FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
With Sen. Hillary Clinton’s historic bid for the presidency and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s subsequent VP nomination on the GOP ticket, women were in the national spotlight in the 2008 election as never before. But while Clinton and Palin generated a good deal of media discussion around the problems facing female candidates, coverage of women […]
Women’s voices have long been lacking in corporate media. As Internet outlets compete more and more with traditional media as a source for news and opinion, will women’s voices be heard there more frequently than in print publications? If the Huffington Post, one of the most prominent and successful blogs today, is an accurate barometer, […]
“I’ve been twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years,” Dowd responded. She said nobody had objected to her use of similar images about men over seven presidential campaigns. . . . “From the time I began writing about politics,” Dowd said, “I have always played with gender stereotypes and mined them and twisted them to […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin071108 Robert Dreyfuss and Amanda Marcotte @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin071108.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama’s image as a harbinger of change has many hoping his election will bring change in foreign policy. He certainly differs from George Bush on the need for diplomacy. But what about issues such as the projection of American power […]
It may have been the first time an audience heckler yelled “Iron my shirt!” at a United States senator (AP, 1/7/08), as well as the first time a presidential candidate has had a pair of nutcrackers fashioned in her likeness (New York Post, 9/7/07). Sen. Hillary Clinton’s run for the Democratic nomination has been fraught […]
This week on CounterSpin: Israel’s re-invasion of the Gaza Strip, with Ali Abunimah of the website Electronic Intifada. Also on the program: Barbara Seaman dedicated her life to challenging the medical establishment and faced marginalization by the journalism establishment as a result. Friend and colleague Cynthia Pearson of the National Women’s Health Network joins for a conversation on Seaman’s legacy.
This week on CounterSpin: What the media is saying about Clinton, Obama, and the current state of the Democratic race for the White House, with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report. Also on the program: Rob Richie with the group FairVote joins for a conversation on how media election coverage makes us feel discouraged, and what we can do about it.
This week on CounterSpin: How is the media reporting on George Bush’s recent decision to veto the expansion of the SCHIP children’s health insurance program? Also on the show: Disparate coverage of breast cancer and domestic violence with Lucinda Marshall, whose recent Alternet.org report is entitled “Breast Cancer Sells.”
This week on CounterSpin: Joyce Battle of the National Security Archive joins to discuss a new report that sheds light on U.S. propaganda efforts in Iraq. Also on the show: Journalist Caryl Rivers shares about her new book Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women.
The firing of Don Imus by CBS radio and MSNBC provided an opportunity for the many elite journalists who appeared on and supported his show to examine their own roles in enabling his bigotry (FAIR Media Advisory, 4/11/07). But the prospects of an honest self-examination are dim, as illustrated by this exchange on CNN‘s Reliable […]
The recent firing of talk host Don Imus by MSNBC has called attention to the culpability of big media companies and other journalists who profited from Imus’ bigotry. Journalist Richard Prince joins the show this week to discuss the situation. Also on the program: Investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giussepe D’Avanzo talk about their work in exposing the Niger-uranium hoax, and explain the Italian connection to the infamous pre-war reporting about Iraq’s aluminum tubes.
Why do CBS, NBC and top media pundits seem to feel no embarrassment over associating with Don Imus’s racism?
This week on CounterSpin: The growing media popularity of nuclear power as a solution to global warming, with Diane Farsetta of the Center for Media and Democracy. Also on the program: E.J. Graff discusses how media leaned into the misleading “opt-out” myth and shares about her new article on the topic, which appears in the March/April issue of Columbia Journalism Review.
How are journalists handling the confusion coming out of the White House regarding the warrantless wiretapping program that spied on US citizens, with former federal prosecutor and author Elizabeth de la Vega. Also on the show: Writer and journalism professor Kristal Brent Zook discusses how the media bungled coverage of the high-profile sexual assault investigation involving three Duke University lacrosse players.
Can women have jobs and still be good wives and mothers? Mainstream media have been picking at that scab ever since women began breaking out of their culturally circumscribed role as wives and homemakers and taking on professional careers. But with his August 22, 2006 article on Forbes.com, “Don’t Marry Career Women,” Michael Noer made […]
A new FAIR study finds that the NewsHour fails to provide either balance or diversity of perspectives—or a true public-minded alternative to its corporate competition.
In 2005, Kenneth Tomlinson, chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—and thus the person in charge of disbursing federal public broadcasting funds—sparked controversy with his aggressive push to move PBS and NPR to the right. In a series of public statements, Tomlinson, armed with a dubious study of PBS shows he commissioned from a right-wing […]
[Note: This piece is a sidebar to “Are You on the NewsHour’s Guestlist?“] Following FAIR’s landmark 1989 study of ABC’s Nightline, “Are You on the Nightline Guestlist?” (Extra!, 1-2/89), FAIR was urged to compare Nightline’s narrow, elite roster of guests with those of other news programs. In 1990, FAIR published a new study, “All the […]
[Note: This piece is a sidebar to “Are You on the NewsHour’s Guestlist?”] When FAIR published its 1990 study, the NewsHour criticized it for not including taped sources; then-executive producer Lester Crystal argued (Broadcasting, 5/28/90) that taped segments “are a significant part of the program and have included much of the diversity [FAIR] refers to”—suggesting […]
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 […]
