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
Joseph Torres on Tulsa Massacre
February 25, 2022 17:09 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBThis week on CounterSpin: Black History Month has always been something of a double-edged sword: It implies that Black history is somehow not “history,” that it has to be shoehorned in, “artificially,” to garner any value, with the corollary implication that if you choose to ignore it, you aren’t missing anything crucial. The idea […]
Bryce Greene on Ukraine
February 18, 2022 16:39 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBUnderstanding the Ukraine crisis involves letting go of the storyline in which the US equals benevolent democracy and Russia equals craven imperialism.
Rakeen Mabud on Supply Chain Breakdown
February 11, 2022 17:05 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBWhy has the system broken down? You could say media's reluctance to critically break down systems is itself a system problem.
Steven Rosenfeld on Arizona ‘Audit,’ Sohale Mortazavi on Cryptocurrency
February 04, 2022 16:58 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBThe spate of new election-meddling laws proposed in Arizona suggests that looking away from Trumpists' "audit" is not the answer.
Natalia Renta on Puerto Rico Debt Deal
January 28, 2022 16:24 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBA judge has approved a debt restructuring deal for Puerto Rico and the deal's architects are saying it means a "new day" for the territory.
Jordan Chariton on Flint Water Crisis, Maurice Carney on Lumumba Assassination
January 21, 2022 16:44 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBWhile corporate media have largely let the water crisis in Flint go, the story isn't over, nor has justice been served.
ACTION ALERT: NYT’s China Covid Coverage Needs to Acknowledge Reality
January 20, 2022 16:00 - 14.1 KB text/htmlNew York Times coverage of Covid in China, with its casual Nazi analogies, reaches a level of partisan hyperbole on a par with Fox News.
Pardiss Kebriaei on Guantánamo Prisoners
January 14, 2022 16:55 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBWe are a long way from understanding the full meaning of Guantánamo. But we can get the remaining detainees out.
Craig Aaron on Local Journalism, Barbara Briggs on Workplace Disasters
January 07, 2022 17:14 - 27 minutes - 12.9 MBThe loss of an information source—a particular place for debate, for conversation, on issues relevant to you—is incalculable, but very real.
Beijing’s Movie War Propaganda—and Washington’s
December 31, 2021 21:06 - 9.56 KB text/htmlEach aspect of Chinese propaganda complained about in Battle at Lake Changjin is routinely employed by US media, and have been for years.
Best of CounterSpin 2021
December 31, 2021 17:07 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThis annual round-up reflects all the conversations we hope have offered a voice that might help you interpret the news you read.
Suyapa Portillo Villeda on Honduran Election
December 24, 2021 13:47 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThis week on CounterSpin, we talk about the recent Honduran election and signs of hard-won hope in that country.
Caleb Nichols on Defending Public Libraries
December 17, 2021 18:46 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBLibraries aren't just a meaningful reality, but a meaningful symbol of the fact that there is a thing called the public interest.
Ralph Nader on Journalism and the Public Interest
December 10, 2021 15:28 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBA small group of people, willing to confront entrenched ideas and power, really can make change in the public interest.
Dorothee Benz on January 6 Insurrection, Vera Eidelman on Anti-Protest Laws
December 03, 2021 16:39 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBAs the year nears its end, it’s hard not to think back to how it started—with the violent assault on the Capitol.
Carol Anderson on White Supremacy vs. Democracy
November 26, 2021 16:24 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThis can be a turning point, if more of us understand that history isn't something that happens to us, but something we DO.
Legal Wrangle Between NYT and O’Keefe Puts Press Freedom at Risk
November 24, 2021 21:15 - 11.1 KB text/htmlThat the Times has been prohibited at least for a time from publishing journalism about Project Veritas, and must fight off the possibility that the right-wing activist group may be able to essentially edit and censor a story after it is published, has press freedom advocates worried.
Jon Schwarz on Inflation, Enrique Armijo on Alex Jones
November 19, 2021 17:03 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBYou don't need to understand inflation, elite media seem to say, but you do need to be mad about it.
‘The Anti-Blackness of the US Is Extending to Black Asylum Seekers’
November 12, 2021 23:29 - 1.46 MB application/pdf"Processing people and allowing them to come into the country is the best public health policy."
Peter Maybarduk on Moderna Patent, Tracy Rosenberg on Aaron Swartz Day
November 12, 2021 16:41 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBDrugs are developed by the government, and then pharmaceutical companies get patents on them and sell them back to the public.
Michael K. Dorsey on Climate Summit, Nekessa Opoti on Haitian Refugees
November 05, 2021 15:54 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThis week on CounterSpin: The impacts of climate disruption are not theoretical; they are happening. Those already worst off are facing the worst of it, and those who profit from it continue to profit. There are finer points, but that’s reality. And it’s fair to measure journalism not by its cleverness, or by demonstrated […]
Karen Dolan on Build Back Better, Tim Karr on Changing Facebook
October 29, 2021 16:26 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThis week on CounterSpin: An early October survey showed that while 60% of those polled knew that the Build Back Better legislative package was “$3.5 trillion,” only 10% had any sense of what was in it. That is many things, but preeminently a failure of news media—the demonstrably harmful effect of months of reporting […]
The Media’s Lies About Colin Powell’s Lies
October 28, 2021 15:14 - 1 Byte text/htmlFormer Secretary of State Colin Powell received virtually wall-to-wall adulation in corporate media coverage of his death.
ACTION ALERT: The New Climate Denial: Don’t Worry, Do Nothing
October 26, 2021 22:37 - 26.9 KB text/htmlIf "experts are more certain than ever" about climate change, why does WaPo keep printing arguments for inaction based on uncertainty?
