In its article, Gaza as 'PR Battle', FAIR reports that: "The three-week Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip ... was accompanied by aggressive public relations strategies intended to improve the assault’s portrayal in international media. 'In the war of the pictures we lose, so you need to correct, explain or balance it in other ways,' said Israeli public affairs official Aviv Shir-On ... In U.S. corporate media, that effort faced little resistance."
The article goes on to examine how the US news media handled the PR efforts of Israel.
Oh, just to be sure you know, this article was from 2009!
That it is happening again is truly amazing (not yet another war there, but the lack of critical coverage in the media, again).
Showing posts with label FAIR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FAIR. Show all posts
Friday, August 1, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
FAIR on the drug war
From Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR):
"When [President] Obama said pot wasn't more dangerous than alcohol, it was a huge understatement: Statistically, alcohol is vastly more deadly. Yet media portrayed his remarks as enormously controversial--judging his statement by culture war rather than public health standards."
I find this so interesting, because it is pretty close to being exactly what I told my students in my drug war class. Alcohol kills about 88,000 people a year, not including people killed in alcohol-related car crashes, yet data from the CDC's Wonder program show that marijuana kills maybe 1.48 people per year.
Do the media accurately tell this story? See for yourself. Talk about embarrassing.
"When [President] Obama said pot wasn't more dangerous than alcohol, it was a huge understatement: Statistically, alcohol is vastly more deadly. Yet media portrayed his remarks as enormously controversial--judging his statement by culture war rather than public health standards."
I find this so interesting, because it is pretty close to being exactly what I told my students in my drug war class. Alcohol kills about 88,000 people a year, not including people killed in alcohol-related car crashes, yet data from the CDC's Wonder program show that marijuana kills maybe 1.48 people per year.
Do the media accurately tell this story? See for yourself. Talk about embarrassing.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
2010 BAD journalism prizes
Some of the winners for 2010:
In the wake of a release of damning WikiLeaks documents about the state of the Afghan War, Time magazine's August 9 cover sought to turn the debate over the war around. The photo was of an Afghan woman's maimed face, headlined "What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan." The implication couldn't be clearer: The Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. The fact that this particularly atrocity--whose connection to the Taliban has been questioned--happened with U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan complicates Time's argument. Time's Rick Stengel defended the cover story by explaining that "bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them.... I would rather confront readers with the Taliban's treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan." We're still waiting for a Time cover that confronts readers with the bad things that happen to Afghans--including women and children--who are hit with U.S. bombs.
During the debate over Arizona's harsh immigration law SB 1070, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly made a case in support of Arizona's crackdown: More immigrations equal more crime. According to O'Reilly, Phoenix's crime problem is "out of control" (5/3/10); in the state overall, the crime problem is "through the roof" (5/4/10, 5/13/10, 5/14/10), it is "overwhelming" (5/6/10). One problem: There was no crime wave in Arizona or Phoenix, where authorities were reporting that crime was actually down--which research suggests is typical in areas with higher immigrant populations (FAIR Action Alert, 5/17/10). After FAIR noted O'Reilly's errors, he actually stopped making them. But he soon found new ways to justify his anti-immigrant stance, like arguing that crime is indeed down along the border--because immigrants have stopped coming into the country (FAIR Blog, 6/21/10).
After 29 workers died at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, talkshow host Rush Limbaugh (4/9/10) fingered the culprit: the miners' union. "Where was the union?" he asked. "The union is generally holding these companies up demanding all kinds of safety. Why were these miners continuing to work in what apparently was an unsafe atmosphere?" As it turned out, the mine, owned by notorious union-buster Massey Energy, didn't have a union. Alerted to his inaccuracy, Limbaugh (4/15/10) doubled down, saying that 85 union coal miners won a decision against Massey and were re-hired. "So there were union workers there, and so the United Mine Workers should have been overseeing their safety.... You people, it's been 21 years. At some point you are going to learn: If you go up against me on a challenge of fact, you are going to be wrong. It's just that simple." What's even simpler? Disproving him: Those workers he's talking about are from an entirely different mine owned by Massey--which has appealed the ruling, so even those workers aren't back on the job yet (AFL-CIO Blog, 4/16/10).
More here
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/12/30-7
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