This week on CounterSpin: In March, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.”
But as Greg Shupak writes, even as evidence accumulates, denial is becoming socially and journalistically acceptable. Soon after the UN special rapporteur on the right to food asserted that Israel’s forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza was genocidal, Jonah Goldberg took to the LA Times to assure readers that Israel’s actions do not “amount to genocide,” and such claims are based on “Soviet propaganda” and Holocaust denial.
Years from now, we’ll hear about how everyone saw the nightmare and everyone opposed it. But history is now, and the world is watching. We’ll talk about real-time efforts to address the Israeli war on Palestinians with Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
This week on CounterSpin: At some point, we will get tired of hearing news reports on “record heat”—because the “records” will continue to be broken, and “heat” will have stopped meaning what it once may have meant. Media play a role in moving us from questions about where to buy a good air conditioner to what stands in the way of addressing a public health catastrophe? One obstacle is utility companies. In February of last year, we spoke with Shelby Green at Energy and Policy Institute and Selah Goodson Bell at the Center for Biological Diversity, about their research on the topic.
Also on the show: Some listeners will know that veteran labor organizer and author Jane McAlevey died recently. The tributes are coming in, but I have little doubt in saying that McAlevey would care less for attention to her life in particular than to those of people she worked for, inside and outside of unions. CounterSpin spoke with her in 2018, when the #metoo campaign was coming to fore. We’ll hear some of that conversation this week on the show.
This week on CounterSpin: The power of the algorithm is ever clearer in our lives, even if we don’t understand it. You might see it as deciding what you see on social media sites, where maybe they get it wrong: You don’t actually want to see a lot of horror movies, or buy an air fryer; you just clicked on that once.
But algorithms don’t only just guess at what you might like to buy; sometimes they’re determining whether you get a job, or keep it. Some 40 million people in the US use online platforms to find work, to find livelihood. The algorithms these platforms use create an environment where organizations enact rules for workers’ behavior, reward and sanction them based on that, but never allow workers to see these accountancies that make their lives unpredictable, much less work with them to develop measurements that would be meaningful.
Hatim Rahman has been working on this question; he’s assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. And he’s author of a new book about it: Inside the Invisible Cage: How Algorithms Control Workers, forthcoming in August from University of California Press.
This week on CounterSpin: Headlined “The Cash Monster Was Insatiable,” a 2022 New York Timespiece reported insurance companies gaming Medicare Advantage, presented as a “low-cost” alternative to traditional Medicare. One company pressed doctors to add additional illnesses to the records of patients they hadn’t seen for weeks: Dig up enough new diagnoses, and you could win a bottle of champagne. Some companies cherry-picked healthier seniors for enrollment with cynical tricks like locating their offices up flights of stairs.
Such maneuvers don’t lead to good health outcomes, but they serve the real goal: netting private insurers more money. There is now new research on the problem, and the response. We hear from David Himmelstein, co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program and co-author of this new analysis of Medicare Advantage.
Also on the show: You may get the impression from media that marijuana is legal everywhere now, that it’s moved from blight to business, if you will. It’s not as simple as that, and many people harmed by decades of criminalization have yet to see any benefit from decriminalization. Tauhid Chappell has tracked the issue for years now; he teaches the country’s first graduate-level course on equity movements in the cannabis industry, at Thomas Jefferson University. We’ll get an update from him.
This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump told a Las Vegas crowd earlier this month that, if elected, the “first thing” he would do would be to end the IRS practice of taxing tips as part of workers’ regular income. “For those hotel workers and people that get tips, you’re going to be very happy,” he said. Labor advocates were quick to call it out as unserious pandering, particularly in the light of hostility toward efforts to provide those workers a livable basic wage.
Unfortunately, Trump can count on a general haziness in the public mind on the impact of “tipped wages,” more helpfully labeled subminimum wages. And that’s partly due to a corporate press corps who, through the decades-long fight on the issue, always give pride of place to the industry narrative that, as a Chicago Sun-Times headline said, “Getting Rid of Tipped Wages in Illinois Would Be the Final Blow to Many Restaurants.” And often lead with customers, like one cited in a recent piece in Bon Appetit, who proudly states that he only tips 10%, half today’s norm, because it’s what he’s always done, and “if servers want more, then they should put the same effort in that I took to earn that money.”
As president of the group One Fair Wage, Saru Jayaraman is a leading mythbuster on the history, practice and impact of tipping. CounterSpin talked with her in November 2015. We’ll hear that conversation again today, when much of what she shares is still widely unexplored and misunderstood.
This week on CounterSpin: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote dozens of pages justifying his decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, stating the Constitution does not confer the right to determine whether or when to give birth. None of those pages mention his intention to make the United States “a place of godliness,” or his belief that there can be no compromise on such concerns, because “one side or the other is going to win.” Yet those are thoughts Alito freely expressed with a woman he thought was just a stranger at a public event. So: Will elite news media now suggest we just go back to considering the Supreme Court a neutral body, deserving of life terms because they’re above the fray of politics? How long until we see news media take on this pretend naivete, and how much it’s costing us? Jim Naureckas is editor of FAIR.org and the newsletter Extra!. We talk to him about that.
Also on the show: The news that “the economy” is doing great on paper doesn’t square with the tone-deaf messaging from food companies about mysteriously stubborn high prices: Kellogg’s says, sure, cereal’s weirdly expensive, so why not eat it for dinner! Chipotle’s head honcho says you are not, in fact, getting a smaller portion for the same price—but, you know, if you are, just nod your head a certain way. None of this indicates a media universe that takes seriously the widespread struggle to meet basic needs. Which may explain the failure to find the story in the upsurge in dollar stores, supposedly filling a void for low-income people, but actually just another avenue for ripping them off. We talk about that with Kennedy Smith from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
This week on CounterSpin: Surprising no one, Donald Trump and his sycophants responded to his 34-count conviction on charges of lying in business records by claiming that the trial was “rigged,” the judge and jury corrupt, that it was somehow Joe Biden’s doing, and “you know who else was persecuted? Jesus Christ.” Trump publicly calling the judge a “devil,” and Bible-thumping House Speaker Mike Johnson and others showing up at the courthouse in Trump cosplay, were just some of the irregular, shall we say, elements of this trial. It is a moment to examine the right-wing media that have fomented this scary nonsense, but also to look to reporting from the so-called “mainstream” to go beyond the “some say, others differ” pablum we often see. We’ll talk with Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters, about press response to the trial and the verdict.
Also on the show: For some people the violent police crackdown on peaceful college students protesting their schools’ investments in Israel’s war on Palestinians has been eye-opening. For others, it’s one more example of the employment of law enforcement to brutally enforce corporate power. The fight led by Indigenous women against the Dakota Access pipeline is not long enough ago to have been forgotten. We’ll hear a bit from an August 2017 interview with North Dakota organizer Kandi Mossett.
This week on CounterSpin: In 2023, the California legislature passed legislation that said that big corporations doing business in the state have to tell the public, investors, how much pollution they’re emitting throughout their supply chain. It’s knowable information, and people have a right to know it, right? The same way restaurants here in New York City have to tell potential customers how they did on their last health inspection; you can eat there or not, but at least you’re making an informed decision.
But no! This past January, the US Chamber of Commerce and a bunch of other industry groups challenged those laws, because, they said, making companies disclose the impact of their actions—in this case, their emissions—would force them to publicly express a “speculative, noncommercial, controversial and politically charged message.” That, they said, makes the laws a “pressure campaign” aimed at shaping company behavior.
Unfortunately, some courts are indulging this bizarre notion that regulation should be illegal, essentially, because it forces companies to say stuff they’d rather not say. Fortunately, other courts are calling this self-serving nonsense self-serving nonsense. But it’s not just a legal matter; public information, our right to know, is also on the line here, so we should know what’s going on.
Katherine Li addresses this issue in a recent piece for the Lever, where she is an editorial fellow. We hear from her this week on CounterSpin.
Law enforcement at UCLA looks on as student peace protesters are attacked by a right-wing mob (CNN, 5/16/24).
This week on CounterSpin: As an historic catastrophe, the deep and myriad impacts of Israel’s assault on Palestinians will not be fully understood until years from now, if then. That only adds urgency to present-day resistance to the collateral assault—on the ability to witness, to record and to remember. And of course to protest. The violent, state-sponsored attacks on college students and faculty across the country, who are standing in solidarity with Palestinians and opposed to colleges’ investment in the war and occupation, are showcasing many things—among them the abandonment by many educational institutions of their responsibility to protect not only students, but the space in which they can speak and learn freely.
When we spoke with historian Ellen Schrecker in 2017, she noted that the power of the movement associated with Joseph McCarthy was not the man himself, but the “collaboration of the employers, of the mainstream media, of the legal system, you name it, to go along with this anti-Communist purge.” And while many people feel comforted that McCarthy the man was eventually censured by the Senate, the truth is “the American political spectrum narrowed [and] a whole bunch of ideas and causes kind of disappeared from American political discourse and American political life.”
We hear again today from historian and author Ellen Schrecker, co-editor of the new book The Right to Learn: Resisting the Ring-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom, from Beacon Press.
