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Articles about: Corporate Ownership
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August 22, 2008
Thomas Frank on ‘The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule’

Thomas Frank on ‘The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule’

[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin082208 Thomas Frank @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin082208.mp3″] Download MP3 Conservative mismanagement of government is no mistake but the concerted effort of a movement that seeks to further the interests of big business and destroy government’s ability to oversee or regulate those interests. That’s the theme of best-selling author and Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank’s new book, […]

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June 1, 2008

Reprivatizing Elvis

There aren’t many places where social activists and conservative economists agree, but copyright is one of them. Milton Friedman famously announced that he wouldn’t sign an amicus brief in the Eldred case, which challenged the extension of U.S. copyrights by 20 years, unless it included the term “no-brainer.” It didn’t, but he and 16 other […]

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March 1, 2008

Fear & Favor 2007

U.S. journalists seeking to fulfill the profession’s traditional goal of telling the truth and “letting the chips fall where they may” have powerful forces to contend with, starting with the corporate owners who employ them, and the corporate advertisers who fuel the enterprise, both of whom have an investment in maintaining a political conversation and […]

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January 1, 2008

Are People a ‘Special Interest’?

We are raised on the notion that people are paramount in democracy–that it’s all about citizens who, through public discussion, campaigns and elections, decide who will lead and which policies will be pursued. But that notion is often undermined by political reporting and commentary, which often seems designed to get people out of the process […]

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December 21, 2007
Josh Silver on FCC ruling, John Conroy on Chicago police torture

Josh Silver on FCC ruling, John Conroy on Chicago police torture

This week Josh Silver from Free Press joins CounterSpin to break down the recent FCC decision to eliminate a ban that aimed to prevent the creation of cross-industry media monopolies. Also on the program: We’ll talk to journalist John Conroy, who has covered the Chicago police department for decades and, recently, found himself out of a job, thanks to the cost-cutting of his paper’s corporate parent.

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October 1, 2007

Murdoch’s Journal

Once Rupert Murdoch’s bid to purchase the Dow Jones Company was made public, media watchers were nearly unanimous in bemoaning the ramifications of the deal. Observers warned that Dow Jones’ most important asset—the venerable Wall Street Journal—would be transformed from a respectable business-oriented national newspaper into a down-market, New York Post-style tabloid. As advocates for […]

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July 6, 2007
Mark Lloyd, Hannah Sassaman, Dory Graham and Bruce Dixon on the state of radio

Mark Lloyd, Hannah Sassaman, Dory Graham and Bruce Dixon on the state of radio

This week on CounterSpin: Mark Lloyd of the Center for American Progress joins to talk about “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” Also on the program: A conversation with Hannah Sassaman and Dory Graham from the Prometheus Radio Project on a new resilient grassroots media movement that has been born in response to corporate consolidation and dominance. And finally: Do shifts in the radio landscape provide special promise for the black community? Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report has thoughts on that.

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March 3, 2007

Self-Inflicted Wounds?

[Note: This piece is a sidebar to The Trials of Air America.] In addition to the significant political and commercial obstacles facing progressive talk radio, Air America has been plagued by financial troubles from its birth. Just a month after its founding, it had to dismiss top executives for exaggerating the company’s assets, nearly leading […]

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March 1, 2007

Net Neutrality and the Supermedia Monopolies

The leaders of the nation’s largest cable and telephone companies are telling lawmakers something familiar: New national policies are required to connect everyone to what they call a “superbroadband” Internet highway. If Washington supports their political agenda, the companies vow that the nation will benefit from advances in healthcare, improvements in the quality of life […]

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March 1, 2007

The Trials of Air America

Shortly before the launch of the liberal talk radio network Air America in March 2004, Jon Sinton, an executive with the network’s corporate parent, Progress Media, explained to the New Republic (2/10/04) why talk radio was dominated by conservative hosts. It was all about Rush Limbaugh’s success, said Sinton: “If Limbaugh had been a flaming […]

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January 12, 2007
Alexander Cockburn on NY Times & Iraq, Matt Zimmerman on Spocko & Disney

Alexander Cockburn on NY Times & Iraq, Matt Zimmerman on Spocko & Disney

The New York Times complicity in calling for an escalation of the Iraq War, with CounterPunch proprietor and Nation magazine columnist Alexander Cockburn. Also this week: Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation on the conflict between ABC and a San Francisco blogger who decided to expose the nasty rhetoric featured on a local Disney-owned radio station.

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December 15, 2006
Sarah Anderson on Augusto Pinochet, Rafael Olmeda on NBC-Telemundo

Sarah Anderson on Augusto Pinochet, Rafael Olmeda on NBC-Telemundo

Sarah Anderson of the Institute for Policy Studies joins CounterSpin to discuss how U.S. press has remembered Augusto Pinochet and his legacy. Also on the show: While the U.S. Latino population continues to grow, the number of local Spanish language television newscasts will soon be shrinking, per a recent announcement by NBC Universal. We’ll talk about what it means to lose local news with Rafael Olmeda, the president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

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December 1, 2006

The Myth of the Muzzled Media

[Note: This piece is a sidebar to “The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat.”] Following Hugo Chávez’s September 20 speech at the U.N., which included a mocking reference to George W. Bush as “the devil,” U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told reporters “the real issue” was that Chávez was not “giving the same freedom of speech” […]

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October 1, 2006

Memory Unerased

In the days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as the U.S. military planned a massive aerial bombing campaign on the densely populated city of Baghdad, the Pentagon phrase “Shock and Awe” was repeated with enthusiasm on television, part of the celebration of the power of modern warfare. At the same time, Deep Dish TV […]

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September 29, 2006
Michael Ratner on detainee legislation, Hannah Sassaman on suppressed FCC reports

Michael Ratner on detainee legislation, Hannah Sassaman on suppressed FCC reports

This week on CounterSpin: Despite the recent significant decision by Congress to pass legislation that recognizes some forms of detainee abuse as torture, the media is focused on all the wrong things. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights joins the show to discuss the situation. Also on the program: Hannah Sassaman of Prometheus Radio Project about the FCC and its habitual suppression of research on media ownership.

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