Today we learn that the New York Times does indeed print corrections if an op-ed writer makes an error:

An op-ed article on Sunday about Arizona and immigration mistakenly suggested that javelinas are pigs. They are peccaries.

Now, if someone were to, say, flagrantly misrepresent a "poll" that is the entire premise of an op-ed--as FAIR documented in this alert--would the paper correct that piece? We're still waiting to find out....

FAIR has a new Action Alert (7/12/10) out about PBS airing a completely uncritical three-hour documentary about Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz--paid for by corporations with close ties to Shultz. You can leave copies of your messages to PBS, or comments on the alert, in the comment thread of this post.

FAIR's latest Action Alert (4/23/10) concerns the Frontline program Obama's Deal, which not only didn't mention the single-payer proposal, but misrepresented single-payer advocates as proponents of a public option. You can leave copies of your messages to Frontline, or comments on the alert, in the comments thread of this post.

FAIR has a new action alert out about the New York Times' snubbing the U.S. Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini. While the paper has given intensive coverage to numerous New Yorkers who thought about challenging appointed incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand--but in the end decided not to run--the Times has ignored Gillibrand's most prominent actual rival in the Democratic primary, aside from one rather snarky profile that appeared in January. Click here to send a message to the Times--which you can post a copy of in the comments thread below.

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann made two false claims about healthcare on CBS's Face the Nation last Sunday that went unchallenged by host Bob Schieffer. CBS did, however, post an article on their website challenging her claims. FAIR has a new action alert encouraging Face the Nation to debunk Bachmann's lies on its upcoming April 4 broadcast. Read the alert here and post your letters to CBS below.

FAIR has a new Action Alert out on CNN's newest political commentator: Red State's Erick Erickson. For some indication of why this is perhaps the creepiest move by a cable network since MSNBC hired Michael Savage--and for an email address to communicate your feelings--click here.  Please leave copies of your messages to CNN, or comments on the alert, in the comments thread here.

FAIR has a new Action Alert out pointing out that the New York Times has repeatedly published accounts of the right-wing anti-ACORN videos that credulously accepted assertions that have turned out to be false--for example, that one of the video-makers, James O'Keefe, went into ACORN offices dressed as a cartoon pimp. See the alert here for the real story--and feel free to post copies of your messages to the Times or to respond to the alert in the comments thread here.

FAIR has a new Action Alert reacting to reports that PBS's replacement for the retiring Bill Moyers and the canceled Now series will be headed by Newsweek editor Jon "Center-Right Nation" Meacham. To learn more or to send a message to PBS ombud Michael Getler, click here. Feel free to leave copies of your responses in the comments thread here.

FAIR has a new Action Alert (1/29/10) about All Things Considered's obituary of historian Howard Zinn, which "balances" the praise of Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond with a substance-free attack by far-right activist David Horowitz. If you communicate with the NPR ombud (which requires using a Web form), feel free to copy your message and post in the comments here.

FAIR has a new Action Alert out, "Does NYT's Top Israel Reporter Have a Son in the IDF?" (1/27/10), about the New York Times' failure to respond to questions about whether Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner's son is enlisted in Israel's military, and, if so, whether this poses a conflict of interest. If you send a message to the Times about the alert--or otherwise have thoughts you'd like to share about the alert--please make use of the comments thread for this post.

Consortium News Robert Parry (8/13/09) is citing media-promoted "'deathers' who claim that President Barack Obama's healthcare plan would promote euthanasia," along with how the U.S. "population was persuaded that Iraq was some lethal threat" and "fear-mongering about Iraq somehow sending small remote-controlled airplanes across the Atlantic" as strong arguments against "hopeful slogans that 'the truth will out.'"

To Parry, "truth is a battle" and "the reality is that there are no automatic mechanisms for stopping lies and distortions":

What I have seen during more than three decades in Washington is that many truths remain effectively hidden, even if technically they have been revealed. A rare moment of truth-telling can be easily overwhelmed by a steady barrage of falsehoods and an infusion of well-calibrated doubts.

Before long, it is the oft-repeated faux reality that is remembered. It becomes Washington’s conventional wisdom and then the official history. [See, for instance, Robert Parry’s Lost History.]

In the United States today, there is a massive infrastructure for spreading lies and distortions--a right-wing media machine that reaches from newspapers, magazines and books to cable TV, talk radio and the Internet.

By simple repetition, this machine can transform any crazy theory or bald-faced lie into something that many Americans believe.

Case in point is "when the right-wing media... pushed the lies about Iraq's WMD and intimated that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was connected to the 9/11 attacks." See the FAIR magazine Extra!: "From Speculation to History: 'Saddam's Bluff' Becomes Conventional Wisdom--With No Evidence Presented" (5–6/04) by Seth Ackerman.

