CounterSpin
553 episodes - English - Latest episode: 20 days ago - ★★★★★ - 458 ratingsCounterSpin is the weekly radio show of FAIR, the national media watch group.
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Episodes
Shankar Narayan on Facial Misrecognition, Braxton Brewington on Student Debt Abolition
August 11, 2023 15:48 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBFacial recognition, a technology that has been proven wrong, has been deemed harmful, in principle and in practice, for years now.
Teddy Ostrow on UPS/Teamsters Agreement, Matthew Cunningham-Cook on GOP Climate Sabotage
August 04, 2023 15:25 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBElite media are deeply accustomed to calling any union action a harm, and any company acknowledgment of workers’ value a concession.
‘The Athletic Is the Negation of Local Sports Coverage’
August 02, 2023 20:12 - 5 MB text/html"When you get rid of local coverage, what you also get rid of is the watchdog that is so important.... It's not all fun and games."
Melissa Crow on Asylum Restrictions, Dave Zirin on NYT’s Vanishing Sports Section
July 28, 2023 15:07 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBAdvocates have long declared that Biden’s asylum restrictions are not just harmful but unlawful. And a federal judge has just agreed.
‘We Need a Gender-Inclusive Understanding of Police Violence’
July 26, 2023 15:54 - 17 MB application/pdf"Not a lot of people would understand that Black women are often killed by the police when they actually ask for help."
Kevin Minofu on Say Her Name
July 21, 2023 15:19 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBSay Her Name is about adding Black women to our understanding of police violence—to help make our response more meaningful and impactful.
CNN Town Halls Do Democracy No Favors
July 19, 2023 20:11 - 1.81 MB text/htmlLive, single-candidate town halls with strictly friendly audiences are one of the worst ways to help the public make an informed choice.
Arlene Martínez on Corporate Subsidies, Florín Nájera-Uresti on Journalism Preservation
July 14, 2023 15:55 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBWhite supremacy and economic policy are completely different stories for the press, but not for the people.
Media Push Doom and Gloom in Face of Historic Progressive Recovery
July 13, 2023 21:16 - 2.29 MB text/htmlIn the wake of a historically progressive response to an economic downturn, corporate media have been intently focused on the negative.
Emily Sanders on How Not to Interview an Oil CEO, Kaufman & Bozuwa on Fighting Climate Disrupters
July 07, 2023 15:37 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBThere is no way to fight climate disruption without fighting climate disrupters.
Taryn Abbassian and Others on Dobbs One Year Later
June 30, 2023 15:32 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe impacts of the Dobbs ruling are still reverberating, as is the organized pushback that we can learn about and support.
Nancy Altman on GOP Social Security Attack, Daniel Ellsberg Revisited
June 23, 2023 15:34 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBWhen Daniel Ellsberg died, media burnished their own reputation as truth-tellers while somehow dishonoring the practice of truth-telling.
As Venezuela Mends Ties With Latin Neighbors, Western Media Turn Up the Propaganda
June 22, 2023 21:59 - 689 KB application/pdfWestern outlets will stop at no length to defend Washington’s agenda, even if that means reheating debunked narratives.
Sonali Kolhatkar on the Power of Narrative
June 16, 2023 15:13 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBNarrative is an important tool for folks looking to change the world for the better, in part by changing the stories we tell one another.
Tauhid Chappell on Cannabis Justice, Evan Greer on Kids Online Safety Act
June 09, 2023 15:17 - 28 minutes - 12.8 MBWhat will the legalization, and profitizing, of marijuana mean for the people and communities most harmed by its criminalization?
Jeff Chang & Jeannie Park on Asian Americans and Affirmative Action
June 02, 2023 14:29 - 28 minutes - 12.8 MBAsian-American students are being used as the face of attempts to eliminate affirmative action or race-consciousness in college admissions.
Eric Thurm on the Hollywood Writers’ Strike
May 26, 2023 14:49 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBMany corporate news reporters seem unable to present a labor action as other than an unwonted interruption of a natural order.
Dehumanization Killed Jordan Neely—and Dominated Coverage of His Death
May 19, 2023 20:38 - 264 KB text/htmlMuch of the corporate press refrained from framing Neely as a victim, and far-right media outlets went even further to excuse the killing.
Cody Bloomfield on Anti-Activist Terrorism Charges
May 19, 2023 15:29 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBSome officials fully intend to treat anyone who stands in opposition to whatever they decide they want to do as enemies of the state.
NYT Signals Lula’s Post-Bolsonaro Honeymoon Is Over
May 12, 2023 20:37 - 1 Byte text/htmlTwo New York Times pieces may represent a troubling narrative shift in the newspaper of record's Brazil coverage.
Ian Millhiser on Supreme Court Corruption
May 12, 2023 15:20 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBWhether the Supreme Court gets away with its rejection of ethics depends in part on journalists' willingness to stick with the stories.
The Healthcare Long March: Why Exposing Evils of Medical Debt Doesn’t Fix the Problem
May 08, 2023 20:32 - 97.2 KB application/pdfConnecticut Gov. Ned Lamont proposed on February 2 to purchase and forgive roughly $2 billion in medical debt owed by state residents. Along with similar proposals in other jurisdictions, the plan offers desperately needed relief from stress and fear to thousands of people who are struggling to pay their current outstanding medical bills. Unfortunately, […]
Chris Lehmann on Debt Ceiling Myths, Kyle Wiens on Right to Repair’s Moment
May 05, 2023 15:44 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBRepublican brinkmanship could devastate millions of people—along with the harm to public understanding of what's actually going on.
Jen Senko on the Cost of Hate Talk
April 28, 2023 15:27 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBHate-fueled and hate-fueling media have political and historical impacts—and interpersonal, familial ones as well.
