Media
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Best of CounterSpin 2015
1 January 2016 — FAIR Best of CounterSpin 2015 All year long, CounterSpin brings you a look, as we say, behind the headlines of the mainstream news—that’s both to shine a light on aspects of emerging stories that might be marginalized (or off the page entirely) in corporate media, and to remind us to be… Continue reading
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WaPo Tallies Police Killings–but Holds Back Some of the Numbers That Count
It’s hard for me to escape the feeling that the Post story—by Kimberly Kindy and Marc Fisher—was framed by the paper to minimize the project’s remarkable findings. Continue reading
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The Yes Men: Annual Report!
We can’t afford to send you all fruitcakes. But we do have a small gift – a few fun tales from this past year. At the end of this email, we’ll also let you in on a few little secrets about the next one. Continue reading
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Arun Kundnani on Islamophobia & the ‘War on Terror,’ Keane Bhatt on a Tale of Two Elections
This week on CounterSpin: Alleged San Bernardino killers Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik did not pledge allegiance to ISIS on social media, the FBI now says, but no matter: The California killings have already added fuel to an upsurge of Islamophobia in US media and politics that in some ways is worse than that seen… Continue reading
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Jamie Kalven on the Laquan McDonald Cover-Up
The video that belied the official story of the police killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, along with an autopsy that also showed police’s initial story to be false, eventually came to light through the work of journalists—but not mainstream journalists Continue reading
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NYT Rewrites Scalia to Make Him Sound Less Racist
The fact that a Supreme Court justice justifies eliminating affirmative action on the basis of openly racist views ought to be big news. By sugarcoating what Scalia actually said, the New York Times disguises that news–making the ethnic cleansing of America’s top schools a more palatable possibility. Perhaps that shouldn’t make me gasp. Continue reading
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Friedman Goes After Trump: Hey, Massive Bombing Was MY Idea!
Where could Trump have gotten the idea that his “infantile threats of massive bombing” would be taken seriously as foreign policy proposals? Well, as a resident of New York City, maybe he reads the New York Times: There is only Option 2 — bombing Iraq, over and over and over again, until either Saddam says… Continue reading
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We marched for peace – not to ‘bully’ Stella Creasy
Sue Wheat gives the truth behind media reports of an ‘intimidating’ anti-war protest in MP Stella Creasy’s Walthamstow constituency. “I just want to set the record straight for anyone reading or listening to the news about Walthamstow and Stella Creasy, which as far as I can tell is totally untrue.” Continue reading
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In New York Times, Blue Eyes ‘Wince and Cloud’ at the Terror of a ‘Gentle Loner’
30 November 2015 — FAIR In New York Times, Blue Eyes ‘Wince and Cloud’ at the Terror of a ‘Gentle Loner’ Colorado terror suspect Robert Dear, described in New York Times stories as a “gentle loner” and as “imperfect but a good man.” Many were taken aback to read the New York Times‘ summary of… Continue reading
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Death-Squad Organizer Is NYT’s Source on Ben Carson’s Lack of Foreign Policy Smarts
As head of Reagan’s CIA division in Latin America in the 1980s, Clarridge took part in the effort to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government by illegally supplying funds and arms to the Contras—a right-wing terrorist movement that committed brutal war crimes. Continue reading
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Coverage of Russian Plane Bombing Shows What a Difference an Enemy Makes
FAIR has noted the contrast between US media coverage of Paris and Beirut after the militant ISIS movement claimed responsibility for terror attacks in both cities. It may be even more illuminating to look at media reactions to another ISIS-claimed disaster, the bombing of Metrojet Flight 9268, a Russian tourist plane that went down over… Continue reading
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NYT Continues to Obscure Responsibility in US’s Bombing of Hospital
The New York Times followed up its euphemistic and equivocal coverage (FAIR Blog, 10/5/15) of the US bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, with an article (10/6/15) that continued to downplay the US’s responsibility for the deaths of 12 hospital staffers and 10 patients. Continue reading
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Media Are Blamed as US Bombing of Afghan Hospital Is Covered Up
When US enemies like Russia carry out airstrikes, all nuance is thrown out the window; US media drop their standards and gleefully accuse the enemies of war crimes. Yet when the US and NATO carry out airstrikes, journalists suddenly have a newfound skepticism. Their language immediately becomes ambiguous, their writing unclear; murky passages written in… Continue reading
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Corbyn can afford to sidestep the media but not their power By Des Freedman
The attacks on the Corbyn camp from parts of the British establishment have come in thick and fast – entirely as expected, given that his overwhelming success was partly predicated on a desire to challenge establishment rule. His resounding victory on the weekend was greeted by headlines arguing that he was a ‘danger to Britain’… Continue reading
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Cops gun down un-armed journalist’s career
The story: On July 27, the LA Times fired their long-time columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall for fabricating a story of police misconduct. The LA Times’ evidence? A tape recording provided by the LAPD. Problem was, the tape was muffled—possibly tampered with. Continue reading
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Media Were Already Running With Police Fantasy When Video Exploded It By Adam Johnson
The New York Times (4/7/15) released a video of a black South Carolina man Walter Scott being shot, casually and without apparent mercy, eight times in the back by white police officer Michael T. Slager. The media’s outrage after the video’s publication was righteous and swift. The state of South Carolina followed suit, filing murder… Continue reading
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Leading Papers Incite ‘Supreme International Crime’ By Jim Naureckas
To advocate for war, as the Washington Post and New York Times op-ed pages have done, is to incite a crime–“the supreme international crime,” as Jackson noted. How would we react if leading papers were to run articles suggesting that genocide was the best solution to an international conflict–or that lynching is the answer to… Continue reading
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Senior BBC official insists that all of Jerusalem is an “Israeli” city By Amena Saleem
The BBC’s failure to make a distinction between East and West Jerusalem, or to note that Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem — East or West — has not been recognized, plays straight into the hands of Israel’s propagandists whose aim has long been to establish Jerusalem as the “undivided capital of Israel” in the minds of… Continue reading
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Editorial Position of the New York Times: “Thumbs Up for Gaza Slaughter” By Abba Solomon and Norman Solomon
Over the weekend, the New York Times sent out a clear signal: the mass slaughter of civilians is acceptable when the Israeli military is doing the killing. Continue reading
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NYT Rewrites Gaza Headline: Was It Too Accurate? By Peter Hart
17 July 2014 — FAIR Blog Yesterday (7/16/14) the New York Times posted its first account of the Israeli strike that killed four young Palestinians on a beach in Gaza. The headline looked like this: That headline appropriately conveys the horrors witnessed and documented by the Times reporters. But at some point–around 9:00 pm, according to… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 