FAIR's latest Action Alert (1/6/12) urges activists to contact the New York Times about its repeated assertions, contrary to the available evidence, that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Feel free to leave copies of your messages to the Times in the comments thread here, along with any thoughts on the alert.

The national hardware chain Lowe's pulled its advertising from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim--explaining that the question of whether Muslims can be presented as regular human beings is a "hotly contested debate."

All-American Muslim is a reality show described by TLC, the cable channel that airs it, as "a look at life in Dearborn, Michigan--home to the largest mosque in the United States--through the lens of five Muslim American families...an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community."

But the Florida Family Association, a right-wing group leading the charge against the program, saw it as part of a sinister plot:

The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law. The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.

Note the parallel between this argument and a complaint that Jersey Shore doesn't depict any of its Italian-American cast members as members of the Mafia.

Mobilizing its members to send emails calling on advertisers to boycott the show, FFA scored a victory. The company responded to the group (Hollywood Reporter, 12/9/11), "While we continue to advertise on various cable networks, including TLC, there are certain programs that do not meet Lowe's advertising guidelines, including the show you brought to our attention. Lowe's will no longer be advertising on that program."

Lowe's decision prompted an outraged response--one activist wrote, "Will you next consider KKK's demands to pull ads from BET?" (Hollywood Reporter, 12/9/11)--leading to an explanation of sorts posted on the company's Facebook page:

It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective--social, political and otherwise--and we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy. We are sincerely sorry. We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, across our workforce and our customers, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment.

Lowe's has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.

Unfortunately, pulling your ads from a television show because it depicts a group of people as normal Americans is not a way to "respectfully defer"--it's taking the side of bigots who believe that that group must always be portrayed as frightening and dangerous.

Lowe's concluded its message:  "We strongly support and respect the right of our customers, the community at large, and our employees to have different views. If we have made anyone question that commitment, we apologize." One might well question the commitment of Lowe's to the right of people to express the viewpoint that Muslims are human beings when it withholds its advertising from programs that make that point.  The calculation that it's safer not to associate oneself with groups that are hated by a vocal minority highlights the danger of relying on corporate sponsorship to support a media system that one hopes would actually embody the values that Lowe's pretends to have.

Back in March, we wondered when U.S. corporate news outlets would find U.S./NATO killing of Afghan kids newsworthy. Back then, it was nine children killed in a March 1 airstrike. This resulted in two network news stories on the evening or morning newscasts, and two brief references on the PBS NewsHour.

On November 25, the New York Times reported--on page 12--that six children were killed in one attack in southern Afghanistan on November 23. This news was, as best I can tell, not reported on ABC, CBS, NBC or the PBS NewsHour.

There were, on the other hand, several pieces about U.S. soldiers eating Thanksgiving dinners.

Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald was one of the few commentators to write about the latest killings. As he observed:

We're trained simply to accept these incidents as though they carry no meaning: We're just supposed to chalk them up to regrettable accidents (oops), agree that they don’t compel a cessation to the war, and then get back to the glorious fighting. Every time that happens, this just becomes more normalized, less worthy of notice. It's just like background noise: Two families of children wiped out by an American missile (yawn: at least we don't target them on purpose like those evil Terrorists: we just keep killing them year after year after year without meaning to). It's acceptable to make arguments that American wars should end because they're costing too much money or American lives or otherwise harming American strategic interests, but piles of corpses of innocent children are something only the shrill, shallow and unSerious--pacifists!--point to as though they have any meaning in terms of what should be done.

CNN's newest show--OutFront, featuring Erin Burnett--did a "factcheck" of the protest in Lower Manhattan that was long on attitude and short on accuracy. If you'd like the network to take another look, see FAIR's latest Action Alert.

Please leave copies of your messages to CNN, or responses to the alert, in the comment thread below.

The same corporate media that will rush to cover the latest burp from Tea Party protesters seem strikingly uninterested in demonstrators camped out in Manhattan's financial district, protesting the corporate takeover of U.S. politics. Please see FAIR's latest Action Alert (9/22/11) to call on the broadcast TV networks to pay attention to this activism.

You can use the comments thread for this blog post to leave copies of your messages to the networks or to comment on the alert.

Send a message to CNN about the cable network's partnership with the Tea Party Express, a far-right group with a history of virulent racism, to produce a Republican presidential debate: See "CNN Throws a Tea Party," FAIR's latest Action Alert.

Please post copies of your messages to CNN, or comments on this Action Alert, in the comments thread below.

Guess who's booked to appear on the CBS Sunday morning chat show Face the Nation this weekend? None other than Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan.

It has, after all, been an eternity since Sunday TV viewers had a chance to listen to Ryan talk about his Medicare-slashing budget plan.

May 22 on Meet the Press, to be exact.

FAIR's new petition to the television networks asks why Ryan's far-right plan has been getting so much more coverage than the People's Budget of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Add your voice today!

The New York Times' Michael Shear has a piece today (5/19/11) reminding readers that presidential candidates often have early stumbles of the sort that Newt Gingrich has been having. He recalls several examples, most of which don't really offer much hope for Gingrich. One is Wesley Clark's brief 2004 campaign:

In 2004, General Clark's campaign was premised on his military credentials and his critique of President George W. Bush and the Iraq War. So when the general said, within days of announcing, that he might have voted to authorize the Iraq War, it was a big deal.

