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Pacifica Radio & "Democracy Now!" Protests:

"Pacifica has been a treasure for the progressive community," said Rachel Coen, communications coordinator at FAIR, which, along with the nonprofit Media Alliance of San Francisco, is sponsoring protests at KPFK, KPFA, WBAI and the network's stations in Houston and Washington, D.C. "It's been very, very painful to see the management of Pacifica stray from the original vision. I think 'Democracy Now!' really crystallizes the conflict for a lot of people.

"We wouldn't have taken action in this public and dramatic way if we didn't think Amy was in danger of losing her job and the public wasn't in danger of losing 'Democracy Now!' " she added. "This is part of a last-ditch effort to save Pacifica."

--Los Angeles Times (10/25/00)

Clear Channel & Payola:

The Federal Communications Commission has fined the nation's largest radio conglomerate $ 8,000 for violating payola laws....

"This is a weak slap on the wrist from a feeble commission that is no match for Clear Channel or any of the other big radio conglomerates that are powerful players in Washington," said Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a New York-based media watchdog group. "The FCC is obviously ill-equipped to deal with this new form of payola. It's no longer about some deejay in the control room stuffing a few bucks into his back pocket. These days payola is being done right out in the open by huge conglomerates. And nobody in Washington seems to care."

--Los Angeles Times (10/20/00)

Presidential Debates:

Jeff Cohen, executive director of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, said [moderator Jim] Lehrer ''contributed to the emptiness of these debates.''

''The debates have become sort of like poll-tested posturing and rhetoric that never gets pierced by Lehrer,'' Cohen said. ''The style of interviewing that he's perfected is civil, though a more accurate term might be servile.''

Lehrer did not immediately return calls for comment.

--Associated Press (10/18/00)

Campaign Coverage:
AJR features FAIR in its compilation of advice to journalists covering the presidential elections. An excerpt:

Jim Naureckas
Editor, Extra!, the bimonthly journal of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

"One wish [is] for journalists to move away from the horse race framework and toward on of what policies would a candidate enact, and how would that impact the American public."... Naureckas says that when a commentator says the public is uninformed, it "reflects badly on the media... It is their job to tell people what is going on."

--American Journalism Review (September 2000)

United Airlines/US Airways exclusionary deal:

"Editors of the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal violated fundamental principles of journalism and journalistic integrity," said [Janine] Jackson, whose media watch group seeks balance, diversity and inclusiveness in news coverage.

"This was a flagrant violation of readers' trust," added Jackson. "We media critics like to think that we're not naive. But even we were surprised by these agreements."

--O'Dwyer's PR Services Report (July 2000)

World Bank Protests:

"Slanted" is not too strong a word to describe the Times op-eds on the World Bank protesters. Indeed, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting used the word in its Times critique...

John Moyers, publisher of TomPaine... was so impressed with the FAIR critique that he immediately sat down to write an ad based on it. The result, which ran on the Times op-ed page on May 3, features a photo of a barbershop quartet above the headline, "Four-Part Harmony: The New York Times Globalization Choir."

--Village Voice (5/16/00)

Iraq:

On the editorial pages, Fred Hiatt repeatedly has written in columns and editorials that Saddam Hussein expelled U.N. weapons inspectors in 1998. That has led to a campaign by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) to set the record straight, and the ombudsman has been bombarded with mail and phonecalls as a result.... [Hiatt] promised to be more careful in the future. But that won't clarify the record that already exists.

--Washington Post (4/2/00)

Police Attacks on Press:

The alleged assault on a radio journalist [WBAI's Errol Maitland] covering the funeral of Patrick Dorismond on Saturday is an "attack on the freedom of the press" and should be "of concern to journalists everywhere," the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting said in a statement issued yesterday.

"The ability to report on power, including police behavior, is one of the most important duties of the press," said the statement issued by Steve Randall, senior analyst with FAIR. "When that ability is threatened, democracy is threatened."

--Newsday (3/29/00)

Economic Reporting:

Do you ever wonder whether the economic experts being quoted in the press reflect the full spectrum of views on whatever subjects they're pontificating about?

Whether you do or don't, Dean Baker does. And you can get the benefits of his doubts on the World Wide Web. Baker produces the Economic Reporting Review (ERR), which can be found on the website of an organization called Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).... Regardless of where you stand, it's worth checking out the debate for yourself.

--New Jersey Lawyer (3/6/00)

Chinese Embassy Bombing:

Worries grow about pushing the China trade deal through Congress.... Liberal watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting roils the waters by citing European press allegations that the U.S. purposely bombed China's Belgrade embassy last year.

