Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Japan's Foreign Minister has told officials to stop claiming Japanese food is safe. This after beef contaminated by radiation from Fukushima’s No. 1 nuclear power plant was sold and consumed around the country. Meanwhile a devastating report from Associated Press reveals that a system to forecast radiation threats did function but was ignored by top officials who didn’t understand its significance. One result: the Karino Elementary School, which the system predicted would be directly in the plume coming from Fukushima’s nuclear plant, was not evacuated, but instead used as temporary shelter for people fleeing [...]
Jun
10
2011
Harvey Wasserman on Fukushima; Andrew Fieldhouse on Bush tax cuts
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: After a lull in reporting about the Japanese nuclear disaster comes news that officials there are admitting that radiation releases were much larger than previously claimed-- not a surprise to critics who saw those early claims as part of a government/corporate/media misinformation loop that kicks in whenever we talk about nuclear power. So what is the real story out of Fukushima, and where can you get independent information? We'll talk to journalist and activist Harvey Wasserman. Also on the show: Ten years ago mainstream media were running stories like the Dallas Morning News’ "FINDING [...]
May
13
2011
Miranda Spencer on renewable energy, Mike Ervin on Medicaid protests
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: What are renewables and why are media telling us so little about them? With energy prices rising, and a nuclear disaster still unfolding in Japan, it would seem to be the perfect time to talk about renewable energy sources, like solar, wind and geothermal. But this hasn't been the case. Independent journalist Miranda Spencer will join us to talk about how the media dismiss alternative forms of energy that are safer, cleaner and cheaper, but apparently still less journalistically viable than petroleum, nuclear and coal. Also on the show: The arrests of more than [...]
May
06
2011
Matthew Alexander on torture, Tyson Slocum on gas prices
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The killing of Osama bin Laden has delivered plenty of media themes: Can the U.S. trust Pakistan? What does this mean for Al Qaeda? And, predictably enough, did Bush-era torture help find the al Qaeda leader? Torture advocates' insistence that this proves their case has given media yet another chance to weigh the supposed benefits of illegal interrogation. We'll speak with former military interrogator and author Matthew Alexander about why this is all wrong. Also on CounterSpin today, Gas prices edging up to an average of $4 a gallon are making headlines, but consumers [...]
May
01
2011
The Unrenewed Debate Over Renewable Energy
Little interest in safer, cleaner, even cheaper alternatives to nuclear power
When the March 11 earthquake and tsunami shut down cooling systems at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, U.S. government and nuclear industry spin control kicked in, asserting that a similar disaster couldn’t happen here, and that atomic power is here to stay. Corporate news outlets typically got caught up in this spin, relaying distorted and/or incomplete information about our energy options from a recycled cohort of pro-nuclear sources. An option hardly mentioned: renewable energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal power.* The topic of energy efficiency and conservation—sure-fire ways to reduce demand for energy in the first place—didn’t even surface. [...]
May
01
2011
After Fukushima, Media Still Buying Nuclear Spin
Downplaying deadly dangers in Japan and at home
Ever since the start of nuclear technology, those behind it have made heavy use of deception, obfuscation and denial—with the complicity of most of the media. New York Times reporter William Laurence, working at the same time with the Manhattan Project, wrote a widely published press release covering up the first nuclear test in New Mexico in 1945, claiming it was nothing more than an ammunition dump explosion. The Times and Laurence went on to boost nuclear power for years to come (Beverly Deepe Keever, News Zero: The New York Times and The Bomb). A central concern of nuclear promoters, [...]
Jul
01
2010
'You Fearmonger as a Way to Get Viewers'
Sandy Cioffi on Nigeria, the other oil disaster
It’s hard to imagine a worse situation than the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Niger delta in Nigeria has by some accounts suffered spills equaling the Exxon Valdez every year for five decades. Besides the rare report, though, you wouldn’t know about that from U.S. corporate media. FAIR’s radio show CounterSpin (6/25/10) talked with filmmaker Sandy Cioffi, creator of the award-winning 2009 film Sweet Crude. Here’s an edited version of that conversation. CS: Let’s begin with your thoughts on the crisis in the Gulf. Perhaps you could describe some of the differences and similarities [with Nigeria]. [...]
Jul
01
2010
Still Drill, Baby--Despite Spill
Little rethinking of oil after Deepwater disaster
By Peter Hart
The BP Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that began on April 20 is now thought to be the greatest environmental catastrophe in the country’s history. Despite this, news coverage in the wake of the spill downplayed the harm, reasserted the need for offshore drilling and minimized the White House’s—and the corporate media’s—recent endorsement of additional offshore oil exploration. On May 2, the New York Times ran a Week in Review piece from Jad Mouawad headlined “The Spill vs. a Need to Drill.” The tone of the article was clear—“emotions are running high” as the disaster gets worse, [...]
