Fawaz Gerges on Lebanon, Israel and the Media
This week on CounterSpin: A special extended interview about Lebanon, Israel, and the media, with Lebanese-born American author and scholar Fawaz Gerges.
‘Because This Is the Middle East’
(NOTE: Please see the Activism Update regarding this alert.) On July 16, CBS Face the Nation host (and CBS Evening News anchor) Bob Schieffer dedicated the entire Sunday morning news show to the Middle East conflict. In his closing editorial, he adapted a well-known fable in an attempt to explain the causes of the current […]
Mark Weisbrot on Mexican election, James Zogby on Gaza crisis
This week on CounterSpin: Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research discusses Mexico’s still-unresolved presidential election and the press’s blatant favoritism towards conservative candidate Felipe Calderón. Also on the show: James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, talks about U.S. coverage of Gaza and how it compares to what’s being said by the Israeli media.
Move Over—Over and Over
It’s an article of faith in the elite ranks of journalism: Political virtue and electoral success reside in the ideological center. Though it’s not overwhelmingly popular with the American public, centrism is the dominant message of national political pundits and journalists—at least for Democrats. While few commentators would disagree with the conventional wisdom that Republican […]
CBS’s Mideast ‘Cycle of Violence’
On June 28, CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer turned to CBS reporter Bob Simon for analysis of the current Israel-Palestine crisis. What Simon offered, however, was a familiar scenario that puts the blame squarely on the Palestinian side. As Simon put it: We can’t say how it’s going to end, but there is a […]
New York Times Corrects the Record
On June 16, FAIR issued an Action Alert questioning a New York Timess op-ed’s claim that “hundreds of anti-war protestors…appear at military hospitals and funerals.” On June 17, the New York Times printed the following correction on its op-ed page: An Op-Ed article on Monday, about demonstrations at military funerals, hospitals and memorial services, incorrectly […]
Warning Dems Against Withdrawal
Recent moves by Democrats to suggest a timetable for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq are being portrayed by the New York Times as a real problem—for Democrats. The underlying assumption in the reporting is that this position is a risky one, playing right into the hands of Karl Rove and the GOP. A June 14 […]
Smearing Anti-War Activists?
(NOTE: Please read the update to this alert) A June 12 op-ed in the New York Times made a bold accusation: anti-war activists have targeted funerals of Iraq War soldiers with noisy protests. But evidence to back up that charge is nonexistent. The author of the piece, writer Karen Spears Zacharias, recounted an interview with […]
Michael Klare on Iran, Fawaz Gerges on Journey of the Jihadist
This week on CounterSpin: A new proposal to Iran and how this has changed the tone of media coverage, with Professor Michael Klare. Also on the show: Fawaz Gerges of Sarah Lawrence College discusses his new book, Journey of the Jihadist.
Media Memorial Day
People who are concerned about the state of the U.S. news media in 2006 might pause to consider those who have lost their lives in the midst of journalistic neglect, avoidance and bias. We remember that while TV and radio news reports tell the latest about corporate fortunes, vast numbers of real people are struggling […]
Aaron Glantz on Iraq, Doug Henwood on immigration
Independent journalist Aaron Glantz on Bush, Iraq, and the media. Also this week: Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer joins to discuss the economic side of the immigration debate.
Tom Friedman’s Flexible Deadlines
New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman is considered by many of his media colleagues to be one of the wisest observers of international affairs. “You have a global brain, my friend,” MSNBC host Chris Matthews once told Friedman (4/21/05). “You’re amazing. You amaze me every time you write a book.” Such praise is […]
Rumsfeld Challenged
It is not often that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld finds himself aggressively questioned about the Iraq War. When that happened at a May 4 event, many in the media seemed not to know what to make of it. During an appearance at the Southern Center for International Studies in Atlanta, Rumsfeld was confronted by […]
Washington Post responds to critics
On April 16, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell responded to critics—including FAIR—who questioned her about the paper’s puzzling April 9 editorial, “A Good Leak.” While Howell’s attention to the matter is appreciated, her response avoided the most important issue: whether the paper’s editorial page got its facts right. Much of Howell’s column (headlined “Two Views […]
Intelligence Manipulation at the Washington Post
(NOTE: Please see the Activism Update regarding this alert.) Newspaper editorial pages are entitled to their own opinions—but not to their own facts. The Washington Post‘s editorial page, however, seems to want to have it both ways. The paper’s April 9 editorial, “A Good Leak,” defended the White House’s actions amid new revelations in the […]
A Record of Journalism in Crisis
BOOK REVIEW Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11 By Kristina Borjesson Prometheus Books, 2005 Kristina Borjesson lost her producing job at CBS News as a consequence of her unsuccessful struggle to air a report about the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800. Many people, including scores of eyewitnesses, still believe that a missile—possibly […]
Wrong on Iraq? Not Everyone
When former UN chief weapons inspector David Kay told the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2004, “We were all wrong,” he was admitting that officials had been wrong to claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The we-were-all-wrong trope entered the political lexicon as a mea culpa, but today the White House and its […]
Now It’s a Chemical Weapon, Now It’s Not
Gearing up for an invasion of Iraq in 2002, U.S. media vividly evoked the cruel effects of unconventional weapons. Washington Post foreign affairs columnist Jim Hoagland referred repeatedly to Saddam Hussein’s imagined stockpiles of “horror weapons” and “weapons of horror,” and later to the “horrors” of Saddam’s past use of chemical weapons (7/11/02, 10/25/02, 9/24/03). […]
Jack Fairweather on ‘Heroes in Error,’ Ben Bagdikian on Knight-Ridder sale
This week on CounterSpin: Ben Bagdikian on McClatchy consolidation and the future of journalism. Also on the show: Reporter Jack Fairweather joins to discuss the new issue of Mother Jones, which exposes yet another INC tall tale.
‘The Final Word Is Hooray!’
Days or weeks into the war, commentators and reporters made premature declarations of victory, offered predictions about lasting political effects and called on the critics of the war to apologize. Three years later, the Iraq War grinds on at the cost of at least tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.
