The argument that the finding and killing of Osama bin Laden shows that George W. Bush's torture policies were justified got another rehearsal in Newsweek fromYale professorStephen Carter (5/5/11): In the end, we were able to track bin Laden because he communicated only through two couriers believed to be brothers. And what was the source of this vital clue? The intelligence apparently came from detainees imprisoned in secret facilities overseas and subjected to what has been euphemistically called "enhanced" interrogation…. So the information from the detainees was crucial, and we face an uncomfortable irony, both political and ethical. The finest [...]
Apr
21
2011
Newsweek Bravely Highlights the Plight of the Beached White Male
By 10 Comments
Newsweek's cover story this week is on the plight of college-educated white men aged 35-64. The magazine laments that "this hitherto privileged demo isn't just on its knees, it's flat on on its face." The subhead of the piece asks, "Can manhood survive the lost decade?" Now, I have much sympathy for all who are struggling with unemployment. But are middle-aged, college-educated white males flat on their face and worthy of a trend cover story? It's hard to square that with the piece's own admission that their jobless rate is just above 5 percent. Most demographic groups would give anything [...]
Mar
15
2011
The 'New' Newsweek's Nuclear Power Puffery
By 11 Comments
There was a lot of chatter about editor Tina Brown and the "new" Newsweek, which debuted last week. None of it struck me as all that interesting–a column up front from Leslie Gelb warning about the threat of Arab democracy and an anti-Social Security harangue from Robert Samuelson made it feel very much like the "old" Newsweek. One other piece stood out, and only more so this week–a warm profile of the executive in charge of France's nuclear power company, Areva. The subhead was "France's Most Powerful Businesswoman Believes Now Is the Time for the Next Atomic Boom." And the [...]
Feb
16
2011
Action Alert: Newsweek Downplays Critics of Drone Assassinations
By 30 Comments
A Newsweek report (2/21/11) looks at the CIA's aerial drone assassination program through the agency's eyes–leaving questions about civilian deaths and the effort's dubious legality for a couple of brief paragraphs at the end. To encourage Newsweek to take critics of the drone program seriously, see FAIR's new Action Alert. Please leave copies of your messages–or comments on the alert–in the comments thread here.
Jan
04
2011
Propaganda and the Saddam Statue 'Conspiracy'
By 23 Comments
Remember the toppling of that Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad (4/9/03) that signified the "end" of the Iraq War? At the time, there were critics who pointed out that the extensively televised images of a jubilant crowd of Iraqis were misleading.The sense of media excitement was unmistakable; as FAIR pointed out, the Los Angeles Times ran a headline the next day, "Iraq Is All but Won; Now What?" The incident is rehashed and examined in the New Yorker this week by Peter Maass, who was reporting from the scene that day.He states early on that both sides of the war [...]
Jan
03
2011
Newsweek: Obama=Bush on War, and That's a Good Thing
By 13 Comments
Stephen L. Carter has a piece over atNewsweek that points out that Barack Obama hardly differs from George W. Bush when it comes to war; as the subhead explains: "How does Barack Obama differ as a commander in chief from his swaggering predecessor? A lot less than you might think." Now that'ssomethingyou don't hearvery often in the corporate media. But Carter meansthis more as a compliment than a criticism, explaining that there were people on the left and right alike who thought that America had elected an antiwar president, but that simply turned out not to be true. Rather, the [...]
Dec
08
2010
Evan Thomas: Only People Like Me Can Save America From the Internet's Lies
By 23 Comments
Newsweek's Evan Thomas visited Germany recently, and came away thinking the United States is headed for some serious trouble. The country is falling apart–polarized, susceptible to populist demagoguery and so on. Forces on both sides are to blame;they're not all bad ("I think the Tea Partiers, despite their contradictions, are not all wrong about Big Government," he writes), but some should be singled out for criticism: Cable-TV and talk-radio personalities and bloggers have risen up to speak for the people. But as they pander for clicks and ratings, their standards of factual accuracy are often low. This is not by [...]
Oct
18
2010
Eleanor Clift: Doing the Deficit Rag
By 13 Comments
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift has a new piece headlined"Math Lessons: How Did a Concept as Unsexy and Complicated as the National Deficit Become the Galvanizing Political Issue of the Day?" Sheasks: "Why is the deficit the top issue in voters' minds?" If she eliminated the word "why," you'd be left with agood question to ponder. The answer would be no, andthe piece could end there. But instead of writing that piece,Clift wrote this: The deficit is really a symbol for the anger that people feel about the amount of money that has been poured into the economy, without any tangible returns [...]
Sep
29
2010
Media Blitz Against the Paycheck Fairness Act
By 9 Comments
There's a push for the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act before Congress adjourns for the season, which has sparked some pushback from right-wingers given prominent platforms in the corporate media. The Act, which already passed the House, would help enforce and close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963; under the law, women would actually be able to find out how much their male colleagues make without either of them facing retaliation. A September 22 New York Times op-ed by Christina Hoff Sommers of AEI and an October 4 George Will Newsweek column both attack it as [...]
Sep
22
2010
Robert Samuelson Attacks–and Engages in–'Soundbite Economics'
By 10 Comments
Newsweek columnist Robert Samuelson (9/18/10) has had it with the way we discuss economics: With every election, we descend into soundbite economics. Rhetorical claims grow more partisan and self-serving…. These debates confirm the dreary state of economic discourse. He points his finger at both the right and the left, but then goes on to basically endorse the right-wing critique of Obama's policies–as in, "Confidence is crucial to stimulating consumer spending and business investment, and Obama constantly subverts confidence." As an example, Samuelson writes that "the moratorium on deepwater drilling kills jobs." It's refreshing tosee that he's not stoopingtopartisan soundbites! A [...]
Jul
09
2010
For Newsweek's Latin America Correspondent, It's the Stocks That Count
By 7 Comments
Newsweek's right-wing Latin American correspondent Mac Margolis (7/2/10) is once again playing games with statistics. After the obligatory attack on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as a "chest-thumping autocrat," Margolis gets down to the business of praising his favorite Latin American country, Colombia, as a country that deserves "lead billing" among the "new stars of the emerging markets": In the past eight years, the Andean nation has gone from dud to dynamo: foreign investment has risen 250percent. Its stock index is up 15percent this year, and 35percent (versus Brazil's 14percent) over the decade. Since Margolis makes the comparison between Colombia and Brazil, [...]
Jun
08
2010
Mac Margolis and Chavez's Twitter Repression
By 8 Comments
Seeing this headline at the Newsweek website– "Chavez Twists Twitter Into Tool of Repression"– means you're likely to read the latest dispatch from the magazine's Latin America correspondent Mac Margolis, who has amassed a stunning record of creating panic about the region's leftist leaders. (See "Newsweekâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s Name-Calling Neoliberal," from Extra!'s January 2010 issue.) Margolis argues that when Iranian protesters used Twitter to criticize their government, it was seen as a "tool of revolution and freedom." Not so in Venezuela, though, where Chavez "hasfigured out how to twist this tool into one of repression." "Far from embracing the democratic spirit of [...]
