FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
The national media watch group
CounterSpin is FAIR's weekly radio show, hosted by Janine Jackson, Steve Rendall and Peter Hart. CounterSpin is heard on more than 130 noncommercial stations across the United States and Canada. CounterSpin provides a critical examination of the major stories every week, and exposes what the mainstream media might have missed in their own coverage.
Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden is either a whistleblower or a traitor, depending on whom you listen to. We'll hear from Kathleen McClellan of the Government Accountability Project about Snowden and the NSA. Also on CounterSpin: Veteran consumer rights activist Ralph Nader joins us to talk about his new book Told You So. He'll share his thoughts about a media system that too often silences the voices of dissent.
As Bradley Manning's court martial trial gets underway, journalists face real obstacles in trying to report on it, and they should be facing the constitutional issues the case raises. We'll be joined by Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights and U.S. attorney for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.
Also on the show: Are parents keeping their kids from learning how to read, so they can get a disability check from the state? The claim has come from some high places in elite media, which you won't be surprised to learn, doesn't make it true. We'll speak with author and journalist Neil deMause about this not-so-new media canard.
Did Barack Obama's National Defense University speech signal a sea change in White House terrorism policy? That depended on who was doing the listening. We'll talk with Pardiss Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
And Bob McChesney talks about his new book Digital Disconnect, and why understanding capitalism is essential to understanding the development of the internet.
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: PBS says no to Koch. Not the soft drink, but a documentary called Citizen Koch, about the billionaire right-wing political donors. We'll speak with Tia Lessin, the film's co-director, about what happened. Also on CounterSpin today, actress Angelina Jolie’s announcement that she had a preventive double mastectomy brought breast cancer into the spotlight. The thing about media spotlights, though, is they don't always shed the most useful light. Is the press drawing the sort of lessons from the Jolie story that really will improve women's health choices? We'll talk with Karuna Jaggar from the [...]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The Justice Department's investigation of the AP poses a threat to freedom of the press and the public's right to know, but the story itself, about a supposed al Qaeda bomb plot thwarted by the CIA, has taken some interesting turns, calling into question the facts of the bomb plot story, and the Justice Department's rationale for investigating AP. We'll talk with Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel, who has been out in front on this story from early on. Also on CounterSpin today: The AP story is a reminder, if one were necessary, that [...]
Peter Hart talks about Syria and chemical weapons claims, and author Dilip Hiro joins the show to talk about how stories about Afghan corruption fail to explain the U.S. role in creating that corruption.
This week on CounterSpin: A whistleblower report confirms what many already sensed: In the wake of the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP was more interested in appearances than in the health and safety of people or ecosystems. Journalist and author Mark Hertsgaard is the environmental correspondent for The Nation magazine. He'll join us to discuss his article on the extent, and the impact, of BP's cover up.
lAlso on CounterSpin today, the right has managed to manufacture a controversy over something they call an "Obama Phone." The story is basically bogus, but it's having real world effects nonetheless. We'll talk to Jamilah King from Colorlines about that.
This week on CounterSpin: The Boston bombings were labeled as terrorist attacks almost from the start. But what does that label mean, and how is it used? We'll talk to Cal State University of Chico professor Beau Grosscup about how the term is used—and perhaps misused.
Also on CounterSpin today, much of the town of West, Texas was destroyed in an explosion at the West Fertilizer plant on April 18.Famed EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman joins us to critique media portrayals of the disaster as merely a matter of regulatory oversights.