This week on CounterSpin: You and I may know that the 2020 election was not stolen from Donald Trump through various mysterious sorts of skullduggery. That does not mean that we can whistle past the fact that many people who vote do believe that. Many of those people are activated in a way that goes beyond easily ignorable segments on OAN, and has meaning for November. Steven Rosenfeld reports on transparency, among other electoral issues, for Voting Booth. We’ll hear from him about kinds of election interference we ignore at our peril.
Also on the show: You and I may believe that democracy means, at its core, something like “one person, one vote.” That doesn’t mean we can whistle past the fact that many voting people do not believe that. Indeed, some elite media–designated smart people have determined: “Citizens United, what? It’s folks who give ten bucks to a candidate that are really messing up the system.” We’ll explore that notion with Ian Vandewalker, senior counsel for the Elections & Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
US press are so used to driving the narrative they don’t know what to do except yell “shut up shut up shut up” and send in the cops.
Joseph Torres & Collette Watson on Media for Racial Justice
May 03, 2024
Different media, telling different stories, can change our understanding of our past, our present and our future.
Sam on Students for Justice in Palestine, Sally Dworak-Fisher on Delivery Workers
Apr 26, 2024
Colleges’ official responses to protests are gutting the notion that elite higher education entails respect for the free expression of ideas.
Baher Azmy on Abu Ghraib Lawsuit, Dave Lindorff on Spy for No Country
Apr 19, 2024
The long-fought effort to get legal acknowledgement of the abuse of Iraqi detainees in the Iraq War is coming to a federal court in Virginia.
Chris Bernadel on Haiti
Apr 12, 2024
What needs to change in Haiti includes Western media presentations that ignore or erase even recent history.
Rakeen Mabud on Greedflation, Rachel K. Jones on Mifepristone
Apr 05, 2024
Corporate profit margins are at a level not seen since the 1950s, as abject greed was whistled past by the press corps.
Phyllis Bennis on Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, Robert Weissman on Boeing Scandal
Mar 29, 2024
A senior UN human rights official says there is a "plausible" case that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, a war crime.
Evlondo Cooper on Climate Coverage, Rick Goldsmith on Stripped for Parts
Mar 22, 2024
Elite media still can’t quite connect images of floods or fires to the triumphant shareholder meetings of the fossil fuel companies.
Gay Gordon-Byrne on Right to Repair, Suyapa Portillo Villeda on Honduran Ex-President Conviction
Mar 15, 2024
Industry still argues that that cellphone isn't really "yours," in the sense that you can't fix it if it breaks.
Ian Millhiser on Supreme Court Trump Protection, Alfredo Lopez on Radical Elders
Mar 08, 2024
Donald Trump could declare himself above the law—and that’s just been enabled by a recent Supreme Court ruling.
Victor Pickard on the Crisis of Journalism
Mar 01, 2024
If we don’t ask different questions about what we need from journalism, we will arrive at the same old unsatisfactory responses.
Gregory Shupak and Trita Parsi on Gaza Assault
Feb 23, 2024
As the US falls more out of step with the world, many in the US press seem divorced from the idea of US responsibility.
Ariel Adelman on Disability Civil Rights
Feb 16, 2024
Acheson v. Laufer is another example of “weaponizing the courts to dismantle labor protections, housing rights and health guidelines.”
Media That Benefit From Inequality Prefer to Talk About Other Things
Feb 14, 2024
The rapid rise in inequality over recent decades should have generated deep alarm in news media. But there’s little sign of distress.
Rakeen Mabud on Greedflation
Feb 09, 2024
The same people who earn wages also buy groceries, and pretending that we’re pitted against one another is not just mis- but disinformation.
Aron Thorn on Texas Border Standoff
Feb 02, 2024
What if there isn’t a "border crisis" so much as an absence of historical understanding, of empathy, of community resourcing?
WaPo Owes an Apology to the DC Mayor It Drove From Office
Feb 02, 2024
The Washington Post sought to preempt DC voters by getting rid of Mayor Vincent Gray before he stood for reelection.
Monifa Bandele on Reimagining Public Safety, Svante Myrick on Roadblocks to Voting
Jan 26, 2024
Communities are hard at work reimagining public safety without punitive policing. There’s new work on those possibilities.
Gregory Shupak on Gaza and Genocide
Jan 19, 2024
How does the New York Times’ assertion that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life” stand up now?
Sebastian Martinez Hickey on Minimum Wage, Saru Jayaraman on History of Tipping
Jan 12, 2024
Elite reporters are so removed from daily reality that they assume a raise in wages means fast food employees have to lose their jobs.
Media Obsession With Inflation Has Manufactured Discontent
Jan 05, 2024
Corporate media’s single-minded obsession with inflation has left the public with an objectively inaccurate view of the economy.
Chip Gibbons on the Right to Protest
Jan 05, 2024
US journalists invoke the First Amendment a lot, but not so much when it extends to regular folks saying NO to the US government.
Best of CounterSpin 2023
Dec 29, 2023
CounterSpin is thankful to all the activists, researchers, reporters and advocates who appear on the show to help us see the world more clearly.
Wadie Said on the New McCarthyism
Dec 22, 2023
Powerful institutions, including the media, combine a selective understanding of free expression with a vehement desire to enforce it.
Richard Wiles & Matthew Cunningham-Cook on Climate Disruption Filtered Through Corporate Media
Dec 15, 2023
We can't have a public conversation about how fossil fuels cause climate disruption in a corporate media moneyed by fossil fuel companies.
Sonya Meyerson-Knox on Jewish Voice for Peace
Dec 08, 2023
The devastation of Gaza, and the vehement efforts to silence anyone who wants to challenge it, is the story for today.
Melissa Gira Grant on Abortion Rights & Politics
Dec 01, 2023
Too many outlets seem to have trouble shaking the framing of abortion as a "controversy," or as posing problems for this or that politician.
Mark Weisbrot on Argentina’s Javier Milei
Nov 24, 2023
Argentina's new president questions the death toll of the country's military dictatorship and calls climate change a “lie of socialism.”
For Cable News, a Palestinian Life Is Not the Same as an Israeli Life
Nov 17, 2023
Cable news coverage of victims, war crimes and context show a double standard when it comes to US allies versus official US enemies.
Scott Burris on US v. Rahimi
Nov 17, 2023
The question is whether the Court’s conservative majority can use its special brand of backwards-looking to determine this country’s future.
‘Free Speech’ Fans Call for Censoring TikTok as Chinese Plot to Make Israel Look Bad
Nov 13, 2023
The Republican-held House could push to ban TikTok completely, on the grounds that it allows too much criticism of Israel.
Jamil Dakwar on US & Human Rights, Matt Gertz on Mike Johnson
Nov 10, 2023
Shouldn't the press corps be actively involved in informing us about the person third in line for the presidency?
Raed Jarrar on Biden & Saudi Arabia, Joe Torres on Tulsa Massacre
Nov 03, 2023
“The newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
Peter Maybarduk on Paxlovid, Maya Schenwar on Grassroots Journalism
Oct 27, 2023
Paxlovid's "transition" to the commercial market entails hiking the cost of the treatment to 100 times the cost of production.
Christopher Bosso on Food Assistance, Barbara Briggs on Workplace Disasters
Oct 20, 2023
The primary food aid program, SNAP, while the constant target of the racist, drown-government-in-the-bathtub crowd, keeps on keeping on.
Phyllis Bennis on Gaza
Oct 13, 2023
This week on CounterSpin: In the wake of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and the ensuing bombing campaign from Israel on the Gaza Strip, many people were surprised that CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria aired an interview with a Palestinian activist who frankly described the daily human rights violations in Gaza, the right of […]
Rodrigo Camarena on Wage Theft
Oct 06, 2023
Corporate media tell us to be mad at the rando taking toilet paper from Walgreens, but not the executive who’s skimming your paycheck.
Stephen Zunes on Menendez Indictment
Sep 29, 2023
The story is mostly about the political fortunes of an individual; the huge numbers of less powerful people impacted are, at best, backdrop.
Lisa Xu on Auto Workers Strike
Sep 22, 2023
An unprecedented labor action is underway as thousands of Midwest autoworkers working for the Big 3 went on strike at the same time.
Maha Hilal on Innocent Until Proven Muslim
Sep 15, 2023
September 11, 2001, is the exemplar of a past that isn’t dead, or even past, and for no one more particularly than Muslims.
Amanda Yee on Korean Travel Ban, Hyun Lee on Korea History
Sep 08, 2023
Media have an active disinterest in telling the story of the Korean peninsula in anything other than static, cartoonish terms.
Alfie Kohn, Diane Ravitch and Kevin Kumashiro on Education
Sep 01, 2023
It does no disservice to the education battles of the current day to connect them to previous battles and conversations.
Kehsi Iman Wilson on Americans with Disabilities Act
Aug 25, 2023
The ADA demands all kinds of attention, every day—not a once a year pat on the back about "how far we’ve come."
Six Tropes to Look Out for That Distort Israel/Palestine Coverage
Aug 22, 2023
It is vital that news readers become acquainted with the tropes that dominate coverage of the Israeli occupation.
