Dan Gainor

BMI's Gainor On 'Fox and Friends' Discusses Time's Iwo Jima-Mocking Cover

By Paul Detrick | April 21, 2008 - 12:28 ET

Dan Gainor appeared on Fox News's "Fox and Friends" to talk about the latest issue of Time magazine, which had a Photoshopped cover of World War II Marines raising a tree instead of the American flag at Iwo Jima.

Gainor told viewers of the Saturday morning broadcast April 19, "Time magazine basically tried to co-op an icon of American heroism to push their global warming agenda. They're trying to claim that their war against global warming is similar to what our veterans endured during WWII."

He went on to say that there were 28,000 casualties and more than 6,000 people killed at Iwo Jima, exclaiming, "That's real war."

Gainor in IBD: Journalists Contribute to Economic Pessimism

By Nathan Burchfiel | April 7, 2008 - 13:52 ET

The news media contribute to the American public's pessimism about the economy, Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor wrote in Investor's Business Daily April 4.

"Major downturns aren't just caused by economic circumstances anymore. The news media will have done their best to help it along with years of negativity," Gainor wrote. "They've succeeded in part already. The March 18 USA Today reported a Gallup poll showing that 59 percent of Americans thinking a depression ‘lasting several years' is ‘likely, and 79 percent are worried about the possibility.'"

The three broadcast network news shows compared current economic conditions to the Great Depression more than two dozen times since the beginning of 2008. "Gallup simply heard people parrot what they were told," Gainor said.

He compared media coverage of the economy to advertising's effect on the public's buying habits and called out a Washington Post columnist who went so far as to say that "the best thing that could happen to our economy is for a dozen high-profile hedge funds to collapse; for investment banking to enter a long, deep freeze; for a major bank to fail."

BMI’s Gainor: ‘Maybe We’re Using Too Much Government Intervention’

By Nathan Burchfiel | April 7, 2008 - 09:57 ET

Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor told the Fox Business Network on April 4 that the government might be intervening too much in the financial markets to address credit problems, and he criticized the media for failing to cover both sides fairly.

"The networks are not portraying at all the other point which is: maybe we're using too much government intervention. Maybe we're using too much regulation," Gainor said. "Instead they're using the worst-case scenario reporting" to support government intervention.

BMI’s Gainor: ‘Stewardship’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Lunacy’

By Nathan Burchfiel | March 6, 2008 - 18:10 ET

Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor told viewers of the Fox Business Network that stewardship of the environment "doesn't mean you have to embrace every bit of global warming lunacy that comes down the pike."

In his March 6 appearance, Gainor discussed BMI's new report, "Global Warming Censored," showed that network news shows routinely shut out debate on climate issues, even from scientists' perspectives. In fact, in 80 percent of the stories studied an alternate viewpoint wasn't even mentioned.

And when network news shows did feature dissenting views, those people were often branded as "deniers" or "flat Earthers." Scott Pelley, a reporter for CBS, continued to report on climate change for that network despite his 2006 comparison of global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers.

BMI’s Gainor Talks Depression Coverage on Fox Biz

By Nathan Burchfiel | February 29, 2008 - 10:23 ET

BMI Vice President Dan Gainor took to the Fox Business Network Thursday to explain the difference between "depression," "recession" and "slow growth," terms the mainstream media has blurred.

Economists "don't even agree that we're in a recession yet," Gainor said. "But then if you watch the network news shows, we're already up to eight times this year - that's once a week where they've made a comparison to the Great Depression."

Gainor was referring to new research from the Business & Media Institute showing the media's tendency to compare current economic conditions to the Great Depression. Network news shows have made the comparison eight times in 2008, and made the comparison 18 times in 2007.

Fox Biz’s Claman: ‘We’re Nowhere Near the Great Depression’

By Nathan Burchfiel | February 15, 2008 - 17:49 ET

Vice President of the Business & Media Institute Dan Gainor outlined the media's failure in covering consumer confidence numbers in a February 15 appearance on the Fox Business Network.

"What we're talking about, instead of consumer confidence, we're talking about media competence," Gainor said. "Last year, July was the six-year high for consumer confidence and yet if you watch any one of the three network news shows, evening news shows, you didn't see it."

BMI’s Gainor Criticizes Media for Coverage of ‘Flash, Not Substance’

By Nathan Burchfiel | February 8, 2008 - 17:41 ET

In an appearance on the Fox Business Network February 8, Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor criticized the media's refusal to fully report the costs associated with campaign promises being made by presidential candidates.

"You would actually think the media had talked about how much it's going to cost," Gainor said of the hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending promised by the candidates. "And in fact it's quite the opposite."

Aside from some coverage of Sen. Hillary Clinton's massive universal health care coverage proposal, much of her $217 billion in promises has gone unreported. The same goes for Sen. Barack Obama, who leads all candidates with $287 billion in new proposals, according to estimates from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

Dan Gainor Appears on Fox Biz to Discuss Bad Biz at NYT

By Paul Detrick | February 1, 2008 - 10:43 ET

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network January 31 to discuss reasons why The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) revenue numbers decreased recently - saying that its product is the problem.

"People have lost confidence in the media according to most studies...Most Americans understand that the...mainstream media are overwhelmingly liberal, overwhelming out of touch with a lot of their issues," Gainor said.

Gainor cited an instance where the Times was ran a story about veterans being more violent when they come back to the United States - turning "anecdotes into a loosely connected story and when you do that you alienate readers. They're the people that the Times work for. Journalists forget that."

