Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. http://www.fair.org
FAIR fights censorship, challenges media’s conventional wisdom and champions independent journalism.
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Since the fall of 1986, FAIR has been monitoring corporate media to document bias, government influence and skewed reporting, while championing the efforts of independent journalism.

Mission: FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.

"A Media Matters review of broadcast and cable news channels found that none mentioned the incident of a man unfurling a...
03/07/2020
TV news ignores Nazi flag flown at Bernie Sanders rally

"A Media Matters review of broadcast and cable news channels found that none mentioned the incident of a man unfurling a swastika flag in the crowd at the Sanders rally. The video of the incident was posted on Twitter shortly after it happened, and it has been viewed more than 1.2 million times."

TV news ignores Nazi flag flown at Bernie Sanders rally The incident took place amid a massive resurgence in anti-Semitic attacks. Written by Noor Al-Sibai Published 03/06/20 3:02 PM EST Share Comment Citation Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons On Thursday night, a man unfurled a Nazi flag at a Bernie...

Even before the current Cuba kerfuffle, NBC criticized Bernie Sanders because “he denounced what he called a ‘coup’ aga...
03/06/2020
Media Malfunction as Sanders Notes Positive Aspects of Latin American Socialism

Even before the current Cuba kerfuffle, NBC criticized Bernie Sanders because “he denounced what he called a ‘coup’ against Bolivia’s leftist president, Evo Morales, despite findings by independent groups that Morales tried to steal an election.” Less than a week later, the Washington Post published a report from researchers at the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, saying, “As specialists in election integrity, we find that the statistical evidence does not support the claim of fraud in Bolivia’s October election.”

News organizations seemed unable to process that a major national political figure could say something positive about a socialist country.

Corporate media’s typical framing of Chinese government actions to combat the coronavirus verged on parody, portraying u...
03/06/2020
Coronavirus Alarm Blends Yellow Peril and Red Scare

Corporate media’s typical framing of Chinese government actions to combat the coronavirus verged on parody, portraying uncontroversial moves in the most insidious terms possible. For example, instead of reporting that Hubei government officials were fired for withholding information about the coronavirus outbreak from higher-ups, outlets like CNN and Business Insider claimed they were “purged.” Discussing volunteer efforts to assist China’s effective quarantine efforts, the New York Times’ “To Tame Coronavirus, Mao-Style Social Control Blankets China” framed it as “one of the biggest social control campaigns in history,” and described “neighborhood busybodies” and “uniformed volunteers” aiding the quarantine efforts as “Mao-style mass crusades.”

March 6, 2020Coronavirus Alarm Blends Yellow Peril and Red Scare Joshua Cho  As an Asian-American, I’m not surprised that there are numerous reports surfacing of racist and xenophobic responses arising in the US (and elsewhere) as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, where “coughing while Asia...

After some breathless and some racist coverage on coronavirus and the respiratory illness COVID-19, US media did get aro...
03/06/2020
Josh Bivens on Coronavirus Economics, Mandy Smithberger on Military Economics

After some breathless and some racist coverage on coronavirus and the respiratory illness COVID-19, US media did get around to acknowledging that, for example, many people can't follow the critical recommendation to stay home from work if they're ill; as many as a quarter of US workers don't have any paid sick days. Consideration of the various factors affecting the potential spread of coronavirus and our societal response is not "politicizing" the issue: Public health is inherently political. It's only a matter of how thoughtful and transparent we are.

Economic impacts of epidemics of life-saving and of war-mongering, this week on CounterSpin.

"Doubts about Bernie Sanders’ electability are legion among political observers, yet polls regularly show him performing...
03/06/2020
Study Showing Bernie Needs Huge Youth Turnout Is Nonsense

"Doubts about Bernie Sanders’ electability are legion among political observers, yet polls regularly show him performing near the top of the 2020 pack in matchups against Trump.

"Polls go up and down, of course, but over the past two months Sanders’ average performance in matchups against Trump, according to Real Clear Politics, generally stood above those of Bloomberg, Buttigieg, Warren, and Klobuchar, and typically just a few tenths of a percentage point behind Biden. Evidence of Sanders’ unelectability...can be found everywhere except in nationally representative surveys."

The paper's core claim is based on a simple math error.

MIT Election Data and Science Lab researchers John Curiel and Jack R. Williams published an analysis of the Bolivian ele...
03/05/2020
WaPo Prints Study That Found Paper Backed an Undemocratic Bolivia Coup

MIT Election Data and Science Lab researchers John Curiel and Jack R. Williams published an analysis of the Bolivian election results in the Washington Post that concluded that there “is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find,” and that “the OAS’s statistical analysis and conclusions would appear deeply flawed.” The editorial board had stated as fact that President Evo Morales had “moved to falsify the results of the October 20 vote so as to hand him a first-round victory.”