Baher Azmy on Abu Ghraib Torture Lawsuit, Thomas Germain on Online History Destruction
Aug 18, 2023
Unlike elite media’s misty memories, the lawsuit is a stubborn indication that those responsible for Abu Ghraib haven't been called to account.
Shankar Narayan on Facial Misrecognition, Braxton Brewington on Student Debt Abolition
Aug 11, 2023
Facial recognition, a technology that has been proven wrong, has been deemed harmful, in principle and in practice, for years now.
Teddy Ostrow on UPS/Teamsters Agreement, Matthew Cunningham-Cook on GOP Climate Sabotage
Aug 04, 2023
Elite media are deeply accustomed to calling any union action a harm, and any company acknowledgment of workers’ value a concession.
‘The Athletic Is the Negation of Local Sports Coverage’
Aug 02, 2023
"When you get rid of local coverage, what you also get rid of is the watchdog that is so important.... It's not all fun and games."
Melissa Crow on Asylum Restrictions, Dave Zirin on NYT’s Vanishing Sports Section
Jul 28, 2023
Advocates have long declared that Biden’s asylum restrictions are not just harmful but unlawful. And a federal judge has just agreed.
‘We Need a Gender-Inclusive Understanding of Police Violence’
Jul 26, 2023
"Not a lot of people would understand that Black women are often killed by the police when they actually ask for help."
Kevin Minofu on Say Her Name
Jul 21, 2023
Say Her Name is about adding Black women to our understanding of police violence—to help make our response more meaningful and impactful.
CNN Town Halls Do Democracy No Favors
Jul 19, 2023
Live, single-candidate town halls with strictly friendly audiences are one of the worst ways to help the public make an informed choice.
Arlene Martínez on Corporate Subsidies, Florín Nájera-Uresti on Journalism Preservation
Jul 14, 2023
White supremacy and economic policy are completely different stories for the press, but not for the people.
Media Push Doom and Gloom in Face of Historic Progressive Recovery
Jul 13, 2023
In the wake of a historically progressive response to an economic downturn, corporate media have been intently focused on the negative.
Emily Sanders on How Not to Interview an Oil CEO, Kaufman & Bozuwa on Fighting Climate Disrupters
Jul 07, 2023
There is no way to fight climate disruption without fighting climate disrupters.
Taryn Abbassian and Others on Dobbs One Year Later
Jun 30, 2023
The impacts of the Dobbs ruling are still reverberating, as is the organized pushback that we can learn about and support.
Nancy Altman on GOP Social Security Attack, Daniel Ellsberg Revisited
Jun 23, 2023
When Daniel Ellsberg died, media burnished their own reputation as truth-tellers while somehow dishonoring the practice of truth-telling.
As Venezuela Mends Ties With Latin Neighbors, Western Media Turn Up the Propaganda
Jun 22, 2023
Western outlets will stop at no length to defend Washington’s agenda, even if that means reheating debunked narratives.
Sonali Kolhatkar on the Power of Narrative
Jun 16, 2023
Narrative is an important tool for folks looking to change the world for the better, in part by changing the stories we tell one another.
Tauhid Chappell on Cannabis Justice, Evan Greer on Kids Online Safety Act
Jun 09, 2023
What will the legalization, and profitizing, of marijuana mean for the people and communities most harmed by its criminalization?
Jeff Chang & Jeannie Park on Asian Americans and Affirmative Action
Jun 02, 2023
Asian-American students are being used as the face of attempts to eliminate affirmative action or race-consciousness in college admissions.
Eric Thurm on the Hollywood Writers’ Strike
May 26, 2023
Many corporate news reporters seem unable to present a labor action as other than an unwonted interruption of a natural order.
Dehumanization Killed Jordan Neely—and Dominated Coverage of His Death
May 19, 2023
Much of the corporate press refrained from framing Neely as a victim, and far-right media outlets went even further to excuse the killing.
Cody Bloomfield on Anti-Activist Terrorism Charges
May 19, 2023
Some officials fully intend to treat anyone who stands in opposition to whatever they decide they want to do as enemies of the state.
NYT Signals Lula’s Post-Bolsonaro Honeymoon Is Over
May 12, 2023
Two New York Times pieces may represent a troubling narrative shift in the newspaper of record's Brazil coverage.
Ian Millhiser on Supreme Court Corruption
May 12, 2023
Whether the Supreme Court gets away with its rejection of ethics depends in part on journalists' willingness to stick with the stories.
The Healthcare Long March: Why Exposing Evils of Medical Debt Doesn’t Fix the Problem
May 08, 2023
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont proposed on February 2 to purchase and forgive roughly $2 billion in medical debt owed by state residents. Along with similar proposals in other jurisdictions, the plan offers desperately needed relief from stress and fear to thousands of people who are struggling to pay their current outstanding medical bills. Unfortunately, […]
Chris Lehmann on Debt Ceiling Myths, Kyle Wiens on Right to Repair’s Moment
May 05, 2023
Republican brinkmanship could devastate millions of people—along with the harm to public understanding of what's actually going on.
Jen Senko on the Cost of Hate Talk
Apr 28, 2023
Hate-fueled and hate-fueling media have political and historical impacts—and interpersonal, familial ones as well.
Rachel K. Jones on Mifepristone, Donna Murch on Rutgers Labor Action
Apr 21, 2023
A Texas judge revoking FDA approval of mifepristone may be a "confusing legal battle" for media--but for most people, it's just frightening.
Taxes: Who Pays and What For?
Apr 14, 2023
Tax season leads some of us to ponder what we get in return for our resources—streets and stop signs, to be sure, but also wars.
Media’s Lab Leak Theorists See Spies, Not Scientists, as Arbiters of Science
Apr 07, 2023
The Wall Street Journal (2/26/23) broke the news that classified documents show the US Energy Department believes Covid emerged from a lab leak in China, which sent shockwaves through the rest of the media. Such a statement by the Energy Department “would be significant despite the fact that, as the report said, the agency […]
Saurav Sarkar on Starbucks Organizing
Apr 07, 2023
Crushing Starbucks workers' attempts to work together is against the law—but it's not the sort of crime elite media seem able to identify.
Silky Shah on Detention Center Fire, Eagan Kemp on Medicare Advantage
Mar 31, 2023
Do Black and brown people have a right to move freely in the world? The Ciudad Juárez fire and what it tells us about immigration policy.
Norman Solomon on the Iraq Invasion, 20 Years Later
Mar 24, 2023
What passes for debate about why we must remain at war with whomever is designated has roots in 2003 worth studying.
Kamau Franklin on Cop City Protests
Mar 17, 2023
The corporate press corps seems intent on forcing a vital, important situation into old, tired and harmful frames.
Kim Knackstedt on Disability Policy, Algernon Austin on Unemployment & Race
Mar 10, 2023
Media interest in historic breakthroughs should extend to the barriers disabled people face in 2023, and how policies could address them.
Makani Themba on Jackson Crisis
Mar 03, 2023
Jackson, Mississippi, residents who have been harmed many times over are being told that the appropriate response is to take away their voice.
Ellen Schrecker on the New McCarthyism
Feb 24, 2023
Our past has not been fully grappled with or understood, and that has everything to do with what’s happening now.
Maritza Perez Medina on Fentanyl, Nancy Altman on Social Security
Feb 17, 2023
Saying how hard you want to be on "dealers" is really an admission of a failure to address a public health issue as a public health issue.
Evan Greer on the Fight for the FCC
Feb 10, 2023
What could be happening if Biden's long-languishing nomination of public interest advocate Gigi Sohn were put through?
Shelby Green and Selah Goodson Bell on Utility Shutoffs & Profiteering
Feb 03, 2023
Electric utilities have disconnected US households more than 4 million times since the beginning of Covid, preceding the Ukraine War.
Independent Media Need You to Get the Word Out on Social Media
Feb 01, 2023
Engaging with posts on social media is a meaningful way of supporting journalism organizations you are sympathetic to.
Michael Mechanic on Underfunding the IRS
Jan 27, 2023
The message from many politicians and their media amplifiers: Cheating on taxes is a luxury only the rich can, or should be able to, afford.
‘The Cry Is “Lumumba Lives”—His Ideas, His Principles’
Jan 24, 2023
"The same forces that were at play in the '60s to remove Lumumba are at play today in terms of keeping the Congolese from advancing."
Maurice Carney on Patrice Lumumba
Jan 20, 2023
Lumumba's assassination, judging by attention, has no lessons for US citizens or the press corps about the past, the present or the future.
NYT Moves to ‘Stack the Deck of Justice’ Against Its Subscribers
Jan 14, 2023
Another company silently snuck a forced arbitration clause into its terms of service—and that company is the New York Times.
David Sirota on Accountability Journalism
Jan 13, 2023
The public still look to news media to give them accurate, independently sourced and documented information to help them make decisions.
Paul Hudson on Airline Meltdown, Melissa Crow on Asylum Policy
Jan 06, 2023
There's an unarticulated underpinning to elite media conversation that as a consumer, you don't have anything called a "right."
