FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Readers of the Washington Post can see this headline in today’s edition (4/25/11) about the U.S. drone airstrikes: Debates Underway on Combat Drones But there is no actual debate in the article. Reporter Walter Pincus cites a British military study that calls the use of missile-firing drones “a genuine revolution in military affairs,” adding that […]
“Gadhafi Troops Fire Cluster Bombs Into Civilian Areas,” declares a New York Times headline (4/15/11). The lead of the story makes clear that these weapons are considered in many countries to be illegal: Military forces loyal to Col. Moammar el-Gadhafi have been firing into residential neighborhoods in this embattled city with heavy weapons, including […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin040811 Harold Meyerson and Lizzy Ratner @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin040811.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin:. Republican Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan unveiled his party’s budget plan this week. Media consumers learned that Ryan is gutsy, that he’s serious as a heart attack, that the plan is bold and sweeping… but what would it mean for peoples’ […]
One of the questions about U.S.-led war in Libya is the scope of the conflict. Some rebel forces seem to want more U.S. military action. The Washington Post reportstoday (3/29/11) that this is already happening. Under the headline”U.S. Deploys Low-Flying Attack Planes,” Greg Jaffe explains: The U.S. military dramatically stepped up its assault on Libyan […]
If public television’s mission is to bring diverse viewpoints to the airwaves, the discussions about the war in Libya on the PBS NewsHour haven’t lived up to that standard. Over the past two weeks, the NewsHour has featured an array of current and former military and government officials in its discussion segments–leaving little room for […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin032511 Asli Bali and Alia Malek @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin032511.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The U.S.’s sudden military involvement in Libya raises many questions that have not been answered by officials who’ve plunged the country into a war they say is to protect civilians, or even asked by many journalists who have been too busy […]
How can you tell that your country has gone to war again? Here are at least two signs. –The same military official is on every Sunday morning chat show: Yesterday Joint Chiefs chair Mike Mullen was on CBS’s Face the Nation, NBC’s Meet the Press, Fox News Sunday and ABC’s This Week. –You can watch […]
The new Washington Post/ABC poll is on the front page of the paper today (3/15/11): Nearly two-thirds of Americans now say the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth fighting, the highest proportion yet opposed to the conflict, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll. The Post‘s write-up includes a lot of strange language […]
The number of Afghan boys gathering firewood killed by a March 1 U.S./NATO helicopter attack in Kunar Province: Nine. The number of stories about the killing of the nine children on ABC, CBS or NBC morning or evening news shows (as of March 6): Two. One was an 80-word report on NBC Nightly News (3/2/11), […]
The Washington Post had a report yesterday (2/22/11) about the military tradition of giving “challenge coins.” For thoseunfamiliar, here’s a quick explanation: “Challenge coins,” as they are known, have become an important part of the ethos of the armed forces, where the story of service members’ careers–deployments, promotions, awards–is told by the ribbons and patches […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin021811 David Swanson and Aram Roston @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin021811.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The federal budget is big news this week, but while your hearing all the calls for cuts, cuts and more cuts, ask yourself, what isn’t considered an acceptable target for substantive reductions? Here’s a hint: it accounts for more than half […]
A Newsweek report (2/21/11) looks at the CIA’s aerial drone assassination program through the agency’s eyes–leaving questions about civilian deaths and the effort’s dubious legality for a couple of brief paragraphs at the end. To encourage Newsweek to take critics of the drone program seriously, see FAIR’s new Action Alert. Please leave copies of your […]
Newsweek‘s February 21 assessment of the CIA’s drone assassination program in Pakistan is a largely uncritical defense of the White House policy, with little space for critics who argue the killings are illegal, counterproductive and exact a heavy toll on innocent civilians. Newsweek presents the piece as an exclusive look at the targeting decisions involved […]
For a good example of how not to report the Afghan War, check out the lead story in today’s USA Today (2/15/11): General: Taliban ‘Beaten’ by Surge Momentum Shifts in Afghanistan The piece—by Jim Michaels, who has an unfortunate history of this kind of reporting—is mostly sourced to Richard Mills, the Marine general who’s […]
The New York Times stuck it to the former Defense secretary in a Sunday magazine interview: People sometimes call you a war criminal. Does that bother you? For the record, Rumsfeld did seem slightly bothered, because it’s “totally untrue. And life goes on.”
The discussion of violent and paranoid rhetoric in the media is long overdue, whether or not it is ever determined that accused Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner was somehow influenced or motivated by such rhetoric. Before the shooting, there had been a remarkable surge of politically motivated violence (FAIR Blog, 1/12/11). Despite media efforts to […]
USA Today (1/12/11) continues the tradition of dishonest reporting on the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. In a front-page article, reporter Tom Vanden Brook writes: Estimates vary among organizations that have tried to count civilian dead, according to a review last year by the Congressional Research Service. The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights reported […]
Stephen L. Carter has a piece over atNewsweek that points out that Barack Obama hardly differs from George W. Bush when it comes to war; as the subhead explains: “How does Barack Obama differ as a commander in chief from his swaggering predecessor? A lot less than you might think.” Now that’ssomethingyou don’t hearvery often […]
David Ignatius of the Washington Post (12/29/10): I’ve seen Petraeus give many briefings over the years, and it’s a bit like watching a magician at work. Even though you’ve seen the trick before, and you know the patter, you still get mesmerized. He has the ability to make people believe the impossible might be doable, […]
In FAIR’s recent study of the PBS NewsHour, we found that discussions of the Afghan War were incredibly narrow–no opponents ofa war that isbroadly unpopular among the American public were allowed to make their case. Last night’s NewsHour (12/16/10) offered a chance to see that narrow sourcing yet again. The showfeatured areported segment on the […]
