Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: former White House aide Scooter Libby was found guilty of 4 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. The case might be over, but the chatter about what it means for reporters, the White House and the debate over the Iraq War will continue. Veteran reporter Bob Parry of Consortium News will join us to talk about the verdict, and the limits of what trials like this reveal to the public. Also this week: settlements over the latest payola scandals will force four large radio companies to pay [...]
Mar
01
2007
Net Neutrality and the Supermedia Monopolies
Deregulation’s history of empty promises
By Jeff Chester
The leaders of the nation’s largest cable and telephone companies are telling lawmakers something familiar: New national policies are required to connect everyone to what they call a “superbroadband” Internet highway. If Washington supports their political agenda, the companies vow that the nation will benefit from advances in healthcare, improvements in the quality of life for senior citizens, and major boosts for jobs and the economy. But, say corporate executives, we are stymied by rules, regulations and local and state policies. Congress, the FCC and the White House must get government out of the way. They claim that the emergence [...]
Dec
22
2006
Antonia Juhasz on Iraq and oil, Jenny Toomey & Peter DiCola on radio consolidation
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: If you wanted to be dismissed by elite pundits and reporters before the Iraq War began, all you had to do was mention oil. Suggesting that Iraq's massive petroleum reserves had anything at all to do with US interest in regime change was a good way to get branded a kook or conspiracy theorist, at best. But years later, Iraq's oil is still coming up convesations about the Iraq War. Are the media finally catching up with this story, or not? Antonia Juhasz, author of the book The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One [...]
Oct
27
2006
Gloria Tristani on Benton media studies, Diane Farsetta on RTNDA and video news releases
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Four academic studies about the effects of media concentration on media content have been published by the Benton Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Appropriately, the studies come as the FCC is holding hearings about consolidation and whether broadcast corporations should be able to have even more broadcast licenses. We'll talk with Benton Foundation president and former FCC commissioner Gloria Tristani. Also on the show: Research earlier this year revealed that TV stations around the country are passing off video news releases produced by PR firms as their own news. The FCC launched [...]
Oct
20
2006
Daniel Davies on the Lancet study, Peggy Charren on the FCC and indecency
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When a study in the British Medical journal the Lancet found that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a consequence of the war, the Lancet was dismissed by George W. Bush, who called its methodology flawed. American media outlets also cast doubt, calling the peer-reviewed findings "disputed" and pointing to lower, less scientific numbers as more reliable. Daniel Davies, a writer for the Comment is Free blog on the website of London's Guardian, will join us to explain why the critics are wrong. Also on the show: The FCC’s war on what [...]
Oct
01
2006
Memory Unerased
Deep Dish documents the unseen Iraq War
In the days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as the U.S. military planned a massive aerial bombing campaign on the densely populated city of Baghdad, the Pentagon phrase “Shock and Awe” was repeated with enthusiasm on television, part of the celebration of the power of modern warfare. At the same time, Deep Dish TV was setting in motion a plan to record, illuminate, document and bear witness to what would be left out of the commercial media war frame. They would title the 13-part series of 28-minute programs Shocking and Awful, and the group of independent artists and media [...]
Oct
01
2006
Shredding Bad News at the FCC
Studies with 'wrong' results were disappeared
By Julie Hollar
The Federal Communications Commission has suppressed reports documenting the negative impact of media consolidation, even as the FCC trumpeted reports that reflect favorably on Commission members’ deregulation campaign. The scandal emerged on September 12, when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D.-Calif.) produced a leaked copy of a 2004 FCC report as she questioned current FCC chair Kevin Martin during his re-nomination hearings. The report showed that locally owned television stations provide more local news than those with non-local owners. (FAIR helped call attention to this report in a September 15 Action Alert.) Three years ago, then-FCC chair Michael Powell launched proceedings on [...]
Sep
29
2006
Michael Ratner on detainee legislation, Hannah Sassaman on suppressed FCC reports
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Congress has passed legislation on military commissions and detainee treatment that will allow forms of detainee abuse recognized internationally as torture, and make secret evidence and coerced evidence admissible in court. It will also degrade habeus corpus, the traditional right of prisoners to challenge their detention. Why is the media largely ignoring the substance and historic significance of the legislation in favor the stories about the political battles over it? We'll talk about all that with Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Also on the show: FCC Chair Kevin Martin has called [...]
