11/16/10
A report from the co-chairs of the White House deficit commission has generated significant criticism. But on public television mainstay Charlie Rose, viewers are hearing only from supporters of the center-right plan to cut spending and lower taxes for the wealthy.
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Action Alert: Charlie Rose's Deficit Non-Debate : Public TV show excludes critics of center-right plan (11/16/10)
CounterSpin: William Greider on G-20 & trade, Ali Gharib on Iran & Wikileaks (11/12/10)
Action Alert: If Olbermann's Donations Are Bad, What About GE's? (11/5/10)
CounterSpin: Jim Naureckas on elections, Chris Kromm on ''vote fraud'' (11/5/10)
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Barack Obama
Elections
Economy
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Field Guide to TV's Lukewarm Liberals
How to spot centrist pundits served up as the "left" (July/August 1998)
Includes some of Juan Williams' greatest hits.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Clarence the Credible
How Journalists Blew the Thomas Story (Special Issue on Women 1992)
Original "he said, she said" coverage was a media failure.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
We Feel Your Pain
Media Tell Workers to Learn to Live With Layoffs (May/June 1996)
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Elections in Europe
The media vote for austerity (September/October 1997)
Europe's need for austerity is a longstanding obsession of U.S. corporate media.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Media Tell Obama--Don't Be a Lefty Like Clinton
Rewriting the '94 election to find a centrist moral (11/7/08)
The 2010 midterms are looking like a rerun of 1994--an election year steeped in media mythology.
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- Posted by Peter Hart on 11/16/10 at 4:19 pmThe Los Angeles Times reports today (11/16/10) that Barack Obama might give a tax break to the wealthy after all:
Obama has loosened his longstanding view that tax cuts should be extended permanently only for households earning less than $250,000 a year ($200,000 for singles).
When a reporter suggests that a politician has "loosened" his position on an important issue, it must be the kind of flip-flop the media don't find objectionable. [...] Read more»
- Posted by Jim Naureckas on 11/16/10 at 3:14 pmCounting 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. [...] Read more»
- Posted by Steve Rendall on 11/16/10 at 3:06 pmOn Friday, Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher took a study that says there are 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were before the debate over the state's disputed anti-immigrant law, and reported it as 100,000 fewer "illegals." By conflating Hispanics with "illegals," Gallagher inadvertently illustrates the case made by opponents of the law. Read more»
- Posted by Jim Naureckas on 11/16/10 at 11:26 amI agree with Keith Olbermann (11/15/10) about the dubious value of "objectivity" as a journalistic value; he makes a telling point about how journalistic icons like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow are most honored for the moments when they reached conclusions and asserted values.
And I think he's right that the U.S. media establishment's failure to see through the lies that sold the Iraq War is a singular failure of our journalistic system--one that does indeed suggest that we need an entirely different system that better serves our democracy.
Olbermann's MSNBC forerunner, Phil Donahue, was fired in the run up to the war not because he wasn't neutral enough, after all, but because he would hamper the network's ability to be "waving the flag" like its competitors (All Your TV, 2/25/03). What NBC and its corporate parent GE were looking for was not objectivity but the right kind of bias. [...] Read more»
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