Pundits attack NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Rachel Maddow makes false claims about Iran and nuclear weapons. And the Washington Post's new "Sponsored Views" feature will let let corporations and organizations post "responses" to the paper's op-ed pieces–for a price.
Jun
14
2013
FAIR TV: Pundits Attack Snowden, Maddow's Misinformation, WaPo Op-Ed Sales Job
By 7 Comments
Jun
14
2013
Syria and Chemical Weapons: What Do We Know?
By 15 Comments
Yesterday the New York Times posted an article about U.S. intelligence agencies becoming more confident about their assessments of several suspect chemical weapons attacks. But the intelligence remains, at this point, at arm's length.
Jun
13
2013
Rachel Maddow's Iran Misinformation
By 21 Comments
The facts on Iran's nuclear power program should be clear by now–but as coverage by the New York Times and MSNBC demonstrates, evidently they're not.
Jun
10
2013
What Did Samantha Power Say About Iraq Invasion?
By 12 Comments
The New York Times says that UN Ambassador-nominee Samantha Power "criticized the American invasion of Iraq because it lacked the council's stamp, among other reasons." But what did Power actually say about the Iraq War before it happened?
Jun
10
2013
On Sunday Shows, NYT Mostly Misses the Point
By 13 Comments
The remarkable thing about the Sunday shows is not that they have the same guests over and over–it's that they have the same Republican and conservative guests over and over.
Jun
07
2013
Pointless Partisanship on Surveillance
By 11 Comments
"Democrats on one side, Republicans on the other" is the way conventional Beltway reporters seem to see the world–and it's reflected in their reporting on political events. On the front page of USA Today (6/7/13), Susan Page has a piece wondering if the unfolding scandals surrounding the White House and surveillance will threaten the president's "agenda." That's a strange concern for the moment, but we'll put that aside. The most unusual part of the piece is the very premise: That Obama's actions have verified Republican criticisms of his presidency. As Page puts it, the current story is especially problematic for [...]
Jun
05
2013
After a Massacre, a 'Glimmer of Hope'?
By 6 Comments
In a courtroom base near Tacoma, Washington, Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales will plead guilty today to killing 16 civilians–most of them women and children–in an Afghan village on March 11, 2012. A little more than a year later, U.S. media seem to have not much interest left in the Bales case.
May
31
2013
Two Churches Make an Anti-Gay Trend at USA Today
By 9 Comments
USA Today's front-page headline (5/31/13): Churches Sever Scout Sponsorship The online headline, over Bob Smietana's piece on the reaction of church groups that sponsor Boy Scout troops to the Scouts' announced plan to accept gay Scouts was longer but no less sweeping: Religious Regretfully Sever Scout Sponsorships That's bad news for the Scouts, since as the article points out, "about 70 percent of Scout troops are chartered by a faith-based group." Must be tough, losing seven out of 10 sponsors all at once. Except the article doesn't report what the headlines claim at all. The article quotes one church leader, [...]
May
29
2013
Good News, Everyone! (Except You Wage-Earners)
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The Washington Post's Wonkblog has a hopeful headline (5/28/13): The Economy Is Holding Up Surprisingly Well in a Year of Austerity And a version of this piece landed on the front page of the Post's print edition, under the headline "Economy Shows Some Endurance." And here's the good news in a nutshell: Americans with higher incomes are wealthier thanks to the stock market's 16 percent rise so far in 2013. Middle-income earners, whose assets are disproportionately tied up in their homes, are becoming wealthier thanks to higher housing prices–up 10.2 percent in 20 major cities in the year that ended [...]
May
28
2013
Did Obama's Speech Really 'Narrow' the War?
By 9 Comments
If you followed the coverage of President Barack Obama's May 23 speech at the National Defense University, you would think something big happened to the "war on terror." That was probably the message the White House wanted the press to send. But is true?
May
25
2013
Still Getting Gitmo Wrong
By 15 Comments
President Barack Obama's address yesterday on U.S. terror strategies got a lot of attention for supposedly charting a new course in America's longest war. But some of the facts were mangled along the way.
May
24
2013
FAIR TV: PBS and Koch, Guatemala and the U.S. Role and Rumsfeld Meets the Press
By 6 Comments
This week: PBS won't be showing us the documentary Citizen Koch–for some very dubious reasons. Also: The New York Times points out that the U.S. role in supporting genocide in Guatemala was hardly discussed at the trial; the same goes for U.S. media coverage of that trial. And Donald Rumsfeld goes on Meet the Press to talk about accountability. No, it's not what you think.
May
22
2013
What an Anonymous U.S. Official Says About Iranians in Syria
By 13 Comments
Suggesting that the Free Syrian Army believes Iranians are in Syria–which is probably true–is not the same thing as saying "Iran has sent soldiers to Syria" to fight on Assad's behalf.
