FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
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 […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: a special look at two issues that seem to bring out the worst in the corporate media. First up, the deficit. Worrying about the budget deficit is a corporate media staple, so President Obama’s deficit commission must appear a godsend. Early reports are that Social Security cuts, another media […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin, Gen. Stanley McChrystal is out as commander of troops in Afghanistan after derisive remarks he and aides made about the White House and the war to Rolling Stone magazine. But in all the folderol about insubordination and civilian command, are reporters missing the real story? We’ll talk to Joshua […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin, two angles on the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history, the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP is trying to control what you know about the catastrophe. What’s more, the company has enlisted federal and local government agencies to help censor information about the damage, […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Months after winning an election that ended five decades of one-party rule, Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned, citing his failure to close a U.S. military base on the island of Okinawa. U.S. media told us quite a bit about why the U.S. wants the base to remain on […]
Download MP3 On May 31st the Israeli military attacked a flotilla of boats full of civilians attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to the Gaza strip, and to call attention to the impact of Israel’s blockade. At least 9 and as many as 16 activists were killed—we don’t know in part due to Israel’s tight control […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The BP/Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is by almost any standard a much more severe catastrophe than originally thought. Amid the now-they-tell-us reporting on safety violations and lack of regulatory oversight, some fundamental questions about offshore drilling are still left unaddressed—the most important being, “Is this […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When Brazil and Turkey brokered a deal to get Iran to ship much of its Uranium abroad for enriching, much of the world saw it as a positive step. But not so U.S. officials, who saw it as a threat to their efforts to impose UN sanctions on Iran—though […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama has announced his pick for Supreme Court justice—former Harvard Law School dean and Solicitor General Elena Kagan. And the media debates have begun: about her record, her credentials and her likely impact on the court. We’ll sort through some of what you’re hearing and perhaps what you […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Arizona’s new immigration law has sparked national protests and a renewed political discussion about something usually called “comprehensive reform.” What that means is unclear, but the discussion about immigration seems to have moved to the right in some fundamental ways. Gabriel Arana from the American Prospect will join us […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: April 29 headlines suggest the oil spill from the explosion of a Deepwater Horizon oil rig may be as much as 5 times larger than originally predicted. But according to some media observers, TV news anyway, has kept the focus on the disaster story, and the human story, but […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama is in New York City to wag a finger at Wall Street, but do the details of financial reform legislation really look like they’ll make serious change in an industry where Goldman Sachs, for example, can rack up earnings double those of last year’s first quarter while […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A New York Times report gives the impression that the debate over genetically engineered foods is largely over; the paper’s writeup of new research says that, despite some caveats and critics’ warnings, GE crops are good for the environment and the economy. Others come away with more questions than […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A dramatic videotape of a 2007 U.S. helicopter attack was published by the website Wikileaks on April 5—prompting waves of coverage across the world, though only sporadic attention from the US corporate press. The attacks killed 12 Iraqis, including 2 journalists working for Reuters. Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill will […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The DEA made a high profile announcement of massive seizures of opium in Afghanistan, reminding us of the centrality of opium production to the country’s economy. But most stories on the occupation and on Afghan ‘hearts and minds’ include marginal mention of the narcotic. How would really understanding the […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The long debate over health care reform might be, at least in some respects, over. Will conservatives still warn of creeping socialism and the end of American freedom? Sure. And many policy analysts are unimpressed with the new law– though those critiques are much harder to find in the […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The network camera crews have mostly packed up and gone home, but the political fights over reconstruction and rebuilding in Haiti are only just getting started. University of Texas professor Jemima Pierre was part of a delegation that recently visited Haiti, and she wrote about what she saw for […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A new law in Utah says women who miscarry, in some cases, should go to jail. You may have seen some coverage, but are journalists asking the right questions about the law’s implications, and is there a bigger story here that’s being missed? We’ll hear from executive director of […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin030510 Mary Bottari and Raed Jarrar @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin030510.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A recent NBC–Wall Street Journal poll showed 74 percent of Americans believed not enough had been done to regulate the banking industry. But is the legislation the Senate is now considering anything like what those people had in mind? We’ll get […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen says it’s time to “fight crazy with crazy” on Iran’s nuclear policy. If that passes for discussion of diplomacy in the corporate press, maybe we should look beyond them for interpretation of the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report. We’ll be talking with analyst […]