--Wall Street Journal (2/11/00)

Religion:

"Religion is one of the favorite cover subjects of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report," a 1999 survey by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) attested.... In its review of national newsweeklies, FAIR did not find the hostility toward religion of which conservative critics complain; instead it detected "an element of pandering . . . in the newsweekly's frequent return to cover stories like Time's 'The Search for Jesus' and U.S. News' 'In Search of Jesus.' Often religious topics are handled with kid gloves to avoid offending the believers who are likely to buy such issues at the newsstands. Perhaps that's why Time's 'Does Heaven Exist?' cover article (3/24/97) doesn't include a single source who says no."

--Wendy Kaminer, The American Prospect (1/31/00)

AOL/Time Warner:

If a person could get high-speed access to the Internet only through Time Warner wires and an AOL subscription, should such a powerful monopoly still have the right to monitor discussions?

''AT&T doesn't tell you what kind of conversations you are allowed to have through its wires,'' said Jim Naureckas, editor of the magazine Extra!, produced by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a nonprofit media watchdog group in New York.

In coming years, the courts or Congress may have to act to ensure that free-speech principles are respected by AOL and other companies offering high-speed access to the Internet through cable monopolies.

If not, ''the people who own the wires will set the rules'' for speech, he said. ''And we'll have to live by their rules, not by the First Amendment.''

--Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/23/00)

Tim Russert:

Peter Hart, analyst for the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, said Russert personifies a conventional wisdom in Washington in which the terms of political debate are shaped by the political class.

"Take the so-called Social Security crisis," Hart said. "It's an issue Russert has reported on for years, always from the same narrow inside-the-Beltway perspective. The policy position he argues from is hotly contested outside those boundaries, but not on Russert's show. Likewise, you're not going to see a show on 'Meet the Press' about the Pentagon's budget featuring critics of the military-industrial complex, because that's not on the table among elites in Washington."

--Buffalo News (1/22/00)

Racism & Talk Radio:

But employees of black-owned and black-programmed stations say their shows are held to a different standard than the white mainstream. Steve Rendall, a senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a national media watch group, echoed the sentiment.

"We've noted and quoted the occasional black talk radio host," said Mr. Rendall. "But in New York City, the irresponsible comments from black radio hosts are nothing compared to the torrent of bigoted talk that comes from white hosts on big mainstream radio stations."

--New York Times (1/21/00)

Q. As an activist, what's the most obscure publication you get?

A. My Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting updates.

Q. They never talk about me, do they?

A. I think you have been mentioned, to tell you the truth.

--Steven Van Zandt interviewed by Joel Stein in Time magazine (1/17/00)

Critics argue that corporate interest will always skew the judgment of corporate officers. And even when it does not, they say, it is dangerous to have ever-larger media conglomerates run by small groups of people who may or may not believe in fostering honest journalism.

"AOL has a track record of dubious ethics," said Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, a liberal-leaning media watch group in Manhattan. He cited a series of incidents in recent years, including America Online's use of controversial accounting methods and its banishing of some members from the online service because of comments they had made in chat groups.

--New York Times (1/13/00)

Fair Postscript: A number of readers have asked how to contact Jeff Cohen, Monday's interview subject, who heads media watchdog Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting....

In response to those faulting me for being even more obnoxious than usual, when appearing to be especially testy with Cohen in our Q & A, I was hoping to achieve some balance by playing devil's advocate. That's because I agree with him on nearly all issues regarding media.

--Howard Rosenberg, Los Angeles Times (12/31/99)

In These Times cites FAIR's work on U.S. coverage of the allegation that the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was bombed deliberately, first reported by the London Observer and Copenhagen's Politiken:

This story has only dribbled into the United States, where the mainstream press has ignored it. Though the story was covered by The Associated Press, the New York Times has given it no mention. The Washington Post devoted 90 words to it in the "World Briefing" section under the headline, "NATO Denies Story on Embassy Bombing."

In response to questions raised by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the New York-based media watch group, New York Times foreign editor Andrew Rosenthal wrote, "The Observer article was not terribly well-sourced, by our standards at least. I assure you that if we can show that the bombing was deliberate, you will read about it on the front page of our paper."

In turn, FAIR asked the reporters who broke the story, John Sweeney, Jens Holsoe and Ed Vulliamy, to clarify their sources. The sources included: a European NATO military officer serving in an operational capacity at the four-star level; a European NATO staff officer at the two-star level in the Defense Intelligence office; a NATO flight controller based in Naples; a NATO intelligence officer monitoring Yugoslavian radio broadcasts from Macedonia; a very high-ranking former senior American intelligence official connected to the Balkans ("about as high as you an get," said one reporter); a mid-rank U.S. military official connected to the Balkans; and a U.S. official at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency.

