Jim Naureckas

Newsday headline: Zohran Mamdani Couldn't Identify Billy Joel's 'New York State of Mind'

Mamdani can't recognize a nearly 50-year-old pop song. But then, Newsday caption writers can't spell "Mamdani."

If you ever say the news side is reflecting the owner/execs’ endorsement, reporters will yell at you that newsrooms & editorial boards are TOTALLY SEPARATE

‘CBS Evening News’ Co-Anchor John Dickerson to Exit Network Dickerson, formerly the moderator of 'Face the Nation,' is the first high-profile exit at CBS following the hire of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief.

John Dickerson pays the price for questioning CBS's capitulation to MAGA:

“Can you hold power to account after paying it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?”

www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/j...

Cuomo, Mamdani rally forces in Queens as mayoral race enters final days With the city’s mayoral election racing into the home stretch, Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and Independent candidate Andrew Cuomo on Sunday held rallies in Queens to make pitches to vot…

The New York Daily News gave 13 of the first 14 paragraphs of its story to a Cuomo rally attacking Mamdani--before moving on to a Mamdani rally that drew 40 times as many participants.

www.nydailynews.com/2025/10/26/c...

Fun fact: Tammy Baldwin, one of the four Democratic senators who the #NYTimes claims won because they were "moderates," has the 6th leftmost voting record in the Senate.

WaPo Says ‘Hard Math’ Means Europe Must Lower Its Quality of Life The idea that France may not be able to afford its social spending is a fantasy Washington Post reporters are presenting to their readers as fact.

The Washington Post is deceptively pushing policies that make it more likely that we will get fascism in Europe. More importantly for Jeff Bezos, they will make it less likely that the rich will have to pay more taxes.

fair.org/home/wapo-sa...

CBS’s Suck-Up to Barrett May Be a Taste of Propaganda to Come A softball interview with Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett provides a glimpse of the kind of journalism we can expect from CBS News now.

A glimpse of the kind of journalism we can expect from CBS News now that it’s controlled by MAGA billionaire Larry Ellison’s nepo baby and anti-“woke” ideologue Bari Weiss

From FAIR's Jim @naureckas.bsky.social
fair.org/home/cbss-su...

CBS’s Suck-Up to Barrett May Be a Taste of Propaganda to Come A softball interview with Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett provides a glimpse of the kind of journalism we can expect from CBS News now.

Saying that “this administration always wins” when it makes emergency appeals to the Supreme Court was “obviously false,” CBS's Jan Crawford offered "one high-profile example"--there's only 2 to choose from--and she gets that one wrong.

fair.org/home/cbss-su...

Under Trump, Criticism Is Now Criminal After the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, Trump escalated his war on free speech, calling for criminalizing criticism of himself.

This is not a drill: Trump says that people who criticize him and his administration are responsible for "terrorism," and he's outlined a plan to prosecute this "conspiracy."

fair.org/home/under-t...

YouTube Bends the Knee Welcome to the era of Big-Tech capitulation.

"These three companies alone have collectively paid Trump and his associates $59.5 million for the sin of enforcing the rules of their own privately held companies."

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

When a Shooter Is Trans—and Not a Cis Male—Suddenly Identity Matters Most media outlets focused on profiling the shooter—who was transgender—treating the shooting as an isolated case rather than part of a larger, systemic issue.

The "trans shooter" meme illustrates a flaw in the way our minds work: We pay attention to things because they're unusual, then think they're common because we're paying attention to them.

fair.org/home/when-a-...

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says Broadcasters Should Lose Licenses for Criticizing Him

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

Trump Administration Live Updates: President Says Broadcasters Should Lose Licenses for Criticizing Him

@nytimes.com : "Mr. Trump and administration officials have long championed free speech, but their actions—as well as their promises since Charlie Kirk’s killing—to guarantee it have been replaced by efforts to quash criticism."

When did Trump administration actions guarantee free speech?

These performances of debate-unity only reach the NYT audience. Meanwhile, the leaders of the Right are signaling to their supporters that the time for a comprehensive crackdown on the “enemy within” has come. Klein isn’t doing anything to defuse the situation - he’s obscuring the problem.

