Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Two issues modern media critics can't help but engage are the growth of right-wing media, and their forcible injection of sometimes bizarre ideas and methods into so-called mainstream debate; and the impact of corporate media's narrow economic vision, which also affects public debate and political possibilities, on some of the most critical decisions affecting the country. On today's show we’re going to talk about some of those things with two authors. If you watch Glenn Beck for even a few minutes you're left wondering whether it's all a con job—from the weepy patriotism to [...]
Nov
27
2009
Maryann Napoli on mammography guidelines, Rebecca Solnit on 'The Battle for Seattle'
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: There's a lot of controversy around new mammogram guidelines—but it's not coming from the research community. We'll talk to Maryann Napoli of the Center for Medical Consumers about that evolving story. Also on the show: Ten years ago a seemingly obscure meeting of a relatively unknown international trade body made headlines around the world. The so-called Battle of Seattle galvanized anti-globalization protesters who shut down the World Trade Organization meetings and pushed criticism of the WTO's unchecked power into the corporate media. So, a decade on, how do those corporate media remember—or misremember—Seattle? And [...]
Feb
13
2009
Lori Wallach on Buy America brouhaha, Dan Beeton on Venezuela
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The debate over the White House-backed economic stimulus package has featured all kinds of media misdeeds—an overreliance on Republican rejectionists and an absence of actual economists talking about the plan, just for starters. Pundits and editorial writers have warned us about another problem: the prospect of a global trade war, thanks to the Democrats' protectionism. Is all the media anger totally misplaced? We'll talk to Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division. Also on the show: Venezuelans have a referendum this weekend but the U.S. corporate press corps voted long ago: Chávez [...]
Sep
01
2008
Media Push an Unpopular Trade 'Centrism'
Contradictory counsel for Obama
By Roger Bybee
As America heads toward a critical presidential election, “free trade” advocate Robert Reich, who as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary in 1993 fought hard for passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), glumly admitted that the constituency for “free trade” has severely eroded. “I’m still a free trader, although I will tell you . . . there are fewer and fewer of us,” he told MSNBC host Chris Matthews wanly (Hardball, 10/8/07). “It’s a very unpopular position.” Unpopular with the public, but certainly not the media. Leading pundits and editorial writers for corporate media have persisted in counseling Democratic [...]
Aug
01
2008
Juan Cole on Iraq/Afghanistan, Todd Tucker on WTO talks
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The media debate on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seems to rest on the assumption that the troop surge in Iraq has "worked," and more troops in Afghanistan would help turn that conflict in the favor of U.S. and NATO forces. That's the consensus view, but does it make any sense? We'll ask University of Michigan professor Juan Cole. Also on Counterspin today, the Wall Street Journal wonders whether the recent collapse of World Trade Organization talks means the end of the "free trade era that has done so much to spread prosperity". Yet [...]
Jul
01
2008
Selling the Colombia Trade Pact
Papers spin deal into a ‘no-brainer’
In an April 10 editorial headlined “Drop Dead, Colombia,” the Washington Post excoriated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for holding up passage of a proposed trade promotion deal with Colombia. With the hyperbole the paper seems to reserve for this issue, the Post declared, “The year 2008 may enter history as the time when the Democratic Party lost its way on trade.” Refusing to wave the deal through without challenge is an error of historic proportion, the Post declared, because “economically, it should be a no-brainer—especially at a time of rising U.S. joblessness.” Perhaps more significantly, the deal deserves support as [...]