That's not exactly how it happened.

FAIR played a pretty prominent role in this story, pointing out in a press release (9/16/03) that Clark's supposed anti-war credentials were mostly a fiction. The media chatter at the time was that Clark was strongly opposed to the Iraq War, which in the corporate media's worldview was a serious problem for him. But as FAIR pointed out, Clark was hardly a critic of the war:

On the question of Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, Clark seemed remarkably confident of their existence. Clark told CNN's Miles O'Brien that Saddam Hussein "does have weapons of mass destruction." When O'Brien asked, "And you could say that categorically?" Clark was resolute: "Absolutely" (1/18/03). When CNN's Zahn (4/2/03) asked if he had any doubts about finding the weapons, Clark responded: "I think they will be found. There's so much intelligence on this."

After the fall of Baghdad, any remaining qualms Clark had about the wisdom of the war seemed to evaporate. "Liberation is at hand. Liberation--the powerful balm that justifies painful sacrifice, erases lingering doubt and reinforces bold actions," Clark wrote in a London Times column (4/10/03). "Already the scent of victory is in the air." Though he had been critical of Pentagon tactics, Clark was exuberant about the results of "a lean plan, using only about a third of the ground combat power of the Gulf War. If the alternative to attacking in March with the equivalent of four divisions was to wait until late April to attack with five, they certainly made the right call."

After the FAIR release started circulating, reporters asked Clark about his position on the war. And that's what caused him the trouble--he was unable to live up to the storyline that much of the media were pushing.

The bombing of Libya has sharply divided public opinion, but the PBS NewsHour has avoided a wide-ranging debate by overwhelmingly featuring the views of current and former government and military officials. If you'd like to see a more diverse group of voices arguing the pros and cons of intervention, see FAIR's Action Alert.

Please leave copies of your messages to PBS, and comments on the alert, in the comments thread of this post.

This Saturday I'll be on a panel at Left Forum titled "Racism and Resistance in the Immigration Debate," with former FAIR communications director Isabel Macdonald, Monica Novoa of Drop the I-Word, Sonia Guinansaca of the New York State Youth Leadership Council and Esther Kaplan of the Nation Institute, moderated by my former Paper Tiger colleague Denisse Andrade.

Below is the description. I'll be talking about my recent article, "Time to 'Drop and Leave' Loaded Language," among other things. If you're in the New York area, stop by for what should be a very interesting conversation.

Racist, dehumanizing terms such as "illegal" play a crucial role in generating and reinforcing racial animus toward immigrants. This harmful and colonizing language, which is too often granted an unchallenged platform in the media, underpins policies that violate human rights, and hurt immigrants and all communities of color. On this panel, media activists, organizers and journalists discuss strategies of resistance and reflect on the lessons of their own work at the front-lines of the immigration debate. From the movement of "Dreamers"--the immigrant youth who have "come out as undocumented, unafraid and unapologetic" in the media, especially during the Dream Act campaign; to the Nation's expose of immigrant-bashing former CNN host Lou Dobbs’s reliance on undocumented labor; to a new campaign calling on journalists to "drop the I-word" (illegal) in their coverage of immigrants.

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.

Counting tonight's episode, Charlie Rose has had five guests discussing the Simpson/Bowles deficit reduction plan, and all five have been right-leaning proponents of the plan's austerity measures. To call for a broader discussion, see FAIR's latest Action Alert. Please leave copies of your messages--or comments on the alert--in the comments thread here.

MSNBC has suspended host Keith Olbermann for making political contributions--even though GE/NBC executives and fellow MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has made similar donations. If you'd like to urge MSNBC to follow a consistent standard, see FAIR's Action Alert (11/5/10). And please post copies of your messages, and/or comments on the alert, to the comments thread here.

FAIR's exposé of PBS's prominent news and public affairs shows demonstrated that public television is failing to fulfill its mission--to "provide a voice for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard," to serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," and broadcast programs that "help us see America whole, in all its diversity."

Now, which PBS canceled without explanation and replaced with Need to Know (co-hosted by corporate media fixture Jon Meacham), lived up to that mission admirably. Need to Know does not. Join FAIR in telling PBS to bring back Now: Sign the petition today.

USA Today (10/15/10) has a valuable article by Kevin Johnson on citizen's use of video to document police brutality--citing numerous examples where such recording was instrumental in exposing violent behavior on the part of cops.

The piece also includes the perspective of cops who don't want to be videotaped, who produce zero evidence for their assertion that such taping "has had a chilling effect on some officers who are now afraid to act for fear of retribution by video."

USA Today's editors, though, put those unsubstantiated claims in the article's subhead in the print edition--"Are Incidents Caught on Tape Hindering Officers?"--as well as in the main headline over the continuation of the story on page 2: "Some Fear Videos Create a 'Chilling Effect' by Making Police Hesitant."

It's a striking demonstration of the corporate media's instinctive attraction to power.