FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
I wrote a letter to the New York Times in 1991 after they ran a piece by Fox Butterfield (4/17/91) that invaded the privacy (literally peering into her daughter’s bedroom window) and scrutinized the personal life of a woman who accused a member of the Kennedy family of raping her. Clearly some people inside the […]
Today the New York Times reports that an arrest has been made in connection with an attempted bombing at the Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Washington. As we pointed out here, the case has generated relatively little media coverage–in contrast to attempted domestic terrorism attacks (or even alleged plots) connected to Muslims. The […]
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 […]
The New York Times has a piece today (3/7/11) about the debate over U.S. military intervention in Libya. The paper reports that there are persistent voices–in Congress and even inside the administration–arguing that Mr. Obama is moving too slowly. Reporters David Sanger and Thom Shanker contend that there is too much concern about perceptions, and […]
Froma March 2 report on CNN about the U.S. killing nine Afghan boys: MICHAEL HOLMES: I mean, just another terrible thing. We’ve seen this happen before. DON LEMON: Yes. Sad all the way around. He did apologize, but still. HOLMES: It does a lot of damage to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. You don’t win […]
Drudge Report headline, right now: CLAIM: Iran Arranging to Buy Yellowcake in Africa… Is my computer a time machine, traveling back to 2002-03?
“Teachers Wonder, Why the Heapings of Scorn?” is the headline of a front-page New York Times piece today (3/3/11). The article by Trip Gabriel reports, “Education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters.” Politicians, sure, but what’s the evidence that voters–i.e., the public–have been heaping scorn on […]
In 2007 Harper’s journalist Ken Silverstein wanted to do a story on Beltway lobbyists’ willingness to work on behalf of creepy dictators. So he went undercover: I decided to approach some top Washington lobbying firms myself, as a potential client, to see whether they would be willing to burnish the public image of a particularly […]
You get an impression from the headline and thrust of the Times piece that would lead you to believe that Assange consorts with anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers, gets angry when they are exposed as such and alleges that a Jewish conspiracy is out to get him.
You had to assume that there would be folks in the media who wouldn’t like the recent CBS/New York Times poll that found strong public support for public workers. Sixty percent of those polled oppose stripping public workers of collective bargaining rights; 56 percent opposed cutting pay or benefits of those workers in the name […]
New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera is being promoted to the Times‘ op-ed page, where he’ll appear twice weekly. Regular FAIR Blog readers may recall Nocera as the star of this item (7/1/10): On Saturday (6/26/10), Times business columnist Joe Nocera argued against a proposed moratorium on deepwater drilling. One of his main points […]
“Being independent right now is a really good thing. Being too far right or left right now is a bit dangerous, given what’s going on in the Middle East.”
New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane (2/27/11) offers a justification that makes very little sense for his paper’s concealing the fact that an American arrested in Pakistan worked for the CIA. The Times, Brisbane wrote, could not “take the risk that reporting the CIA connection would, as warned, lead to Mr. Davis’s death.” Davis […]
The documentary Gasland was up for an Academy Award last night. Director Josh Fox has been writing about the gas industry’s campaign against the film, which is a critical look at hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” That controversy found its way to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, where a story byBenCasselman was posted that included […]
As we noted here, there weren’t many labor voices booked on the Sunday morning chat shows. One, actually–Richard Trumka from the AFL-CIO. ABC’s This Week featured four governors (two Democrats, two Republicans) talking about their fiscal problems. CBS‘s Face the Nation had a soft interview with New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie. Host Bob Schieffer […]
On his Fox News show Friday, self-described “union guy” Bill O’Reilly was touting the results of a newpoll finding that Wisconsinites are backing Gov. Scott Walker: According to a new poll by WisconsinReporter.com, a nonpartisan group, 71 percent of Wisconsinites believe that Gov. Scott Walker’s union cutbacks are fair.71 percent. And 69 percent of Wisconsin […]
In journalistic parlance, a “beat sweetener” is a story that lavishes praise on a powerful figure the reporter is assigned to cover on a regular basis–a great way for that reporter to get in good with an important source. That may have been what was happening with Lori Montgomery‘s February 26 Washington Post piece touting […]
As best I can tell, the labor battle in Wisconsin is a big story–and maybe the biggest labor story in years. But as Amanda Terkel reported at the Huffington Post, that doesn’t mean you’re going to see union advocates on the Sunday chat shows. Terkel noted: A union official told the Huffington Post that when […]
As Josh Marshall noted recently, one of the assumptions in the media discussion about Wisconsin is that Republican politicians are playing on public outrage over the perks given to public workers. That assumption took a hit after a new Gallup Poll, reported on the front page of USA Today, found this: Americans strongly oppose laws […]
The Washington Post had a report yesterday (2/22/11) about the military tradition of giving “challenge coins.” For thoseunfamiliar, here’s a quick explanation: “Challenge coins,” as they are known, have become an important part of the ethos of the armed forces, where the story of service members’ careers–deployments, promotions, awards–is told by the ribbons and patches […]
