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(photo: Support Prisoner Resistance)
This week on CounterSpin: You wouldn’t know it from corporate press, but what may have been the largest prison labor strike in the country’s history happened September 9, after months of organizing. Prisoners hoped to call attention to a range of complaints about conditions, including forced labor. This country is supposedly taking a bipartisan “fresh look” at mass incarceration; so what does elite media’s collective yawn say about their actual interest in what happens to people once they are behind bars? We’ll hear from investigative journalist and Prison Radio director Noelle Hanrahan.
Transcript: ‘The Bodies of Prisoners Are Commodities’
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(cc photo: Ildar Sagdejev/Wikimedia)
Also on the show: Wells Fargo being fined once again for fraud. This time it’s signing customers up for accounts they didn’t ask for in order to meet sales goals. The CEO will supposedly answer questions at a congressional hearing, but is there any sense we’re any closer to asking the right questions of the banking industry? Former financial regulator William Black is associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri/Kansas City and author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. He’ll help us sort through the Wells Fargo story.
Transcript: ‘You Know That It’s Not a Few Rotten Apples’
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First, as usual, we’ll take a look back at recent press, including the New York Times promoting boycotted berries, the Washington Post‘s Russian election speculation and Amy Goodman facing arrest for committing journalism.
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The mainstream media has become completely accepting of white collar fraud. On my way to work I was listening to NPR’s Marketplace. They brought up that the Wells Fargo CEO was going before congress today to testify regarding this scandal, but pretty much left it at that. No analysis, no outrage, no nothing. Seemed to be just business as usual the way they presented the story, and they quickly moved onto another segment of the show. And they wonder why the electorate is so pessimistic. When a big bank violates millions of customers and their confidential financial information on such a massive scale, you would think that would elicit some sort of commentary from a show called “Marketplace”. Anyway, thanks for what you do in this show in pointing out the media’s silence on so many important issues.