FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Speaking in defense of reparations for slavery on Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes (4/25/01), attorney Alexander Pires explained that if advocates for reparations could “tell the story” of slavery and its consequences, the public would “respond to it.” “So what you’re saying is you really want a debate,” Alan Colmes replied, “and…that’s exactly what […]
Since September 11, there have been at least three bias-related murders and reports from around the country of assaults and harassment targeting Arab- and Muslim-Americans. Homes, businesses, mosques and Muslim schools have been vandalized, children tormented, and students harassed on college campuses. Media have reported many of these assaults (e.g., USA Today, 9/20/01; San Francisco […]
FAIR’s study examined the January through June 2001 transcripts of NPR‘s four main news programs—Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and Weekend All Things Considered—as found on the Nexis news database. To identify references to fatal Israeli and Palestinian attacks, FAIR searched for transcripts containing keywords such as death, died, killed, fatal, etc., as […]
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 […]
News that North Carolina’s Jesse Helms will retire from the Senate when his term is up in 2003 received polite coverage in mainstream media. USA Today (8/22/01) described Helms’ views as “unabashed and outspoken conservatism.” To the Washington Post (8/22/01), Helms is one of the Senate’s “most ardent champions of conservative causes…a man of bold […]
“I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.”—Rupert Murdoch (Salon, 3/1/01) Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives’ frequent denunciations of “liberal bias” in the media were part of “a strategy” (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: “If you […]
FAIR’s February 16 Action Alert criticizing the Washington Post‘s reporting on a lawsuit by the Miami Indian tribe generated hundreds of letters of concern to the Post. Commendably, the paper’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, responded by devoting a column to the controversy (2/25/01), and the article’s author, William Claiborne, sent FAIR a detailed reply to our […]
A Washington Post report on a lawsuit by the Miami Indian tribe to regain ancestral lands in Illinois (2/13/01) severely trivialized the genocide and ethnic cleansing faced by Native Americans. Post reporter William Claiborne, attempting to put the dispute in context, wrote: As in similar Indian property claims that have been growing in number across […]
Many pundits are worried about the delay in finding out who will become the next occupant of the Oval Office. “That’s probably the most crippling blow I’ve ever seen to a new president,” David Gergen lamented on national television (CNN, 11/25/00); whoever the next chief executive turns out to be, he has “been denied or […]
John Ashcroft, George W. Bush’s nominee for attorney general, was questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing about his on-the-record endorsement of the white supremacist publication Southern Partisan. Sen. Joe Biden (D.-Del.) asked Ashcroft to respond to a series of quotes from the magazine, each of which had appeared in FAIR’s January 12 media advisory on […]
“Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You’ve got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and [Confederate President Jefferson] Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I’ve got to do more. We’ve all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we’ll be taught […]
The media’s denial about potential disenfranchisement in Florida is cloaked in the denigration of Jesse Jackson. In lockstep media commentary, Jackson was depicted as a crazed black man on the corner, so nuts that cab drivers, the editors steering the news, had every justification to pass him up. On CNN (11/9/00), Jackson was “fomenting turbulence” […]
Commentator Robert Novak wasn’t happy with the ethnicity of the speakers at the Republican convention. He complained to Bush adviser Ralph Reed (Crossfire, 7/31/00): You know, Mr. Reed, I used to think that one of the values of the Republican Party is they were color-blind while the Democrats had a quota system. I was looking […]
Under our office door came a note advising us that African-American and Latino groups would have a press conference the next day to release a report showing that minority populations will suffer most if the United Nations Global Warming Treaty–the Kyoto agreement–passes the U.S. Senate. The press conference was being pulled together by Advantage Communications […]
Rush Limbaugh’s commentary indicates a willingness to exploit prejudice against blacks to further his on-air arguments.
When New Yorkers went into shock over the 41 bullets fired at Amadou Diallo, journalist Elizabeth Kolbert found “comfort”–her word–by recalling the sodomizing of Abner Louima. The business with the broomstick, she explained in the New Yorker (3/29/99), was not what we hire the police to do, whereas we do pay them to accost characters […]
If you’re concerned about bigotry on the syndicated radio show Imus in the Morning, the host thinks you should just “get over it.”
Confronted by protests from the NAACP and others about discrimination in their primetime lineup, the four leading TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) did what powerful institutions often do in such situations: They feigned affront, denied the facts, made excuses and attacked the messenger, then offered patchwork “solutions” and returned to business as usual. […]
When newspaper executives make a commitment to change, they often show great prowess in meeting their goals: Consider the breathtaking speed with which they added color graphics and lifestyle sections to their pages. When it comes to fulfilling their 1978 pledge to integrate people of color into their staffs, however, most newspaper editors are moving […]
Two recent stories about nationally syndicated radio talk show hosts have once again raised the issue of sexism and racism on the radio. On August 24, Walt Disney Company issued an apology for a radio promotion that aired repeatedly during the nationally syndicated Mark & Brian show, which originates from KLOS-FM in Los Angeles, a […]