"The New York Times, to my knowledge, has not made any effort to find out what the sourcing was," says Seth Ackerman, a media analyst at FAIR. "As has been done in the past, it sounds like the Times might be holding out for a named official source, which is a standard of evidence that the Times likes to apply in cases where they would rather not report the story at all."

--In These Times (12/12/99)

Judge Judy, the doyenne of syndicated self-righteousness, solidified that pre-eminence two weeks ago at a literary luncheon in Brisbane, Australia. On tour to promote her new book, "Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever," she suggested that instead of attempting to control AIDS and hepatitis by providing clean needles to drug addicts we should "give them all dirty needles and let them die."

Instead of resulting in universal derision (and, even more justly, a lightning bolt from the sky) this stunning proposal evoked cheers from her fans in the audience. But it got not a mention from the U.S. press (indeed, if it weren't for the people at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, I never would have heard about it).

--Arianna Huffington, syndicated column (12/1/99)

Don't miss the work of Seth Ackerman, a 21-year-old media analyst for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. Ackerman's evisceration of a recent news special by ABC News hotshot John Stossel is posted at www.fair.org.

--Village Voice (11/30/99)

All of this has infected public broadcasting. Far from the image suggested by Largent and more rabid Republicans, it has increasingly become more like the networks. In a study of public broadcasting news sources released last month by FAIR and done by William Hoynes of Vassar College, the percentage of on-camera news sources sources who represent corporate America and Wall Street has increased dramatically, while the use of citizen activists as news sources has declined from its already paltry numbers.

FAIR's program director, Janine Jackson, said: "In survival mode for so long fending off conservative attacks, public television seems to have forgotten its original mission to 'help us see America whole, in all its diversity.' " That is why public broadcasting needs more support, not less, so it has the space to return to its original mission.

--Boston Globe (7/23/99)

One of the nation's most respected media watchdog groups called yesterday for the resignation of the leadership of Pacifica Foundation, the alternative radio network that has seized its own flagship station, KPFA in Berkeley, and locked out the staff....

FAIR, which has earned the respect of many journalism professionals for its hard-hitting criticism of bias and censorship in both the commercial and nonprofit news media, has often criticized management practices of news organizations. But it has seldom, if ever, gone so far as to call for the removal of an organization's leaders.

"It's somewhat unprecedented," acknowledged FAIR's executive director, Jeff Cohen. "In a sense, we feel we're acting in extremis."

He said the decision was reached after weeks of discussions and talks with all the participants in the dispute who were willing to talk.

--San Francisco Chronicle (7/17/99)

One admission, though. In the wake of the Kosovo operation, which I feel more ashamed of the more I learn about it, my bedfellows grow stranger and stranger. Jim Naureckas, for instance, wrote a media roundup piece in Extra! (the publication of the very left-wing Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) that I found not only "provocative" (a condescending adjective that can safely be applied to those whose politics one loathes), but also balanced, thorough, brilliant--and correct.

--Christopher Caldwell, Slate (7/12/99)

In public broadcasting there are clear philosophical lines. The purists tend to be outsiders, people such as Jeff Cohen, founder of the liberal watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. They contend that public broadcasting has forgotten its founding principles, as a forum for debate and controversy, a reflection of American diversity and a platform for those who would otherwise go unheard.

"Public TV is being slowly squeezed by corporatization and commercialization," Cohen says. "There's one reason for public TV now, and it should be The Democracy Channel."

--Chicago Tribune (6/6/99)

SUAREZ: Dan is next in Alpine, New York. Hi-ya, Dan.

DAN (Caller): ...I just basically thought NPR coverage--it's like everything is cleared with the State Department's office of censorship. If you would listen to "Democracy Now!" or "CounterSpin" or any of those programs, you wouldn't even think you guys were talking about the same war.

SUAREZ: Well, Dan, has it ever occurred to you that maybe they're wrong and we're right? Or you're not allowing that possibility?

DAN: No, I see international law being violated wholesale. I see the Geneva Conventions on warfare being violated wholesale. It's illegal to say Sign this document or we'll bomb you.' According to the Geneva Conventions, that's not a (technical difficulties) the electrical grid is illegal. This doesn't get discussed on NPR.

SUAREZ: No, that's simply not true, Dan. That's simply not true. It is a falsehood.

--NPR's Talk of the Nation (6/14/99)