Rachel K. Jones on Mifepristone, Donna Murch on Rutgers Labor Action
April 21, 2023 15:26 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBA Texas judge revoking FDA approval of mifepristone may be a "confusing legal battle" for media--but for most people, it's just frightening.
Taxes: Who Pays and What For?
April 14, 2023 14:02 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBTax season leads some of us to ponder what we get in return for our resources—streets and stop signs, to be sure, but also wars.
Media’s Lab Leak Theorists See Spies, Not Scientists, as Arbiters of Science
April 07, 2023 22:58 - 1 Byte text/htmlThe Wall Street Journal (2/26/23) broke the news that classified documents show the US Energy Department believes Covid emerged from a lab leak in China, which sent shockwaves through the rest of the media. Such a statement by the Energy Department “would be significant despite the fact that, as the report said, the agency […]
Saurav Sarkar on Starbucks Organizing
April 07, 2023 15:45 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBCrushing Starbucks workers' attempts to work together is against the law—but it's not the sort of crime elite media seem able to identify.
Silky Shah on Detention Center Fire, Eagan Kemp on Medicare Advantage
March 31, 2023 13:34 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBDo Black and brown people have a right to move freely in the world? The Ciudad Juárez fire and what it tells us about immigration policy.
Norman Solomon on the Iraq Invasion, 20 Years Later
March 24, 2023 15:38 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBWhat passes for debate about why we must remain at war with whomever is designated has roots in 2003 worth studying.
Kamau Franklin on Cop City Protests
March 17, 2023 15:07 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe corporate press corps seems intent on forcing a vital, important situation into old, tired and harmful frames.
Kim Knackstedt on Disability Policy, Algernon Austin on Unemployment & Race
March 10, 2023 16:41 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBMedia interest in historic breakthroughs should extend to the barriers disabled people face in 2023, and how policies could address them.
Makani Themba on Jackson Crisis
March 03, 2023 16:44 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBJackson, Mississippi, residents who have been harmed many times over are being told that the appropriate response is to take away their voice.
Ellen Schrecker on the New McCarthyism
February 24, 2023 16:52 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBOur past has not been fully grappled with or understood, and that has everything to do with what’s happening now.
Maritza Perez Medina on Fentanyl, Nancy Altman on Social Security
February 17, 2023 17:07 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBSaying how hard you want to be on "dealers" is really an admission of a failure to address a public health issue as a public health issue.
Evan Greer on the Fight for the FCC
February 10, 2023 16:40 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBWhat could be happening if Biden's long-languishing nomination of public interest advocate Gigi Sohn were put through?
Shelby Green and Selah Goodson Bell on Utility Shutoffs & Profiteering
February 03, 2023 16:40 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBElectric utilities have disconnected US households more than 4 million times since the beginning of Covid, preceding the Ukraine War.
Independent Media Need You to Get the Word Out on Social Media
February 01, 2023 15:34 - 3.37 MB application/pdfEngaging with posts on social media is a meaningful way of supporting journalism organizations you are sympathetic to.
Michael Mechanic on Underfunding the IRS
January 27, 2023 16:39 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBThe message from many politicians and their media amplifiers: Cheating on taxes is a luxury only the rich can, or should be able to, afford.
‘The Cry Is “Lumumba Lives”—His Ideas, His Principles’
January 24, 2023 17:00 - 1 Byte text/html"The same forces that were at play in the '60s to remove Lumumba are at play today in terms of keeping the Congolese from advancing."
Maurice Carney on Patrice Lumumba
January 20, 2023 17:14 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBLumumba's assassination, judging by attention, has no lessons for US citizens or the press corps about the past, the present or the future.
NYT Moves to ‘Stack the Deck of Justice’ Against Its Subscribers
January 14, 2023 20:38 - 355 KB text/htmlAnother company silently snuck a forced arbitration clause into its terms of service—and that company is the New York Times.
David Sirota on Accountability Journalism
January 13, 2023 17:10 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe public still look to news media to give them accurate, independently sourced and documented information to help them make decisions.
Paul Hudson on Airline Meltdown, Melissa Crow on Asylum Policy
January 06, 2023 16:55 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThere's an unarticulated underpinning to elite media conversation that as a consumer, you don't have anything called a "right."
Best of CounterSpin 2022
December 30, 2022 15:00 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBCounterSpin is thankful to every activist, researcher, reporter and advocate who appeared on the show, of whom this is just a small selection.
Lisa Gilbert on the January 6 Report
December 23, 2022 18:06 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe Very Smart People will tell us that what we really ought to do, what the intelligent people would do, is, well, nothing.
Richard Wiles on Fossil Fuel Lies, Rebecca Vallas on Disability Economics
December 16, 2022 17:08The predictable harms of fossil fuels are forever "raising questions" for elite media. What would happen if they were seen as answering them? The post Richard Wiles on Fossil Fuel Lies, Rebecca Vallas on Disability Economics appeared first on FAIR.
Jen Deerinwater on Indian Child Welfare Act
December 09, 2022 16:32 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThose who want to eliminate the Indian Child Welfare Act are opposed by the reality that made the Act necessary in the first place.
Media’s Crime Hype and Scapegoating Led to Crackdown on Unhoused People
December 07, 2022 23:56 - 226 KB application/pdfThe New York Times parrots the implausible suggestion that cities cracking down on unsheltered people constitutes efforts to help them.
Nelson Lichtenstein on UC Strike, Marjorie Cohn on Evangelicals’ Supreme Court Lobbying
December 02, 2022 16:34 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe struggle for pay and dignity at the University of California is part of a bigger fight about whether educators are actual workers.