FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Presenting yet another example of corporate media failure to grasp the concept of “Adjusted for Inflation,” Kevin Drum (MotherJones.com, 7/26/09) has written up a Washington Post piece in which “David Brown says that as treatment for heart attacks has gotten better, it’s also gotten more expensive”: “Over the same period, the charges for treating a […]
Under the succinct Consortium News subhed “Too Late the Leak” (7/24/09), former CIA analyst Ray McGovern revisits the Downing Street Minutes–which he says should represent the kind of documentary evidence after which trial lawyers, intelligence analysts–and serious investigative journalists–lust. Though the unauthorized disclosure did not come early enough to head off the war, which had […]
The Washington Post‘s editorial (7/7/09) on the death of Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara managed to outdo even the New York Times‘ victim-erasing obituary. The Times cited the number of invading troops killed by McNamara’s war of aggression while ignoring the vastly larger number of Indochinese deaths—but for the Post, neither the aggressors nor their […]
Writing at his regular Beat the Press blog (7/8/09), economist Dean Baker says that the New York Times‘ David Leonhardt “rightly complains that President Obama’s healthcare plan does nothing to change the incentives for doctors to prescribe expensive forms of care, even when there is no evidence that this care will lead to better outcomes.” […]
Media blogger Eli Stephens (left i on the news, 7/2/09) has posted on a Washington Post lede claiming that “Saddam Hussein told an FBI interviewer before he was hanged that he allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction because he was worried about appearing weak to Iran.” Stephens explains how, as […]
Furthering the story of “Washington Post executives–reeling…over a flier promoting a ‘salon’ for lobbyists to mingle with prominent newsmakers,” Politico reporters Michael Calderone and Andy Barr (7/4/09) think the suits at the Post might reasonably ask “Why us?”: The fact is the Post‘s clumsy effort to make money on its brand name and market its […]
The business department at the Washington Post has gotten into trouble in what may be a case of too much truth in advertising. As reported by Politico (7/2/09), the Post circulated a flyer offering–for the low, low cost of $25,000–an “intimate and exclusive Washington Post salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of […]
In his evaluation of the Dan Froomkin firing, Washington Post ombud Andy Alexander (6/26/09) confidently asserts that “first, it’s not about ideology,” then later asserts that Froomkin “was urged not to do media criticism.” Clearly, though, the notion that the Post should not be subjected to criticism is a central tenet of the paper’s ideology. […]
In Dan Froomkin‘s last column for the Washington Post (6/26/09), he promises to “continue doing accountability journalism”–as good as any self-description to distinguish his work from his typical Post colleague’s obsequiousness–and tries “hard to summarize the past five-and-a-half years” in which “George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes”: In the days […]
I wrote a short item on Dan Froomkin’s firing for FAIR’s radio show CounterSpin today: One of the bright spots at the Washington Post media enterprise was Dan Froomkin’s column, “White House Watch,” for WashingtonPost.com. It often struck us that Froomkin had a whole different attitude—skeptical of those in power, and critical of their journalistic […]
Economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 6/20/09) has requested you try to “imagine a front-page Washington Post article that talked about how the United States had a shortage of small cars.” He reasonable assumes such a piece would address “the limited capacity of the various small-car assembly plants” and “discuss the amount of lead time […]
Blogger Jane Hamsher (FireDogLake.com, 6/19/09) thinks that Salon‘s “Glenn Greenwald says most of what needs to be said about the Washington Post‘s firing of Dan Froomkin,” on June 18, but has her own “insight into “the early rounds of this battle” over the left-leaning columnist, having “watched it ferment over the years.” Hamsher explains that […]
Do they still teach the First Amendment in law school? That’s what you have to wonder when you see a lawyer for the Obama administration’s Justice Department arguing that statements made by former Vice President Dick Cheney in the Scooter Libby probe ought to be kept secret because a future vice president might refuse to […]
Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 6/14/09) has caught “Fox on 15th (a.k.a. ‘The Washington Post‘)” once again “departing from normal news practice” with “another editorial complaining about President Obama’s deficits on the front page.” The piece‘s subhead–“Concern Mounts in White House as 2010 Elections Loom”–prompts some hard questions from Baker: “Who is concerned? The story […]
Writing that “it takes at least tacit faith in massive violence to believe that after three decades of horrendous violence in Afghanistan, upping the violence there will improve the situation,” FAIR associate Norman Solomon (Huffington Post, 6/8/09) tells us that, when last Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post printed the routine headline “Iraq War Deaths,” […]
In his June 11 Washington Post column about a Capitol Hill hearing featuring single-payer advocates (imagine that!), Dana Milbank sheds no light on the policy debate, but manages to reveal just how deeply enveloped he is inside the Beltway bubble. “Socialism is not dead,” smirks Milbank. “It has, however, been confined to a House subcommittee.” […]
Washington Post columnist David Broder has made a career out of advocating a certain type of corporate centrism–earning him the honorary (?) title of the Dean of the D.C. Press Corps. The formula is pretty simple: Argue that Democratic politicians should move to the right. So with healthcare reform a major issue, Broder’s formula is […]
Advocates of a single-payer health plan in the United States aren’t exactly accustomed to seeing their efforts covered in the corporate media–or in the headline of a major newspaper story, no less. The Washington Post reminded us on June 6 what happens when media finally get around to taking a look at the issue. Under […]
Veteran actor and activist Peter Coyote (SFChronicle.com, 5/30/09) writes about big media’s overriding response to the “Largest Environmental Lawsuit in History–Silence.” Taking a look at “the practices that are going on behind Chevron’s carefully cultivated ‘green’ image” as they “drill for oil in the jungles of the Ecuadorian Amazon,” Coyote does give credit to the […]
Spotting a May 31 Washington Post column “that blamed the United Auto Workers for the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM,” Dean Baker declares (Beat the Press, 5/31/09) that the D.C. daily “showed yet again why it is known as “Fox on 15th Street”: So what if Toyota has managed to profitably run a plant in […]
