FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The lesson of Shirley Sherrod’s disgraceful treatment by right-wing and not-so-right-wing media (followed by her equally squalid dismissal by an administration that took that media at face value) boils down to a single question: When will journalists see Andrew Breitbart as the serial promoter of journalistic frauds that he is, rather than as a legitimate […]
As France’s lower house of parliament approved a ban on wearing full-face Islamic veils such as the burqa or niqab, many U.S. news outlets left out a key voice in their reports: the Muslim women in France who are actually affected by the ban. Several major outlets, including the New York Times (7/14/10), Washington Post […]
I think Jim Naureckas’ Erick Erickson/David Duke equation (FAIR Blog, 7/14/10) is overdrawn. Erickson was playing off remarks by King Samir Shabazz, the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) member who stood in front of the largely African-American polling place in Philadelphia with a night stick in his hand. Shabazz is on record in another context […]
When he got a gig doing political commentary for CNN, hate-blogger Erick Erickson assured Howard Kurtz that he had realized that “I had to grow up in how I write.” And Erickson convinced the New York Times that he had become a kinder, gentler pundit. But hating is what Erickson does. That’s why it’s unsurprising […]
Syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker (umm, PULITZER Prize–winning columnist) got a lot of feedback about her recent column (“Obama: Our First Female President,” 6/30/10) suggesting that Barack Obama is kind of girly. She carefully pointed out that she was “not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit […]
On April 8, 2010, the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education let stand its May 2009 vote to retire the University of North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo over the 2010-11 academic year. The decision marked the end of a bitter debate on the athletic use of Native American culture at the 13,000-student […]
The Insight Center for Community Economic Development (3/8/10) released a stunning report about the wealth gap for women of color: Single black women have a median wealth of $100 and Hispanic women of $120—dramatically lower than white men ($43,800), white women ($41,500) or black men ($7,900). The median wealth for single white women in their […]
Remember predatory lending? The deceptive and discriminatory lending practices that were a driving force behind the housing bubble and disastrous collapse? Well, CNBC would like you to forget about it. Critics pointed (CJR.org, 3/4/10) to a March 2 segment in which all assembled excoriated a guest for referring to the very idea. In a discussion […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The BP/Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is by almost any standard a much more severe catastrophe than originally thought. Amid the now-they-tell-us reporting on safety violations and lack of regulatory oversight, some fundamental questions about offshore drilling are still left unaddressed—the most important being, “Is this […]
Correspondent Pete Williams last night on NBC Nightly News (5/10/10) gave viewers the scoop on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s record as dean of Harvard law school: “She diversified the faculty, hiring prominent conservatives.” Kagan also hired almost no people of color and very few women, in a historically white and male faculty. It’s an […]
According to a Washington Post article (5/10/10) on the front page of its metro section, the traditional image of the U.S. suburb is being spoiled as they become less wealthy, white and native-born. No, really. Carol Morello’s story began: Ozzie and Harriet, R.I.P. The idealized vision of suburbia as a homogeneous landscape of prosperity built […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Arizona’s new immigration law has sparked national protests and a renewed political discussion about something usually called “comprehensive reform.” What that means is unclear, but the discussion about immigration seems to have moved to the right in some fundamental ways. Gabriel Arana from the American Prospect will join us […]
You just never know what will set Bill O’Reilly off. Last night, it was a perfectly reasonable remark by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who, following the arrest of a Pakistani suspect in the Times Square car bomb plot, cautioned against turning Pakistanis or followers of Islam into scapegoats: I want to make clear […]
George Will, defending Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, concludes his column (Washington Post, 4/28/10) with this today: Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with […]
Victor Davis Hanson notes that one reason for American exceptionalism may be that we did not inherit from England “a large underclass of only quasi-free people attached to barons as serfs.” Sadly, a worse institution took root here, but never became part of the national psyche. —Rich Lowry & Ramesh Ponnuru (National Review Online, 3/8/10, […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Journalists are lining up to tout the Tea Party movement’s relevance and strength, but show little interest in probing its deep contradictions or finding out what actually makes the activists tick. That’s why they can describe as populist a movement closely, if fitfully, allied with the corporate-dominated GOP. In […]
On the January 15 edition of his show, while chatting with Ray Stevens, who recorded the song “Ahab the Arab” nearly 50 years ago, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly seemed to become nostalgic for a time when making fun of Arabs was acceptable: Forty-eight years ago in this country we could make fun of Arabs. […]
Ijust received an email (from this guy‘s PR outfit)with the subject line: President Obama’s Attacks on Free Speech Opposed by Most Americans, Zogby/O’Leary Poll Finds Tell me more! Here’s one of the “questions” asked in the poll,tailor-made for Fox News Channel: Federal Communications Commission Chief Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd wants the FCC to force good […]
In the wake of Rush Limbaugh being booted from a group of investors bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams football team, a minor media tempest has been stirred by conservative commentators who charge that Limbaugh has been falsely accused of making racist remarks. Central to their charge are two quotes allegedly made by Limbaugh–in […]
“Rush the Racist?” is the headline over a commentary written by retired NFL receiver Keenan McCardell on the Washington Post‘s sports blog, the League–and the question many football fans might ask upon hearing the news that Rush Limbaugh is bidding to become co-owner of the St. Louis Rams. That’s because Limbaugh has a long record […]
