The national media watch group
Ten years ago, a front-page New York Times story helped mislead us into war with the idea that Iraq was trying to procure special aluminum tubes for its nuclear weapons program. Last night, one of the PBS NewsHour's two expert journalists to look back on Iraq was the guy who co-authored that piece.
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough's commentary looking back at the Iraq War took aim at some politicians and media outlets who were supportive of removing Saddam Hussein from power. But somehow he forgot to include his own words.
The UN's special human rights envoy found that the CIA's drone strikes in Pakistan have "resulted in far more civilian casualties than the U.S. government has recognized." But that message was muddled by the Washington Post's he said-she said approach to the question of civilian deaths.
Howard Fineman–formerly at Newsweek, now at Huffington Post–tries to come to terms with his Iraq War failures, seemingly with good intentions. But he falls short of addressing a record that shows a remarkable level of enthusiasm for the job of advocating for Bush's "eyes-on-the-prize decisiveness."
The New York Times' Michael Shear suggests that Rep. Rand Paul's criticism of Obama's drone attacks are nothing out of the ordinary–but he takes a strange trip down memory lane to make the case.
The Washington Post's Howard Schneider asks, "In Europe's grand battle over growth vs. austerity, has Ireland proved that austerity works?" If so, keeping unemployment more than 10 percentage points above pre-recession levels is an odd sort of "working."
Argentine cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was chosen as the new pope this week. But coverage often glossed over the most intense political controversies about him.
Citing anonymous officials, the New York Times reported that "no party [to an] armistice can unilaterally terminate or alter its terms." International law expert Francis Boyle says that's nonsense.
A new report from the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights tallies the extent of the death and destruction from Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip last November. But the headlines generated by the report focused on one child in Gaza, 11-month-old Omar al-Masharawi, and the claim that he was not killed by Israelis.
The Obama administration has not wanted to explain in any great detail how it justified killing an American citizen in Yemen. But there were apparently plenty of current and former officials willing to explain their case to the New York Times.
It was not altogether surprising to see a headline in the New York Times, "Leader of Vote Count in Kenya Faces U.S. With Tough Choices." The "tough choice" is apparently that the candidate in the lead, Uhuru Kenyatta, has a terrible human rights record.
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.
"On Eve of His Funeral, Debating Chávez’s Legacy" is the headline over William Neuman's piece in the New York Times today. Funny headline, since there was no one in the Times' "debate" who argued that Chávez left much of anything.
