FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
US media coverage has endorsed, downplayed or ignored the harm the sanctions will inflict on Syria’s civilian population, and the misery years of previous sanctions have already inflicted.
“There are people in the region who are fighting for their freedom, and we should hear those voices and look to those voices.”
The demand that the US keep its forces in Syria to prevent Turkish violence against Kurdish and other Syrian people ignores the fact that US forces in Syria are not an obstacle to Turkish violence.
World events can be confusing, but they’re made much more so by media coverage that insists, against all evidence, that righteousness is what guides US foreign policy.
Election Focus 2020: When corporate outlets talk about an anti-interventionist position, they primarily use it to negatively characterize the candidates who espouse it.
In December, President Donald Trump said that he planned to withdraw from Syria the US troops there, which number between 2,000 and 4,000. Trump’s claim was widely condemned in corporate media.
Lost amidst the deluge of who-is-Anonymous? speculation was a Trump administration story that will have deadly, far-reaching consequences long after the New York Times op-ed is forgotten.
A country’s political leaders are likely to be called a “regime” when they do not follow US dictates, and are less likely to be categorized as such if they cooperate with the empire.
As FAIR has noted before (e.g., Extra!, 1/17; FAIR.org, 4/2/18), the term “clash” is almost always used to launder power asymmetry and give the reader the impression of two equal warring sides. It obscures power dynamics and the nature of the conflict itself, e.g., who instigated it and what weapons if any were used. “Clash” […]
“Enforcing international law or protecting people from horrific chemical weapons is not something that is really an actual, sincere concern of the foreign policy establishment.”
Corporate media outlets were glad that the US, France and Britain bombed Syria in violation of international law, but lamented what they see as a dearth of US violence in the country.
As corporate media talk about Syria, where a recent airstrike by the US, legality be damned, is meant to represent the US doing the right thing in the world, are the principles supposedly guiding US intervention in Syria really principles—in the sense of being universally applied?
A survey by FAIR of the top 100 papers in the US by circulation found not a single editorial board opposed to Trump’s April 13 airstrikes on Syria. Twenty supported the strikes, while six were ambiguous as to whether or not the bombing was advisable. The remaining 74 issued no opinion about Trump’s latest escalation of the Syrian war.
The curators of American public opinion at the three most influential broadsheets in the United States have decided that dissent from the build-up to new airstrikes on Syria is not really an opinion worth hearing.
President Donald Trump is threatening to escalate the Syrian war–and major liberal media outlets are writing that Trump should attack Syria further.
The very possibility of US withdrawal from Syria rendered apoplectic journalists who are convinced of the legitimacy of Washington’s domination of the country—international law be damned.
NPR Brings You the Unheard Voice of Rush Limbaugh…Boosting Trump’s Tax Bill With ‘Bonus’ Hype…NYT: Don’t Be Misled by Claims That CEOs Are Rich…Israel’s ‘Retaliatory’ Bombing of Syria for Shooting Down an Israeli Bomber…From ‘Sidelines,’ US Controls 1/4th of Syria…‘Anti-Propaganda Warrior,’ You Have a Mission Closer to Home…Pro-Capitalist Times
Anglo-American press coverage of the Syrian situation has grossly misled readers about their own governments’ role in the catastrophe, and has urged audiences to accept greater Western military intervention in the country without examining the implications of such a move.
Media outlets are saying that Israel is “retaliating” against Syria for defending itself against an ongoing Israeli attack.
Not only are media outlets failing to address the violence implicit in Tillerson’s Syria policy, they are claiming the opposite and treating it as a plan for peace.
