FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In response to hundreds of letters from FAIR activists, PBS ombud Michael Getler (7/16/10) agreed with FAIR’s criticism (Action Alert, 7/12/10) of the 3-hour PBS documentary Turmoil and Triumph, a tribute to former Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz funded in part by institutions and individuals with close ties to Shultz. Getler found Turmoil to […]
Many PBS stations around the country will begin airing a three-part, three-hour documentary tonight (7/12/10) about Reagan-era Secretary of State George Shultz. According to the New York Times (7/12/10), the unusually lengthy, completely uncritical tribute is partially sponsored by corporations linked to Shultz’s corporate career. The special, Turmoil and Triumph, was funded by the Stephen […]
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 […]
As the functions of media, commerce and communication rapidly shift into the digital world, more and more cities are viewing broadband Internet access as a necessary resource to stay economically viable in the 21st century. While these communities have been working to expand access, another group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Haiti’s status as the poorest nation in the hemisphere has been mentioned time and again by journalists covering the current catastrophe, but where were journalists before the earthquake hit? And how are they doing in explaining the larger context of how Haiti got to this point? We’ll talk to […]
For most Americans, “public broadcasting” means the local PBS affiliate. But there’s another kind of non-commercial media that’s established by the government: public access channels. PEG (Public, Educational and Governmental) channels, as they’re officially known, are created by agreements between municipalities and cable companies: In exchange for getting access to lay their cable through public […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The Performance Rights Act would require broadcasters to pay royalties that would be split between recording artists and record companies. The bill has just passed through house and senate committees, and will presumably be debated and voted on. The legislation, naturally faces strong opposition from the broadcasting industry, who […]
A Seattle Times op-ed column (7/4/09) by Free Press’ Victor Pickard and Joseph Torres discussing the fact that “the public’s changing media habits have eroded the newspaper industry’s monopoly on the local ad market” describes the corporate response thus: “The big media companies are pressuring Congress to prop up their failed business models by allowing […]
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 […]
Some voices in the corporate media have pushed for government intervention to relax ownership restrictions in order to allow for the creation of even bigger media conglomerates—which seems a bit like a hangover victim’s thirst for the hair of the dog that bit them. New York Times reporter Carr (5/9/09) confessed that while as a […]
Newspapers are faltering. Their traditional economic base is continually being eroded by the Internet, and this trend will only increase with time. The lot of print newspapers is unlikely to improve, and the sooner journalists and those who care about the press accept this foregone conclusion, the better. Because there is a critical question confronting […]
SIDEBARS: Proposed Cure: More of the Disease and Did Google Kill the Newspaper Star? Corporate media are in a state of severe business shock, it seems—layoffs at newspapers large and small, due to advertising revenue drying up and readers ceasing to pay for a printed copy of a newspaper that they can usually read for […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: If you didn’t panic over the swine flu, then maybe you weren’t watching much TV, where scary charts and maps documented the spread of a worldwide pandemic. At least that’s what we were hearing last week. With the media hysteria subsiding, the question isn’t so much did the press […]
When researchers identified the common plastic additive Bisphenol-A (BPA) as being potentially harmful, CBS ran a segment on the morning news. The anchor introduced the story, “A new study finds that a chemical found in plastic baby bottles and other plastic containers and wraps could be dangerous to your health.” This may seem like an […]
Free Press‘ Craig Aaron and Joseph Torres (Guardian.co.uk, 3/26/09) promptly knock down the scary development in which Nancy Pelosi recently “asked attorney general Eric Holder to consider loosening antitrust laws to help out struggling newspapers by allowing more media mergers. Holder responded by saying he is open to revisiting the rules”: Pelosi’s request sounds innocuous […]
Industry news outlet TV Predictions has a commentary from Phillip Swann (2/22/09) telling us that when “roughly 36 percent” of local television stations recently stopped broadcasting ahead of the digital conversion deadline (“stations save money by switching early because they would no longer have to transmit both analog and digital signals”), “the FCC received more […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin022009 Robert Parry and Brandon Lacy Campos @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin022009.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: A new study from Think Progress shows that cable news stories about the stimulus debate were dominated by Republicans, with GOP guests outnumbering Democrats by 2 to 1. This isn’t an aberration says our guest, but a return to the […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin010909 Ali Abunimah and AC Thompson @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin010909.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The carnage in Gaza has provoked international outrage among many journalists outside the U.S., but journalists in the U.S. are largely holding on to a storyline that says that Israel is merely defending itself after Hamas broke a ceasefire. We’ll talk […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin121208 Bob McChesney and Steve Early @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin121208.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The Tribune Company that owns the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times along with much else declared bankruptcy this week, just a year after new owner Sam Zell took over, with his notable lack of background or interest in newspapers. It […]
Brayden Simms had only five months to warm his seat as a copy editor at the Miami Herald before he joined the long list of journalists across the country losing their jobs faster and more suddenly than a breaking story. But while media companies are slashing their staff rosters, consolidating newsrooms and forcing those journalists […]
