Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media

Associated with the media-watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Lee ( Acid Dreams ) and Solomon ( Killing Our Own ) here document their assertion that the media have come to assume the role of spokespeople for the American business establishment, which allegedly runs the U.S. in general and Washington powerbrokers in particular--and whose press releases and other self-promoting testimonials often wend their way, verbatim, into newsprint. Citing the reluctance of newspapers and TV networks to present dissenting views on military spending, environmental pollution, economic policies that frustrate blacks and Hispanics, and American gunboat diplomacy in Latin America, they make a compelling case for the contention that newsmen and women distort current events. And though in the Reagan-Bush era, theirs is certainly a minority viewpoint, the authors remain convinced a change can be wrought. (June)