FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
George Gerbner was born in Budapest in 1919 and fled to the United States to escape fascism in 1939, but he never lost his Hungarian accent. What he said about U.S. media culture often sounded as foreign as the way he said it. Gerbner spent his life in an adopted country saturated with graphic depictions […]
This week on CounterSpin: India and nuclear double standards, with Amitabh Pal of the Progressive magazine. Also on the show: Why didn’t journalists follow through on conversations about institutional racism and class bias post-Katrina? We’ll hear from Eric Deggans, media critic at the St. Petersburg Times.
[one_third_last]If FAIR’s work consisted entirely of quantitative studies and the well-documented criticism that appears in every issue of Extra!, the group would be akin to a conventional think tank. But throughout FAIR’s history, it has had a significant emphasis on media activism—treating media giants just as one would any other powerful political or government institution, […]
FAIR was founded on the belief that journalism matters—that getting out the truth can improve the world, while news that distorts or denies reality can have terrible consequences. To illustrate this conviction, we’ve compiled a list of 20 news stories published since FAIR’s 1986 debut that had a major impact on society—for good or for […]
This week on CounterSpin, Jonathan Kozol joins to discuss his new book Shame of the Nation: the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.
In the December issue of Extra!, FAIR published a study of the guest list on C-SPAN‘s Washington Journal. Though C-SPAN‘s “flagship viewer call-in program” prides itself on its reputation for fairness, FAIR’s study found that reputation does not reflect reality. But C-SPAN‘s response thus far has been silence. Extra! studied Washington Journal‘s guestlist, tabulating all […]
This week on CounterSpin: Salon.com senior writer Michelle Goldberg about the alleged war against Christmas and her recent article “How the Secular Humanist Grinch Didn’t Steal Christmas.” Also: Baltimore City Paper reporter Gadi Dechter on how a curious story involving Oreo cookies became a talking point for conservative pundits.
Since 1979, C-SPAN has provided an invaluable service to viewers with its no-frills coverage of congressional hearings, press briefings, demonstrations, book readings and other political events. By presenting public affairs with a minimal intrusion by hosts or reporters, C-SPAN has gained a reputation as a frictionless conveyer of raw political information to the public. In […]
With a dearth of reliable information coming out of flood-ravaged New Orleans, many unsubstantiated accounts of violence and mayhem surged through mainstream media outlets in the first days of the crisis. As the waters receded, some of the sources for these stories seemed as slippery as the post-flood slime that covered the city. Peggy Hoffman, […]
By September 1, residents of flood-ravaged New Orleans had been trapped for nearly 72 hours in a city with little shelter, food, drinkable water or dry clothing. As much as 80 percent of the city was under water as the Federal Emergency Management Agency seemed unable to respond to the situation. Police and first-responders abandoned […]
As columnist Dawn Turner Trice remarked (Chicago Tribune, 9/12/05), Hurricane Katrina “shed a light” on the often unspoken racist assumptions of many Americans. In particular, she noted, many of the elite have, through their comments about the tragedy, “unwittingly reveal[ed] themselves” and their fundamental prejudices. Of course, many pundits attacked the idea that racism had […]
This week on CounterSpin: Earl Ofari Hutchinson joins to discuss the racist tropes that dominated headlines post-Katrina. Also on the program: Ward Harkavy of the Village Voice on the Judith Miller saga and another story, involving Dick Cheney, that seems to be flying under the major media radar.
One of the most noted trends in the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina has been the aggressive and critical tone some journalists have adopted towards the White House and Bush administration officials. A headline at the online magazine Slate read, “The Rebellion of the Talking Heads” (9/2/05). “Katrina Rekindles Adversarial Media” is how USA Today […]
University of Virginia Law professor Rosa Brooks discusses NYT reporter Judith Miller, whose faulty reporting helped the White House take the country to war in Iraq in 2003. Also this week: director Patrice O’Neill on his new documentary film, The Fire Next Time.
Disney/ABC radio personality Paul Harvey, one of the most widely listened to commentators in the United States, presented his listeners on June 23 with an endorsement of genocide and racism that would have been right at home on a white supremacist shortwave broadcast. Harvey’s commentary began by lamenting the decline of American wartime aggression. “We’re […]
When Susan Estrich launched a public attack in February on Los Angeles Times op-ed page editor Michael Kinsley for not including enough women on his pages, it made a brief stir in certain (mostly female) circles of the media. But the problem runs deeper than the op-ed pages of prominent newspapers; female opinions are muted […]
Sen. Trent Lott’s efforts to rehabilitate his public image were given a valuable boost by the Washington Post, which ran an uncritical profile in its April 14 edition. Lott (R.-Miss.) lost his position as Senate majority leader after comments he made at a December 2002 party for retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond (R.-S.C.) attracted publicity. Lott […]
Congo is the site of the world’s worst humanitarian emergency, according to U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland, the organization Doctors Without Borders and most relief professionals. But English-language media have given the crisis minimal attention, according to a study of humanitarian disaster coverage released on March 10. The study was commissioned by web-based Reuters […]
In the paper’s April 24 edition, Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler responded to FAIR’s action alert regarding the Post’s soft profile of Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) Below is Getler’s column, followed by FAIR’s response. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12491-2005Apr23.html FAIR or Unfair Game? By Michael Getler Sunday, April 24, 2005; Page B06 I was inundated with e-mails and phone […]
A week after she was praised in Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” issue (4/18/05), the magazine went a step further by making far-right pundit Ann Coulter the subject of a lengthy April 25 cover story. Readers who might have looked for a critical examination of the overexposed, factually challenged hatemonger found something else: a […]
