FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: This week on CounterSpin, did the White House really disclose the existence of Iran’s new Uranium enrichment plant, and does the plant, as many news stories seem to indicate, really violate the law? And what evidence is there that the new plant may have anything to do with a […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: the highest-level conference yet on climate change took place this week at the UN. The press made much of the obstacles faced on the way to any international agreement — but if the front page of the country’s paper of record is saying that temperatures haven’t risen in 10 […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin091809 Daniel Ellsberg and Rick Goldsmith @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin091809.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The Most Dangerous Man in America. That’s how Henry Kissinger described whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who famously leaked a top-secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 to the New York Times and other news outlets. The publication resulted in a landmark […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin091109 Mark Cook and Diana Duarte @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin091109.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The media lie that will not die about the Honduras coup is that ousted president Manuel Zelaya was attempting to change the Honduran constitution in order to extend his time in office. But there is nothing new about this current set […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Corporate media promised to pay more attention to poverty and race after the Gulf Coast’s Katrina disasters in 2005, and for a short time they did a little more reporting. But where was the followup on this year’s August anniversary, when papers like the Washington Post and L.A. Times, […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A few months ago it seemed like Dick Cheney wouldn’t get off your television screen, insisting that secret CIA documents would prove that Bush torture policies saved the United States from further terrorist attacks. Well those documents have surfaced, along with a 2004 CIA inspector general’s report. So what’s […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Goldman Sachs, Wall Street profiteering and… vampire squids. Wait, what was that last one? Journalist Matt Taibbi wrote a long takedown of the venerable Wall Street firm in Rolling Stone. Business journalists pronounced themselves mostly unimpressed with Taibbi’s analysis, and troubled by his language—like calling the company ‘a great […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Healthcare reform is still the top political story of the moment. But the coverage seems to have gone from bad to worse, with noisy town hall meetings standing in the way of any coherent discussion of the dysfunctional healthcare system in this country, and what can be done about […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Charter schools raise a lot of concerns for educators interested in the future of truly public education; the corporate press have tended more toward boosterism of charters and their high profile promoter, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. That’s the subject of a story in the current issue of Extra! […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Some prominent feminist and liberal voices have recently lent their endorsement to the ongoing U.S. war in Afghanistan, based on the idea that the war is an effort to improve the lives of Afghan women and girls. That was a major argument at the war’s onset, but how does […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: “Obama May Have To Wait for Health Reform” explained one July 22 headline. Leave it to corporate media to take a life-and-death issue for millions of Americans and reduce it to an item on a president’s wish list. But if they’re going to mainly cover healthcare policy as inside […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama’s recent trip to Africa gave the press corps a chance to opine predictably on Obama’s “unique role” as a “son of Africa” who was specially suited to “tell African leaders hard truths”. It should’ve also been a chance for a serious look at the substance of U.S. […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Some 25 million Americans, nearly 9 percent of the population–rely on food pantries. But with rare exceptions, and despite its devastating impact, big media just don’t seem to find a reportable story in chronic hunger. A new book hopes to make the issue more visible, by actually talking to […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Coverage of the Honduran coup ousting president Manuel Zelaya has often included the claim that the coup was prompted by Zelaya’s move to change the constitution, so that he could stay in power. The fact that this central claim is untrue shows how confusing that coverage can be. We’ll […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Events in Iran continue to unfold with protests still underway in what seemed to begin as a rejection of the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Has it become something more now? And how are the press corps–not famously nuanced on Iran–handling events? We’ll hear from David Barsamian, founder and […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: I.F. Stone was not only among the greatest American investigative reporters, he was also an activist and man of the left, according to D.D. Guttenplan, who has just published the latest biography of the journalist. Because he challenged U.S. power, often simply by reporting on the contents of official […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama has either been currying favor with Muslims or extending an olive branch in the Middle East depending on which media you consume. We’ll talk with Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies about Obama’s major speech in Cairo, and the size of the gap between words […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin060509 Fred Clarkson and Adam Serwer @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin060509.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: There’s been a lot of coverage of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, allegedly killed by and anti-abortion activist. But there has been relatively little discussion of the culture that such violence arises from, where mainstream anti-abortion figures regularly demonize abortion […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When the media talks foreign affairs, there’s generally an assumption that countries have identifiable interests and rationally pursue them as best they can. All that’s thrown out the window when it comes to North Korea. That country’s apparent decision to conduct an underground nuclear test and test-fire several missiles […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Climate change legislation is making its way through Congress, but weirdly, that might not be good news. Some environmentalists are saying that in this case, no law might be better than this bill–that started out as a call to reduce carbon emissions but seems to be turning into something […]
