fair.org is a great resource and a necessary corrective to the mainstream media. They've been particularly good at documenting the lies and propaganda in the New York Times and Washington Post during the last few years:
Despite History of Fabrication, Press Uncritically Covers IDF-Provided Documents on Hamas
For NYT’s ‘Free Speech’ Maven, Racism Needs Protection, Gaza Protests Don’t
NYT Engages in Front-Page IDF ‘Womenwashing’
And so on. They're pretty essential. And they're not that different from what we might try to do in this comm.
From their freelance guidelines page (linked above):
A typical FAIR story focuses on US media coverage of a story currently in the news or an issue that receives perennial coverage, e.g., Afghanistan. We also occasionally cover news about the media—for example, layoffs of journalists, labor disputes or media mergers—and stories of activism that challenges media bias, censorship or policy.
...
Freelancers receive $300 per article, paid within two weeks of publication. To help our message find the widest possible audience, we request that writers grant FAIR the right to approve republication of their articles; any proceeds from such reprints would belong to the writers. We also ask that you grant us the right to publish your piece in the Nexis media database. FAIR publishes under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Creative Commons license, which allows for published work to be copied, distributed, displayed and performed for noncommercial purposes if full attribution is given and no alterations are made to the work.
Submissions from BIPOC, women and LGBTQ writers are particularly encouraged.
Because of FAIR's history (they've been publishing since 1986) and reputation for accuracy, their articles are often the first thing I send to libs who realize that something is wrong with the coverage they're reading from other outlets. At the beginning of the Ukraine war I must have sent this one to everyone I know. Some people memory-holed it immediately, naturally, but this stuff often works on people who will read it in good faith.
Maybe this comm can be a space for practicing or collaborating on writing takedowns and correctives like this?
Any advice on where to start for someone who might be interested in writing but is not sure about a topic? Also, I could potentially be available to provide editorial assistance if anyone else has something cooking.
What's a topic where you know how to spot the propaganda at first glance? (Whether it's because you're personally involved in the issue, have done previous research, or have merely listened to a :citations-needed: episode.) Take that, and then use a recently published example of the propaganda in action to demonstrate to a general reader how to recognize the same techniques. If there isn't a recently published example, you can probably just wait and pounce when one inevitably arrives.
Or maybe just have some questions in mind whenever you read mainstream news, and then pick a topic based on whichever article makes you angriest -
- Who benefits from the issue being framed this way?
- Who isn't being quoted here? (And what false binary are they introducing by making so-and-so the voice of the opposition on this topic?)
- What obvious liar are they taking at their word here? What conflict of interest are they sweeping under the rug?
