FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Today New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (12/21/11) gives readers a sense of what the Iraq War was all about: Iraq was always a war of choice. As I never bought the argument that Saddam had nukes that had to be taken out, the decision to go to war stemmed, for me, from a different […]
PBS has a website called MediaShift, billed as “Your Guide to the Digital Media Revolution.” Based on an alarming post this week headlined “Tear Down the Wall Between Business and Editorial!” (12/7/11), the revolution looks rather revolting. The piece is written by Dorian Benkoil, who “handles marketing and sales strategies for MediaShift, and is the […]
The public TV show Nightly Business Report has gone through some serious changes over the past year or so–sold by the public station that had produced it for years to a somewhat mysterious private company run by an entrepreneur whose been the subject of various controversies and lawsuits. The show’s been sold once again, and […]
With the bad news we’ve been talking about on the public broadcasting front, it’s worth pointing out a bright spot: On Monday (10/24/11), Charlie Rose featured a discussion of Occupy Wall Street with Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman. Goodman made an important point about media coverage of the protests: CHARLIE ROSE: Does it have anything […]
With protesters around the country speaking out against income inequality, public television’s flagship newscast made time on October 26 for the pro-inequality side to be heard, featuring a guest who invoked a phony Abraham Lincoln quote to make his case.
The PBS NewsHour did a pretty strong piece last month (8/16/11) on inequality in America. So perhaps it was a sense of “balance” that drove them to do a follow-up segment on September 21 that argued that things aren’t so bad after all. As anchor Jeffrey Brown put it: NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman has […]
There was an interesting piece in the New York Times yesterday (8/1/11) by Elizabeth Jensen about plans to ship PBS programming across the pond. It’s a hard concept to get your head around, especially if you’re under the impression that Britain’s public broadcasting system is superior to our own. That might not be the strangest […]
Elizabeth Jensen has an interesting piece in the New York Times today (6/20/11) about Los Angeles public television station KCET. After deciding to cut its ties to PBS, the channel is experimenting with different programming options, including Al Jazeera English. And the results so far, according to one station official: Mr. Marcus said he had […]
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 […]
Bill Moyers appeared on Democracy Now! this morning (6/8/11) to discuss his new book about his days at PBS, The Conversation Continues. Interviewed for the hour by anchors Any Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Moyers said, “The consensual seduction of the mainstream media by and with the government is one of the most dangerous toxins at […]
On the Daily Show on June 1, Bill Moyers talked about the types of outsider guests he preferred to interview on his TV show. As he put it at one point: “The worst hour that I ever put on, was many years ago, with Henry Kissinger…. I vowed after that never to do an hour […]
The public broadcasting newspaper Current (5/18/11) reports that public television—you know, the non-commercial outlet—will start airing more commercials: The move could be controversial for the network, which has traditionally prided itself on offering uninterrupted programming over its 40-year history. PBS will begin breaking into programs with underwriting and promo spots four times per hour on […]
Bill Moyers on the Tavis Smiley Show (5/13/11), talking about the elite bias in the media: Television, including public television, rarely gives a venue to people who have refused to buy into the ruling ideology of Washington. The ruling ideology of Washington is we have two parties, they do their job, they do their job […]
PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer announced on Thursday that he would step down as anchor of the nightly newscast early next month. Will the change lead to improvements at the program? As FAIR has documented in several major studies, the NewsHour falls well short of fulfilling the mission that should guide public broadcasting: the promotion […]
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 […]
FAIR’s March 29 Action Alert documented the PBS NewsHour‘s remarkably narrow range of debate on the Libya War, which featured an array of current and former military and government officials. On March 30, the NewsHour‘s debate on arming the Libyan rebels included Emira Woods from the progressive Institute for Policy Studies. Roughly a million Americans […]
FAIR’s alert on the NewsHour‘s limited debate on Libya hasn’t sparked any immediate changes at the program. From last night’s broadcast: JUDY WOODRUFF: For more on Libya and the president’s speech, we get the views of two senators. Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed is on the Armed Services Committee. And Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson is […]
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 […]
If public television’s mission is to bring diverse viewpoints to the airwaves, the discussions about the war in Libya on the PBS NewsHour haven’t lived up to that standard. Over the past two weeks, the NewsHour has featured an array of current and former military and government officials in its discussion segments–leaving little room for […]
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 […]
