FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Dennis Miller’s new CNBC political talk show hasn’t even debuted yet, but it’s already mixed up in a serious conflict of interest. The conflict—brought to our attention by weblogger Roger Ailes (no relation, apparently, to the Fox News chief)—began with the show’s hiring of Mike Murphy as a consulting producer. The problem isn’t that Murphy […]
On June 17, FAIR issued an action alert about the Washington Post’s reporting of President Bush’s June 14 commencement address at Ohio State University. Specifically, FAIR pointed out that the paper failed to note an announcement issued over the public address system warning that visible signs of protest would not be tolerated. This was not […]
If there’s a propaganda hall of fame, Newsweek has surely earned a place in it with its interview with George W. and Laura Bush (12/3/01). Written by Newsweek senior editor Howard Fineman and White House correspondent Martha Brant, the profile of the Bushes focuses relentlessly positive attention on the “First Couple’s” emotional responses to the […]
On June 28, 1995, FBI agents swarmed the headquarters of Archer Daniels Midland, “Supermarket to the World,” in Decatur, Illinois. So began the sensational unraveling of the biggest price-fixing scandal ever, involving a secret FBI informant, a suicide attempt, top ADM officials being sentenced to prison and the largest criminal anti-trust fine in history. Throughout […]
While visiting Paris in May, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger received a summons to appear at the French Palace of Justice to answer questions about murders and disappearances in Chile in the 1970s. While the story was carried by major European news outlets, it has received relatively little coverage in U.S. media. The French […]
This year, the normal rhythms of post-election punditry were disrupted by all the talk of dimpled chads and canvassing boards. But echoing the pre-election refrain, one message did emerge from the muffled Monday-morning quarterbacking: Al Gore’s campaign ran too far to the left. It’s a familiar charge, one that’s repeated every time a Democrat loses […]
When New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani appeared on three national television shows attacking the Brooklyn Museum and its current art exhibit, “Sensation” (10/3/99), none of the shows saw fit to include an advocate of civil liberties or artistic freedom. Giuliani appeared unopposed on NBC‘s Meet the Press, ABC‘s This Week With Sam and Cokie, […]
The pundits prayed for the long national nightmare to end, and free them to enlighten us on serious business like shoring up Social Security. They said the public had it up to here with tawdry scandal, that we craved nothing more than closure. But the vote of closure came at the start of Sweeps Month; […]
The current scandal involving Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s long-term association with a white supremacist hate group, the Council of Conservative Citizens, arose almost by accident. Its emergence as a major story is the result of the dogged reporting of one Washington Post reporter and a handful of mostly African-American columnists, with help from independent […]
Let me acknowledge my bias up front: I subscribe to the old-fashioned notion that party activists and voters — not the mass media — should be the main players in nominating political candidates. As for Hillary Rodham Clinton, her New York Senate candidacy — launched by political reporters left dangerously idle by the closing of […]
Following a series of FAIR press releases and syndicated columnists covering Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s associations with the CCC (Council of Conservative Citizens), CNN‘s Inside Politics presented a thorough summary of the scandal on January 13. The very next day, the New York Times‘ John Kifner focuses considerable attention on Lott’s lies about his […]
UPDATE to December 15 News Advisory On December 19, Washington Post editorial board member Colbert I. King began a column by calling on the Senate to reconsider Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s “fitness” for the job. The reason, wrote King, was Lott’s involvement with the racist Conservative Citizens (CCC), which serves as a forum for […]
UPDATE to December 11 News Advisory: Emerging evidence shows Trent Lott addressed a white supremacist group at least twice in the 1990s and is on record praising the group, contradicting statements the senator’s spokesperson made to reporters this past weekend. When charges surfaced that Senator Trent Lott supported a racist organization, the Senate leader’s spokesperson […]
During the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings on Dec. 1, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) clashed with Prof. Alan Dershowitz after Dershowitz accused the lawmaker of using rhetoric laced with “bigotry” and “racism.” Barr had stated: There really are, I think, two Americas. And there is a real America out there. And I think our military witnesses […]
Clinton Worse Than Reagan “Clinton used his office to thwart an investigation sanctioned by his own attorney general…. Ronald Reagan waived all executive privilege…[and] turned over his documents and diaries…because he said he wanted the facts to come out.” —Time news article (8/24/98), conveniently forgetting the cover stories and document-shredding of Iran-Contra. Clinton Worse Than […]
MSNBC, the cable news channel, has a headline for its breathless, round-the-clock coverage of the Clinton sex scandal: “The President in Crisis.” A better headline might be: “The News Media in Heat.” In the media environment of 1998, when it comes to a sex-related scandal, many national news outlets can’t seem to avoid binge coverage. […]
On December December 12, 1996, New York-based syndicated radio host Bob Grant singled out immigrants from India as the target of his vitriol: It wasn’t too many years ago that most people could walk down the street and never have the pungent, sickening aroma of curry wafting up their nostrils. I don’t mean to single […]
Listening to the likes of new House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Sen. Larry Pressler, who have threatened to “zero out” funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), you would think that U.S. public television is promoting a “liberal agenda.” On the other hand, bureaucrats from CPB and from PBS, which gets its federal funding […]
Rev. Jesse Jackson’s recent comments about how blacks can take action against crime in their communities received an unusually favorable response from mainstream media outlets that are usually cool, if not hostile, toward the civil rights leader. But the selective emphasis of many press accounts distorted the content and context of Jackson’s remarks, revealing more […]
Reagan left office bolstered by the oft-repeated media myth that he had been far and away the most popular of any president since World War II. But bearing in mind Mark Twain’s observation that a lie gets half-way around the world before truth puts its boots on, the U.S. public deserves to know what the […]
