With the new Democratic Congress promising to let the Medicare prescription drug program negotiate lower prices from drug companies, those companies have gotten their friends in the media to find some reason—any reason—why this would be a bad idea. The Washington Post, happy to defend corporate profits, declared in the lead paragraph of a front-page November 26 article that Democrats were in danger of “wrecking a program that has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined.” “Anyone” clearly doesn’t include Congress, which barely passed the program in 2003 based on the White House’s 10-year cost projection of less than [...]
Oct
01
2006
Star Power Trumps History in AIDS Coverage
A love letter to the 'two Bills'
A number of activists at the 16th International AIDS Conference complained that the Toronto gathering foregrounded the rich and famous—most prominently Microsoft chair Bill Gates and former President Bill Clinton—at the expense of front-line workers and people living with AIDS (e.g., “Activists Blast Focus on Celebrity,” Calgary Herald, 8/17/06). “They can’t have it both ways,” responded Conference co-chair Mark Wainberg (AP Worldstream, 8/17/06). Advocates who want the increased public attention that comes with media coverage, Wainberg suggested, should know the deal. “They should understand, as we all do, that we would not have 3,000 journalists at this conference if not [...]
Sep
01
2006
Never Apologize
[Note: this piece is a sidebar to Star Power Trumps History in AIDS Coverage] A study published in August in the Journal of the American Medical Association (8/9/06) found that sub-Saharan Africans are better at following drug regimens than North Americans. The authors hoped the findings would lay to rest the myth that Africans are incapable of adhering to complicated antiretroviral drug treatment programs, which had been used as an excuse to restrict the region’s access to life-saving drugs. In a related story, the New York Times (8/14/06) reported, “Only a few years ago, there was widespread skepticism that AIDS [...]
Jun
23
2006
Eric Boehlert on 'Lapdogs,' Ryan King on meth craze
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The title of the book really says it all: Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled over for Bush. Author Eric Boehlert will join us to talk about how—and why—the Beltway press corps has done its part to prop up the Bush presidency. And with Bush down in the polls, has the media mood changed at all? Also on the show: "There's no drug worse than meth," claimed US drug czar John Walters in a recent Associated Press story; though the story itself was about how seizures of methamphetamine laboratories are way down. If you're confused [...]
Jul
15
2005
Jim Naureckas on Rove-Wilson, Trudy Lieberman on Drug Industry
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: As Karl Rove becomes the subject of intense media scrutiny the White House is being raked over the coals by an angry and suddenly reanimated press corp. Why are they so agitated? Is it because they were lied to by the White House? Or because their colleague, Judy Miller, is in jail for refusing to divulge her sources, perhaps including Rove? FAIR editor Jim Naureckas will join us in a discussion of the angry press, and the limits of journalistic confidentiality. Also this week: the power of the pharmaceutical industry. The nation's leading drug [...]
Mar
01
2005
Taking a Dive on Contra Crack
How the Mercury News caved in to the media establishment
By Gary Webb
At 2 a.m.—midnight in San Jose—on August 18, 1996, I was at a party at my best friend’s house in Indianapolis. I excused myself, went into a bedroom, plugged into my laptop, and dialed into the Mercury’s website. A picture of a man smoking crack, superimposed upon the seal of the CIA, drew itself on the screen. After more than a year of work, “Dark Alliance” was finally out. The Mercury News executive editor, Jerry Ceppos, called and congratulated me. The TV networks were calling the paper. We were getting phone calls from all over the world. “Let’s stay on [...]
Mar
01
2005
America's Debt to Gary Webb
Punished for reporting the truth while those who covered it up thrived
By Robert Parry
In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that forced a long-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent U.S. foreign policy—the Reagan/Bush administration’s protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of the Nicaraguan Contra war in the 1980s. For his brave reporting at the San Jose Mercury News, Webb paid a high price. He was attacked by journalistic colleagues at the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, American Journalism Review (11/96, 1-2/ 97, 6/97) and even the Nation magazine (6/2/97). Under this media pressure, his editor, Jerry Ceppos, sold out the story [...]
Dec
17
2004
Jeff Cohen on Gary Webb, Eileen Loh Harrist on Youngstown strike
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Award-winning investigative reporter Gary Webb died at the age of 49 on Friday, December 10, from an apparent suicide. In 1996 Webb's courageous work linked cocaine traffickers to the CIA's Contra army in Nicaragua and to the West Coast crack scourge. We'll be joined by FAIR founder Jeff Cohen to discuss Gary Webb's work and the backlash he suffered at the hands of an establishment media bent on protecting the powerful. Also on the show: Workers at the Youngstown Ohio daily the Vindicator are on strike. So what does that have to do with [...]