Best of CounterSpin 2022
Dec 30, 2022
CounterSpin is thankful to every activist, researcher, reporter and advocate who appeared on the show, of whom this is just a small selection.
Lisa Gilbert on the January 6 Report
Dec 23, 2022
The Very Smart People will tell us that what we really ought to do, what the intelligent people would do, is, well, nothing.
Jen Deerinwater on Indian Child Welfare Act
Dec 09, 2022
Those who want to eliminate the Indian Child Welfare Act are opposed by the reality that made the Act necessary in the first place.
Media’s Crime Hype and Scapegoating Led to Crackdown on Unhoused People
Dec 07, 2022
The New York Times parrots the implausible suggestion that cities cracking down on unsheltered people constitutes efforts to help them.
Nelson Lichtenstein on UC Strike, Marjorie Cohn on Evangelicals’ Supreme Court Lobbying
Dec 02, 2022
The struggle for pay and dignity at the University of California is part of a bigger fight about whether educators are actual workers.
Milton Allimadi on Media in Africa
Nov 25, 2022
The African continent as a playing field for white people to test their theories, extract resources and stage proxy wars is time-tested.
While Crypto Bro Scammed Clients, Reporters Scammed Readers
Nov 19, 2022
Before Bankman-Fried’s transition from financial genius to possible financial criminal, he received little scrutiny in the media.
Brian Mier on Lula Election Victory
Nov 18, 2022
It's hard not to imagine the use that a differently focused press corps might make of Brazil's change of direction.
US Media Searched for Crisis at China Party Congress
Nov 12, 2022
For the Western press, the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party offered a number of signals which—if read in good faith—could have been perceived as reassuring. Instead, establishment outlets reverted to familiar narratives regarding China’s Covid mitigation strategy and tied these into renewed predictions of a long-prophesied economic disaster—one that would inevitably […]
Gene Slater on Housing Crisis, Rakeen Mabud on Inflation Coverage
Nov 11, 2022
The affordable housing crisis is not just capitalism run amok, because that doesn't happen without government involvement.
Jake Johnston on Haiti Intervention, Jeannie Park on Harvard Affirmative Action
Nov 04, 2022
US news media ignore the role US intervention has played throughout Haitian history in order to push for the same sort of intervention again.
‘This Is America. That’s the Kind of Trial Mumia Abu-Jamal Had.’
Nov 03, 2022
"The culture of imprisonment tells a deeper story about America. We're not going to get it if we don't go to the prisons and get those voices out."
Noelle Hanrahan on Mumia Abu-Jamal Update
Oct 28, 2022
Overt, proud-of-it bias has shaped coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal's case from the outset, and current mentions suggest little has changed.
Julie Hollar and Jim Naureckas on 2022 Midterms
Oct 21, 2022
Election coverage should be judged not by how reporters "treat" Democrats or Republicans, but about how they inform and engage the public.
‘People Are Taking Inspiration From Union Victories at Amazon and Starbucks’
Oct 14, 2022
Janine Jackson interviewed San Francisco State University’s John Logan about Amazon and Starbucks organizing for the October 7, 2022, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Janine Jackson: Between well-paid people telling you that the solution to high prices is unemployment, and the news of the latest weather catastrophe separated by […]
Ahmad Abuznaid on Israeli Human Rights Crackdown, Sohale Mortazavi on Cryptocurrency
Oct 14, 2022
Growing numbers of people have concerns, not just about uncritical US support for Israel, but also about the shutdown of critics.
John Logan on Amazon & Starbucks Organizing
Oct 07, 2022
With tens of thousands of workers walking out around the country, the notion that this is somehow not meaningful should be hard to maintain.
Julio López Varona on Puerto Rico Colonialism, Guerline Jozef on Haitian Refugee Abuse
Sep 30, 2022
Tax giveaways to non–Puerto Ricans mean money not going to Puerto Rico's energy systems, schools, hospitals, housing.
Alicia Bell and Collette Watson on Media Reparations
Sep 23, 2022
US news media need to not only acknowledge inflicting racist harms, but take seriously the idea of repairing them.
Sumayyah Waheed on CNN’s Copaganda Hire, Chris Becker on Inflation Coverage
Sep 16, 2022
For corporate media, being a paid flack for the police in no way disqualifies you to offer analysis of law enforcement.
ACTION ALERT: Crime Claims of CNN’s New Police Expert Don’t Hold Up to Facts
Sep 14, 2022
Please ask CNN to explain why a person who misrepresents the evidence on the causes of crime trends should be offered as an expert.
Matt Gertz and Eric K Ward on White ‘Replacement’ Theory
Sep 09, 2022
News media missed an opportunity to interrogate the media outlets and politicians who repeatedly invoke the white replacement idea.
Ivey Camille Manybeads Tso on Indigenous Resistance, Alex Vitale on the End of Policing
Sep 02, 2022
The film Powerlands covers Indigenous people around the world, and the resource extraction stealing their water, minerals and homelands.
Ahmad Abuznaid on Palestine Human Rights Crackdown, Andrew Perez on Dark Money Donation
Aug 26, 2022
The corporate media narrative on Israel/Palestine makes it hard to make sense of the recent assault by Israeli forces on the Gaza Strip.
Azadeh Shahshahani on Central America Plan, Jon Lloyd on Facebook Disinformation
Aug 19, 2022
We have some questions about the US government's claim that this time, they're really bringing stability and security to Central America.
Angelo Carusone on Alex Jones Trial, Karl Grossman on Nuclear War
Aug 12, 2022
Alex Jones' lawyer says talking about his white supremacism would "distract from the main issues." What are the "main issues" about Jones?
Luke Harris and Joe Torres on America’s Racist Legacy
Aug 05, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: The crises we face right now in the US—a nominally democratic political process that’s strangled by white supremacist values, a corporate profiteering system that mindlessly overrides human needs to treat the environment as just another “input”—are terrible, but not, precisely, new. People have fought against these ideas in various forms before; […]
Vivek Shandas on Climate Disruption & Heat Waves, Jamie Kalven on Laquan McDonald Coverup
Jul 29, 2022
There's a way to tell the story of heat waves that connects to policy and planning, but that centers human beings.
Nora Benavidez on Post-Roe Data Privacy, Dorothee Benz on January 6 Insurrection
Jul 22, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: The internet has changed the way we communicate, access information and even organize, which means concerns about digital privacy are concerns about privacy, period. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, allowing for the criminalization of abortion, our ability to safely access information and health care […]
Jessica Mason Pieklo on Abortion Rights, Preston Mitchum on Reproductive Justice
Jul 15, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court’s reversal on abortion rights is so actually and potentially devastating that it’s hard to know where to look. It’s worth tracing things back—Katherine Stewart in the Guardian, among others, walks us through how, at a time when most Protestant Republicans, including the Southern Baptist Convention, hailed the liberalization […]
‘Whether You’re on the Supreme Court Shouldn’t Depend on How Many People You Give Your Phone Number to’
Jul 14, 2022
"That kind of legal philosophy could seriously endanger not just the environment, but the ability of Congress to pass all sorts of laws protecting the environment, health, safety and civil rights."
Did Public TV Doc Promote Peaceful Coexistence—or the UAE?
Jul 09, 2022
A film that offers an entirely uncritical and glowing portrait of the UAE ought to make PBS take a closer look at the film's funding.
Adele Stan & Elliot Mincberg on John Roberts, Chip Gibbons on Why Assange Matters
Jul 08, 2022
A Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John Roberts has gutted multiple legally and societally established precedents.
Dave Zirin on Football Prayer Ruling, Howard Bryant on Black Athletes & Social Change
Jul 01, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion on Kennedy v. Bremerton that “the Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.” The case was about whether there was a problem with a Washington […]
Raed Jarrar on Biden’s Saudi Trip, Lindsay Koshgarian on People Over Pentagon
Jun 24, 2022
It's hard to parse corporate media coverage of Biden's Saudi visit, because that coverage obscures rather than illuminates what's going on.
Helen Zia on Vincent Chin Legacy, Alec Karakatsanis on Chesa Boudin Recall
Jun 17, 2022
It's 40 years since Vincent Chin's murder, with a depressingly resonant context of anti-Asian hatred and scapegoating,
Nicaragua a ‘Dictatorship’ When It Follows US Lead on NGOs
Jun 16, 2022
Modest legal steps that would go unnoticed in most countries are—in Nicaragua’s case—clear evidence that it is “inching toward dictatorship.”
‘Calibrated’ Dishonesty: Western Media Coverage of Venezuela Sanctions
Jun 13, 2022
US officials have free rein to continue inflicting collective punishment on Venezuelans without challenge or scrutiny.
Politico Paints Gen X as ‘Trumpiest Generation’—on Flimsiest Evidence
Jun 10, 2022
On Biden’s and Trump’s favorable ratings, Gen Xers find themselves mostly in the middle among generations.
Lori Wallach on Vaccine Equity, Steffie Woolhandler on Insurance & Covid
Jun 10, 2022
There are people and policies, with names, preventing developing countries from accessing life-saving Covid vaccines.
