FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Writing for a collective media criticism blog in Michigan (MediaMouse.org, 1/15/09), Jeff Smith states that, “if the U.S. public is ever going to hold the U.S. government accountable for its policy in Afghanistan, then we need to challenge how the U.S. news media reports on that policy.” But he also knows that “for many Americans […]
Excerpting a David Ignatius column (Washington Post, 1/15/09) that characterizes a strict Obama administration “focus on… getting things right in the future” as “the kind of realism that will disappoint liberal score-settlers,” Glenn Greenwald’s Salon commentary (1/15/09, ad-viewing required) describes how “the word ‘liberal’ has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last eight years”–at least […]
I don’t know whether George W. Bush will issue a slew of pardons in his last weekend in the White House, but I would expect such pardons to receive less scrutiny than those issued by his predecessor. And if he attempts to pardon those who committed crimes on his behalf, you can count on large […]
Two newspaper stories today provide a false account of the context of the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The Washington Post: Hamas and its allies have fired thousands of rockets into Israel in the past eight years. The pace accelerated after the Islamist movement, which won Palestinian elections in 2006, routed forces loyal to the rival […]
Continuing their persecution of the press–and taking a page from U.S. military tactics–Israel’s military has expanded from regular civilian targets to attacking another United Nations compound and “a building housing several media organizations.” Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now has the story (1/15/09) featuring a real-life U.N. representative and, even rarer in U.S. media, an actual Palestinian […]
Dean Baker knocks down (Beat the Press, 1/15/09) the logic behind the already specious alarm about supposedly overpaid autoworkers: The Washington Post has repeatedly editorialized that auto workers at the Big Three companies should be forced to take pay cuts because they earn $57,000 a year, which is more than workers get at the foreign-owned […]
Independent journalist Justin Podur has some advice (Dissident Voice, 1/9/09) for his fellow Canadians: “Today, if you want to have the first idea what is happening in Israel/Palestine (or most of the rest of the world), the best thing to do would be to turn [national Canadian media] off completely.” A friend of mine, Brooks […]
What’s the Matter With Kansas Author Thomas Frank tells (Wall Street Journal, 1/14/09) exactly why he thinks “centrism finds an enthusiastic audience in Washington”: because it appeals naturally to the Beltway journalistic mindset, with its professional prohibition against coming down solidly on one side or the other of any question. Splitting the difference is a […]
Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery provides (Progressive, 1/11/09) the following “description that would now appear in the history books–if the Germans had won the war”: Nearly 70 years ago, in the course of World War II, a heinous crime was committed in the city of Leningrad. For more than a thousand days, a gang of […]
National Public Radio watchdog Mytwords describes his horror (NPR Check, 1/11/09) at listening while “NPR struggles mightily to convince listeners that there is some grand, noble ‘legacy’ that will exist when the Bush administration leaves the White House”: Today was a shameless homage to George W. Bush as the “normal, regular guy.” Yeah, Bush is […]
Harper’s Ken Silverstein is again bucking the media that condemned him for actually investigating U.S. lobbyists for foreign dictatorships–this time contrasting (1/8/09) how, “if the U.S. government deems a country to be a hostile state, the American media will devote significant time and energy reporting on that country’s political and economic problems” with the fact […]
It is a hallmark of a sane and moderate society that when it changes leaders and regimes, those left behind should be abandoned to the judgment of history. It is in savage societies that the defeat of a ruling faction entails its humiliation, exile and murder. –Charles Fried, New York Times op-ed page (10/11/09) <!–preview-break–> […]
Newsweek‘s cover story (1/19/09) is a look at the Cheney/Bush national security policies that will Barack Obama will soon inherit. In his editor’s note, Jon Meacham advises that the piece is definitely NOT a look backwards: .. to rehash the case against Cheney at this late hour in the life of the Bush administration would […]
Those who might expect the Paper of Record to ignore or bury stories about Israel using the incendiary white phosphorous in its attack on Gaza can point to yesterday’s paper (1/11/09), where the following sentence appears at the very bottom of one piece: Human rights groups are also concerned about the Israeli use of white […]
Today’s Washington Post (1/12/09) brings news that will probably surprise very few readers: President Bush has presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, and economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly view his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation’s […]
MediaBloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson has a disturbing story (1/7/09) of one reporter’s diligent efforts being excised from articles that eventually then appeared under distorting headlines. Jacobson provides transcripts of the Associated Press‘ Matthew Lee doggedly trying to pin down the Bush administration reasoning for refusing to support a temporary cease-fire in Gaza “that doesn’t have […]
Writing for the Nation (1/7/09), Alexander Cockburn finds that in “the major media, aside from some passable stuff on the cable news shows, the flow of ignorant drivel seems as toxic as ever,” maybe worse, since Israel has tried to empty Gaza of all reporters. The Israelis wipe out whole families, phone apartment blocks to […]
Noting that the project of “‘solidifying’ the finances of Social Security” is properly characterized as “an obsession of the [Washington] Post,” and not the “Fundamental Fiscal Issue” corporate media generally report it as, Beat the Press blogger Dean Baker explains (1/12/09) yet again that “the program can pay all benefits through the year 2049 with […]
After taking pictures at a New York demonstration in which, as the Indypendent summarized, “thousands of people rallied at Times Square Sunday afternoon, calling for an immediate end to the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip,” I was rather taken aback by AP‘s account of the same event, which put the number of pro-Palestinian demonstrators […]
Inter Press Service reporters Jim Lobe and Ali Gharib point out (1/8/09) another Mideast timeline being mangled in favor of the Israeli version of events: Consumed by coverage of the 4 November presidential election, U.S. mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end […]
