16 October 2013 — FAIR Blog
The New York Times had an interesting piece on October 14 telling the story of José Bustani, the former director general of the intergovernmental Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, who was ousted by the United States as part of the run up to the Iraq War.
As the story goes (and was reported at the time), Bustani had been working on getting Iraq to agree to join the Chemical Weapons Convention. This was an unwelcome development for the Bush administration, since it could complicate efforts to invade Iraq based in part on its chemical weapons stockpile.
The public 
On August 15 Progressive magazine editor Matt Rothschild was arrested at the Wisconsin state capitol building in Wisconsin for the act of reporting on the arrest of a protestor. As he told Democracy Now! (
The United States has reportedly carried out nine drone attacks in the last few weeks in Yemen, generating headlines about the targeting and killing of suspected Al-Qaeda militants in the impoverished country.
A headline is sometimes worth a thousand words, and this was definitely the case after a deadly drone strike occurred in Yemen last week.
A well-respected research group posted a short article on its website about the location of a second launchpad for Iran’s space program. That’s not big news–but it can be made to sound like scary news in the New York Times.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum by Russia, which has generated coverage focusing on the U.S. outrage at Russia’s decision. “Defiant Russia Grants Snowden Year’s Asylum” is the headline at the New York Times (
The New Dark Age 