FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Over the course of the past year, the New York Times has provided ample coverage to a series of potential U.S. Senate candidates from New York–none of whom are actually running for office. Meanwhile, a candidate who is in fact challenging incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand in the September 2010 primary has been all but erased […]
Abraham Lincoln despised class warfare, Thomas Jefferson detested bailouts and the founders of the nation were all Bible-believing Christians. These are among the historical “facts” you’ll learn as a regular consumer of talk radio, Fox News and other conservative sources. While non-conservatives have been known to misquote historical figures to add credibility to their own […]
“Dick Cheney seems to be everywhere,” declared ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl (World News, 5/13/09), calling the formerly reclusive former vice president “the most visible Republican in the country these days.” Cheney has been hard to miss. Since leaving office in January, in addition to broad coverage of his May 21 speech at the American […]
The debate over Bush-era torture tactics like waterboarding has morphed into a full-blown Washington scandal. But the target isn’t the Bush administration officials who ordered the torture; instead, the corporate media’s focus is on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who claims that she was not fully briefed by the CIA on the use of waterboarding in […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin020609 Ken Silverstein and Miranda Spencer @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin020609.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: “If it weren’t for those darn tax problems, Tom Daschle was the perfect choice as Obama’s Secretary of Health & Human Services,” seems to be the establishment refrain over the rise and fall of the Daschle nomination. “No one knows the […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin012309 Norman Solomon and Ann Jones @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin012309.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The inauguration of President Barack Obama was undoubtedly historic, and was covered as such by the corporate media. But what are we to make of the idea that the media have gone gaga for Obama? And what are the pundits and […]
You’re a politician who’s just been exposed for cheating on your spouse. Your political career is over, right? These days, that might depend on your politics—and your relationship with a certain right-wing cable news show. After revelations of an affair with an aide during the 2008 primaries, John Edwards’ career fell off the face of […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin121908 Michael Ratner and Alfie Kohn @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin121908.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report finding former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other high officials responsible for abusive treatment of detainees in Guantánamo, Iraq and Afghanistan—with few exceptions, the media played the story down, preferring, for instance, […]
Whether or not Barack Obama wins the election, there will be a substantial argument from conservatives–and even many centrist pundits and commentators–that the press was overwhelmingly biased in favor of the Democratic candidate and against John McCain (Extra!, 9-10/08). But the main evidence for this charge does not actually support the case. Throughout the campaign, […]
After the New York Times (10/4/08) devoted over 2,000 words to a front-page story assessing the “connection” between Barack Obama and former Weather Underground member William Ayers, it was no surprise that the John McCain/Sarah Palin campaign would seize the opportunity to try to re-inject the Ayers/Obama “link”–a popular topic among right-wing pundits like Sean […]
CNN‘s Election Center program devoted a July 25 report to mocking a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee investigating White House abuses of power. “Believe it or not, there was a congressional hearing today about impeaching the president,” scoffed host Campbell Brown, who added: “It was all stagecraft, though.” Brown went on to introduce the […]
Does Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani have some dirt on the press corps? How else to explain the free pass journalists have repeatedly granted him on stories that would threaten to sink less-favored candidates, particularly of the Democratic variety? (See sidebar.) If Ronald Reagan was the “Teflon president” to whom no bad news would stick, […]
The disastrous end to the Vietnam War served as a historical reference point for many pundits urging Democrats to forget pulling out of Iraq. But the history lesson was shaky. Presenting the congressional fight over war funding as indicative of “what will likely become post-Iraq politics in America,” ABC World News (4/26/07) reported that Republicans […]
Now that the unusually lengthy presidential campaign is starting to close in on the first primary contests, one would hope the national press corps would focus on the candidates’ policies pertaining to the issues that Americans are most concerned about–such as the war in Iraq, the economy and healthcare. Or they can choose to direct […]
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt has sent out an email response (which appears in full below) to FAIR activists who responded to a FAIR action alert (7/13/07) about a report calling a firefighters’ union video critical of Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani “factually questionable.” But the reply, which mainly provides the self-justification of […]
(NOTE: Please see the Activism Update regarding this alert.) When the International Association of Fire Fighters, the nation’s largest firefighters union, released a video on July 12 challenging the portrayal of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as a hero of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, New York Times reporter Marc Santora rushed […]
Reading the coverage of Al Gore’s new book, The Assault on Reason, the line elite media have developed was impossible to miss: Gore’s a smartypants! His ideas may be good or bad, but the point is, he’s a laughingstock. Even those inclined to dislike Gore might be put off by the kind of condescension expressed […]
Like many prominent pundits, Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria has of late expressed his frustration with the foreign policy of George W. Bush. In the magazine’s March 19 issue, Zakaria lamented that the Bush administration “began intervening directly in the domestic affairs” of Latin American countries, a move he presented as a break from the recent […]
This week on CounterSpin: Robert Parry of ConsortiumNews.com discusses the recent Robert Gates nomination. Also on the show: Barbara Kopple shares about her new film Shut Up and Sing, which explores the astonishing campaign against the Dixie Chicks following the infamous 2003 comment about Bush.
Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report joins to discuss media coverage of Obama and what is missing. Also on the show: Elite media, the midterm elections, and “free trade” agreements, with Chris Slevin of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