Liliana Segura on Supreme Court v. Innocence
Jun 03, 2022
While alternative media are up in arms about the Supreme Court's ruling, corporate news media don't seem to think there's much to see there.
Igor Volsky on Ending Gun Violence, Pat Elder on Junior ROTC
May 27, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: CBS News‘ website featured a story about the “grim task” of planning funerals for 19 children—shot dead, along with two teachers, in a Texas elementary school on May 24—right next to a story about Oklahoma’s governor signing the country’s strictest abortion ban, the prominent sign behind him declaring “life is […]
Matt Gertz, Eric K. Ward on the Buffalo Massacre & ‘Replacement Theory’
May 20, 2022
The Buffalo killer is a white supremacist who believes there's a plot run by Jews to "replace" white people with Black and brown people.
Julie Hollar on Roe Reversal, Tesnim Zekeria on Baby Formula Shortage
May 13, 2022
Elite media are interested in abortion as an issue, but it is not understood as a human right but rather as a partisan football.
Chris Lehmann on Multi-Racial Democracy, Mike Rispoli on Funding Local News
May 06, 2022
A new website uses critical race theory as a prism to explore the range of threats to multi-racial democracy and our ability to fight for it.
Josmar Trujillo on Hyper-Policing
Apr 29, 2022
"If it bleeds, it leads" journalism lets news outlets look as though they're tracking an important event in real time.
Dorothy A. Brown and Dean Baker on Tax Policy
Apr 22, 2022
Who pays taxes, how much, and why? We revisit two conversations about tax policy racism and taxing the rich on this week's show.
Layla A. Jones on ‘Lights. Camera. Crime’
Apr 15, 2022
The Philadelphia Inquirer's "A More Perfect Union" project is aimed at examining racism in US institutions, including media institutions.
Marjorie Cohn on Prosecuting Trump, Mike Liszewski on Marijuana Justice
Apr 08, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: He wanted to go to the Capitol on January 6, Donald Trump tells the Washington Post, but the Secret Service wouldn’t let him. He hated the violence, and was furious Nancy Pelosi wasn’t putting a stop to it. He doesn’t remember getting many phone calls, and he didn’t destroy any […]
Sarah Lipton-Lubet on Ginni Thomas Conflict, Dave Maass on Transparency and Journalism
Apr 01, 2022
Will we keep having a Supreme Court justice declaring himself "one being" with a spouse who declares the 2020 election an "obvious fraud"?
Carol Anderson on History, Race and Democracy
Mar 25, 2022
It's a good time to recall that we had a war in this country in which many people declared that they cared more about white supremacy.
Shireen Al-Adeimi on Yemen, David Arkush on Fed Climate Veto
Mar 18, 2022
Yemen is not a rhetorical device. It's a country of human beings in crisis.
Khury Petersen-Smith on Economic Sanctions, Greg LeRoy on Amazon Subsidies
Mar 11, 2022
Economic pressure is presented as a way of avoiding violence. But there's a problem with seeing sanctions as an alternative to war.
Braxton Brewington on Student Loan Debt, Andy Marra on Trans Youth Rights
Mar 04, 2022
Is what we call "higher" education an individual investment or a public good? The way news media talk about it could be decisive.
Foreign Agents Designation Causes Media Cold War
Feb 28, 2022
Some state-backed journalists must register as “foreign agents” with the US government. But others don't have to.
Joseph Torres on Tulsa Massacre
Feb 25, 2022
This week on CounterSpin: Black History Month has always been something of a double-edged sword: It implies that Black history is somehow not “history,” that it has to be shoehorned in, “artificially,” to garner any value, with the corollary implication that if you choose to ignore it, you aren’t missing anything crucial. The idea […]
Bryce Greene on Ukraine
Feb 18, 2022
Understanding the Ukraine crisis involves letting go of the storyline in which the US equals benevolent democracy and Russia equals craven imperialism.
Rakeen Mabud on Supply Chain Breakdown
Feb 11, 2022
Why has the system broken down? You could say media's reluctance to critically break down systems is itself a system problem.
Steven Rosenfeld on Arizona ‘Audit,’ Sohale Mortazavi on Cryptocurrency
Feb 04, 2022
The spate of new election-meddling laws proposed in Arizona suggests that looking away from Trumpists' "audit" is not the answer.
Natalia Renta on Puerto Rico Debt Deal
Jan 28, 2022
A judge has approved a debt restructuring deal for Puerto Rico and the deal's architects are saying it means a "new day" for the territory.
Jordan Chariton on Flint Water Crisis, Maurice Carney on Lumumba Assassination
Jan 21, 2022
While corporate media have largely let the water crisis in Flint go, the story isn't over, nor has justice been served.
ACTION ALERT: NYT’s China Covid Coverage Needs to Acknowledge Reality
Jan 20, 2022
New York Times coverage of Covid in China, with its casual Nazi analogies, reaches a level of partisan hyperbole on a par with Fox News.
Pardiss Kebriaei on Guantánamo Prisoners
Jan 14, 2022
We are a long way from understanding the full meaning of Guantánamo. But we can get the remaining detainees out.
Craig Aaron on Local Journalism, Barbara Briggs on Workplace Disasters
Jan 07, 2022
The loss of an information source—a particular place for debate, for conversation, on issues relevant to you—is incalculable, but very real.
Beijing’s Movie War Propaganda—and Washington’s
Dec 31, 2021
Each aspect of Chinese propaganda complained about in Battle at Lake Changjin is routinely employed by US media, and have been for years.
Best of CounterSpin 2021
Dec 31, 2021
This annual round-up reflects all the conversations we hope have offered a voice that might help you interpret the news you read.
Suyapa Portillo Villeda on Honduran Election
Dec 24, 2021
This week on CounterSpin, we talk about the recent Honduran election and signs of hard-won hope in that country.
Caleb Nichols on Defending Public Libraries
Dec 17, 2021
Libraries aren't just a meaningful reality, but a meaningful symbol of the fact that there is a thing called the public interest.
Ralph Nader on Journalism and the Public Interest
Dec 10, 2021
A small group of people, willing to confront entrenched ideas and power, really can make change in the public interest.
Dorothee Benz on January 6 Insurrection, Vera Eidelman on Anti-Protest Laws
Dec 03, 2021
As the year nears its end, it’s hard not to think back to how it started—with the violent assault on the Capitol.
Carol Anderson on White Supremacy vs. Democracy
Nov 26, 2021
This can be a turning point, if more of us understand that history isn't something that happens to us, but something we DO.
Legal Wrangle Between NYT and O’Keefe Puts Press Freedom at Risk
Nov 24, 2021
That the Times has been prohibited at least for a time from publishing journalism about Project Veritas, and must fight off the possibility that the right-wing activist group may be able to essentially edit and censor a story after it is published, has press freedom advocates worried.
Jon Schwarz on Inflation, Enrique Armijo on Alex Jones
Nov 19, 2021
You don't need to understand inflation, elite media seem to say, but you do need to be mad about it.
‘The Anti-Blackness of the US Is Extending to Black Asylum Seekers’
Nov 12, 2021
"Processing people and allowing them to come into the country is the best public health policy."
Peter Maybarduk on Moderna Patent, Tracy Rosenberg on Aaron Swartz Day
Nov 12, 2021
Drugs are developed by the government, and then pharmaceutical companies get patents on them and sell them back to the public.
Michael K. Dorsey on Climate Summit, Nekessa Opoti on Haitian Refugees
Nov 05, 2021
This week on CounterSpin: The impacts of climate disruption are not theoretical; they are happening. Those already worst off are facing the worst of it, and those who profit from it continue to profit. There are finer points, but that’s reality. And it’s fair to measure journalism not by its cleverness, or by demonstrated […]
Karen Dolan on Build Back Better, Tim Karr on Changing Facebook
Oct 29, 2021
This week on CounterSpin: An early October survey showed that while 60% of those polled knew that the Build Back Better legislative package was “$3.5 trillion,” only 10% had any sense of what was in it. That is many things, but preeminently a failure of news media—the demonstrably harmful effect of months of reporting […]
The Media’s Lies About Colin Powell’s Lies
Oct 28, 2021
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell received virtually wall-to-wall adulation in corporate media coverage of his death.
ACTION ALERT: The New Climate Denial: Don’t Worry, Do Nothing
Oct 26, 2021
If "experts are more certain than ever" about climate change, why does WaPo keep printing arguments for inaction based on uncertainty?
‘OAN Would Not and Could Not Exist Without AT&T’s Blessing’
Oct 22, 2021
"The spark of inspiration for OAN [One America News] and its right-wing bent came from a meeting with AT&T executives."
Paul Paz y Miño on Chevron v. Steven Donziger
Oct 22, 2021
Chevron v. Donziger is a case a major fossil fuel company wanted to see silenced that has in fact had that effect.
Cherry-Picking Polls to Hide Public Support for Biden’s Spending Plan
Oct 15, 2021
Henry Olsen presented a red herring argument that ignored all the polls showing support for the reconciliation plan.
Bobby Lewis on One America News, Jean Su on People vs. Fossil Fuels
Oct 15, 2021
OAN's audience has been told that Trump really won the 2020 election and that chemical cocktails are better for Covid than vaccines.
