Buying the Bush Line on Iran Nukes
U.S. news media outlets have largely decided to echo White House charges despite the shortage of facts.
Antonia Juhasz on Iraq constitution, Brian Komar on Darfur TV ads
Antonia Juhasz on Iraq’s U.S.-imposed economic structure. Also this week: Brian Komar discusses media coverage of the Darfur genocide in Sudan.
Jonathan Tasini on AFL-CIO and Greg Mitchell on Hiroshima
How has media been covering AFL-CIO? Also this week: Greg Mitchell discusses his new documentary, which explores the government’s efforts to keep the truth about Hiroshima and Nagasaki hidden from public view.
The Military-Industrial-Media Complex
After eight years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address on January 17, 1961. The former general warned of “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.” He added that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” One way or another, […]
Does Size Really Matter?
On March 19, the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people across the country, and still more worldwide, turned out to protest the ongoing war. The protests had multiple goals, but given the general numbing of the population to the war, one objective was undoubtedly to keep the fact that […]
Torturing Language
In the past year and a half, the Bush administration has engaged in elaborate rhetorical gymnastics when addressing the use and authorization of torture by American forces and leaders. Under increasing fire for its conduct of the war in Iraq, the scandal of Abu Ghraib and the alarming implications of defenses such as the August […]
When ‘Old News’ Has Never Been Told
Journalists typically condemn attempts to force their colleagues to disclose anonymous sources, saying that subpoenaing reporters will discourage efforts to expose government wrongdoing. But such warnings seem like self-puffery after one watches contemporary journalism in action: When clear evidence of wrongdoing emerges, with no anonymous sources required, major news outlets can still virtually ignore it. […]
Where Have All the Bodies Gone?
In a week in June when 15 GIs were killed in Iraq (6/13-19/05), the war pictures in the New York Times (6/19/05, 6/20/05) featured dazed Iraqis after a suicide bombing, a Marine patrolling, the twisted remains of a vehicle, wounded children, a civilian casualty in a morgue. No photographs featured American casualties—a typical absence in […]
Scott Lipscomb on Iraq Body Count, Charlie Cray on ‘America’s Heartland’
How has media responded to new research from the group Iraq Body Count? Also on the show: Charlie Cray of the Center for Corporate Policy on what’s fueling protests around the new television series, “America’s Heartland.”
Rosa Brooks on Judith Miller, Patrice O’Neill on The Fire Next Time
University of Virginia Law professor Rosa Brooks discusses NYT reporter Judith Miller, whose faulty reporting helped the White House take the country to war in Iraq in 2003. Also this week: director Patrice O’Neill on his new documentary film, The Fire Next Time.
Bob Parry on Bush Speech, Mark Cooper on Brand X Case
Journalist Robert Parry joins for a discussion on pundit consensus and the Iraq war. Also this week: what does the recent Supreme Court ruling in the Brand X case mean for the future of the internet and cable company monopolies?
Paul Harvey’s Tribute to Slavery, Nukes, Genocide
Disney/ABC radio personality Paul Harvey, one of the most widely listened to commentators in the United States, presented his listeners on June 23 with an endorsement of genocide and racism that would have been right at home on a white supremacist shortwave broadcast. Harvey’s commentary began by lamenting the decline of American wartime aggression. “We’re […]
Salih Booker on Africa Aid, Mark Benjamin on Iraq Body Counts
Tony Blair’s visit to the White House stoked debate over debt relief and aid to Africa– but what was missing from the media coverage? Salih Booker of Africa Action joins CounterSpin to discuss. Also on the program: while the Pentagon says that they don’t do body counts, direct quotes from military officials suggests otherwise. Journalist Mark Benjamin of Salon.com examines this development, which he says is a troubling practice born of the military’s desperation to show progress in the Iraq War.
Justifying the Silence on Downing Street Memos
One of the features of the newfound media interest in the Downing Street Memo is a profound defensiveness, as reporters scramble to explain why it received so little attention in the U.S. press. But the most familiar line–the memo wasn’t news because it contained no “new” information–only raises troubling questions about what journalists were doing […]
Downing Street Memo Activists ‘Wing Nuts,’ ‘Paranoid’
After over a month of scant media attention, mainstream U.S. outlets have begun to report more seriously about the “Downing Street Memo,” the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of British government officials that indicate the White House had already made up its mind to invade Iraq at that early date, and that “the intelligence […]
David Swanson on Downing Street Memo, Betsy Leondar-Wright on Class Reporting
Why is the press so uninterested in the Downing Street memo, despite the compelling evidence it provides that the Bush administration was intent on invading Iraq? Also this week: how does corporate media report on class divide?
CBS Sees Iraq Improvement—Again
Despite the widespread violence in Iraq, CBS Evening News offered a different take on its June 2 broadcast: Things are getting better. Anchor John Roberts acknowledged that while the past month has seen tremendous bloodshed, “Some U.S. and Iraqi officials are hopeful the terror campaign may soon begin to ease.” That storyline was advanced by […]
John Burroughs on NPT review, Norman Solomon on Deep Throat and Iraq
John Burroughs of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy discusses last month’s negotiations over the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which received little coverage by the press. Also this week: there has been a recent resurgence in conversation surrounding the Watergate scandal. But how reliable is media’s picture of that time and the lessons it supposedly left for US journalism?
Right, Center Think Tanks Still Most Quoted
A study of media citations of think tanks in 2004—the 10th year of collecting such data—finds that think tanks of the right and center still predominate, despite a slight increase in citations of left-leaning think tanks. The study counts citations of the 25 most prominent think tanks of right, center and left, using the Nexis […]
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, […]
