FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In his introduction (12/12/08) to an Arundhati Roy analysis of how “our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching ‘India’s 9/11′” in the Mumbai attacks, Tom Engelhardt recalls that the single omnipresent historical reference in the American media immediately in the wake of September 11, 2001, was, of course, “Pearl Harbor“–and those code […]
After comparing how “establishment news outlets… have praised the president-elect’s cautious Cabinet choices” with the similar reaction after Bill Clinton’s first election, Bob Parry writes (Consortium News, 12/15/08) that the reality for those “who resisted the corrupt Bush years–is that we cannot rest on our successes”: You might have thought there would have been a […]
Washington Post columnist David Broder took up the issue of healthcare policy in his column yesterday (“Health Reform’s Moment,” 12/14/08). One of FAIR’s chief criticisms of media over the past two decades has been the narrow range of sources the media rely on to shape the debate over a given issue. Healthcare is no different, […]
By now most people have seen the video footage of the Iraqi journalist Muntader al-Zaidi throwing his shoes at George W. Bush. The New York Times helps you put it in perspective: The shoe-throwing incident in Baghdad punctuated Mr. Bush’s visit here–his fourth–in a deeply symbolic way, reflecting the conflicted views in Iraq of a […]
Newsweek‘s Mark Hosenball writes (12/22/08): The head of Obama’s intel transition team, John Brennan, was the leading candidate for CIA chief until he was slammed by liberal bloggers for not doing enough while serving as a top CIA and anti-terror official to oppose Bush. Actually, “liberal bloggers” hadn’t “slammed” Brennan for “not doing enough…to oppose […]
The new edition of FAIR’s radio show CounterSpin (12/12/08) examines the financial collapse of a major U.S. media force: The Tribune Company that owns the Chicago Tribune and the L.A. Times, along with much else, declared bankruptcy this week, just a year after new owner Sam Zell took over, with his notable lack of background […]
Blogging economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 12/12/08) gives the New York Times headline “Goldman, Once Warning of $200 Oil, Sees $45 in 2009” as an example of his radical idea that “this is exactly what the media should be doing when they present forecasts from various experts”: For example, when they share the views […]
The dismal state of corporate newspaper journalism has Philadelphia Inquirer columnist George Curry reconsidering (12/11/08) the value of his lifelong dedication to improving the trade: I have spent most of my career urging young people to consider careers in journalism. I was founding director of workshops affiliated with the National Association of Black Journalists chapters […]
Education author Alfie Kohn’s got a beef (Nation, 12/10/08) with corporate news coverage of Barack Obama’s choices for his cabinet, where “progressives are in short supply”: When he turns his attention to the Education Department, what are the chances he’ll choose someone who is educationally progressive? In fact, just such a person is said to […]
WeCanStopTheHate.org brings its fight against hate speech to online media with a post (12/10/08) about reports that Facebook board of directors member Peter Thiel “recently donated $1 million to the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA,” which the Southern Poverty Law Center “identified… as one of six core organizations in the anti-immigration movement.” Founded by John Tanton and […]
Harold Meyerson’s latest dispatch (WashingtonPost.com, 12/8/08) on Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell retells how “Zell repeatedly and profanely expressed his disdain for quality journalism,” gutting major dailies like the L.A. Times and Chicago Tribune because he thought they “carried too much national and international news.” After “hundreds of excellent reporters and editors were unceremoniously shown […]
Actual headline today (12/10/08) in the New York Times Dining section: Great Meals for Two, Under $100 (It’s Possible) Times food writer Frank Bruni stressed that it “was an experiment for lean times, but not an exercise in cheap eats.” In case there was any doubt. Looking back in the FAIR archives, one recalls that […]
Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald “marvels” (12/8/08, ad-viewing required) at “how easily [John Brennan-for-CIA-head proponents] can implant their message into establishment media outlets far and wide, which uncritically publish what they’re told from their cherished ‘intelligence sources’ and without even the pretense of verifying whether any of it is true and/or hearing any divergent views”: All of […]
As President-elect Barack “Obama has made a point of appointing a diverse group of thinkers to his cabinet,” Courtney E. Martin’s American Prospect article (12/8/08) asks, “What about the diversity of opinion outside the White House?”: Let’s start at the top. Kristal Brent Zook, author of I See Black People: The Rise and Fall of […]
Recalling that “during the mid-1960s, the conventional wisdom was what everyone with a modicum of smarts kept saying: higher U.S. troop levels in Vietnam were absolutely necessary,” FAIR associate Norman Solomon is distressed to find (AntiWar.com, 12/9/08) that “today, the conventional wisdom is that higher U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan are absolutely necessary.” Responding to […]
The Center for Media and Democracy’s PR Watch has propaganda watchdog Diane Farsetta asking (12/5/08) “when will the cable and network television stations that featured the Pentagon’s pundits tell viewers that their war commentary was anything but independent?” Her “prime example” is NBC analyst former general Barry McCaffrey, who shilled Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the […]
The corporate media has more or less been on the same page in applauding Obama’s cabinet picks so far–“He’s been pragmatic in choosing pragmatists,” as the Washington Post editorial page cheered on November 28. There’s been occasional criticism of Obama’s choices as being too progressive, as when the L.A. Times (12/5/08) attacked the idea of […]
Tom Engelhardt’s nearly interminable list of media blogs and features about Barack Obama’s presidential transition has him urging us (TomDispatch, 12/7/08) to “think of all this as Entertainment Weekly married to People magazine for post-election political junkies”: Obama–thank goodness–isn’t George Bush. He doesn’t arrive in office with a crew wedded to a “unitary executive theory” […]
FAIR has a new Action Alert up about ABC‘s gross exaggeration of auto worker compensation. Feel free to post messages sent to ABC here–or any responses you get from the network.
This week FAIR’s CounterSpin radio show (12/5/08) takes on an important issue from the last U.S. invasion of Iraq: For years, veterans claiming to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome were derided as cranky and hysterical by the Department of Defense and even by some journalists. Will that change now that a definitive report says the […]
