FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
On his Media Citizen blog, Free Press’ Timothy Karr (9/17/09) has compiled some astounding Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs quotes propounding a “fear that’s laced with paranoia, stoked by misinformation and prejudice and fed to millions of people via powerful media”–namely that “the most anti-American notion of the lot is the idea that […]
On news that “today, a federal court threw out the Federal Communications Commission’s rule to cap cable ownership at 30 percent,” Free Press (8/28/09) comments “the rule served as an important consumer protection from media consolidation and growing cable cartels, and encouraged diversity in ownership in the cable industry.” The media advocacy group’s Ben Scott […]
Diligent media reformers Free Press (8/19/09) have announced a nifty new “online interactive tool to expose phony grassroots groups hired by big phone and cable companies to advance their political agenda.” They’re talking about “‘astroturf‘ organizations–many of which also work for the health insurance, energy and tobacco industries”– that “are mobilizing to spread misinformation about […]
Free Press campaign coordinator Misty Perez has sent out (7/15/09) a call to action in light of the astonishing figure that “in the first three months of 2009, the phone and cable industries spent at least $20 million to hire more than 400 lobbyists” in an effort to “push for policies that fatten phone and […]
Admitting “the temptation to join the growing legions of iPhone admirers is strong,” independent reporter Megan Tady (In These Times, 7/2/09) is discussing “what’s stopping me from signing up.” Her own personal decision is based on the fact that “purchasing an iPhone means I have to become an AT&T subscriber. The company has an exclusive […]
Keeping up with corporate attempts to abuse new media technology, the activists at Free Press (6/18/09) have a new campaign pointing out exactly what’s wrong with the fact that “AT&T is allowing Major League Baseball to stream video live to the iPhone on the carrier’s 3G network, but is prohibiting other companies like SlingPlayer Mobile […]
Senator John Kerry’s post to the SaveTheInternet.com blog (6/16/09) looks at the fact that “nine of the most popular 10 phones are locked in a deal with one of these big wireless carriers,” and how this corporatization limits the new medium: Here’s the issue I think we need to wrestle with: Wireless service providers are […]
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 […]
Today’s Democracy Now! (3/9/09) features Amy Goodman reporting that “a House Appropriations subcommittee has… asked the FCC to look into the allegations” of media activists across the country: Community media groups are accusing the telecom giant AT&T of discriminating against local public access channels across the nation, and the deadline for public comment is midnight […]
[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=”CounterSpin112808 Mark Brenner and Steve Rendall @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin112808.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Bailing out the Big Three. GM, Ford and Chrysler are on the brink of total failure, we’re told. In a season of corporate bailouts of all sorts, this one is meeting more resistance—in part because union autoworkers, we’re told, are making […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin103108 Bob Dreyfuss and Wally Bowen @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin103108.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The election is not over as we record this show, but no matter who wins, the Iraq War was largely a second-tier issue for the media, more of a discussion of the past than the present. Not even the war spilling […]
[mp3-jplayer tracks=”CounterSpin062008 Tyson Slocum and Matthew Lasar @https://eadn-wc04-3257648.nxedge.io/audio/counterspin/CounterSpin062008.mp3″] Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: John McCain says the ban on oil drilling of the U.S. coast should be lifted, to increase oil production and lower prices. Drilling opponents say the drilling won’t lower prices and will endanger environments. Who’s right? Mainstream reporting is little help, […]
This week on CounterSpin: Lori Wallach of Global Trade Watch on corporate media’s obsession with “free trade.” Also on the show: Media policy and overly complicated ownership rules, with J.H. Snider of the Shorenstein Center.
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.
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.
The story is framed in U.S. news media as a simple matter of censorship: Prominent Venezuelan TV station RCTV is being silenced by the authoritarian government of President Hugo Chávez, who is punishing the station for its political criticism of his government. According to CNN reporter T.J. Holmes (5/21/07), the issues are easy to understand: […]
Reporter Bob Parry of Consortium News discusses the Scooter Libby verdict, and the limits of what trials like this reveal to the public. Also on the program: Paul Porter of Industry Ears joins to talk about payola and the radio business.
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 […]
A conversation about Iraq’s oil with Antonia Juhasz, author of the book The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time. Also on the show: How is radio concentration impacting musicians, programmers, and the public, with Jenny Toomey and Peter DiCola of the Future of Music Coalition.