Lisa Graves on the Fight for the Post Office, Stevana Sims on Defending Anti-Racist Education
Oct 08, 2021
Though the Postal Service has always been a public good, its current leaders seem intent on driving it into the ground.
Alec Karakatsanis on ‘Crime Surge’ Copaganda, Jane Manning on Gender-Based Crime
Oct 01, 2021
Media announce a rise in the murder rate with coverage steeped in false presumptions about what that means and how to respond.
David Moore on Manchin’s Conflict, Jim Naureckas on Covid and Media
Sep 24, 2021
"We’re going to have a representative of fossil fuel interests crafting the policy that reduces our emissions from fossil fuels."
Why Jake Tapper Never Asks How We Pay for War
Sep 20, 2021
High-profile media brands like Jake Tapper simply do not view the expense of empire maintenance to be subject to critical analysis.
Milton Allimadi on US Media’s Africa Reporting
Sep 17, 2021
Racist fables, omissions and hypocrisy have plagued US media's Africa reporting through history and up to today.
September 11’s Never-Ending Story
Sep 11, 2021
A retrospective look at FAIR's coverage of two decades of media self-censorship, scapegoating and stenography.
Marjorie Cohn on Texas Abortion Law, Kimberly Inez McGuire on Abortion Realities
Sep 10, 2021
The Supreme Court refused to address, which amounts to an endorsement, what is overwhelmingly understood as an unconstitutional Texas law.
Rick Claypool on OxyContin Bankruptcy, Dean Baker on Economic Disconnects
Sep 03, 2021
A bankruptcy ruling shields the Sackler family, profiteers on Oxycontin, responsible for, conservatively, half a million deaths by overdose.
James Loewen on Lies Historians Tell Us
Aug 27, 2021
Some US media are now lauding Jim Loewen, but without ceasing to generate the very sort of misty misinformation he fought against.
Phyllis Bennis and Matthew Hoh on Afghanistan Withdrawal
Aug 20, 2021
US media consumers may need not a broom but a shovel to deal with the self-aggrandizing, history-erasing misinformation headed our way.
Jeff Cohen on FAIR’s Beginnings
Aug 13, 2021
Listeners to this show may take it as a given that, if you care about social, racial, economic justice, you have to also care about media—because corporate news media promote narratives that shape public opinion, public policy and all of our lives.
James Early on Cuban Embargo, David Cooper on ‘We All Quit’
Aug 06, 2021
The hardships facing Cubans—and the actions the United States could take to stop contributing to those hardships.
Both-Sidesing Democracy to Death
Aug 02, 2021
As Trump has solidified his grip on the right, elite journalists have largely returned to their perfunctory both-sides reporting.
Luke Harris on Critical Race Theory, Cindy Cohn on Pegasus Spyware
Jul 30, 2021
Media have misinformed the public about a campaign whose own architects say is about disinforming, confusing and inflaming people.
‘The Haitian People Aren’t Looking for Foreign Powers to Impose a New System’
Jul 23, 2021
"We have to stand up against these calls for occupation, these calls for intervention. And we have to support the Haitian people's right to self-determination."
Bianca Nozaki-Nasser on Anti-Asian Bias
Jul 23, 2021
Media's prescription of law enforcement as the primary response is called by many Asian Americans a problem presenting itself as a solution,
Chris Bernadel on Haitian Assassination, Michael Carome on FDA Alzheimer’s Investigation
Jul 16, 2021
The long history of the US using state force to kill Haitians and their aspirations is sufficient and appropriate context for current events.
William Dodge on Nestle Slave Labor, Michael Ratner on Donald Rumsfeld
Jul 09, 2021
Nestle's profitability relies on a chocolate supply chain that includes literal slave labor in the Ivory Coast.
Vera Eidelman on Fourth of July Freedoms, Vivek Shandas on Addressing Climate Change
Jul 02, 2021
How do we protect our society from campaigns to stop people from voting or speaking or going into the street to protest things that are wrong?
Laura Carlsen on Biden’s Central America Policy, Greg LeRoy on Texas Corporate Subsidies
Jun 25, 2021
The notion of real change after Donald Trump is undermined by a close look at Biden's actual immigration policy.
TV News Coverage of Southern Border Lacks Refugee Sources, Historical Context
Jun 19, 2021
TV news coverage of the southern US border largely ignores the experiences and voices of those most impacted by the immigration system.
Andrew Perez on the Filibuster
Jun 18, 2021
The filibuster is the crucial backdrop to any conversation about the Biden agenda, though media don't always bring that point home.
Jaisal Noor on Worker Co-Ops, Duncan Meisel on Fossil Fuel Greenwashing
Jun 11, 2021
In the way they balance worker health and company success, worker co-ops complicate corporate media's economic storyline.
Joseph Torres on Media & Tulsa Massacre
Jun 04, 2021
Journalism has been central to public reckoning with the Tulsa massacre ever since that late May night 100 years ago.
Vijay Prashad on India, Covid and Modi
May 28, 2021
US corporate media don't seem to see a story worth telling in India, beyond how Modi might hold on to power despite some unfortunate "missteps."
The New Podcast Oligopoly
May 21, 2021
With Liberty, Spotify and public radio (via NPR and PRX) in the drivers seat, and Amazon, Apple and the New York Times not far behind, the new podcast oligopoly has arrived, and monopoly is on the horizon.
Preston Mitchum on Roe and Reproductive Justice, Steven Rosenfeld on Arizona Audit
May 21, 2021
Who's speaking for the actual majority of US citizens who support a person's right to determine whether and when to have a child?
Michael Hiltzik on ‘No One Wants to Work!’
May 14, 2021
Do elite media have space for people who don't want to risk their lives for less money than they need to live?
‘Government Money That’s Gone Into Vaccine Development Is Being Privatized by a Handful of Companies’
May 12, 2021
"People who have less power and less money around the world are the people last in line—and that line is going to be pretty long if you don't speed up the production."
Ahmad Abuznaid on Israel/Palestine Apartheid, James Love on Bill Gates & Vaccine Politics
May 07, 2021
Where elite media present a frozen he said/she said, never-the-twain-shall-meet debate over Israel/Palestine, more and more people see a different way forward.
‘Hedge Fund Managers Bleed Companies of Their Capabilities’
May 06, 2021
"The money that the company spent on buying those outstanding shares in the stock buyback could have been used to develop new products, it could have been used for innovation, it could have been used to maintain and attract talent."
It’s Aggression When ‘They’ Do It, but Defense When ‘We’ Do Worse
Apr 30, 2021
Western corporate media overwhelmingly reserve the word "aggression" for official enemy nations—whether or not it's warranted. In contrast, US behavior is almost never categorized as aggressive,
Tim Karr on Paying for Fox News Racism, Lynn Parramore on Hedge Funds vs. Green New Deal
Apr 30, 2021
Tucker Carlson spews harmful nonsense like it's his job, which it is, and he gets some $10 million a year from it—but did you know that, if you have cable, you're paying into that income?
Elly Page on Anti-Protest Bills, Christy Mallory on Targeting Trans Youth
Apr 23, 2021
If the Chauvin verdict is testament to the power of protest, so too are the vigorous efforts to squelch that power. Plus: Right-wing legislators target trans kids at the state level.
Dorothy A. Brown and Amy Hanauer on Tax Unfairness
Apr 16, 2021
While recognizing that it's not the sole source of inequality, there are things we can do about blatant, enduring and powerful unfairness in US tax policy.
Chip Gibbons on Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale
Apr 09, 2021
Daniel Hale stands convicted of revealing things the US government didn't want known about its drone warfare programs—the ones elite media have often presented as precise in separating "bad guys" from "innocents."
Western Media Incite Anti-Asian Racism When They Join in Cold War Against China
Apr 08, 2021
Western news outlets have deceptively omitted the centrality of media-promoted Sinophobia to the latest spike in hate crimes toward anyone perceived to be Chinese.
Peter Maybarduk on Global Vaccination, Jane Chung on Big Tech Lobbying
Apr 02, 2021
If we don't learn from this pandemic that none of us can be healthy unless all of us are healthy, how many chances will we get?
‘Someone Was Out There Deliberately Manufacturing Evidence’
Mar 31, 2021
"The idea that they were invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence has it exactly backwards. They had already decided they wanted to invade Iraq. So the intelligence was then used to justify a pre-existing policy."
‘Where There Are More Guns, There Are More Gun Deaths’
Mar 31, 2021
"Regurgitating claims that the Second Amendment somehow impedes us from doing anything about this problem is a real hindrance, I think, to the kind of conversations we have publicly about this issue."
Atlanta Murders Reporting Relied on Law Enforcement Narratives
Mar 26, 2021
At local and national levels, the initial media response focused primarily on the gunman’s story and police statements.
Igor Volsky on Ending Gun Violence, Robert Dreyfuss on Iraq War
Mar 26, 2021
Many are simply fed up with the idea that change is too hard. Will media conversation shift to keep up with them?
