easy to check. That seemed to be the case with some misleading statements Paul Ryan made at a campaign stop yesterday. The New York Times set the record straight. Unfortunately their fact check was pretty much buried. The piece (8/17/12) by Trip Gabriel—headlined “Ryan Pushes Working-Class Message […]
Campaign rhetoric, we’re led to believe, can be hard to sort out. If Paul Ryan says his budget plan protects Medicare and the Democrats say it “ends” it, what should we believe? Those are the kinds of questions journalism is supposed to answer. Which is why ABC World News‘ August 14 “Reality Check” on Medicare […]
As corporate media tell and retell Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan’s life story, one theme emerges above all others: His “self-reliance. “David Fahrenthold and Paul Kane in the Washington Post (8/11/12) asserted that Ryan’s big ideas bear the stamp of his own story: They stress independence and self-reliance, the qualities that took him from the mailroom […]
Heading over to the ABC News website, I found this on the homepage: Tough call: Do you read the story about Paul Ryan‘s impressive physique first, or his awesome bowhunting skills?
Mitt Romney’s choice of Rep. Paul Ryan as his Republican running mate has unleashed yet another torrent of fawning coverage touting Ryan’s intelligence and bravery for advocating a fiscal plan of massive government spending cuts and massive tax breaks for the wealthy.
Washington Post columnist Dan Balz has a big scoop from an anonymous source in today’s paper (8/14/12): The choice, like most vice presidential selections, also was a way for Romney to say something bigger about the kind of campaign he hopes to run. In that sense, advisers say, Ryan was “Mitt’s pick, completely.” “Stories talk […]
The Washington Post (5/13/12) ran a piece by Ed O’Keefe under this headline: Ryan Budget Still an Issue in Congressional Races Still? You mean candidates keep talking about Rep. Paul Ryan’s proposal to replace Medicare with an entirely inadequate privatized health insurance program–even though the upcoming elections are the first chance voters will have to […]
Sometimes it’s the little moments that tell you something–like this from a Meet the Press panel discussion (4/22/12) about potential running mates for Mitt Romney: DAVID GREGORY: E.J., the point though also about Paul Ryan is that if you want to send a message you’re serious about the budget you could do that with Paul […]
Last year Republican Rep. Paul Ryan presented a budget plan that was, according to one analysis, full of “dubious assertions, questionable assumptions and fishy figures.” But Ryan’s brand of budget austerity makes the media swoon–hence we saw coverage (FAIR Media Advisory, 4/12/11) of Ryan’s “piercing blue eyes” that dubbed him “a PowerPoint fanatic with an […]
The fact that Time magazine named “The Protester” its Person of the Year was maybe a little surprising. Totally unsurprising, though, was the choice of a runners-up: Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, a hero to many in the corporate media for his bold calls to slash government spending on the poor. It’s hard to know where […]
Guess who’s booked to appear on the CBS Sunday morning chat show Face the Nation this weekend? None other than Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan. It has, after all, been an eternity since Sunday TV viewers had a chance to listen to Ryan talk about his Medicare-slashing budget plan. May 22 on Meet the Press, to […]
The roundtable panel on ABC‘s This Week (5/29/11) spent some time talking about the politics of Medicare, specifically the idea that the recent Democratic victory in a special Congressional election in New York could mean that Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan might be a tremendous liability for the GOP. One of the most prevalent talking points […]
Elite media’s selective disdain for public activism is well known. Still, you’d think some things would garner a word or two. Like 300 disability rights activists, a couple hundred in wheelchairs, occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. The May 2 demonstration was organized by the rights group ADAPT to […]
At his Beat the Press blog (4/23/11), Dean Baker caught this in the L.A. Times (4/23/11): Congress is on its first recess since Republican leaders unveiled a plan to end the federal deficit by dramatically changing Medicare, cutting other government programs and reducing taxes. As Baker points out, what the paper is referring to–the Paul […]
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.) is used to being celebrated by pundits for his “courageous,” “bold,” “serious” budget proposals (even though his numbers don’t add up). Indeed, Ryan has become a genuine media darling. So it must have been a little surprising to find himself being booed earlier this week, at a town hall meeting […]
The budget proposal released last week by Rep. Paul Ryan (R.-Wisc.) includes tax cuts for the wealthy, tax hikes for the middle class, drastic cuts in spending and a radical restructuring of Medicare that would shift most of the cost of healthcare to seniors. Its dubious claims of deficit reduction rely on fatally flawed assumptions […]
The uncritical coverage of Paul Ryan’s budget plan continues. In the new issue of Time magazine, Michael Crowley and Jay Newton-Small tell us that Ryan is “the new face of federal frugality”: Just 41 years old, with jet black hair and a touch of Eagle Scout to him, the House Budget Committee chairman unveiled an […]
Dean Baker’s Beat the Press is the best Early Warning Media Mythbuster. It’s simple: You read it every morning before you read the papers (he is up before you are, trust me) and you’re well prepared to deal with the economic nonsense you’ll be subjected to. Today (4/6/11) he proposes this headline for stories about […]
Few pieces better illustrate the uselessness of so much corporate media political journalism than Kathleen Hennessey’s piece in the L.A. Times (4/4/11) on Republican Rep. Paul Ryan’s deficit reduction plan. The piece is headlined “House Republican Budget Plan Would Revamp Medicare,” and the lead explains that the GOP budget proposal outlined by Ryan “includes an […]
It’s normal for the opposition party to deliver a rebuttal address to the State of the Union. Last night Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin was given that responsibility. But further-to-the-right Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota delivered the “Tea Party” response to the State of the Union, which was initially scheduled to air on the Tea […]
