FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The front page of USA Today (9/19/11) tells us that Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is taking “the heat,” but not to worry–he says he can handle it. That’s especially true with reporters like Susan Page on his side: He’s not worried, he said, because only one issue really matters to Americans in this election. […]
Jesse Jackson had some tough criticism for the Tea Party movement at a Martin Luther King event on Thursday. USA Today‘s Melanie Eversley covered his remarks, getting a Tea Party activist to respond to his criticism. The piece then added this, presumably in order to add some context: The group has faced criticism of being […]
OK, that headline reflects one of the most common right-wing complaints against the Obama administration. (See Bill O’Reilly’s bullet point on Monday: “Increased federal regulations: Cutting into profits and causing banks to hoard, not lend money.”) That’s the right-wing argument, but it’s also the premise of some news reporting. Take this lead in today‘s USA […]
The headline of Al Neuharth’s column in USA Today (7/15/11) summed up his case: “Murdoch Media Give You What You Want.” That sort of depends on who “you” is. Neuharth explains: Murdoch has an uncanny knack for figuring out what a sizable segment of readers and viewers want and giving it to them. Straight or […]
USA Today published a useful investigation today (7/15/11) finding that “rates of violent crime along the U.S./Mexico border have been falling for years,” that U.S. border cities are “statistically safer on average than other cities in their states” and “border cities, big and small, have maintained lower crime rates than the national average, which itself […]
USA Today has a piece today headlined “Drawdown’s effects debated”– meaning the timetable for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan. The article starts with critical comments from U.S. military officials David Petraeus and Mike Mullen, who say they think the troop withdrawals are too much, too soon. And on the other side of this debate? USA Today […]
An analysis in USA Today (6/23/11) by Richard Wolf claims: President Obama’s decision to remove 10,000 troops from Afghanistan this year and a total of 33,000 by next September was deemed a step in the right direction Wednesday by a growing, and bipartisan, anti-war movement. Really? I’m not aware of many people in the “anti-war […]
USA Today‘s Fredreka Schouten reports (6/20/11) on states adopting photo ID laws to crack down on the nearly non-existent problem of voter fraud. Schouten lays out the argument: Proponents say the measures prevent vote fraud. Opponents say they are designed to stifle turnout among students, poor people and minorities, who are more likely to vote […]
“I mean, we are a profit-driven industry. And if you want the most eyeballs, you have to go with the thing that people are most talking about. But if you’re trying to do a quality program, then maybe you have got to go with Iraq and Iran.” —Politico‘s Julie Mason, explaining the amount of coverage […]
I noticed a few stories in today’s USA Today (6/13/11) about supposed Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. There will be plenty more of this to come–horserace commentary based on polling that’s being done in order to give journalists a reason to talk about one candidate more than another, which candidate has “momentum” and so on. It’s […]
We noted here on June 3 that a USA Today column by former Secretary of States James Baker was missing some important disclosure. Baker argued that the United States needs to encourage more domestic oil drilling. Baker championed efforts by Shell to drill in Alaska, which have been stymied by government bureaucrats. As FAIR noted, […]
The headline above this USA Today op-ed read like a slightly wordier version of a Sarah Palin bumper sticker slogan: “Cut the Red Tape: Free Up Oil Drilling in Alaska.” The author is former George H.W. Bush Secretary of State James Baker, and he writes: Even more domestic offshore drilling will be required if our […]
USA Today weighs in today (5/10/11) on the argument that U.S. torture of detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was instrumental to tracking down Osama bin Laden. Like other outlets, the newspaper does a pretty lousy job of summarizing the evidence. Under the headline “Raid Renews Debate on Interrogations,” reporter Oren Dorell suggests this starting point: […]
“John Paul II’s Beatification Cheered” was USA Today‘s headline (5/2/11)—followed by 19 paragraphs of cheerleading for the accelerated process of declaring the late Pope John Paul II an official saint: Various sources in Eric Lyman’s article called the event “an important day and a wonderful opportunity to recognize a great man,” “a man of God […]
A USA Today headline (4/28/11): Americans, Here and There, Get Swept Up by the Royal Wedding Much further down in the piece, evidence of that sweeping feeling: Polls initially indicated that most Americans were underwhelmed by the royal nuptials, but interest has spiked as the wedding day nears. U.S. media outlets are publishing twice the […]
USA Today has a regular left-right feature between hard-right pundit Cal Thomas and TV “liberal” Bob Beckel. Today’s topic? Nuclear power. And the verdict? Well, the headline tells you all you need to know. Knee-Jerks and Nukes Cal and Bob agree that despite the chorus of hand-wringers, it would be foolish to give up on […]
A condensed version of an AP story (3/23/11) about USA Today‘s new business plan: The nation’s second-largest newspaper is expanding its coverage of advertising-friendly topics, designing content for smartphones and tablet computers and refreshing the look of its print edition, whose circulation has fallen by 20 percent over the past three years…. For readers, it […]
USA Today (3/23/11): WASHINGTON–The top commander of the allied air war to protect civilians in besieged Libyan cities said the forces of Moammar Gadhafi must pull out or face attack, a task analysts say is complicated by the risk of bombing in populated areas. The “war to protect civilians” could be “complicated” by the killing […]
USA Today has a long piece (3/17/11) by Martha Moore about video hoax artist James O’Keefe’s NPR project. The article does a pretty good job of running down the deceptions in O’Keefe’s video. That’s good. This, however, is not: The video follows a long, if not always honorable, tradition of muckraking exposés. It also is […]
As Josh Marshall noted recently, one of the assumptions in the media discussion about Wisconsin is that Republican politicians are playing on public outrage over the perks given to public workers. That assumption took a hit after a new Gallup Poll, reported on the front page of USA Today, found this: Americans strongly oppose laws […]
