When someone says they "broke" with George W. Bush over the Iraq War, you might be inclined to think that they did that sometime before 2006 or so, which is about when Bush strategist-turned-TV pundit Matthew Dowd is saying he left.
Apr
30
2013
Cutting the Military Budget Is a Problem…for the Left?
By 13 Comments
The Washington Post presents a "paradox" wrapped in a "conundrum" inside a "quandary"–all on top of a big heaping of right-wing policy advice for the left.
Apr
30
2013
An Invitation to a Live-Action Infomercial
By 7 Comments
I was invited to an event yesterday that was held specifically so that media companies can take money from companies who will pay for the chance to be mistaken for an expert.
Apr
29
2013
The Sick Madness of Tom Friedman's Culture
By 35 Comments
What is going on in our community that a critical number of our columnists believe that every American military action in the Middle East is justifiable?
Apr
26
2013
Reporting 'Says' Rather Than 'Says It Believes' Could Make a War of Difference
By 9 Comments
The front page of the New York Times had a very definitive headline on Syria and chemical weapons–but when you read the actual story, a much more ambiguous picture emerged.
Apr
26
2013
Texas Fertilizer Plant Disaster: Little Coverage, Much of It Wrong
By 15 Comments
The West Fertilizer Co. explosion last week was largely obscured by blanket coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing. More than that, says legendary EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman, a guest on this week's CounterSpin, what coverage there was often obscured the real story.
Apr
25
2013
Bill O'Reilly's Dangerous Islamophobia
By 10 Comments
Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who hosts the most-watched cable news show, has spent much of the week making inflammatory claims about Islam. Sounds like somebody is looking for a religion to scapegoat–or, given his track record, some countries to attack.
Apr
24
2013
Drone Strike Testimony: Not News?
By 4 Comments
In a moment when media are fixated on terrorism and the possibility that some people might be motivated to carry out acts of violence against the United States in part because of the effects of U.S. wars, a Yemeni writer's account of the effects of drone strikes on his village would be well worth covering.
Apr
24
2013
Jon Lee Anderson Explains: Because I Said So
By 7 Comments
New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson has a blog post on the magazine's website (4/23/13) addressing the controversy over his recent coverage of Venezuela (FAIR Blog, 4/17/13): At issue are sentences in three different pieces written in the course of a number of months—two on the New Yorker's website and one in the magazine. Readers pointed out what they saw as factual errors in each. In two cases I agreed, and corrected the sentences; in the third I didn't, for reasons I'll explain. So you expect he's going to explain why he didn't agree that the third alleged factual [...]
Apr
23
2013
Erin Burnett Wants a Different Kind of Terrorism Suspect
By 6 Comments
CNN host Erin Burnett wonders whether it's time to come up with some new laws in the wake of the Boston bombing, since the old ones seem to give Dzhokhar Tsarnaev too many rights.
Apr
23
2013
George W. Bush Is a Swell Guy, Just Ask His Friends
By 18 Comments
The opening of the George W. Bush library is generating coverage about the state of the Bush legacy. But if the journalists who were far too generous in their coverage of Bush's presidency are the same ones writing about how that presidency should be viewed now, he's in safe hands.
Apr
22
2013
Al Neuharth's Front-Page Sexism
By 9 Comments
Seeing a photograph of USA Today founder Al Neuharth above the fold in the edition of his newspaper that reported his death calls to mind a rather famous story about Neuharth's outburst at a 1983 USA Today editorial meeting.
Apr
22
2013
Don't Quote Me by Name, But My Friends the Koch Brothers Respect the Hell Out of Press Freedom
By 12 Comments
The New York Times finds anonymous sources to assure us that the Koch brothers are not trying to buy the Tribune newspapers in order to "destroy the other side." But Mother Jones finds an actual person who explains how the Kochs actually treat media outlets whose reporting they don't like.