MIT researchers concluded that there “is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find” in the Bolivian election.

This week, the Washington Post gave us a major piece telling us how Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are two sides of the...
03/04/2020
For WaPo, Flourishing Elites Are a Matter of Perception

This week, the Washington Post gave us a major piece telling us how Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are two sides of the same populist coin. While the piece is confused in many ways, the one point it makes very clearly is that the Post really dislikes Bernie Sanders.

The Washington Post gave us a major piece telling us how Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are two sides of the same populist coin.

The Super PAC supporting Biden, Unite Our Country, raised $3.7 million from 71 donors in 2019—putting its donation avera...
03/03/2020
Do Media Really Care About Money in Politics?

The Super PAC supporting Biden, Unite Our Country, raised $3.7 million from 71 donors in 2019—putting its donation average at $52,113. Yet Biden’s Super PAC support is lumped in with Sanders’ dark money support, which comes from grassroots groups; the most frequently named, Our Revolution, raised $1.87 million in 2019, with an average individual donation of $17.73, and only six donations over $5,000.

Election Focus 2020:

Transcript of Janine Jackson's interview with Carol Anderson on voter suppression:"This isn't just this one thing of, 'O...
03/03/2020
‘We Are Going to Be Back to Where We Were After Reconstruction—Unless We Stop It’

Transcript of Janine Jackson's interview with Carol Anderson on voter suppression:

"This isn't just this one thing of, 'Oh, there weren’t enough voting machines in Gwinnett County, the lines were four-and-a-half hours long because somebody forgot the power cords'; or 'They were long in Fulton County because there were four machines, and there should have been 20.'... But to see the overall pattern, and continuing to hammer it home, about what is at stake in this democracy—it requires good investigative journalism, it requires going beyond the soundbite, it requires a clarion call: This nation is in danger."

"All of these things have the aura of trying to protect democracy...but it's based on the lie of massive rampant voter fraud."

Some of Chris Matthews' greatest hits....
03/03/2020
Chris Matthews: Testosterone Overdose?

Some of Chris Matthews' greatest hits....

July 1, 1999Chris Matthews: Testosterone Overdose? From CNBC's Hardball (5/4/99)FAIRCHRIS MATTHEWS: Has a country ever won a war by avoiding enemy casualties? Isn’t that what we’re doing? We’re blowing up bridges that are dark and buildings that are empty, and killing a few night watchmen who ...

With Super Tuesday around the corner, the Democratic presidential debates are coming to a close. The debates are ostensi...
02/29/2020
Debate Moderators Frame Questions to Define Acceptable Politics

With Super Tuesday around the corner, the Democratic presidential debates are coming to a close. The debates are ostensibly an exercise in democracy, a chance for voters to evaluate candidates’ positions in order to cast a better informed vote in the nominating contest. But a review of three of the most frequent topics of debate starkly demonstrates how media hosts use their platform less to inform voters in an evenhanded way than to define which positions—and candidates—are acceptable, and which are not.

Media debate hosts use their platform to define which positions—and candidates—are acceptable, and which are not.

As media have been unable to convince the electorate that a “moderate,” “pragmatic” candidate is best, perhaps they can ...
02/29/2020
Media Stoop to ‘Russian Assistance’ to Explain Sanders’ Rise

As media have been unable to convince the electorate that a “moderate,” “pragmatic” candidate is best, perhaps they can outsource the task to a mythical Moscow.

The Washington Post's poorly sourced, evidence-free report became the basis for endless stories linking Russia and Bernie Sanders.

Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich's statement at a Ronald Reagan rally in 1980--"I don't want everybody to vot...
02/28/2020
Carol Anderson on Voter Suppression

Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich's statement at a Ronald Reagan rally in 1980--"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people"--is as clear a picture as one needs that voter suppression is seen by many powerful Republicans as a legitimate tool for moving the country in the direction they choose. Taken seriously, this goes beyond partisanship, upending decades of what many understood to be the country's driving political project: the expansion of participation in the democratic process. If only ever thinly veiled, Republican voter suppression is out of the bag now as -- in the wake of a disastrous Supreme Court decision -- state after state moves to commit what CounterSpin's guest this week calls "bureaucratic violence" against overwhelmingly black, brown and low-income communities seeking to exercise their fundamental rights.

When it comes to voter suppression, the fight is less between parties than between democracy and its demonstrated opponents.

House Democrats impeaching Trump exclusively for his dealings with the Ukrainian president, and for preventing Congress ...
02/27/2020
WaPo Backing Limited Impeachment Was Constitutional Disaster

House Democrats impeaching Trump exclusively for his dealings with the Ukrainian president, and for preventing Congress from investigating that isolated incident, was a form of unilateral disarmament that implied Trump was not guilty of anything else, and journalists were under no obligation to stick to that script.

