FAIR, the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information.
Robin Andersen, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University. She also directs the Peace and Justice Studies Program. Her book, A Century of Media: A Century of War by Peter Lang Publishing in 2006, won the Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award for 2007. She is the author of dozens of book chapters and journal articles, and writes media criticism for a variety of publications. Her current research explores the implications of merging news and information with entertainment and fiction in media representations of war, including war-themed video games.Her article, “From America’s Army to Call of Duty: Doing Battle with the Military Entertainment Complex,” Robin Andersen and Marin Kurti, is published in Democratic Communique Volume 23, Issue 1 – Spring 2009. Her latest article, “Media Literacy, Sustainability and Citizenship,” is published in State of the World 2010, by the World Watch Institute. Her other books include Consumer Culture and TV Programmingby Westview Press, and she co-edited the Oxford University Press anthology Critical Studies in Media Commercialism. She co-edited Battleground: The Media, a reference set in 2 Volumes for Greenwood Publishing in 2008.