FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Is the Washington Post hoping readers only read headlines? At a glance, “Study: KIPP Charter Schools Have Extra Edge” (3/31/11) would seem to be just another in the Washington Post Co.‘s toutings of charter schools in general and KIPP schools in particular (Extra!, 9/10) Readers who actually click through though, might be surprised to learn […]
Some mystical power forces the corporate media to cover Donald Trump. In the New York Times today: But White House officials concluded about a month ago that the falsehoods had moved from “the nether regions of the Internet” into the mainstream political arena, thanks in large part to the efforts of Mr. Trump, the real […]
Washington Post editorialist Lee Hockstader wrote a puff profile on Haiti’s thuggish President-elect Michel Martelly (“Haiti’s ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly Turns Presidential,” 4/24/11), whom he depicts as a fresh, vital force on the political scene, bringing with him energy and a new (mostly untested) crop of advisers, unbeholden to any recent political establishment. Little wonder […]
Working in a time-honored corporate media genre (Extra!, 9-10/97, 9-10/05, 7/10), the Washington Post‘s Edward Cody (4/24/11) tells us that Europe just can’t afford its generous social programs: From blanket health insurance to long vacations and early retirement, the cozy social benefits that have been a way of life in Western Europe since World War […]
The first role of the corporate press in an election cycle is to weed out candidates who they deem nonviable. This usually means choosing not to cover candidates whose ideas that fall outside the Beltway conventional wisdom (e.g., Dennis Kucinich), or those who reporters decide have no real chance of winning the nomination. The speculation […]
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 […]
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank seems to like to mock progressives almost as much as he likes to go after Glenn Beck. So it’s no surprise that he turned out to “cover” the unveiling of a budget plan by the Congressional Progressive Caucus (4/13/11). Milbank seems to think that little explanation is needed—these crazy ideas […]
Washington Post reporter Dan Balz (4/10/11) presents the Obama/GOP budget deal asevidence that the White House wasmerelyrespondingto public opinion: Most important was showing the country that he could make Washington work. “Like any worthwhile agreement, both sides had to make tough decisions and give ground on issues that were important to them,” he said. At […]
Dean Baker’s Beat the Press is the best Early Warning Media Mythbuster. It’s simple: You read it every morning before you read the papers (he is up before you are, trust me) and you’re well prepared to deal with the economic nonsense you’ll be subjected to. Today (4/6/11) he proposes this headline for stories about […]
The big Israel/Palestine news of the week is Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in the Washington Post on Sunday (4/3/11). The short version you pick up from the media is that Goldstone has “retracted” his UN-sponsored report on war crimes during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead war in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. The “retraction” language […]
On Sunday’s episode of NBC‘s Chris Matthews Show (4/3/11), the panel actually talked about criticism of the mainstream media, with some citing the media’s Iraq War debacle as a major factor in the rise of blogosphere-based media criticism. The discussion got somewhat confused along the way, as this segued into a discussion of the entirely […]
The Washington Post‘s Greg Jaffe (4/1/11): Some of the United States’ partners have acknowledged that the initial descriptions of the intervention in Libya no longer apply. “What is happening in Libya is not a no-fly zone,” a senior European diplomat told reporters, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity. “The no-fly zone was a diplomatic […]
The Washington Post‘s Paul Farhi has a piece today (3/30/11) about NBC‘s non-coverage of the revelation that part-owner General Electric is making piles of money–and paying no federal taxes.I’m quoted in it. Farhi breaks it down, and gets an NBC response: It’s the kind of accountability journalism that makes readers raise an eyebrow, if it […]
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 […]
The Washington Post‘s Lori Montgomery has what sounds like a pretty important story in today’s paper (3/25/11). The headline: Democrats Splinter Over Strategy for Reducing Deficit Battle Lines Drawn as More Are Willing to Put Entitlements on Table The piece leads off: Democrats are sharply divided over whether to tackle popular but increasingly expensive safety-net […]
Washington Post Dana Milbank (3/19/11) skewers the Republicans for their “emergency meeting” to defund NPR: This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it—or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the […]
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 […]
Will the unfolding crisis in Japan lead to a debate over the safety of nuclear power in the United States? Initial signs are not encouraging. NBC‘s Meet the Press(3/13/11)had an interview with Marvin Fertel of the Nuclear Energy Institute.Host Chuck Todd prefaced one question with, “Iunderstand that you represent the industry’s interests in this….” Later […]
Washington Post columnist and political reporter David Broder died on Wednesday, March 9. Broder was an enormously influential figure in Beltway media circles–“the best political reporter of his generations,” wrote his Post colleague Dan Balz (3/10/11). ABC‘s George Stephanopoulos declared (3/9/11) that “for generations of policy makers, journalists and political junkies, Broder was the gold […]
With a headline like “Public Workers Draining State, Local Pension Funds,” I guess you know what to expect from Karen Tumulty‘s article in the Washington Post today (3/8/11). It appears the story’s headline was changed somewhere along the way, but unfortunately the headline wasn’t the only problem. Her lead paragraph introduces an obviously unrepresentative case–a […]
