FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt examines (10/12/08) his paper’s presidential campaign reportage: Through Friday, of 270 news articles published in the Times about the election since the national tickets were formed in late August, only 29, or a little over 10 percent, were primarily about policy substance. And that is a generous tally […]
In These Times blogger Jarrett Dapier declares it (10/13/08) “a sad day for progressives: Cursor is suspending publication”:
Former FAIR staffer Jennifer L. Pozner gives props on her Women In Media & News site (10/12/08) to a “local Louisiana newspaper report[ing] on the cycle of domestic violence without sensationalism”: Last week, I blogged about the Eunice News, a small, local newspaper in Louisiana that has decided to do something that shouldnâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢t be (but […]
Dean Baker explains (Beat the Press, 10/13/08) his fantastical headline “USA Today Thinks It’s Possible That Elvis Caused the Financial Meltdown”: “Well, if the Republicans blamed the financial crisis on Elvis Presley, USA Today would probably just write it up politely and then note that the Democrats disagree.” Baker says “that is exactly what the […]
In an OpEd News review (10/13/08) of David W. Moore’s new book, The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls, David Swanson writes of how the longtime Gallup pollster “objects to the fact that polls are conducted and reported as if ignorance and apathy do not exist”: Moore shows that when pollsters […]
Real News head Paul Jay shares his personal vision (10/12/08) of how it takes crises like the the current financial state to jar corporate media into allowing us to “hear… words like capitalism and socialism in the mainstream grammar”: There’s, like, all this–I always thought of Katrina as this moment in Twilight Zone. There’s a […]
The AP files a chapter (10/11/08) in the long story of government surveillance of critical reporters like muckraking columnist Jack Anderson: Documents turned over to the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act almost three years after Anderson’s death include copies of his columns with critical notes in the margins, summaries of his movements […]
A reader of the NPR Check blog flags a troubling passage from the October 1 All Things Considered: “Some estimates put the number of widows in Iraq at 1 million–women who’ve lost their husbands to Iraq’s endless succession of wars: Iran/Iraq, the invasion of Kuwait, the recent civil war.” Public radio watchdog Mytwords (10/5/08) isn’t […]
Deeming it good news that “the FCC is finally beginning to take some action on perhaps the most egregious propaganda assault ever directed at the American people by their own government,” News Corpse blogger Mark Howard notices (10/9/08) an odd aspect of the Pentagon Pundits story so far: More than 150 retired officers participated in […]
A former ACORN communications coordinator from 2000 to 2003, David Swanson rebuts the “absolutely fraudulent and nationally coordinated attacks… currently all over the news” for American Chronicle readers (10/10/08) In fact, the accusations against ACORN are not about voting, but about voter registration. Now, if some kid fills out bogus forms in order to make […]
With the presidential election fast approaching, Uncounted documentarian Mary Mancini uses her film’s blog (10/10/08) to give us “a little history from the year 2000–to remind us why we need to keep our eyes and ears open this November 4. . . and beyond”: We’re still not ready for a close election. . . . […]
An Inter Press Service piece (9/24/08) on the U.S.-press-distributed anti-Muslim video Obsession gives kudos to major metropolitan newspapers solicited to insert the paid advertisement into their product [that] have refused to do so…. “Despite the perilous state of American newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising department took an ethical stand and refused to distribute the […]
Having found the issue “quite… complex” when facing it herself as a parent, Veronica Arreola of Women In Media & News writes (10/8/08) that “the debate over vaccines is a serious issue and does not deserve to be sexualized” as in this Chicago Tribune lede (10/3/08): “Former Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy and actress Amanda Peet […]
Any lingering hope you may have harbored for corporate pundits to rise above their infatuation with John McCain running mate Sarah Palin will surely be dashed by Rich Lowry’s titillated take (National Review Online, 10/3/08) on her debate performance–quoted in full: A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is […]
AfterDowningStreet.org‘s David Swanson provides (10/9/08) what he calls a typical example of how the news cycle works now that the blogosphere interacts (or doesn’t) with independent and corporate media: July 1, 2007: AfterDowningStreet.org breaks story of NSA whistleblower Adrienne Kinne. May 13, 2008: Democracy Now picks up the story of Kinne. May 19, 2008: AfterDowningStreet.org […]
Not-exactly-progressive journalist Joe Klein has been on a bit of a tear over at CNN‘s Swampland blog, declaring himself (10/6/08) to be of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign’s further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to […]
Via TPM, CBS‘s Dean Reynolds complains at length that the Obama campaign doesn’t have its priorities straight: The Obama aides who deal with the national reporters on the campaign plane are often overwhelmed, overworked and uninformed about where, when, why or how the candidate is moving about. Baggage calls are preposterously early with the explanation […]
Ecology blog LiveGaia posts another entry (10/8/08) in the annals of corporate media’s poor advertising ethics: Last night in America, after the presidential debate the ads shown were as follows. ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run WeCanSolveIt’s Repower America […]
Liz Cox Barrett writes on the Columbia Journalism Review website (10/7/08) of the corporate media version of public participation: The rules for [Tuesday]’s “town hall-style” debate, agreed to by both campaigns “as part of a 31-page memorandum of understanding that leaked out this week,” a “document that is not made public, even by the Commission […]
Reporting on a trend he’s seen “laid out almost daily on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, in the National Review, and on the campaign trail,” Slate‘s Daniel Gross quotes Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business Channel: “I don’t remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and […]