Dan Gainor Praises Velshi, Golodryga on FBN

By Nathan Burchfiel | December 26, 2007 - 10:13 ET

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network December 21, 2007, to discuss the media's coverage of the economy. Full of Christmas spirit, Gainor had kind words for two mainstream reporters.

"Even in the mainstream media there are people who get it. Looking back this year one of the big stars whose improvement was surprising is CNN's Ali Velshi who delivers a much calmer look," Gainor said.

"It's nice to see somebody out there saying, ‘Oh, actually the markets aren't really doing that bad," he said, praising ABC's Bianna Golodryga. The "Good Morning America" reporter received high marks for balanced coverage of the stock market.

Dan Gainor on Fox Biz Discussing Media’s Coverage of Subprime Mortgage Problem

By Paul Detrick | December 6, 2007 - 18:50 ET

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network December 6 to discuss how the media is choosing sides in the subprime housing problem.

"All throughout this whole year and actually if you go back in the last year and before [the media] have been pointing out that the lenders are the bad guys...CBS News who actually did an okay report last night, then the example they use is someone who has a 6.6% adjustable rate adjusting up to 9.6%, they've got a house the size of a mansion and they've got horses."

Gainor said the important thing that journalists fail to do is to get both the lenders and the home buyer's viewpoints.

BMI Director Dan Gainor on ‘Fox and Friends’

By Stuart James | November 26, 2007 - 13:00 ET

Just in time for Thanksgiving, BMI Director Dan Gainor stopped by ‘Fox and Friends' to remind everyone that the economy is not as bad as people think, and that despite what the media said about your Thanksgiving dinner, it wasn't that bad.

"If you look at the inflation-adjusted number, it [Thanksgiving dinner] is actually 9 percent cheaper over the last 20 years," Gainor said.

BMI has focused recently on the media's doom and gloom predictions of the economy and released a study on the way debt is portrayed by the mainstream media.

BMI’s Gainor Discusses Media’s Downbeat Economic Coverage

By Paul Detrick | November 15, 2007 - 18:03 ET

Bad economy! Bad, bad, bad economy!

Business & Media Institute director Dan Gainor appeared on ‘Fox Business Live' November 15 to discuss the media's focus on the negative parts of the economy. Two of the networks, NBC and CBS led with positive news of the year's second best day of the year, but then focused on high gas prices this week.

"It goes beyond ‘it bleeds, it leads.' This is a consistent theme we've been watching for several years...Any time you have any sort of negative news they hype that and any sort of positive news, they undercut it," said Gainor.

Dan Gainor Discusses 'Going Green' on CNBC’s Power Lunch

By Paul Detrick | November 9, 2007 - 16:27 ET

Is it time for more businesses to ‘go green'? Not so fast, says Director of the Business & Media Institute Dan Gainor.

Gainor appeared on CNBC's "Power Lunch" November 9 to discuss business investment in green products, a popular story on many news programs.

"The problem is companies are spending tons of green, going green...for some things, Wal-Mart has found some solutions that make a lot of sense, but then you look at Fed-Ex, they found that just going to hybrid trucks...were 75% more expensive," said Gainor.

You can watch the YouTube video after the break.

BMI on TV: Businesses Stepping Up to Help Calif. Fire Victims

By Paul Detrick | October 26, 2007 - 15:45 ET

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network October 25 to talk about business contributions to victims of the Southern California wildfires:

Every time there's a disaster, when we had Katrina and now with this disaster - [Businesses] immediately take out all the stops. Already I've seen at least $4 million contributed from charity from Wal-Mart, from Bank of America, from Disney, from Target, the business community steps up right away. When we had Katrina, there was like $70 million contributed within days ... and almost no coverage at all.

A few might be starting to catch on - CNN did mention contributions of Home Depot, MasterCard, Verizon, Sprint and Wells Fargo on the October 26 "American Morning."

Video (1:41): Real (2.12 MB) or Windows (6.11 MB) or MP3 (607 KB)

BMI’s Dan Gainor Makes First Appearance on New Fox Business Channel

By Genevieve Ebel | October 18, 2007 - 16:20 ET

Dan Gainor, director of the MRC’s Business & Media Institute, appeared today on the new Fox Business channel. During the 3 o’clock hour of ‘Fox Business Live,’ Gainor contributed to the discussion of the media’s recent economic coverage on a segment called ‘Blasting Biz .’

On the eve of the 20th anniversary of Black Monday, Live’s anchor, David Asman, probed Gainor on why, despite a rising stock market, networks are still reporting all the bad news.

Video (2:01): Real (3.31 MB) and Windows (7.27 MB), plus MP3 audio (945 kB).

BMI's Dan Gainor Appears on 'Fox and Friends' to Discuss 'If You Were a Terrorist...' Blog at NY Times

By Paul Detrick | August 10, 2007 - 15:11 ET

Business & Media Institute director Dan Gainor appeared on "Fox and Friends" this morning to talk about a blog posting by Freakanomics blogger Steven D. Levitt that asked, "If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?"

"This from the media right after they were criticizing how Rupert Murdoch might run The Wall Street Journal. Why doesn't anyone in the mainstream media criticize how The New York Times is run by Arthur Sulzberger," Gainor told Fox News Channel viewers.

Gainor also pointed out that Levitt was trying, "to get as much possible press...and The New York Times is loving it."

Video (2:13): Real (1.62 MB) or Windows (1.36 MB) or MP3 (1.00 MB)