I suspect the supposed text messages released by the FBI are a reconstruction of how the roommate remembers the exchange, created with the help of FBI interrogators. Thus the stilted language and the way it serves prosecutorial needs--without being something the roommate will disavow in court.

The actual politics of free speech is fueled by a right-wing political strategy. - Boston Review Nicole Hemmer responds to Alex Gourevitch’s “The Right to Be Hostile.”

”Self-professed defenders of free speech have become the most fervent advocates and agents of government censorship in the twenty-first century.” @pastpunditry.bsky.social

The leading voices of MAGA are ready to declare a police state over the killing of Charlie Kirk -- carried out, as it appears, by someone even further right than Kirk.

🤬cnn hire www.instagram.com/reel/DOjBEjI...

NYT Buries News That Experts on Genocide Say Israel Is Committing It A declaration by genocide scholars that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza was widely seen as significant news--but not by the New York Times.

During the Holocaust, the @nytimes.com shamefully buried news of the mass murder of Jews in its back pages, sometimes tucked in at the end of unrelated articles. With genocide scholars saying a new genocide is happening in #Gaza, the Times is behaving the same way.

fair.org/home/nyt-bur...

Media Dance Around Illegality of Trump’s Third-Country Deportation Scheme US corporate media have not shied away from reporting on third-country deportations, but tend to dance around the illegality of the whole matter.

The corporate media template: Go ahead and admit that the US government is consciously and intentionally setting refuge seekers up to “end up in brutal conditions,” but don’t bother dwelling on where that slippery slope might lead us all.

fair.org/home/media-d...

The Student Newspaper Suing Marco Rubio Over Targeted Deportations The Stanford Daily argues the First Amendment protects journalists from arcane laws used against Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk.

I'm proud to learn that the paper I wrote for in college is suing Marco Rubio on behalf of the First Amendment.

theintercept.com/2025/08/26/s...?

I miss the First Amendment.

What Americans think of 120 political leaders | YouGov Barack Obama is by far the most well-liked political figure among the 120 asked about, with a net favorability among Americans of +22.

The most popular active US politician is Bernie Sanders, with a +12 net favorability. Compare that to Chuck Schumer, with a -31 net. Yet Sanders is considered fringe, whereas Schumer is mainstream, pragmatic, a natural leader of the Democratic Party.

today.yougov.com/politics/art...

I hear there may be a few other things going on in DC... but I discussed the city’s sweetheart stadium deal with Janine Jackson on @fairmediawatch.bsky.social’s radio show Counterspin

Starvation in Gaza divides many Jewish Americans Images of starving children have caused what some call a “rupture” between supporters of Israel’s offensive and opponents of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Corporate journalists see pretending not to know what's going on as a central part of their job.

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...?

For Media, Trying to Help Gazans Survive Turns Heroes Into Zeroes It would be hard to make up a story with more dramatic potential. Yet corporate media somehow knew this was a story to steer clear of.

A public figure that's been the subject of cover stories and feature spreads risks his life to bring food to starving children: Here's why that's not a newsworthy story.

fair.org/home/for-med...

"We agree that's a problem, and we're going to do less to solve it" is never going to be a winning political message.

Amazon Union Leader Chris Smalls Detained & Beaten by IDF, But US Media Ignores It On Monday, details emerged that not only was Smalls detained, but he was physically beaten by the IDF. He was the only Black member of the Freedom Flotilla on the Handala.

Chris Smalls, Amazon organizer, is one of the most prominent labor activists in the country. Yet when he was beaten by the IDF while trying to bring life-saving aid to Gaza, it got virtually no US corporate media coverage.

paydayreport.com/amazon-union...

Trump effectively confessed he knew what Epstein was doing, and the mainstream media whiffed | Press Watch Stenography isn’t enough when Trump unleashes something wildly self-incriminating

NEW: Trump effectively confessed he knew what Epstein was doing, and the mainstream media whiffed: presswatchers.org/2025/07/trum...

An 18-month-old was born in January 2024. This kid has no problems that pre-existed the Israeli genocide.