FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In his new capacity as founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, FAIR founder Jeff Cohen recently hosted Josh Marshall, who used the Center’s inaugural event to describe (Huffington Post, 10/3/08) the evolution of his independent Talking Points Memo websites: After the 2004 election, it had become second nature to […]
MediaBloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson (10/8/08) catches a CNN website headline he calls “extremely misleading”: “Ticker: Obama Actions Called ‘Not Presidential.’” Reasoning that “naturally, readers might think this refers to something Barack Obama did or said during last night’s debate” or at least “possibly a response from a cross-section of undecided voters in a new poll,” […]
Over the past several weeks, 28 million copies of an anti-Muslim propaganda film, Obsession, have been delivered to the doorsteps of newspaper subscribers in swing states. Unfortunately, as a new report by FAIR documents, the media’s complicity in smearing an entire religious group goes far beyond the role of the 70 newspapers that participated […]
His cynicism about politics aside–“I don’t blame candidates for doing what they think will win the election”–blogger Matthew Yglesias (10/7/08) makes a good point about corporate media’s facilitation of politician’s efforts to trivialize the contents of election campaigns: David Gregory…asked McCain campaign spokeswoman Nicole Wallace a question about whether or not John McCain would bring […]
The affliction that causes national political commentators to project their own perceptions onto the public– let’s call it Pundit Projection Syndrome–is affecting David Gregory’s ability to come to grips with the fact that the public just wasn’t as into John McCain’s and Sarah Palin’s debate performances as he was. Last night on his MSNBC show, […]
Salon‘s media blogger Glenn Greenwald gives a fresh example (10/7/08, ad-viewing required) of news pundits failing up in corporate media: Two weeks ago, Dick Morris was running around proclaiming McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign and make the bailout happen as a “brilliant move” that would pay off “big time” for McCain because he would […]
Providing a platform for the outstanding journalism of U.S. corporate media undesirable Robert Parry, the Real News is running a multi-part commentary on the consequences of “drunken optimism and blind nationalism” in the United States. In Part 3 (10/6/08), Parry discusses the big media role in the “divorcing of the American people from objective reality” […]
Recalling a Washington Post quote of Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Henry Paulson’s assertion to George W. Bush that “there is no Plan B” to choose over the $700 billion bank bailout, economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 10/7/08) notes that “it looks like the Fed has discovered a Plan B” after all
Describing an age-old political stategy–“John McCain….and Sarah Palin are going to try their best to make us talk about anything but the big issues facing our country”–the Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson asks a question (10/5/08) as obvious to the electorate as it is rare in corporate news: “Are we in the media going to aid […]
Read New York Times reporters Dan Bilefsky’s and Michael Schwirtz’s account (10/6/08) of state censorship on the part of a recently prominent U.S. ally: The cameras at Georgia’s main opposition broadcaster, Imedi, kept rolling November 7, when masked riot police officers with machine guns burst into the studio. They smashed equipment, ordered employees and television […]
Many corporate media pundits seemed to grade the Biden/Palin debate on a rather extreme curve; if Palin could manage to show up and not embarrass herself, the event could be deemed a “tie”–as in the AP analysis headlined “Palin Tops Debate Expectations.” In USA Today, Susan Page wrote, “Both candidates exuded confidence and determination–a victory […]
Fed up with “economic reporting [that] relies almost exclusively on experts who managed to overlook both the stock market bubble and the housing bubble,” Beat the Press blogger Dean Baker (10/6/08) writes that the Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz “still misses some very fundamental points on the media’s reporting on the economy”: First, reporters should recognize […]
Brad Johnson presents another argument (Think Progress, 10/3/08) against the “liberal media bias” myth: “These tired claims ignore the reality that the right-wing agenda actually benefits the ‘mainstream media’”: The multinational corporations that run the mainstream media–GE (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Walt Disney (ABC), News Corporation (FOX), and Viacom (CBS)–stand to benefit hugely under a […]
In an update on the furor over U.S. newspapers’ distribution of a virulently anti-Muslim DVD supplement, Anick Jesdanun of the Associated Press reports (10/4/08) that “the New York Times distributed it on the grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsor’s right to free speech.” Left unexplored is corporate outlets like the Times‘ history of […]
Writing on the Progressive Democrats of America website (10/6/08), media critic and FAIR associate Norman Solomon is wary of the fact that “poll numbers so far in October, combined with ample media hype, have fostered the belief that the economic crisis is close to dooming the McCain campaign.” Solomon warns that “any crystal ball that […]
New York Times reporter Michael Gordon, analyzing the major-party candidates’ positions on Iraq (10/6/08), writes the sort of article you would expect from someone who has already taken a public position in favor of the policy embraced by one of the candidates and against the policy adopted by the other.
The New York Times splashed the Barack Obama-Bill Ayers “connection” story on the front page of Saturday’s paper. Obama’s practically non-existent ties to former Weather Underground figure William Ayers have been the subject of endless speculation among folks like right-wing yakker Sean Hannity, who suggested to ABC‘sGeorge Stephanopoulos that he should ask about Obama about […]
Who knows when U.S. troops will be leaving Iraq, but the Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has a long-term strategy for the information war:
Calling the New York Times out for contributing to another “Pundit/Viewer Divide” on debate performances, Editor & Publisher‘s Greg Mitchell writes (10/3/08) of how Adam Nagourney “was among those who seemed to give it to Palin slightly, and some hailed Palin’s ‘knockout’ performance”: One problem: virtually all of the surveys afterward, by CBS, CNN and […]
Almost as useless as not fact-checking politicians’ statements at all is to insist on presenting fact-checks as though both sides are equally guilty—a classic form of false balance that gives a big advantage to whomever happens to be the biggest liar. In this genre we find “Facts Go Adrift on Taxes, Energy in VP Debate: […]