‘OAN Would Not and Could Not Exist Without AT&T’s Blessing’
October 22, 2021 15:07 - 5 MB text/html"The spark of inspiration for OAN [One America News] and its right-wing bent came from a meeting with AT&T executives."
Paul Paz y Miño on Chevron v. Steven Donziger
October 22, 2021 12:58 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBChevron v. Donziger is a case a major fossil fuel company wanted to see silenced that has in fact had that effect.
Cherry-Picking Polls to Hide Public Support for Biden’s Spending Plan
October 15, 2021 18:40 - 172 KB application/pdfHenry Olsen presented a red herring argument that ignored all the polls showing support for the reconciliation plan.
Bobby Lewis on One America News, Jean Su on People vs. Fossil Fuels
October 15, 2021 15:32 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBOAN's audience has been told that Trump really won the 2020 election and that chemical cocktails are better for Covid than vaccines.
Lisa Graves on the Fight for the Post Office, Stevana Sims on Defending Anti-Racist Education
October 08, 2021 16:06 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThough the Postal Service has always been a public good, its current leaders seem intent on driving it into the ground.
Alec Karakatsanis on ‘Crime Surge’ Copaganda, Jane Manning on Gender-Based Crime
October 01, 2021 16:06 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBMedia announce a rise in the murder rate with coverage steeped in false presumptions about what that means and how to respond.
David Moore on Manchin’s Conflict, Jim Naureckas on Covid and Media
September 24, 2021 15:09 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MB"We’re going to have a representative of fossil fuel interests crafting the policy that reduces our emissions from fossil fuels."
Why Jake Tapper Never Asks How We Pay for War
September 20, 2021 19:38 - 99.2 KB text/htmlHigh-profile media brands like Jake Tapper simply do not view the expense of empire maintenance to be subject to critical analysis.
Milton Allimadi on US Media’s Africa Reporting
September 17, 2021 15:35 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBRacist fables, omissions and hypocrisy have plagued US media's Africa reporting through history and up to today.
September 11’s Never-Ending Story
September 11, 2021 15:12 - 290 KB text/htmlA retrospective look at FAIR's coverage of two decades of media self-censorship, scapegoating and stenography.
Marjorie Cohn on Texas Abortion Law, Kimberly Inez McGuire on Abortion Realities
September 10, 2021 15:27 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe Supreme Court refused to address, which amounts to an endorsement, what is overwhelmingly understood as an unconstitutional Texas law.
Rick Claypool on OxyContin Bankruptcy, Dean Baker on Economic Disconnects
September 03, 2021 16:21 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBA bankruptcy ruling shields the Sackler family, profiteers on Oxycontin, responsible for, conservatively, half a million deaths by overdose.
James Loewen on Lies Historians Tell Us
August 27, 2021 15:48 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBSome US media are now lauding Jim Loewen, but without ceasing to generate the very sort of misty misinformation he fought against.
Phyllis Bennis and Matthew Hoh on Afghanistan Withdrawal
August 20, 2021 16:00 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBUS media consumers may need not a broom but a shovel to deal with the self-aggrandizing, history-erasing misinformation headed our way.
Jeff Cohen on FAIR’s Beginnings
August 13, 2021 16:04 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBListeners to this show may take it as a given that, if you care about social, racial, economic justice, you have to also care about media—because corporate news media promote narratives that shape public opinion, public policy and all of our lives.
James Early on Cuban Embargo, David Cooper on ‘We All Quit’
August 06, 2021 15:34 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe hardships facing Cubans—and the actions the United States could take to stop contributing to those hardships.
Both-Sidesing Democracy to Death
August 02, 2021 21:17 - 363 KB text/htmlAs Trump has solidified his grip on the right, elite journalists have largely returned to their perfunctory both-sides reporting.
Luke Harris on Critical Race Theory, Cindy Cohn on Pegasus Spyware
July 30, 2021 15:35 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBMedia have misinformed the public about a campaign whose own architects say is about disinforming, confusing and inflaming people.
‘The Haitian People Aren’t Looking for Foreign Powers to Impose a New System’
July 23, 2021 16:30 - 313 KB text/html"We have to stand up against these calls for occupation, these calls for intervention. And we have to support the Haitian people's right to self-determination."
Bianca Nozaki-Nasser on Anti-Asian Bias
July 23, 2021 15:26 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBMedia's prescription of law enforcement as the primary response is called by many Asian Americans a problem presenting itself as a solution,
Chris Bernadel on Haitian Assassination, Michael Carome on FDA Alzheimer’s Investigation
July 16, 2021 15:31 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe long history of the US using state force to kill Haitians and their aspirations is sufficient and appropriate context for current events.
William Dodge on Nestle Slave Labor, Michael Ratner on Donald Rumsfeld
July 09, 2021 15:36 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBNestle's profitability relies on a chocolate supply chain that includes literal slave labor in the Ivory Coast.
Vera Eidelman on Fourth of July Freedoms, Vivek Shandas on Addressing Climate Change
July 02, 2021 15:31 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBHow do we protect our society from campaigns to stop people from voting or speaking or going into the street to protest things that are wrong?
Laura Carlsen on Biden’s Central America Policy, Greg LeRoy on Texas Corporate Subsidies
June 25, 2021 15:56 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe notion of real change after Donald Trump is undermined by a close look at Biden's actual immigration policy.
TV News Coverage of Southern Border Lacks Refugee Sources, Historical Context
June 19, 2021 21:12 - 1 Byte text/htmlTV news coverage of the southern US border largely ignores the experiences and voices of those most impacted by the immigration system.
Andrew Perez on the Filibuster
June 18, 2021 15:21 - 27 minutes - 12.8 MBThe filibuster is the crucial backdrop to any conversation about the Biden agenda, though media don't always bring that point home.