Ava and C.I. write to FAIR

In anticipation of their media piece this edition, Ava and C.I. e-mailed the following to FAIR on Friday:
 To: fair@fair.org Fri, Apr 17 at 12:09 PM

Good morning,

This is a dictated e-mail.

We will be covering FAIR's silence -- especially COUNTERSPIN's silence -- on Tara Reade for THE THIRD ESTATE SUNDAY REVIEW.

Background, we spent our early years online at THIRD and at THE COMMON ILLS constantly praising COUNTERSPIN and FAIR.

That became harder to do as we absorbed your lessons and applied them to you. We wrote, for example, in 2006 about how you called out PBS' THE NEWSHOUR for the inequality in the gender of their guests but that when we looked at COUNTERSPIN's own guest list it was pretty sad.

We also called out your silence on sexism in 2008 -- one sentence, as we noted.

Now we're going to ask why COUNTERSPIN and FAIR -- media 'watchdogs' -- are ignoring the way Tara Reade is covered or the way she is ignored by the media.

Like Time's Up do you feel that your tax status means you can't cover Tara?

If not, what is the reason why you've avoided any critique of the media's long silence on Tara Reade until after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race, then rushing to all (AP, NYT, WASHINGTON POST) publish on Easter Sunday or what about the non-stop attacks on Tara the media's found time for as opposed to the way other women who step forward claiming to be raped and/or assaulted are treated.

We would love to applaud you.  We would love to be able to do that.

For years, for example, we loved Steve's work -- until the nonsense about the LA TIMES columnist Joyce Harber destroying Jean Seberg. Seberg was destroyed by NEWSWEEK and that is not a side issue or a minor detail. Joyce ran a blind item, as we've noted many times, which could have been about Jean or Jane Fonda or any number of women. NEWSWEEK -- which Romain Gary sued -- printed Jean's name with the rumor and lied that they had spoken to Jean. That's never been addressed. It came out of France which, wake up, says it was more than a FBI plot against Jean -- the CIA participated which would explain how NEWSWEEK was involved. Other than that, we've enjoyed Steve's work. We loved Peter Hart when he was with FAIR.

If you have any comment you would like included, it will be included in full.

We don't expect perfection, we just expect you to live up to the same standards you grade others on.

Thank you,

Ava and C.I.

mtw