The Horserace Waste
Horserace polling’s predictive value, almost a year before any actual voting, is essentially nil.
Make Your Own Damn Sign!
It did not surprise me, during the 2004 election, when Kerry/Edwards supporters called in to my show on Air America Radio—though it did surprise me when they called in seeking yard signs. I don’t have a yard, much less a sign. All I could think to do was to direct these callers to the Kerry […]
Who’s Counting?
While it certainly feels like the presidential election cycle has started earlier than ever, a more important issue is what sort of coverage of the process the media are providing citizens. Much of what voters are seeing is reporting and analysis of early polls, which show Rudolph Giuliani with a wide lead over his Republican […]
Jared Bernstein on taxes, Sunday Dare on Nigeria
Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute talks rich people and taxes. Also this week: Reporter Sunday Dare joins CounterSpin to talk about what’s missing from U.S. media coverage on the upcoming presidential election in Nigeria.
The Repeatedly Re-Elected Autocrat
Hugo Chávez never had a chance with the U.S. press. Shortly after his first electoral victory in 1998, New York Times Latin America reporter Larry Rohter (12/20/98) summed up his victory thusly: All across Latin America, presidents and party leaders are looking over their shoulders. With his landslide victory in Venezuela’s presidential election on December […]
Glen Ford on Barack Obama, Chris Slevin on trade & the elections
Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report joins to discuss media coverage of Obama and what is missing. Also on the show: Elite media, the midterm elections, and “free trade” agreements, with Chris Slevin of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.
Morning-After Pundits Take Winners to Task
On the day after Election Day 2006, pundits from major U.S. news outlets had, as one would expect, substantial amounts of political criticism for the party that faced major losses. What is more remarkable is the amount of criticism and caution directed at the party that won major gains. Virtually unanimously, the political commentators providing […]
Midterms and the Media
Tomorrow’s midterm elections are surely among the most closely watched and hotly contested in many years. The media coverage has thoroughly discussed the latest polls and approval ratings, as well as the barrage of negative advertising. But when a “botched” joke receives wall-to-wall coverage, it is a good time to ask whether political reporting is […]
Justin Levitt on voting, Richard Kim on ‘values voters’
Charges of voter disenfranchisement versus charges of voter fraud and how the media handles these conversations, with Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice. Also on the show: The Nation writer Richard Kim joins to discuss same sex marriage and so-called values voters.
New York Times Rewrites Iraq War History
(NOTE: Please see the Activism Update regarding this alert.) In a New York Times article (9/5/06) on George W. Bush’s September 5 speech concerning terrorism and Iraq, reporters David Sanger and John O’Neil included a striking revision of Bush’s reasoning for going to war: The possibility that Saddam Hussein might develop ‘weapons of mass destruction’ […]
SoundBites
No “Happy” Talk Asked at a press conference (8/21/06) if he was “frustrated” about the situation in Iraq, George W. Bush responded: “Frustrated? Sometimes I’m frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I’m happy. This is—but war is not a time of joy. These aren’t joyous times. These are challenging times, and they’re difficult times, and they’re straining […]
Noam Chomsky on ‘Failed States’
This week on CounterSpin: An extended interview with long-time author, activist and linguist Noam Chomsky.
Sidebar: The Internet Problem
[Note: this piece is a sidebar to Move Over—Over and Over: Media’s rightward push for Democrats] Political reporters looking to identify a new obstacle standing in the way of Democratic electoral success often find it online, where party activists and progressives congregate around liberal blogs and websites. Writing under the headline “Blogs Attack From Left […]
Mark Weisbrot on Mexican election, James Zogby on Gaza crisis
This week on CounterSpin: Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research discusses Mexico’s still-unresolved presidential election and the press’s blatant favoritism towards conservative candidate Felipe Calderón. Also on the show: James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, talks about U.S. coverage of Gaza and how it compares to what’s being said by the Israeli media.
Move Over—Over and Over
It’s an article of faith in the elite ranks of journalism: Political virtue and electoral success reside in the ideological center. Though it’s not overwhelmingly popular with the American public, centrism is the dominant message of national political pundits and journalists—at least for Democrats. While few commentators would disagree with the conventional wisdom that Republican […]
Ignoring Inaccuracy at the Washington Post
On April 10, Washington Post columnist and deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl penned a column arguing that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is not very popular and has little democratic legitimacy. FAIR sent the following letter to Diehl on April 18, questioning the accuracy of his comments and his overall thesis. FAIR’s letter has so […]
David Cole on NSA spying, Anthony Fenton on Haiti elections
This week on CounterSpin: David Cole, professor at Georgetown University Law on the controversial NSA program. Also: Journalist Anthony Fenton joins for a discussion on corporate media and democracy in Haiti.
Joshua Holland on oil-for-food scandal, Andrew Schwartzman on license challenges
This week on CounterSpin, Joshua Holland of Alternet joins to discuss the so-called oil-for-food scandal and how a right-wing spin has been driving the story. Also: Director Andrew Schwartzman on the Media Access Project.
Defeated by Democracy
In the months before the January 30, 2005 elections in Iraq, gloom and dissension began creeping into the media’s usual cheerleading for the war. Casualties were mounting, Iraqi resentment was growing, and the Army was facing an alarming shortage of manpower. In a December column (12/27/04), Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt—a staunch supporter of […]
The Great Emancipator
Failing to find weapons of mass destruction or an Al-Qaeda/Saddam Hussein connection almost two years after it invaded Iraq, the Bush White House fell back on its second-tier justification for the invasion: that occupying the country would start a domino-chain of democratization throughout the Middle East. In the wake of the January 30 Iraq elections, […]
