FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In the final weeks of the campaign, there was good news for feminists: The women’s movement had a new leader, ready to finish smashing that glass ceiling Hillary Clinton cracked. Yes, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was the fresh new face of feminism, even if feminists were too stubborn or elitist to admit it—or so some […]
The “media bias” against Sarah Palin is a key ingredient of the conservative victimology of 2008, even though when you see negative reports about Palin these days, they’re generally sourced to her erstwhile Republican colleagues—and corporate media sometimes go to absurd lengths to give the attacks a semi-positive spin, as in this Alessandra Stanley piece […]
Local CBS reporter Cynthia Fodor’s revelation that she “had to submit which topics we wanted to discuss ahead of time” to get an interview with Sarah Palin has Think Progress‘s Ben Armbruster (10/27/08) putting the censorious nature of Palin’s handlers into perspective: Fodor’s revelations come at a particular disturbing time. Just last week, press freedom […]
Via TPM, we read about a reporter (Capital Beat, 10/16/08) who got knocked down at a Sarah Palin rally in North Carolina because he tried to interview an Obama supporter. This seems like the natural progression from the earlier report of Palin inciting her followers to hurl obscenities and racist insults at journalists. And, you […]
Any lingering hope you may have harbored for corporate pundits to rise above their infatuation with John McCain running mate Sarah Palin will surely be dashed by Rich Lowry’s titillated take (National Review Online, 10/3/08) on her debate performance–quoted in full: A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is […]
The affliction that causes national political commentators to project their own perceptions onto the public– let’s call it Pundit Projection Syndrome–is affecting David Gregory’s ability to come to grips with the fact that the public just wasn’t as into John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s debate performances as he was. Last night on his MSNBC show, […]
Here’s Sarah Palin misquoting her coffee cup: I’m reading on my Starbucks mocha cup, okay? The quote of the day…. It was Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State [crowd boos] and UN ambassador…. Now she said it, I didn’t. She said, “There’s a place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.” It’s […]
Almost as useless as not fact-checking politicians’ statements at all is to insist on presenting fact-checks as though both sides are equally guilty—a classic form of false balance that gives a big advantage to whomever happens to be the biggest liar. In this genre we find “Facts Go Adrift on Taxes, Energy in VP Debate: […]
The American News Project‘s Harry Hanbury reports (10/1/08) that “by now millions of Americans have seen the video clips where [GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah] Palin… prays the Iraq war will be revealed as a task from God.” The ANP video even shows Palin praying “that our… national leaders, are sending them [occupation soldiers] out […]