Corporate media’s impeachment coverage obscured the extent of the Trump administration’s litany of impeachable offenses.

Research suggests that a mass switch from smoking to vaping nicotine could save 6.6 million lives over the next decade.
02/27/2020
Media Vapors Over Vaping Cloud Public Health Goals

Research suggests that a mass switch from smoking to vaping nicotine could save 6.6 million lives over the next decade.

There's been a moralist war on nicotine vaping for years, despite the scientific near-consensus that it is far safer than conventional cigarettes, which kill 480,000 Americans a year.

“To believe Sanders is as electable as the moderate candidates, his nomination must increase youth turnout by 30% over 2...
02/26/2020
Bernie Sanders Can’t Win (by as Much) Unless Youth Vote Surges (Like It Recently Has)

“To believe Sanders is as electable as the moderate candidates, his nomination must increase youth turnout by 30% over 2016,” asserts Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum. “Every four years, for as long as I can remember, I’ve heard promises that this is the year we’ll finally get young people to turn out for us. But they never do.”

In fact, turnout for voters 18-29 increased by 30% from 2000 to 2004--as Drum's own chart indicates.

Even assuming Bernie Sanders supporters won't vote as much as they say, and will vote when they say they won't, Sanders still wins.

A New York Times article that compares the tax and spending plans of the leading Democratic contenders gives a true orgy...
02/25/2020
NYT’s Look at Democratic Tax Plans Is an Orgy of Really Big Numbers

A New York Times article that compares the tax and spending plans of the leading Democratic contenders gives a true orgy of really big numbers, in the form of trillions of dollars of additional taxes and spending, providing readers with no context that would let them know how much impact these taxes are likely to have on the economy and/or their pocketbooks.

The New York Times gives readers no context about how much impact taxes are likely to have on the economy and/or their pocketbooks.

Transcript of CounterSpin's special archival show on environmental justice and cross-national solidarity:"There will onl...
02/25/2020
‘We Have to Look at the Underpinnings of Environmental Degradation’

Transcript of CounterSpin's special archival show on environmental justice and cross-national solidarity:

"There will only be an increasing number of frontline struggles between extractive, climate-disrupting industry and those willing to stand up to it. Corporate media’s inadequate attention, and unwillingness to truly call out the moneyed interests causing present and future harms, means that they are more often part of the problem than the solution."

"Environmental degradation is about...US corporations, backed by US government, that are allowed to run roughshod over peoples’ lands."

The prospect of a recently Republican billionaire launching a scorched-earth attack on the party’s most popular politici...
02/24/2020
Bernie Sanders Plunges to First Place

The prospect of a recently Republican billionaire launching a scorched-earth attack on the party’s most popular politician to buy the nomination seems like a recipe for electoral disaster—promising not only a Trump re-election, but a Republican recapture of the House and a sweep of statehouses that would ensure gerrymandered GOP domination of politics at least through 2030. But is that enough to dissuade the Democratic establishment from following such a path?

On Bernie Sanders, corporate media have largely moved past denial to the next stage of grieving, which is anger.

Transcript of Janine Jackson's interview with Nina Luo on decriminalizing sex work:"There's reasonable discourse around ...
02/21/2020
‘What Does Criminalizing People Get Us, and What Does It Get Them?’

Transcript of Janine Jackson's interview with Nina Luo on decriminalizing sex work:

"There's reasonable discourse around what is the best policy to reduce harm. When folks are accusing the sex workers and trafficking survivors that lead the decriminalization movement of presenting a 'happy hooker' narrative, then it's really hard to have an actual discourse, right? Because so many of the folks that we organize with talk about their experiences with coercion and trafficking in the industry, and still know that decriminalization would have helped them and will continue to help people who are in the same situation right now."

“The question then shifts...to ‘How are resources divided up in our societies, and why are people trading sex for survival?’”

There will only be an increasing number of frontline struggles between extractive, climate-disrupting industry and those...
02/21/2020
Paul Paz y Miño, Saqib Bhatti & Beverly Bell on Environmental Justice & Cross-National Solidarity

There will only be an increasing number of frontline struggles between extractive, climate-disrupting industry and those willing to stand up to it. Corporate media’s inadequate attention, and unwillingness to truly call out the moneyed interests causing present and future harms, make them more often part of the problem than the solution.

CounterSpin has had these issues brought to life by a number of guests in recent years; we hear a few of those conversations again on this special archived show.

There will only be an increasing number of frontline struggles between climate-disrupting industry and those willing to stand up to it.

Cop-Hating Vandals or Pro-Democracy Activists?
02/20/2020
Cop-Hating Vandals or Pro-Democracy Activists?

