USA Today Helps Mylan Sell an Extortionate Price for EpiPen
You don’t need time travel to make the generic EpiPen a bad deal; you just need to travel across the border into Canada.
USA Today Ducking the Question of Militarism
The top story for USA Today on July 8, 2016: Western countries aren’t spending enough money on weapons of war.
The story displayed not a hint of skepticism that increasing military spending is anything other than an unalloyed good.
Lewandowski Hire Makes Journalists Choose Between Defending Their Profession and Embracing Its Demise
Faced with the destruction of journalistic values by the corrupting effects of the profit motive, journalists can either stand up for the principles that brought many of them into the career in the first place—or else identify with the corruption, telling themselves that they’re siding with the smart money even as it destroys the institutions that form the basis for their profession.
Talking to Nike’s Knight About ‘Entrepreneurial Edge,’ Worker Abuses Are Beyond the Pale
Just a few months ago, Nike announced that it will no longer allow its factories to be monitored by the Worker Rights Consortium. Don’t look for that to be brought up in USA Today’s interview with Nike’s Phil Knight.
Major Papers Reject the Opt-Out Option
Three papers offered arguments that closely align with the rhetoric of corporate education reform, focusing on the plight of low-income students of color while ignoring the realities of how testing affects such populations.
USA Today Provides a Platform for Anti-Immigration Think Tank’s Flawed Study
CIS does not provide a comparison of the cost of welfare going to immigrant and non-immigrant households–presumably because such a comparison would have weakened its anti-immigrant case.
‘Wolf’ Cry by FBI on 4th of July?
On the Monday before the Independence Day weekend, several mainstream media outlets repeated the latest press release by the FBI that the country was under a new “heightened terror alert” from “ISIL-inspired attacks” “leading up to the July 4 weekend.” Former CIA director (and consultant at DC PR firm Beacon Global Strategies) Michael Morell went […]
The Mass Surveillance of US Public Continues as USA Today Declares It Ended
A USA Today headline read “NSA Data Collection Ended.” While the headline says that the phone data collection program has ended, the vote the headline is reporting actually restarted it.
The Mass Surveillance of US Public Continues as USA Today Declares It Ended
While a USA Today headline declares “NSA Data Collection Ended,” the vote that the headline is referring to didn’t end the NSA phone data collection program; it restarted it.
After Labour Loses With Austerity, US Media Tell Them to Move to the Right
When conservatives win elections, the US press invariably reports that the lesson for liberals is to move to the right. That’s true not only in domestic elections but overseas ones as well–as with last week’s balloting for the British Parliament.
Calling TPP Foes ‘Simplistic,’ USA Today Simply Gets the Numbers Wrong
USA Today told readers that unions “who blame trade, and trade agreements, for the decline in manufacturing jobs” have a “simplistic view.” But it’s USA Today, not the unions, who are being simplistic here.
Are Soldiers Happy? Unhappy? Compared to What?
It’s the unanswered question “compared to what?” that makes USA Today’s lead story, “Soldiers Hate Their Jobs,” a prime example of pseudo-news.
USA Today Responds: ‘Criticizing Violent Islamists Does Not Tarnish All Muslims’
Brian Gallagher, the editor of USA Today‘s editorial page, writes to those who responded to his paper’s February 2 cartoon (FAIR Blog, 2/3/15): Dear readers, I rarely respond to letter-writing campaigns, but I’ll take a moment to respond to this one because I think that FAIR’s glib analysis of the editorial cartoon published recently in […]
Muslims Are Nazis, USA Today Jokes
The cartoon by Cameron Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen that USA Today selected as its daily editorial cartoon for February 2 is not terribly hard to parse: Islam is the modern equivalent of Nazism, and threatens a new Holocaust.
USA Today Makes Sure Rich Don’t Get Blamed for Middle-Class Stagnation
USA Today boasts that most of its “editorials are coupled with an opposing view–a unique USA Today feature.” So you’re getting both sides, is the implication–when in fact what you’re more likely to get is perception management.
USA Today Wants You to Think Killings of Police Are on the Rise
USA Today could have averaged several recent years to see if there was a meaningful trend. But instead the newspaper decided to feed the narrative that police officers are under attack.
Two More ‘Police Incidents,’ Shrouded in Media Euphemism
That so many black people are killed by law enforcement is a painful, difficult thing to face. Perhaps that’s why media try so hard to look away.
No, Tar Sands Oil Isn’t Inevitable
Pundits say opposing Keystone is foolish because they’re going to get that oil out of the ground no matter what. But is that true?
USA Today: Still Not Too Late to Attack Gary Webb
The chatter around Kill the Messenger, the film based on the life of investigative reporter Gary Webb, has mostly faded. But this week USA Today ran a column that mangled the basic facts of Webb’s reporting.
Nonvoters Are People Too
Could there be any clearer expression of voter disgust with the political system than the decision to not vote at all?
