FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
New York Times reporter Robert Pear (4/23/09) joined the rest of the media world expressing discomfort with the idea that the Senate Democrats might adopt budget reconciliation rules, which wouldthey would use to pass major legislation on a majority vote rather than seeking 60 votes. His lead: With solid majorities in both houses of Congress, […]
With Fox News Channel relentlessly promoting—and MSNBC mostly mocking—the right-wing “tea party” demonstrations around the country today, middle-of-the-road media critics are making a typically middle-of-the-road complaint: Yes, Fox shouldn’t be sponsoring such events, but the rest of the corporate media shouldn’t just ignore these allegedly newsworthy events. As Howard Kurtz put it in the Washington […]
Washington Post reporter Paul Kane proffered what blogger Matthew Yglesias aptly called a “full-throated defense of journalism-as-stenography.” Kane had been criticized by Media Matters that he had quoted Sen. Olympia Snowe (R.-Maine) as saying that Barack Obama’s use of the filibuster-avoiding budget reconciliation tool would make it “infinitely more difficult to bridge the partisan divide” […]
In a column on media treatment of Michelle Obama, Katha Pollitt (Nation, 4/20/09) points out this forehead-smacking quote from New York magazine’s David Samuels (3/15/09): There are clear limits to Michelle’s ambition. She went to excellent schools, got decent grades, stayed away from too much intellectual heavy lifting, and held a series of practical, modestly […]
In his op-ed “Take the Limbaugh Challenge” (L.A. Times, 3/29/09), conservative writer Andrew Klavan states as a “certainty” that L.A. Times readers don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh’s show: If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration’s recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That’s the likelihood; […]
The New York Times reported today (3/30/09) that New York State government had reached an agreement on a $131.8 billion budget. The third paragraph of the front-page story by Nicholas Confessore and Danny Hakim reads: And despite the enormous fiscal pressure the state faces, the budget contains $170 million in financing for pet projects—an amount […]
Want to know if “the media did a great job” covering Barack Obama’s second major presidential press conference? Jason Linkins says (Huffington Post, 3/25/09) you can “just ask the media! Because they’ll tell you!” But “at the same time, the media is also quick to point out that the press conference was ‘totally boring!’” Among […]
As “the American foreign policy community worked itself into something resembling a frenzy over the appointment of Charles W. ‘Chas’ Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council”–because “at stake was, if not a direct policy battle of huge consequence, a real struggle over the range of viewpoints that will be permitted in an official government […]
A Washington Post piece this weekend by Scott Wilson (3/14/09) centered around this “gotcha”: In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” It hasn’t taken long for the recriminations to return–or for the […]
In an op-ed in today’s L.A. Times, former Times writer Allan M. Jalon tells the story of how the FBI used the Los Angeles Times to destroy politically active actress Jean Seberg. According to Jalon, J. Edgar Hoover planted the rumor with a Times gossip columnist that the father of the baby Seberg was pregnant […]
The federal government has to decide what to do in a court case concerning same-sex partner benefits. Robert Pear sees this as a problem for Barack Obama in today’s New York Times (“Obama on Spot Over a Benefit to Gay Couples”), explaining: As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama said he would “fight hard” for the […]
In a typically half-empty David Brooks piece (3/13/09), the columnist praises Barack Obama for embracing “rigor” in education policy, for endorsing “testing and accountability,” for “mak[ing] sure results have consequences.” He complains about the “education establishment’s ability to evade the consequences of data” and that watered-down proficiency standards mean that “parents think their own schools […]
Over on Media Matters’ County Fair blog (3/12/09), Jamison Foser asks, “Is there any major-newspaper reporter who is more consistently wrong than Andrew Malcolm?” The latest gaffe by the Laura Bush flak-turned-L.A. Times writer comes in response to filmmaker Michael Moore’s explaining what he sees as the difference between Democratic framing of Rush Limbaugh as […]
Under the Onion-ready headline “Obama Calls for Earmark Reform, Signs Earmark-Laden Spending Bill,” (3/12/09), the L.A. Times‘ James Oliphant and Christi Parsons begin their story: President Obama railed against pork barrel projects on Wednesday. Then he signed a massive spending bill stuffed with them. I’m not sure what the cut-off for something being “stuffed” with […]
It does not take 60 votes to pass an ordinary bill in the Senate; it takes a majority of the senators voting.
Steve Benen of Political Animal points out a couple of strange questions posed by corporate journalists—one to each of last year’s major presidential candidates. In this post, Benen quotes an unnamed New York Times reporter (apparently either Sheryl Gay Stolberg or Steven Lee Myers) basically red-baiting Barack Obama: “The first six weeks have given people […]
The capacity for U.S. editorial writers to twist reality when it comes to “free trade” is astounding. But when “free trade” collides with Colombia policy in the minds of the same editorialists, the potential for illogic becomes truly Orwellian. Take Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times editorial (“Obama Should Press for Colombia Free-Trade Pact”) pushing for passage […]
From the end of the NBC Nightly News (3/3/09): CHUCK TODD: And finally, let’s close with Michelle Obama. Amazing numbers for a new first lady. Sixty-three percent positive rating. What makes it more remarkable, six months ago you and I were talking about at the Democratic Convention, she might be a liability if he’s not […]
Greg Sargent has some observations (Plum Line, 3/4/09) about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s new website up called “I’m sorry, Rush” that lampoons the many GOPers who have been forced to prostrate themselves before Rush Limbaugh after criticizing him and enduring the Wrath of Rush or his listeners. The site appears to be off to […]
Bill O’Reilly explainsthe diversity of viewpointsavailable on the Fox News Channel (2/27/09): The Fox News Channel features a variety of opinions. We parade in scores of guests each week with all kinds of views. Glenn Beck believes the nation is in crisis. Alan Colmes believes Obama could be the next FDR. Sean Hannity believes the […]
