FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Yesterday’s Washington Post (12/16/09) reports that the public isn’t sold on healthcare reform. As the headline puts it: Public Cooling to Healthcare Reform as Debate Drags On, Poll Finds The story by Dan Balz and Jon Cohen explains that “there is minimal public enthusiasm for the kind of comprehensive changes in healthcare now under consideration.” […]
The Israeli government’s near-total blockade of the Gaza Strip has been roundly criticized by international human rights groups as a harsh form of collective punishment. Some U.N. investigations have labeled it much worse–that Israel’s actions amount to crimes against humanity. Back in medialand, the Washington Post‘s Howard Schneider has a story today (12/15/09) comparing life […]
The Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz spends his Sunday mornings as the host of Reliable Sources, the media criticism show on CNN. Yesterday (12/13/09), one segment concerned the Washington Post‘s decision to print an op-ed (12/9/09) on “Climategate” by Sarah Palin. It prompted this exchange with guest John Aravosis of Americablog: ARAVOSIS: What newspapers aren’t supposed […]
The Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank (12/6/09) thinks there’s something wrong with left-wing critics of Barack Obama. As his lead put it: Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet. Milbank starts with Michael Moore, who wrote an open letter urging Obama not to escalate the […]
Washington Times, the paper of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, has announced it will be going to free distribution and laying off at least 40 percent of its staff. Which positions won’t make the cut? Well, one that’s been mentioned is that of editor. That’s right; former editor John Solomon resigned last month after […]
In this world, it’s the public that’s skeptical of an endless pursuit of victory, with a majority of respondents in recent polling saying they oppose the war.
The United States has made a dramatic change in its system of governance—with little debate or even attention paid in corporate media. The change is the vastly increased importance of the filibuster, a parliamentary maneuver that allows a minority of lawmakers—under current Senate rules, 41 out of 100—to indefinitely extend debate and prevent a final […]
How many times does nuclear power get to have a “comeback”? At least one more, the Washington Post Anthony Faiola reports today (11/24/09), under the headline “Nuclear Power Regains Support,” and the subheads “Tool Against Climate Change” and “Even Green Groups See It as ‘Part of the Answer.’” The “greening of nuclear power” story is […]
Washington Post columnist David Broder rounds up some “non-partisan” budget experts– one of whom, oddly enough, was John McCain’s Social Security adviser during his 2000 campaign — to agree with him that the Democrats’ healthcare bills are too expensive. He closes with this: The challenge to Congress — and to Obama — remains the same: […]
One of the odder outbreaks of outrage from conservative pundits is the horror expressed at the idea that people accused of being connected to the September 11 attacks would actually be put on trial. Here’s Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson (11/18/09) on Attorney General Eric Holder’s “destructive” decision to prosecute Khalid Mohammed and other 9/11 […]
The Washington Post reports its latest polling on the Afghanistan war, and once again have managed to put together a baffling question that seems intended to muddy up the debate over a troop surge. The lead and headline (“Poll Finds Guarded Optimism on Obama’s Afghanistan Plan”) stress the idea that the public still seems to […]
The big news out of the Middle East yesterday was the Israeli government’s decision to approve an expansion of the Gilo settlement near Jerusalem. The White House’s muddled position on settlement expansion has been a key part of Israel-Palestine negotiations. Many headlines framed the news as you’d expect (New York Times: “Plan to Expand Jerusalem […]
The Washington Post‘s Shailagh Murray (11/17/09) wrote a profile of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D.-Ark.) as one of the Democratic senators most likely to break with the rest of the party on healthcare reform. The article seemed to invert the advice Deep Throat once gave to the Post‘s Woodward and Bernstein into a new rule: Don’t […]
From ABC World News, 11/11/09: CHARLIE GIBSON: We understand he’s raising new questions about a number of plans that are in front of him. What new questions are there to be asked after all this time? MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, you would think he’d be through with the questions, Charlie. Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times (11/15/09): […]
The Washington Post reported (11/5/09) that some Democrats are “questioning whether they should emphasize job creation over some of the more ambitious items on the president’s agenda.” A couple paragraphs later, reporters Michael Shear and Paul Kane elaborate: Moderate and conservative Democrats took a clear signal from Tuesday’s voting, warning that the results prove that […]
Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt writes today (10/26/09) on the fear that the public option is a backdoor effort to bring a single-payer system to the United States: Private companies would have to raise their rates, so more people would choose the public plan, so private rates would rise further—and we could end […]
In the Washington Post (10/25/09), reporter Dan Balz has a piece about the “resurrection” of the public option in the Senate negotiations over healthcare reform. But like the Post‘s trumpeting of its recent poll on the issue, Balz’s rationale doesn’t make much sense. As he sees it, Senate Democrats “reevaluated the politics of the public […]
“U.S. Deeply Split on Troop Increase for Afghan War” is the headline on the Washington Post‘s October 21 report about its latest polling on Afghanistan. The paper reports that “Americans are evenly and deeply divided” over sending 40,000 extra troops: “47 percent of those polled favor the buildup, while 49 percent oppose it.” If you’ve […]
Living up to the ridiculous notion that every right-wing slam on ACORN demands coverage in the “liberal media,” the Washington Post (“Duo Release Another Video of Their Meeting With ACORN Worker,” 10/22/09) runs a storyon the latest from the right-wing activists whose undercover videos shot at local ACORN offices got all the attention in the […]
Disapproval and despair over the lost standards of journalistic objectivity are trotted out only for reporters whose opinions are at odds with official views.