The Hispanic/Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition, along with the National Hispanic Media Coalition (8/11/09), "applauds" the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for being "the first elected body to take a stand against hate speech in media" by having

approved unanimously a resolution urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to conduct a comprehensive investigation on hate speech in media, allowing public participation via public hearings, and for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to update its 1993 report the "Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crimes."

The Supervisors responded to grassroots activists in the Bay Area who have organized to call attention to the alarming increase of patently false and hateful language in media. For the last three years, the Hispanic/Latino Anti-Defamation Coalition SF has organized annual protests held at Clear Channel Communications.

Clear Channel is specifically "selected as the protest site due to the corporation's record of promoting some of the most virulent purveyors of hate and intolerance, including Michael Savage and Glenn Beck, who denigrate communities, groups and individuals."

Read the resolution on the City of San Francisco's website.

Also check out the profiles of Savage, Beck and other media hatemongers on FAIR's Smearcasting.com site--and see FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Hate Speech, Media Activism and the First Amendment: Putting a Spotlight on Dehumanizing Language" (5/09) by Candice O'Grady.

Free Press's newest release (7/31/09) touts some fresh congressional legislation that "Would Protect Net Neutrality Once and for All." According to the media reform activists, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 "would protect Network Neutrality under the Communications Act, safeguarding the future of the open Internet and protecting Internet users from discrimination online."

Policy director Ben Scott explains how

the future of the Internet as we know it depends on maintaining freedom and openness online. This crucial legislation will help to ensure that the public--not big phone and cable companies--controls the fate of the Internet.

The rules that govern the Internet must protect economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech online. If we don't make Net Neutrality the law once and for all, we could see the innovation and promise of the Internet derailed forever.

While warning that "an army of lobbyists has been unleashed by the phone and cable companies to kill Net Neutrality so they can become the Internet's gatekeepers," Scott maintains that "the momentum is shifting in the public's favor," with "popular support...growing every day"--as evidenced by the fact that "millions have already called on our lawmakers to take action."

Noticing that "days ago, buried in a chart under the headline "How the Health Care Bills Compare," the New York Times provided some cogent yet cryptic information," Norman Solomon (Guernica, 7/23/09) has done some valuable decoding of a Senate committee bill's "public plan that would 'compete with private insurers,'" as "the Times chart explained on July 18":

The public plan "would provide 'only the essential health benefits,' as defined by the bill, 'except in states that offer additional benefits.'"

Meanwhile, the newspaper noted, "Democrats from three House committees are working on a single plan." Under that plan, "Different levels of coverage--'basic, enhanced and premium'--can be offered through the public option."

Those few grainy sentences, quickly swept beneath the waves from oceans of media, referred to a disturbing aspect of "public plan" scenarios. If the ostensible goal is healthcare for all, then--at best--some of the "all" would end up being much more equal than others.

The Republican Party is coming from such a right-wing place that any government action to improve healthcare access is ideologically unacceptable. In contrast, the broad outlines of a Democratic "public plan" at least embrace the precept that the not-so-tender-mercies of the market are insufficient to fully provide for the population's medical needs.

But as a practical matter, a "public plan" coexisting with the private health insurance system--generally touted by U.S. media as the pole of real options farthest from the Republican "free market" fixation--is inherently reconciled to major inequality in access to healthcare.

While "media accounts keep telling us that the current political debate on healthcare is unprecedented and groundbreaking," Solomon points to "an article in the latest edition of the Columbia Journalism Review, by seasoned healthcare reporter Trudy Lieberman, makes a convincing case that little has changed within the frames of media parameters."

Sign on to FAIR's petition telling corporate media to stop censoring the healthcare debate.

And if you happen to be near New York City, join our July 28 Petition delivery at ABC.

Free Press campaign coordinator Misty Perez has sent out (7/15/09) a call to action in light of the astonishing figure that "in the first three months of 2009, the phone and cable industries spent at least $20 million to hire more than 400 lobbyists" in an effort to "push for policies that fatten phone and cable profits while leaving us with an Internet that is too expensive and too slow." Why their sense of urgency?:

Right now, the FCC is crafting a national broadband plan that could fix our national broadband problem. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps called this plan "the most formative--indeed, transformative--proceeding ever in the Commission's history."

We desperately need it. Without such a plan, America has dropped to 22nd place in the world in broadband penetration, with approximately 40 percent of the country still not connected to high-speed Internet services.

If the lobbyists have their way, America will continue to fall further and further behind the rest of the world.

But if we get our way, we can reinvigorate the economy, open up public participation in government, empower a new generation of journalists, and give everyone the opportunity to prosper in the 21st century.

Perez links to a "pretty stunning" online "graphic to see how many phone and cable lobbyists there really are in Washington--and how much is being spent"--and asks that we "tell the FCC to support media that's participatory, open and democratic--and not to hand the keys to the Internet to the old guard."