For Sunday Shows, Border Is ‘Political Crisis,’ Not Humanitarian Emergency
Mar 25, 2021
Increasing numbers of migrants are attempting to cross the US/Mexico border, and unaccompanied children and teenagers are exceeding the capacities of government-run detention facilities. The right has declared a crisis, and national corporate media have largely followed suit. Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas appeared on five of the six Sunday Beltway talk […]
Ernesto Falcon on Internet for All, Alexander Kaufman on Future-Proofed Housing Codes
Mar 19, 2021
It's almost as if the corporate press accepted the existence of information haves and have-nots, because that's how goods get divided in this country—even if it doesn't make technological, economic or humanitarian sense.
Ari Berman on the Attack on Voting Rights
Mar 12, 2021
Do elite media think that whether or not the US, in 2021, under pressure from racists, goes back on the whole "one person one vote" thing is a legitimate topic for debate?
NYT Fails to Examine Its Participation in Brazil’s ‘Biggest Judicial Scandal’
Mar 08, 2021
In article after article, the New York Times failed to share important information on the Lava Jato investigation. This helped normalize the 2016 coup and the removal of Lula from the 2018 presidential elections, which in turn opened the door for a neofascist/military takeover of Brazil.
Michelle Holder on Black Women & Minimum Wage, Alice O’Connor on the War on Poverty
Mar 05, 2021
While a federal minimum wage increase would affect millions of workers and the social fabric, it would have particular impact on one "essential" yet somehow expendable group: Black women.
‘Workers Are Increasingly Required to Sign Away Their Rights’
Feb 26, 2021
"You’re forced to resolve your case in a private, secret, rigged arbitration system that’s controlled by the company."
Mitch Jones on Texas Freeze-Outs, Joe Torres on News for All the People
Feb 26, 2021
If media really expect people to actively challenge the promises pushed—aggressively and constantly—by the energy industry, maybe they could do a little more challenging themselves.
Celine McNicholas and Joanne Doroshow on Forced Arbitration, Kate Bronfrenbrenner on NLRB
Feb 19, 2021
We get some background on forced arbitration and why it matters from previous CounterSpin conversations--plus we talked about the Trump-era NLRB while it was happening.
Ending the Forever Wars: Phyllis Bennis on Afghanistan, Hyun Lee on Korea
Feb 12, 2021
Puzzling out what's behind the "more war will lead to peace" argument in Afghanistan--and listening to people in North and South Korea who seek an end to the militarized tension they've lived under for more than 70 years.
Basav Sen on Biden Climate Policy, Hannah Sassaman on Prometheus v. FCC
Feb 05, 2021
The disasters of climate disruption have next to no relationship to what corporate media say is "feasible" to address them.
Kimberly Inez McGuire on Abortion Realities, Bama Athreya on Defending Gig Workers
Jan 29, 2021
For many women, overturning Roe v. Wade would not suddenly shut down access to abortion, simply because many women already lack that access.
Chris Savage, Talia Buford & Peggy Case on Flint Water Crisis
Jan 22, 2021
Conversations about Flint on CounterSpin, in its particulars and in terms of how it fits into bigger questions around environmental racism, resource control and local governance.
Keri Leigh Merritt on the New Lost Cause, Elisabeth Rosenthal on Troubled Vaccine Rollout
Jan 15, 2021
Historians are shaking their heads as media talk about January 6 as "unprecedented"; while shocking and dispiriting, it has layers and layers of precedent that need to be learned and engaged, if we are ever to actually have the racial reckoning that corporate media are forever insisting we've already had.
Billionaire-Owned Media Look Out for Neediest by Demanding They Get No More Money
Jan 08, 2021
The $2,000 check is indeed far from a perfect plan to help ordinary Americans, yet if it is the only plan currently on the table, many in corporate media are inclined to leave it there.
Dorothee Benz on January 6 Insurrection, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard on Police Responsibility
Jan 08, 2021
Media who egged on Trump's candidacy, trivialized his venality and normalized as extreme-but-within-range his and his party's every anti-democratic outrage, are poorly placed to take principled umbrage when that juggernaut takes the course that everyone and their mother said it would.
‘We Structure the Market to Create Inequality’
Jan 06, 2021
"Just as we know that trickle-down, giving money to the rich, doesn't help—we know long-term unemployment hurts. A lot of the people that are unemployed six, eight, ten months, they may never work again."
Best of CounterSpin 2020
Jan 01, 2021
A reflection of the sorts of conversations we hope have offered some voice or context or information that you might not have heard elsewhere, or that might help you assess the news you are hearing.
Lisa Gilbert on Lame Duck Trump, Dean Baker on Trickle-Down Economics
Dec 25, 2020
While we await the day that Trump's face and voice are no longer at the top of every newscast, it ain't over til it's over. And harms he does as a lame duck are harms nonetheless.
Jessica Martinez on Gutting Worker Protections, Mitch Stoltz on Breaking Up Big Tech
Dec 18, 2020
Workers in fields, factories and hospitals, endangered by the pandemic, are now held up as pawns, as some lawmakers look to make workers' health and safety a "tradeoff" for Covid relief.
‘This Order Puts the Weight of the Federal Government Behind Anti-Antiracism’
Dec 17, 2020
"Critical Race Theory [is] basically the idea that we still have problems with structural racism, and we don't get away from those problems by not talking about it, by having the 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' approach."
Kimberlé Crenshaw on the Equity Gag Order
Dec 11, 2020
Trump's obviously suppressive executive order has been largely shrugged off by media that ought to be sounding the alarm.
‘These Executions, Disturbing as They Are, Have Flown Largely Under the Radar’
Dec 09, 2020
"Family members of the condemned are often erased and have been, for the most part, throughout this process, and I try to really keep that at the center of my work."
‘The Chairmanship of Ajit Pai Has Been a Disaster’
Dec 08, 2020
"He's failed in his job to make sure that the people come first, and not these companies."
Liliana Segura on Trump’s Execution Spree, Gaurav Laroia on Ajit Pai’s FCC
Dec 04, 2020
As with many aspects of his presidency, the execution spree is both Trump being especially gruesome, and his simply making use of a gruesome machinery he certainly didn't create.
‘Emancipation Never Really Came to Agriculture’
Dec 03, 2020
"We say, on the one hand, that they’re essential; we would like to compel them to go to work so that the rest of us could have the comfort of still ordering in our T-bone steaks and what have you. But we don’t pay these people in a way that reflects how essential they are."
‘The Ones With the Most Risk Are the Ones We’re Most Ill-Prepared to Reach with the Vaccine’
Dec 01, 2020
'We've had decades-long underfunding of state and local public health departments, and just myopic funding cuts for pandemic preparedness. And this hampers coordinated access, and leaves us ill-prepared to reach the very populations that are the most affected by this virus."
‘Trump Has Let the Military Establishment Do Everything It Wants to Do’
Nov 30, 2020
"Historically, siege was considered an act of war; to undertake a siege against a foreign population was considered an act of war. And these sanctions are basically a form of siege against a civilian population, to extort some sort of political goal from their leadership."
Ricardo Salvador on US’s Dysfunctional Food System
Nov 27, 2020
As those of who do so celebrate Thanksgiving, we ought also to acknowledge the work that brings the harvest from the earth to the plate.
‘Media Sources in the Democratic Party Tend to Be More Right-Wing’
Nov 21, 2020
"It's the false balance that is putting us into a dangerous position, because you don't want to give any sort of balance to the autocratic side here."
Ravi Gupta on Vaccine Infrastructure, Murtaza Hussain on Trump’s War on Yemen
Nov 20, 2020
The coronavirus crisis highlights the urgent need to reimagine our vaccine infrastructure.
‘We Basically Made Recovery Much, Much Harder Than It Has to Be’
Nov 20, 2020
"Centering workers in a genuine recovery, and really trying to rebuild economic security, it's going to take movement on a bunch of fronts."
Julie Hollar on Moving Democrats to the Right, Josh Bivens on Pandemic Unemployment
Nov 13, 2020
Blaming the left has been the practice of elite Democrats and their media abettors for decades.
‘Proposition 22 Is a Backlash to Victories Workers Have Had’
Nov 11, 2020
"We've seen the most explosive and energetic worker organizing on the ground that has ever been present in the gig community."
‘These Lawsuits Are Incredibly Rinky-Dink’
Nov 09, 2020
"The number of ballots that they might be able to throw out...[is] really small, and it's not likely to jeopardize or change the outcomes in these elections."
Steven Rosenfeld on Vote Counting, Rey Fuentes on Rigging the Gig Economy
Nov 06, 2020
Even after election 2020, corporate media fail to highlight the break between those who believe in the democratic project and those who do not.
‘We Have the World’s Largest System to Imprison and Exile Immigrants’
Nov 03, 2020
"I think we also have to be wary of not taking advantage of this moment, because it’s unveiling what the system truly is meant to do."
‘The Candidates Who Are Opposed to Fracking Are Winning’
Oct 30, 2020
"In addition to all of the environmental problems, and the public health issues, the climate issues that we just mentioned, the business model that fracking is built upon is essentially almost a Ponzi scheme."