Cop-Hating Vandals or Pro-Democracy Activists?

Their protesters are good, regardless of what they do; ours are criminals. Their cops are bad; ours are under fire for doing their jobs.

‘Corporate Media Are Not Observers of the Electoral Process; They Are Participants’
02/20/2020
‘Corporate Media Are Not Observers of the Electoral Process; They Are Participants’

‘Corporate Media Are Not Observers of the Electoral Process; They Are Participants’

February 19, 2020‘Corporate Media Are Not Observers of the Electoral Process; They Are Participants’ CounterSpin interview with Jim Naureckas on Democratic primariesJanine JacksonJanine Jackson interviewed FAIR’s Jim Naureckas about the Democratic primaries for the February 14, 2020, episode o...

Transcript of Janine Jackson's interview with Karl Grossman on the weaponization of space:"The origins of US space polic...
02/15/2020
‘This Is an Apocalyptic Future That We’re Facing’

Transcript of Janine Jackson's interview with Karl Grossman on the weaponization of space:

"The origins of US space policy involve the Nazi scientists, the space scientists, Wernher von Braun and others, who were brought to the United States after the war. For example, Wernher von Braun, who became associate director of NASA, his big deal was taking the V2 rocket, the Nazi V2 rocket, and making a US version of it, the Redstone, the first US rocket capable of carrying a nuclear missile. And there were others; it goes way back, and it goes through Reagan’s Star Wars, and now it’s, like the Reagan Star Wars program, a full-throated push to weaponize space."

"China and Russia are not going to sit back; they're going to meet us in kind. And other nations will be up there too."

A recent New York Times examination of his ad campaign allowed that "many Democrats are angry that Bloomberg...seems to...
02/14/2020
Pundits Look to Bloomberg as Their Anti-Sanders Savior

A recent New York Times examination of his ad campaign allowed that "many Democrats are angry that Bloomberg...seems to be trying to purchase their party’s nomination"—though it pinned that anger on the idea that his campaign would just "prolong the Democratic contest and, in the end, produce a hobbled nominee," not that buying your way to the White House is fundamentally antithetical to democracy.

"But," the Times went on, "there is a plausible argument that Bloomberg’s candidacy could be a boon to whoever faces Donald Trump in November." This boon is, the paper tells us, that most of Bloomberg's money is going into ads that attack Trump on his record, which may prove to be effective. So, really, who cares about that whole trying-to-buy-the presidency thing?

At the nation's elite newspapers, it's not hard to find pundits jumping on the Bloomberg train as Biden's star plummets.

The helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, Gianna Bryant and seven others was horrific. The love of his family, frien...
02/14/2020
Backlash After Kobe Bryant’s Death Illustrates Continued Resistance to Discussing Sexual Assault

The helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, Gianna Bryant and seven others was horrific. The love of his family, friends and fans is palpable — Bryant’s career positively affected many people. But if journalists’ job is to tell the entire truth, many fell short.

Some writers were able to accurately depict the entire truth of Kobe Bryant’s legacy while still honoring the tragedy of his and his daughter’s death and the positive impact Bryant had on sports.

From debates that encourage sparring over substance, to evidence-free declarations about "electability" or "momentum," t...
02/14/2020
Jim Naureckas on Democratic Primaries, Nina Luo on Decriminalizing Sex Work

From debates that encourage sparring over substance, to evidence-free declarations about "electability" or "momentum," to the insistence, bordering on gaslighting, of the fringiness of ideas that in fact enjoy broad support, corporate media's election coverage would be disappointing at any time. With all that's at stake in 2020, it's a letdown we can ill afford. And a reason, of course, to support independent journalism.

The primary process has foregrounded far more "radical" ideas—and public receptivity to them—than corporate elites are comfortable with.

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Since 1986, FAIR has been monitoring corporate media to document bias, government influence and skewed reporting, while championing the efforts of independent journalism.

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Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting to be fair could you's do a piece on the rigging and Blacking out of Tulsi Gabbard all thru out her campaign only to be fair as she is the only one really with the balls to stand up to the M.I.C the DNC even RT talks about it only to be fair https://youtu.be/IdUlAc2T3LI or does her case get as much click as Bernie? is it all about who will give yous the most clicks?
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting CNN's role during the Democratic primaries is a dubious one. CNN is shown on huge screens at the candidates HQ or at rallies during election night but can hardly be called impartial. CNN for instance has denied to call the win for Sanders in California even though the Associated Press, The Guardian, Politico and even Fox have done so immediately after the polls were closed. Now on the site of CNN they indicate that only 54% of the vote is in while in actual fact 87% of the vote is in, hereby deliberately maintaining the free press narrative of the Biden Super Tuesday victory.