"Beat sweetener" was written all over John Broder's April 30 New York Times profile of new Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, "a woman of untamed energy, competitiveness and confidence in the boardroom and on a mountain trail."
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.
Apr
03
2013
Keystone Polling and an Oil Spill Time Machine
By 6 Comments
Reporting positive polling for the Keystone XL pipeline, USA Today reports, "The numbers come amid continuing efforts to clean up a major new oil spill in Arkansas." But "come amid" is another way of saying "entirely unrelated to."
Mar
28
2013
For NPR, Fracking Fight Is Between Farmers & Movie Stars
By 12 Comments
Who stands between the hard-working people of Upstate New York and money and jobs coming out of the ground? Why, it’s actor Mark Ruffalo.
Mar
08
2013
FAIR TV: Hugo Chavez in U.S. Media, Time's Path to Iran War, Keystone XL and the TV Left
By 9 Comments
This week on FAIR TV: Hugo Chavez was loathed by the U.S. press–and that didn't change when they reported his death. Plus Time magazine provides a look at the "Path to War" with Iran–omitting a key fact along the way.
And the Keystone XL pipeline is back in the news. But when it came up on ABC's This Week, "left" pundit James Carville had a curious message.
Mar
06
2013
AP: Chavez Wasted His Money on Healthcare When He Could Have Built Gigantic Skyscrapers
By 150 Comments
Chavez squandered his nation's oil money on healthcare, education and nutrition when he could have been building the world's tallest building or his own branch of the Louvre. What kind of monster has priorities like that?
Mar
04
2013
Keystone's Endorsement by a TV 'Leftist'
By 10 Comments
The controversy over the Keystone XL pipeline doesn't get covered much in corporate television–it takes tens of thousands of activists marching in Washington to get a few words on the nightly newscasts. But the State Department's recent draft assessment of the pipeline's environmental impact got a mention on one show, and it said a lot. Not about the pipeline, really, but about corporate media. The comment came on the roundtable discussion on ABC's This Week (3/3/13). The panel, like so many of these discussions, was tilted to the right: A Republican mayor from Utah (Mia Love), a former Bush adviser [...]
Feb
25
2013
Hugo Chavez Keeps Showering the Poor
By 42 Comments
The Chavez years, as best we can tell, have been enormously beneficial to the Venezuelan public as owners of public resources. But when corporate media write about Chavez's policies, they can barely disguise their real feelings–as if the natural order of things would mean that private companies managed the oil industry and captured the profits.
Feb
20
2013
Why Does a Climatologist Need to Explain Economics to Joe Nocera?
By 6 Comments
NASA climatologist James Hansen has tried to explain to New York Times columnist Joe Nocera why he's so wrong about the tar sands, but Nocera's account of their argument makes it seem like explaining anything to him would be an uphill battle.
Feb
19
2013
Friendly Oil–Not the Venezuelan Kind
By 22 Comments
With the Keystone climate protests in Washington bringing climate change back into the media, we're hearing a lot about how the Keystone pipeline will, at the very least, mean that we'll be getting our oil from a nice country.
Dec
18
2012
Fracking: Too Much of a Good Thing, Says Planet Money Guy
By 20 Comments
There is no serious discussion of environmental costs borne by the public, and there is not one word about climate change–a pretty shocking oversight when one considers the potential ramifications of a massive new investment in a fossil fuel industry.
Oct
25
2012
NPR Could Use Some 'Energy Independence' of Its Own
By 26 Comments
NPR's Tom Gjelten had a story on Morning Edition today (1/25/12) that made an important point about a prominent fallacy in the energy debate–and then spent the second half of the story falling into the exact same fallacy. The story questioned the constant use of the phrase "energy independence" in political discussions of U.S. energy policy. Gjelten noted: In truth, it would be virtually impossible for any country to be totally independent where energy is concerned. Not only would it have to produce all its own oil; it would also have to be independent of the global economy. Like sugar, [...]
Oct
23
2012
WaPo: Racism in Obama TV Ad?
By 13 Comments
The Obama campaign has released a new ad criticizing Mitt Romney for having a Swiss bank account and wanting to keep tax breaks for corporations that offshore jobs. The commercial's most devastating line: Romney once railed against the deadly pollution from a coal plant. I know what you're thinking: Totally racist, right? That's sort of the point of Karen Tumulty's piece today in the Washington Post (10/23/12). Under the headline "Obama's 'Not One of Us' Attack on Romney Echoes Racial Code," Tumulty uses complaints from right-wing bloggers to lead a discussion about the commercial, which she says "echoes a slogan [...]