‘We Have a Long History of Criminalizing Communities of Color Through Drugs’
Oct 30, 2020
"The Nixon administration went about policing drugs...as if it were a real war. The same way that we would fight foreign adversaries, we were fighting our own citizens."
US Media Lie About Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism—Before, During and After Election
Oct 30, 2020
That Bolivia's MAS won this month’s election in an apparent landslide hasn’t meant an end to US media hostilities.
Special Program on Trump & Immigration
Oct 30, 2020
In our final pre-election show, we use the lens of one issue, immigration, to look back at four years of Trump policy and of coverage.
Journalists Pick Sides When They Call Adding Justices ‘Court Packing’
Oct 26, 2020
By accepting "court packing" as "the term for" expanding the court, journalists lend a hand to anti-democratic forces.
Mitch Jones on Fracking’s Hazards, Matt Sutton on Drug War’s Victims
Oct 23, 2020
Corporate media prioritize the supposed "risks" to the electoral prospects of Democrats who call for banning fracking over the prospects for human civilization’s survival.
‘It’s a Very Determined Power Play to Pack Our Court’
Oct 22, 2020
"The media often talk about these things in a very abstract way, and do not talk about the real-world consequences for ordinary people, and there are very huge real-world consequences for ordinary people."
‘All 50 States Bar Private, Unauthorized Paramilitary Activity’
Oct 16, 2020
"It's not to anyone's benefit to intimidate voters. It's not to anyone's benefit to have armed, non-publicly accountable individuals, private armies, on the streets."
Lisa Graves on the Story Behind Amy Coney Barrett
Oct 16, 2020
Understanding how we got to this place requires looking behind the curtain of the "partisan tug of war" narrative corporate media present every day, to see how a powerful minority in this country manages to use public institutions to do unpopular things.
‘Persecuting Assange Is a Real Blow to Reporting and Human Rights Advocacy’
Oct 15, 2020
"Julian Assange is accused of publishing information about war crimes, about human rights abuses and about abuses of power, that have been tremendously important, not just for the public's right to know, but also have made a real difference in advocacy around those issues."
‘There Is a Different Set of Rules for Someone Like Donald Trump’
Oct 10, 2020
"You can't say that Donald Trump is just doing whatever the law allows; Donald Trump was part of why this is in the law."
Mary McCord on Unlawful Militias, Chip Gibbons on Assange Extradition
Oct 09, 2020
Unlawful militias manage to be part of the political landscape while somehow escaping rigorous media scrutiny.
‘Independent Media Is About Introducing People to Each Other’
Oct 06, 2020
"The reality that we live in today is not immutable. It is the product of choices, of power dynamics, of motivations of certain sectors over others, a set of priorities that we can shift. And not just in some abstract, pie-in-the-sky, theoretical thinking, but actually right here, right now."
Steve Wamhoff on Trump and Taxes
Oct 02, 2020
Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, discusses the takeaways from Trump's taxes.
‘Investment in Fossil Fuels Yields Much Less Returns Than the Green Sector’
Sep 26, 2020
Janine Jackson interviewed journalist Antonia Juhasz about the end of oil for the September 18, 2020, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. [mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin Antonia Juhasz Interview @http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin200918Juhasz.mp3″] MP3 Link Janine Jackson: Dow Jones dropped ExxonMobil from its blue chip stock market index, a spot it had occupied since 1928. Major banks […]
Laura Flanders on Journalism of Engagement
Sep 25, 2020
Laura Flanders, the original host of CounterSpin and the former director of the Women's Desk at FAIR, practices a kind of journalism that's meant to encourage engagement, not just in the stories it tells, but in the people who tell them.
Antonia Juhasz on the End of Oil
Sep 18, 2020
While we welcome the demise of an oil industry that does such harm, we have to remember that a creature can do tremendous damage in its death throes, and that a better way forward isn't guaranteed, unless we fight for it.
‘The Court Has Refused to Fashion Concrete Legal Standards About the Rights of Protesters’
Sep 17, 2020
"Most Americans believe that they have a very robust right to protest...but the courts haven't felt that way necessarily."
‘A Vaccine Can Be a Public Good’
Sep 16, 2020
"If we can't deal with the problem of pharmaceutical monopolies, if we can't deal with the problem of politics influencing health criteria, before there is a safe and effective vaccine, then we can see that we're in for a world of hurt."
‘They Put the Blame of Waste on Individuals as Opposed to Companies’
Sep 11, 2020
"It’s a health problem, it’s an environmental problem, it’s a racial justice problem at this point, because of the way it’s distributed throughout the country and the world."
Manufacturing Disgrace: Reuters Distorts Chevron v. Donziger
Sep 11, 2020
Independent journalist Chris Hedges (ScheerPost, 8/25/20) wrote: The flagrant corruption and misuse of the legal system to abjectly serve corporate interests in the Donziger case illustrates the deep decay within our judiciary and democratic institutions. One of those deeply decayed institutions is the corporate media, as a review of several years of Reuters coverage […]
Peter Maybarduk on Covid Treatments, Kia Rahnama on the Right to Protest
Sep 11, 2020
There is a connection—underexplored —between brutish police responses to peaceful protests and a history of Supreme Court rulings around the First Amendment.
‘These Players Have Had a Very Special Place in American History’
Sep 10, 2020
"The Black athlete is the most important and most influential and most visible Black employee in the 20th century, because they’re the ones who were allowed to integrate the society."
‘Foreign Policy of This Country Has to Reject US Exceptionalism’
Sep 08, 2020
"Foreign policy has to be grounded in global cooperation, human rights...respect for international law, privileging diplomacy over war."
Heidi Beirich on White Supremacist Violence, Howard Bryant on Black Athlete Activism, Sharon Lerner on Plastic Recycling and PR
Sep 04, 2020
This week on CounterSpin, we feature three archived but relevant conversations.
‘The Whole Voting Universe Has Been Turned Upside Down by Covid’
Sep 02, 2020
"It's more important than ever not just to be registered, but to really, really make sure your registration information is correct."
‘Drilling Would Have Devastating Impacts on This Fragile Ecosystem’
Sep 01, 2020
"We need to be protecting large swaths of land like the Arctic Refuge, and using them for the future preservation and mitigation of climate change."
‘Not to Have an Accurate Count Is Shooting Ourselves in the Foot’
Aug 28, 2020
"To blatantly ignore the Supreme Court's ruling, ignore the Census Bureau's own employees’ determination that it could not be done in an accurate and efficient way, is amazing,"
Phyllis Bennis on Foreign Policy Visions
Aug 28, 2020
If the US wants it, it's "good"; accepting and internalizing that is the price of admission to Serious Political Conversation.
Karlin Itchoak on Wildlife Refuge Drilling, Steven Rosenfeld on How to Vote
Aug 21, 2020
Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling is being reported as a Trumpian bad idea. Is that enough?
Liz OuYang on Census Sabotage
Aug 14, 2020
The United States has been conducting the census for some two centuries, but Donald Trump and his cronies have a new idea of how to do it that involves screwing it up entirely in service to a racist, nativist project.
‘There’s Been Very Little Attention, Despite a Great Deal of Advocacy, to Our Incarcerated Residents’
Aug 13, 2020
"Sentencing in the United States is way too extreme and has racist roots, and there should be an intentional effort to revisit them and recalibrate them."
‘What We’re Seeing Now Is Jim Crow 2.0’
Aug 07, 2020
"Bureaucratic violence, that’s the array of policies that have been pooled together to figure out, 'How do we get around the 15th Amendment, while targeting those that the 15th Amendment was designed to protect?'”
Neil deMause on Reopening Coverage, Nicole Porter on Covid and Prisons
Aug 07, 2020
More thoughtful attention to the "how" of re-opening is necessary, but for that, you'd need to listen to people who actually know—and care—rather than constantly handing the mic to Mr. “It Is What It Is."
‘Media Took These Statements From the OAS and Ran With Them’
Aug 05, 2020
"The mainstream media...took these statements from the OAS at face value, and ran with them, didn’t even try to form any kind of assessment of their own as to the value of these statements."
Alex Main on Bolivia Coup, Carol Anderson on Voter Suppression
Jul 31, 2020
To the extent the Bolivian coup story's being told, it's being told too late. But CounterSpin listeners learned in real time.
‘Trump’s Troops Are Breaking the Law and Creating Chaos’
Jul 30, 2020
"There are lawsuits being filed in support of the real power, and that is the power of the people."
Worries About Foreign ‘Hacking’ of Vaccine Research Place Corporate Profits Ahead of Public Health
Jul 28, 2020
Does it make sense to describe the alleged actions of Russian and Chinese hackers as a form of “theft”? If so, what kind of “theft” is it?
‘A Combination of Forces Puts Our Postal Service at Grave Risk’
Jul 25, 2020
"Charles Koch, who's one of the richest billionaires in the world...has been staking efforts by people who have been working to privatize the Postal Service for more than five decades."
Marjorie Cohn on Portland Secret Police
Jul 24, 2020
Militarized federal agents have been deployed with a mission reflected in Defense Secretary Mark Esper's comment that city streets are a "battlespace," filled with what Homeland Security Acting Chief Chad Wolf called "violent mobs."