FAIR
FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Posts
NYT Presents Social Security Cuts as ‘Solution’ to Problem of Social Security Cuts
The New York Times report failed to inform readers on the remarkable injustice of cutting Social Security benefits, in view of where the funding gap came from.
WaPo Doesn’t Want Voters to Know Medicare for All Will Cut Their Health Costs
The Washington Post tries to spin the healthcare issues into a false competition between access and cost.
Iran ‘Violates’ Nuclear Deal, After US ‘Withdraws’
Reading corporate media’s inversion of reality, it’s hard to escape the impression that while Iran betrays its international agreements, the US just leaves them behind.
Brian Mier on Brazilian Political Scandal
The Brazilian anti-corruption crusade, called Car Wash or Lava Jato, that put popular ex-president Lula da Silva in prison and paved the way for fascist president Jair Bolsanaro—all while being celebrated in the US corporate press—was actually, as critics contended, less interested in corruption than in keeping Lula’s Workers Party out of power.
‘Governments and Corporations Were Figuring Out a Way to Behave With Impunity When It Comes to Oil’
“It’s an actual strategy among oil companies…that if you can fearmonger enough, you can get a public that says, ‘Fine, even though the safety measures are not in place, we’ll drill 10 miles in the ocean if you don’t go to foreign oil.’”
Still Manufacturing Consent: An Interview With Noam Chomsky
Chomsky discusses the origins of the classic work of media criticism (co-authored with Edward Herman) Manufacturing Consent, the role of that book’s “propaganda model” today, Google and Facebook, Donald Trump and Russia, fake news and Syria.
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FAIR’s weekly radio show is hosted by Janine Jackson. CounterSpin is heard on more than 150 noncommercial stations across the United States and Canada. CounterSpin provides a critical examination of the major stories every week, and exposes what the mainstream media might have missed in their own coverage. The current show and a back archive of shows and transcripts are available online.
FAIR Studies
Establishment Media and the Green New Deal: New Wine in Old Bottles
While the resolution was a radical departure from politics as usual, most corporate media filtered coverage of the “Green New Deal” through the lens of conventional expectations.
Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela
A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate media that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period, zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti–regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position.
Which Candidates Are Mentioned Most Often on TV News?
Democratic hopefuls’ TV news mentions track fairly closely with the candidates’ positions in the polls.
Dictator: Media Code for ‘Government We Don’t Like’
The “dictator” label is also a powerful cue, used by media to prime the reader to see a particular country or leader a certain way.
‘Renouncing Violence’ Is a Demand Made Almost Exclusively of Muslims
Why should only these groups—Muslim 95 percent of the time—“renounce violence,” but the US and its allies never have to?
