FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Hosting FAIR communications director Isabel Macdonald on his religion radio show State of Belief (10/25/08), Rev. Welton Gaddy raised the issue of corporate televangelist Pat Robertson‘s “really significant role in aiding and abetting Islamophobia.” Macdonald pointed out how Robertson made some of the most outrageous comments about Muslims and Islam, and in addition to his […]
Over at Conde Nasté Portfolio (10/29/08), Jeff Bercovici does a good job busting National Review writer Byron York for trying to “defend the focus of the political press on questions such as whether Obama was in church when Rev. Jeremiah Wright said ‘God damn America.’” York had argued that “this kind of lament that we […]
The Associated Press (10/29/08) does its usual sad job trying to fact-check candidate statements—this time working a hefty dose of neo-Hooverism into the mix. AP‘s Calvin Woodward charges that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures […]
Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald (10/29/08, ad-viewing required) takes apart a “sentimental, cringe-inducing retrospective from the Los Angeles Times‘ campaign reporter Maeve Reston, wistfully lamenting the loss of affection and friendship between John McCain and the reporters who cover his campaign–what she twice calls ‘intimacy.’” Deeming the piece “an instant classic in illustrating how campaign reporters think […]
Economist Dean Baker is the highlight of a Politico feature (10/29/08) asking several political commentators the question, “Is the press really biased against McCain or does poor coverage reflect the reality of his campaign?”: No one would expect Saddam Hussein to get good press. The reality is that he was a pretty bad guy and […]
Interviewed for the online magazine Guernica (10/08), religion journalist Jeff Sharlet remembers what John McCain “spiritual adviser” John “Hagee got in trouble for”– “saying that Hitler was just doing what God wanted”–but says what Doug Coe,” as “the Family’s unofficial leader,” has said is much more monstrous.” While writing The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at […]
This is the tease for tonight’s O’Reilly Factor: New Gallup poll shows McCain gaining ground. Karl Rove, Dick Morris and Dennis Miller weigh in.
Posting on the Nation‘s blog (Notion, 10/25/08), Jon Wiener quotes from a Los Angeles Times story on the hardships being endured by spouses of workers on Wall Street, where “the average income is $365,000, according to the Times, ‘although top-flight managers typically make many millions more’”: “Wall Street wives are finding that they must defer […]
Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman (Truthdig, 10/22/08) writes on the extent, and consequences, of a political season in which “commercial broadcasters are cleaning up… like never before, and you’ll never hear them questioning the system that allows so much money to come back to them”: The Obama campaign has “flooded the zone” with advertising. It has […]
In a TomDispatch essay (10/23/08), professor and author Michael Schwartz lets us know “What the Good News from Iraq Really Means”: Even before the spectacular presidential election campaign became a national obsession… coverage of the Iraq War had dwindled to next to nothing. National newspapers had long since discontinued their daily feasts of multiple–usually front-page–reports […]
David Swanson comments (OpEd News, 10/27/08) on Rep. Barney Frank “having just blurted out the obvious but taboo fact that the U.S. military budget must be cut”: When a Congress member steps forward and courageously articulates a forbidden truth that is absolutely necessary for our survival and well-being (and by “our” I mean our species, […]
Staying abreast of technological issues with repercussions in the areas of media consumer rights, privacy rights and corporate censorship, Free Press (10/28/08) is calling for the Federal Communications Commission to require all broadband providers to disclose any practice that monitors or interferes with their customers’ Internet use. In addition to transparent “network management” practices, according […]
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reader Muhammad Omer Iqbal posts on the paper’s blog (10/26/08) about media in a “frenzy to denounce Islam and Muslims every time a terrorist activity takes place”: Many Muslims believe that their faith was taken by terrorists when they indulged in some of the most heinous crimes. On the other hand, I am […]
Tom Brokaw, the interim host of NBC‘s Meet the Press, and NBC analyst Chuck Todd expressed bafflement on last Sunday’s Meet the Press (10/26/08) at how Latinos had “turned on the Republican Party” and their “friend” John McCain: TODD: I mean, this, this Hispanic–one of the things we–underreported story of the cycle is how Hispanics […]
Looking at “the media attention granted the right-wing attacks on ACORN,” politics writer Glenn W. Smith poses a question to Editor & Publisher readers (10/15/08): “Why does it seem to be a greater sin to be suspected of voter registration mistakes than to publicly engage in voter suppression efforts?” Smith’s response to his own query […]
As we finally near the end of the U.S. presidential race, Norman Solomon looks back (Creator’s Syndicate, 10/25/08) at “a year when the dominant media spin has been upended time after time” and analyzes “the latest twist of political storylines that have been rendered pretzel-like long ago”: In a piece posted October 21 on the […]
Blogging at the Women In Media & News website (10/24/08), Diane Farsetta does her usual outstanding job in exposing the hand of big-time PR in U.S. media. According to the PR trade publication O’Dwyer’s, the Council for a Democratic Iran spent $300,000 on its new lobbying and PR firm, the Livingston Group, in the third […]
Dean Baker nails the New York Times‘ Ben Stein again for “telling people that it is important to save money in order to protect themselves against the sort of downturn that the economy is now seeing.” Baker writes (Beat the Press, 10/26/08) that while it’s obvious “people should try to put some money aside, most […]
In a lengthySunday piece, New York Times reporters Robert Worth and Eric Lipton detail new U.S. plans for ramping up military aid to the Lebanese government. The piece relies heavily on quotes from U.S. and Lebanese officials, who unsurprisingly support this effort; one Israeli sourceis the most critical voice, wary of arms shipments to a […]
Today New York Times reporter John Harwood wonders what happened to the idea, voiced in the aftermath of the 2004 election, that the country would see a long era of Republican dominance: How did such a turnabout happen so fast? In part, the answer stems from developments so rare that, as the former Federal Reserve […]
