FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
“There’s suffering on a mass scale in Yemen, and the United States bears tremendous responsibility for that.”
The Yemeni people are paying the price both for the fighting and for the distortions around it, from political elites and their media amplifiers.
The focus on Washington palace intrigue over the bombing of women and children is a stark reminder of corporate media priorities.
If newspapers were concerned about human life, there wouldn’t be such a gap in coverage between Iranian and US-made weapons.
“Every step of the way, the US is helping and facilitating and enabling this coalition to continue bombing Yemen.”
Yemen is not a rhetorical device. It’s a country of human beings in crisis.
With the word “proxy,” corporate media downplay the extent of US interference in other countries, while frequently portraying Iran as undercutting other peoples’ independence.
Media are experts in using progressives’ empathy and compassion against them, presenting them carefully selected images and stories of suffering around the world, and suggesting that US military power can be used to alleviate it.
“Historically, siege was considered an act of war; to undertake a siege against a foreign population was considered an act of war. And these sanctions are basically a form of siege against a civilian population, to extort some sort of political goal from their leadership.”
The coronavirus crisis highlights the urgent need to reimagine our vaccine infrastructure.
“We are providing logistical support and intel-sharing for their aerial campaign; we’re doing spare-part transfers, making sure that all those F-15s that are dropping bombs on civilian targets in Yemen are up to speed.”
US media bring images of Yemen’s suffering, but you could think it was happening on Mars, if the dots are not connected between the bombs and the hunger and the cholera, and elected US congressmembers voting again and again to be part of it.
As activist pressure on lawmakers to oppose the Yemen War mounted over the past few months, the nominally liberal media powerhouse MSNBC was once again AWOL.
“Understanding the limits of the dialogue possible in the elite but influential press is crucial to understanding our political lives.”
Understanding the limits of the dialogue possible in the elite but influential press is crucial to understanding our political lives…and the importance of maintaining spaces where we can openly debate and challenge a status quo that is harming millions of people and the planet.
“We’re not asking for any saviors. We’re asking for people to stop intervening in Yemen.”
Images—like those from August of Yemeni schoolchildren on a field trip killed by bombs employed by the Saudi-led coalition, but made and sold by the US—have touched many Americans’ hearts. But what’s the bridge from concern to change?
On July 2, a year had passed since MSNBC’s last segment mentioning US participation in the war on Yemen, which has killed in excess of 15,000 people and resulted in over a million cases of cholera.
The Washington Post vaguely acknowledges Washington’s role in the bloody siege of Yemen, but insisting that the US should remain involved in the bombing for the sake of humanitarianism.
What use is having a “liberal” cable network if it remains silent on the major issues facing the left? As FAIR noted in January (FAIR.org, 1/8/17), MSNBC’s coverage of the US-assisted bombing and siege of Yemen is virtually nonexistent. In the year 2017, MSNBC ran only one segment that focused on the US’s role in […]
