FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Red state gay rights blogger Brad–not Friedman–has posted (BradBlog, 12/12/08) the latest email drive from Human Rights Campaign regarding the current Newsweek cover story, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” which “provides an in-depth debunking of many of the popular myths about scripture that the religious-right has used time and time again.” HRC President Joe […]
Blogging on the new congressional “report on the activities of Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin” entitled “Deception and Distrust,” Mark Howard (News Corpse, 12/10/08) says the “abuse, manipulation, intimidation and incompetence” detailed “would be shocking if it hadn’t come from the same administration that gave us Alberto Gonzales, Michael Brown, Scooter Libby, Donald Rumsfeld, […]
Tom Engelhardt’s nearly interminable list of media blogs and features about Barack Obama’s presidential transition has him urging us (TomDispatch, 12/7/08) to “think of all this as Entertainment Weekly married to People magazine for post-election political junkies”: Obama–thank goodness–isn’t George Bush. He doesn’t arrive in office with a crew wedded to a “unitary executive theory” […]
The New York Times yesterday (12/3/08) described problems that President-elect Barack Obama faces in managing the transition at the Central Intelligence Agency. CJR‘s website has an item today (12/4/08) critical of the piece as a “dramatic example” of the Times‘ slanting its intelligence reporting toward sources who “don’t think that anyone who formulated or acquiesced […]
The media trope that presidents-elect ought to break progressive campaign promises really displays the anti-democratic and pro-corporate biases of the press at their most glaring. Who cares what you told the voters? Here’s what the interests that really matter want you to do. The latest instance in this sad series is a USA Today editorial […]
Washington Post and CNN media critic Howard Kurtz has been sounding the alarm over pro-Obama bias in the media. On his Reliable Sources program on Sunday, he put this question about coverage of Obama’s transition to one guest: Isn’t there a bit of a free ride to Obama right now, since he gets to seize […]
Today’s column by Robert Samuelson (Washington Post, 12/1/08) is a classic of the “why the president-elect must break progressive campaign promises” genre. Usually, of course, the new president should keep such promises: Obama won the election, and in normal times, his campaign agenda ought to be front and center. But these are not normal times, […]
Time magazine tells us about Obama’s chief economic adviser: His controversial comments about women’s aptitude for math and science were a reminder that he operates best when he is working behind the scenes. Oh, so that was the lesson. I had been under the misapprehension that the lesson had something to do with Larry Summers’ […]
The headline (and subhead) in today’s print edition: National Security Team Would Be Diverse Mix Obama Picks Span Eras; Some Espouse More Centrist Views And what, exactly, makes for a “diverse mix?” Holding “moderate” views against a troop withdrawal from Iraq, apparently: Obama’s latest picks would give him a foreign policy team with a moderate […]
Obama’s selection of a host of Clinton-era centrists for top posts have been greeted with cheers in the press. ABC‘s George Stephanopoulos gushed that “we have not seen this kind of combination of star power, brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes.” Last week, even conservative New York Times […]
It says something for the weakness of your argument when you have to turn your opponents’ argument on its head. Take the L.A. Times editorial today (11/24/08) headlined “An Unfair Litmus Test.” The editorial claims that “some ardent supporters of Barack Obama are aggrieved because the president-elect’s emergent national security team includes supporters of the […]
As George W. Bush prepares to leave office, Ian Williams (Guardian.co.uk, 11/18/08) thinks that what is really in order is some sort of pardon and apology to Dan Rather, who CBS‘s cowardly management squeezed from 60 Minutes for telling the truth about Bush’s war record. Rather’s suit against them, with its accompanying subpoenas, has now […]
Under the headline “Pollsters Debate America’s Political Realignment,” the Washington Post‘s Robert Kaiser tries to weigh the arguments about the political makeup of the United States in light of the 2008 election. But Kaiser’s rendition of this debate only serves to confuse matters. There are basically two sides to this clash: those who say the […]
Observing (Creator’s Syndicate, 11/14/08) that “overall, the news media like winners, and an incoming president is the biggest winner of all,” Norman Solomon knows “the period between his opponent’s concession speech and the swearing-in has traditionally been a time of many media upsides without the burdens of actual incumbency.” As a result, despite the vast […]
Interesting catch by digby from Broadcasting & Cable (11/10/08), which was talking to Fox News chief Roger Ailes about what happens to Fox‘s ratings post-election: “I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama,” says Ailes. But he sees light at the end of the tunnel: Historically, the dawning of […]
Today’s Washington Post (11/14/08) explains that Obama’s economic advisers “span the policy spectrum:” They include free traders and “fair traders,” deficit hawks, Wall Street executives, corporate moguls and labor advocates. Why the different typographical treatment of free trade and fair trade? The implication is that “free trade” really is free, whereas “fair trade” is just […]
One interesting post-election story has been the treatment of Rahm Emanuel, a center-right Clinton Democrat who will serve as Obama’s chief of staff. While some Republicans claim Emanuel is too “partisan,” some media defenders argue that he’s not, since his politics are not all that liberal. Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty explains: The strongest signal of […]
Writing on his Consortium News website (11/11/08), Robert Parry warns Barack Obama–who “is being told to forego investigations of George W. Bush’s war crimes“–to “Beware the Lessons of ’93” when “the last Democratic president got burned with similar advice.” Parry lays odds that “had the full stories [of George H. W. Bush’s Iran/Contra involvement] been […]
Award-winning U.S. News & World Report reporter Kenneth Walsh (11/10/08) joins in the media chorus urging Barack Obama and the Democrats to move to the right–for their own good, of course: The initial indications are that Obama will start in the center…. One reason, Democratic advisers say, is that so many new members of Congress […]
Following the lead of the New York Times, which had a similar story (11/2/08) right before the election, Newsweek‘s Dan Ephron has a piece (11/7/08) on “The Gitmo Dilemma,” explaining why Obama “won’t close the controversial prison soon.” Like the Times story, Newsweek struggles to complicate a simple situation. The U.S. had three things it […]
