FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
With all the talk of the Iraq War winding down (never mind the ongoing violence, the U.S. troops still fighting, or the continuing U.S. casualties), filmmaker Michael Moore makes an important point about how the war started—specifically, that it happened not despite but because of the way the “liberal media” behaved: But most importantly, they […]
When Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies appeared on FAIR’s radio show CounterSpin last week, she challenged Barack Obama’s assertions that U.S. combat in Iraq was ending and that the last combat brigade was leaving the country, describing the plans the U.S. actually has in store for Iraq: The policy has not changed. […]
Some in the media just can’t let go of John McCain. David Broder’s column today is really headlined, “John McCain, Your Country Is Calling.” He explains that he wasn’t “bothered by the doctrinal compromises the senator made to convince Arizona voters that he was, in fact, a conservative. McCain has always been a realist, doing […]
Thousands have signed on to FAIR’s petition–add your voice today and keep the pressure on NBC to have a real war debate! July saw more U.S. troop fatalities in Afghanistan than any month since the war began nine years ago. Gen. Stanley McChrystal was removed from his commanding post amid controversy, and WikiLeaks released a […]
During an August 18 segment about the Iraq War, anchor Brian Williams said (emphasis added): Let’s bring into this conversation retired U.S. Army Colonel Jack Jacobs. He’s a decorated combat veteran, a recipient of the Medal of Honor and, of course, an NBC News military analyst. Well, at this point, people like me always ask […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: One war is ending, while the other is the subject of a major PR blitz. Right on schedule, we’re told, Operation Iraqi Freedom is winding down, with live TV coverage relaying the images of the final U.S. combat brigades leaving the country. The caveats to the story of the […]
The war in Afghanistan has re-emerged as a major news story, thanks to the controversies surrounding the removal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the WikiLeaks release of classified documents. But on NBC‘s Meet the Press, the opportunity to engage in a robust debate about the war has taken a back seat to promoting the views […]
USA Today had a piece yesterday (8/5/10) about new rules of engagement issued in Afghanistan by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus. The new rules—much like the old rules—”are aimed at limiting civilian casualties,” the paper’s Jim Michaels reports in its own voice, explaining: At the heart of counterinsurgency doctrine is the principle that winning […]
We often heard during the WikiLeaks controversy that civilian deaths in Afghanistan are well-covered in the corporate media, so the revelations in the documents about such incidents were “old news.” A report in today’s Times from Rod Nordland (“Afghans Say NATO Strikes Killed Civilians,” 8/6/10) teaches a useful lesson in how such reporting appears. There […]
The Afghanistan documents posted by WikiLeaks were obviously the big story of the week. So how did the network Sunday shows react to these disclosures, which have the potential to open up a real debate about the Afghan War? NBC‘s Meet the Press interviewed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen. ABC‘s […]
A USA Today story by Susan Page (7/27/10), on the impact of the WikiLeaks revelations, reports that despite some erosion, “Most Americans continue to support the war in Afghanistan.” To back up this assertion, Page cites Gallup poll findings (7/8–11/10) that 58 percent of Americans think it was “not a mistake” for the US to […]
The website WikiLeaks posted tens of thousands of classified intelligence documents relating to the Afghanistan War on Sunday, July 25. Spanning the years 2004-09, the documents had been shared in advance with reporters from the New York Times, the British Guardian and the German Der Spiegel, all of which produced long pieces offering their […]
In case you thought the WikiLeaks story might change everything: The forthcoming Time magazine (out tomorrow) has a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan woman with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan.” The implication would seem to be that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. You can see […]
Fresh from her comments slamming Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings for reporting things the military wouldn’t like, CBS reporter Lara Logan weighed in on the WikiLeaks story on last night’s CBS Evening News, where she argued that reporters should do more to stress the Taliban’s record of killing civilians: KATIE COURIC: Also mentioned in these documents […]
The stories in today’s Washington Post tell you everything you need to know about the media establishment’s reaction to the Wikileaks Afghanistan documents: WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of Afghanistan War By Greg Jaffe and Peter Finn …The documents’ release could compel President Obama to explain more forcefully the war’s importance, military analysts […]
Former special ops squad leader/current think tank fellow Andrew Exum noisily yawns at the WikiLeaks Afghan document release on the New York Times op-ed page today (7/27/10): The news media have done a good job of showing the public that the Afghan war is a highly complex environment stretching beyond the borders of the […]
The Washington Post‘s blockbuster story (7/19/10) by reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin on the bloated, secretive and largely privatized national security apparatus established after the September 11, 2001, attacks is making a lot of noise, and for good reason. The Post describes a “top-secret world” that has become “so large, so unwieldy and so […]
Philadelphia Inquirer TV critic Jonathan Storm (7/1/10) noted that tonight, July 2, the city’s public TV station WHYY is airing a documentary called The Surge: The Untold Story. As he puts it, what’s most interesting about the documentary is who’s behind it: The film was produced by communications companies that work predominantly for the GOP […]
A study (4/10) by Harvard students discovered that waterboarding was commonly called torture by major newspapers–right until the United States was found to be practicing it. The study looked at coverage in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal. As Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald put it, “We don’t need a […]
Whenthe news is thatU.S./coalition casualties in June in Afghanistan were the highest monthly total of the war, you’d think it might be an opportunity to quote a critic of the war. Not for USA Today. In the paper’s report today (7/1/10), reporter Jim Michaelsgets a comment from the British defense minister (“We must hold our […]
