FAIR
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Fracking: Too Much of a Good Thing, Says Planet Money Guy By Peter Hart
While many environmentalists work to stop fracking, Davidson has a different idea–he writes that the “best thing that any U.S. environmentalist can do is to start thinking like an economist.” Continue reading
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FAIR TV: ABC's Disney "Exclusive," Syria WMDs, Robin Hood Tax By Peter Hart
Syria’s chemical weapons threat– is it Iraq all over again? With all the talk about the budget, why won’t media talk about taxing Wall Street? And ABC breaks big “news”… about a Disney theme park. Continue reading
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Wikileaks/Bradley Manning Newslinks 8 December 2012
8 December 2012 — williambowles.info Brig Chief Denies Punishing GI in WikiLeaks Case ABC News A former Marine Corp brig commander says she never intended it as punishment when she ordered underwear removed from an Army private charged with giving classified material to WikiLeaks. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Denise Barnes testified Friday on the … Continue reading
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Turning Their Back on Bradley Manning
As the alleged source of many of the most vital WikiLeaks reports of the past several years, U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning shed considerable light on how the United States has prosecuted the Iraq and Afghan wars. Other State Department cables reportedly leaked by Manning conveyed vital information about U.S. foreign policy. But the developments… Continue reading
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FAIR: Palestinians and the Proper Way to Grieve Dead Children
That question might not occur to you, but readers of the New York Times (11/20/12) were treated to correspondent Jodi Rudoren’s unusual critique of a funeral for members of the Dula family, whose home in Gaza City was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday. Continue reading
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FAIR: Precise Weapons Kill Civilians Too
As a general rule, it’d be better if media accounts of war did not stress the surgical precision of the weapons being used. It’s a fixture of U.S. reporting on U.S. wars, but the same rhetoric is used when U.S. allies are dropping bombs. Continue reading
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FAIR: When Is a Mandate Not a Mandate?
When it comes to explaining election results, there’s no precise way to determine whether voters gave the winner a “mandate”–defined by Oxford as “the authority to carry out a policy, regarded as given by the electorate to a party or candidate that wins an election.” That makes it interesting to see how media use the… Continue reading
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Fair Action Alert: PBS and Iran's "Nuclear Weapons"
In an October 22 discussion of the foreign policy presidential debate, the PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown stated that “Iran’s nuclear weapons program has been a particular flash point.” [But] as most people following this story should know, there is no intelligence that shows Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Continue reading
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FAIR TV: Time's Fact Check FAIL, Chavez's Savvy Daughter-Hugging, Are Afghans Human?
The new episode of FAIR TV. This week we take a look at Time’s big fact checking cover story and how the Washington Post talks about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. We also ask the question: Do media think Afghans are humans too? Continue reading
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Moderate Debates and Debate Moderators
he Commission on Presidential Debates, which wrested control of the debates from the League of Women Voters in 1988, is a nonprofit–financed largely by corporations–that is basically controlled by the two major political parties. The campaigns hash out secret agreements about every aspect of the debates, and, as the group Open Debates has pointed out… Continue reading
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FAIR Media Advisory 12 March 2012: After Afghan Massacre, War Gets Victim Status
The news that a U.S. Army sergeant killed 16 civilians, most of them children, in southern Afghanistan early Sunday morning was treated by many media outlets primarily as a PR challenge for continued war and occupation of that country. Continue reading
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NYT Lets Unnamed Officials Smear Critics as ‘Terrorists’
In two stories this month, New York Times journalists allowed anonymous government officials to smear critics as terrorists and terrorist sympathizers–a shocking violation of the paper’s explicit rules against allowing anonymity to be a cover for attacks. Continue reading
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FAIR Media Advisory: Occupy the P.U.-litzers!
This year has given us simply too many worthy contenders for FAIR’s annual P.U.-litzers—recognizing the stinkiest journalism of the year. A big part of the problem was that so many outlets were striving to distinguish themselves with especially awful coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement. So to note those lowlights, we bring you a… Continue reading
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Now It Can Be Told: Libyan Civilian Deaths
The Sunday New York Times (12/18/11) featured a powerful investigation of civilian casualties resulting from the NATO war in Libya–casualties that, to hear NATO officials tell it, maybe don’t even exist. Continue reading
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The Anti-Empire Report 2 December 2011 By William Blum: Some thoughts that OCCUPY my mind
When the Vietnam War became history, and the protest signs and the bullhorns were put away, so too was the serious side of most protestors’ alienation and hostility toward the government. They returned, with minimal resistance, to the restless pursuit of success, and the belief that the choice facing the world was either “capitalist democracy”… Continue reading
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FAIR Blog » Crackdown on Journalists at Occupy Wall Street
During the early morning raid on the Occupy Wall Street camp journalists were blocked from covering much of what was happening. Josh Stearns from Free Press has a rundown–as he points out, ‘By dawn, 10 journalists, including reporters from NPR, the Associated Press and the New York Daily News, had been arrested.’ Continue reading
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FAIR Blog » Crackdown on Journalists at Occupy Wall Street
During the early morning raid on the Occupy Wall Street camp journalists were blocked from covering much of what was happening. Josh Stearns from Free Press has a rundown–as he points out, ‘By dawn, 10 journalists, including reporters from NPR, the Associated Press and the New York Daily News, had been arrested.’ Continue reading
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Have Corporate Media Warmed to Occupy Wall Street?
Media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protests started out exactly as one might expect. There was little coverage at first (FAIR Action Alert, 9/23/11), and as it expanded, much of it consisted of snide dismissals of demonstrators’ ignorance, hygiene and so on. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 