FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
if we’re a country that holds ourselves out as the shining city on the hill, then we have to look at the damage that we have done to communities, particularly to African-American and Latino, poor communities in this country, because of disparate treatment and policing.
Captured on cellphone video, the incident received attention because we are living in a moment when many people have decided that the state-sanctioned killing of black people by law enforcement is worth our attention—and that’s very uncomfortable for those who want to believe that every police killing must be in some way justified, if we could only see how.
The holiday weekend came and went, with the FBI “terror warning” hyped by the media foreshadowing nothing more than for two false alarms and a handful of canceled Fourth of July plans. So it was curious, to say the least, when on Thursday the FBI asserted that “a number” of “ISIS-inspired” terror plots had been “thwarted.”
A casual search reveals the FBI and DHS are a pitiful 0 for 40 warning of terror attacks—some of which were specifically about 4th of July threats, none of which materialized in any way.
The media-driven conversation on policing and public safety begins with the simplistic premise that the amount and aggressiveness of policing solely determines the crime rate.
“Incidents involving white law enforcement and black suspects have raised concerns across the US,” writes the Associated Press.
But the “incidents” raising concerns have not involved black “suspects.”
A Wall Street Journal article left out arguably the most interesting part of the story: The NYPD’s backing away from stop-and-frisk and reduced interest in small-time busts was accompanied by a 5 percent reduction in major crimes.
The Washington Post calls Freddie Gray “the nation’s most prominent symbol of distrust in police.” The Post can’t call him a symbol of police violence, because as far as the paper is concerned, there’s no way to tell whether any police violence occurred at all.
New York Times coverage of the Baltimore protests has stuck mainly with government sources, even for a story that cries out for original reporting to cut through the official line.
Before shocking video surfaced of a South Carolina police officer shooting a man in the back, most of the local press coverage, per usual, followed the police’s official narrative and amplified a storyline that, in retrospect, was entirely made up.
We’re told the recent midterm elections were the “most expensive in US history,” but who was buying? And what do they expect in return? And what does it all mean for the relatively unmoneyed, namely most of us? We talked with Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, about the 114th Congress.
Also on the show: A reairing of an interview from July 2014 with Chicago journalist and activist Jamie Kalven about adding information to the story of police policy.
USA Today could have averaged several recent years to see if there was a meaningful trend. But instead the newspaper decided to feed the narrative that police officers are under attack.
“Rush Limbaugh talks race relations.” You know, that Rush Limbaugh–the guy who once quipped, “Have you ever noticed how all newspaper composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
“Black lives matter” is the rallying cry of the burgeoning movement against police killings. The Associated Press, covering that movement, has produced a perfect example of what journalism looks like when black lives don’t matter.
If only police officer Daniel Pantaleo had been able to somehow control his own arm, Eric Garner would not have died.
The St. Louis Police Academy held a special class for “upper-echelon law enforcement professionals” on how to “WIN WITH THE MEDIA” after an “officer-involved shooting.”
Perhaps Richard Cohen is sensitive to people being called racist because he’s been called a racist by many observers–and not without good reason.
That so many black people are killed by law enforcement is a painful, difficult thing to face. Perhaps that’s why media try so hard to look away.
Back in August ABC reported on Darren Wilson’s ‘serious facial injury.’ What will they say now?
The New York Times makes some curious choices in its coverage of the victim in the Ferguson, Missouri, police shooting.
