CounterSpin Podcasts

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CounterSpin provides a critical examination of the major news stories every week, and exposes what the mainstream media might have missed in their own coverage. Combining lively discussion and a thoughtful media critique, CounterSpin is unlike any other show on the dial. Primary Format : Community Radio Language : English Also Listed as: City : New York State/Province : NY Country : USA Region : NA User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of CounterSpin Podcasts Methings.com listings of CounterSpin Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

Jodi Jacobson on the Stupak amendment, Barbara Miner on 'merit pay' This week on CounterSpin: The Stupak Amendment, a last-minute addition to the House’s recently passed healthcare reform plan, would severely restrict abortion coverage for those on the "public option" part of the plan and those buying private insurance using government money. Many House Democrats journalists and pundits have portrayed Stupak as a sacrifice that must be made to get healthcare reform. Reproductive health advocates and many others differ, saying it could enormously impac ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Trudy Lieberman on health care, Laurie Williams & Allan Zabel on cap & trade This week on CounterSpin : a source from a senior citizens group quoted in the Washington Post said the group’s main challenge today is simply to try to keep the record straight about what's actually in the health care reform bill, as opposed to what’s being claimed about it. That would seem to be the basic challenge facing reporters, too, but have they been too caught up with coverage of congressional politicking to do justice to it? We’ll hear from journalist Trudy Lieb ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Greg Gordon on Goldman Sachs, Phyllis Bennis on Israel/Palestine This week on CounterSpin: A new investigative series by McClatchy newspapers’ Greg Gordon reveals that in 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs sold more than $40 billion in securities backed by risky home mortgages, "but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting." Sounds important. We’ll talk to Greg Gordon about his story. Also on the show: Israel/Palestine is in headlines at the moment as ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Swanson on health care debate, Bruce Dixon on the 'public option' This week on CounterSpin: Making sense of the health care debate. In the past week we've supposedly seen the comeback of the public option, in some form or another. We're also told that Harry Reid must gather 60 votes to pass a bill. Is any of this right? And what about a true public health system like single-payer? Author and activist David Swanson will join us to try and untangle these story lines. Also on the show: Progressives and others interested in truly universal healthcare, as in ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Kristin Thomson on the Performance Rights Act; Jennifer McLennan on Open Access This week on CounterSpin: The Performance Rights Act would require broadcasters to pay royalties that would be split between recording artists and record companies. The bill has just passed through house and senate committees, and will presumably be debated and voted on. The legislation, naturally faces strong opposition from the broadcasting industry, who say it will hurt stations and artists alike. Kristin Thomson, of the Future of Music Coalition, a group that supports the bill, will joi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Marie Trigona on Argentina media law, Peter Richardson on Ramparts This week on CounterSpin: Argentina just passed a media law that will severely curb the power of the country’s most powerful conglomerates by putting a majority of the country’s broadcast licenses in non-corporate hands. How did the law come about, and how is it expected to change Argentina’s media landscape. And what lessons might US media activists take from Argentina’s example? We’ll talk with Marie Trigona, an independent journalist and filmmaker based in A ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cyrus Safdari on Iran, Nomi Prins on bailouts This week on CounterSpin: The story of Iran's nuclear program certainly isn't going away; glance at the newsstands this week and you might see the Newsweek cover story 'After Iran Gets the Bomb.' And a leaked report suggesting Iran is indeed pursuing nuclear weapons made its way to the front page of the New York Times. What should we make of that story, and the general media consensus on the Iranian threat? Analyst and Iranaffairs.com blogger Cyrus Safdari will join us to share his thoughts ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gareth Porter on Iran, Christopher Martin on ACORN This week on CounterSpin: Did the White House really disclose the existence of Iran’s new Uranium enrichment plant, and does the plant, as many news stories seem to indicate, really violate the law? And what evidence is there that the plant has anything to do with a nuclear weapons program, as certain prominent US media figures have claimed? We’ll talk to historian and free lance journalists Gareth Porter about the latest wave of allegations against Iran. Also this week: The c ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Joseph Romm on Climate Summit, Elinore Longobardi on ‘Subprime’ vs. ... This week on CounterSpin: the highest-level conference yet on climate change took place this week at the UN. The press made much of the obstacles faced on the way to any international agreement -- but if the front page of the country's paper of record is saying that temperatures haven't risen in 10 years, maybe one of those obstacles is media coverage? We'll talk to Joseph Romm of Climate Progress.org Also on the show: Words mean things and the way reporters use them can shade the way we s ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Daniel Ellsberg and Rick Goldsmith on 'The Most Dangerous Man in America' This week on CounterSpin: The Most Dangerous Man in America. That's how Henry Kissinger described whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who famously leaked a top-secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 to the NY Times and other news outlets. The publication resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision on freedom of the press, increased pressure to end the Vietnam War and was a key factor in the resignation of Richard Nixon. A new film tells that story. This week on a special edition of CounterS ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Cook on Honduras, Diana Duarte on "Saving the World's Women" This week on CounterSpin: The media lie that will not die about the Honduras coup is that ousted president Manuel Zelaya was attempting to change the Honduran constitution in order to extend his time in office. But there is nothing new about this current set up; the same lie was used 45 years ago to remove another democratically elected president from office. Journalist Mark Cook has written about the eerie parallels in the September issue of FAIR's magazine Extra!. We'll talk to Mark Cook ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jordan Flaherty on Katrina anniversary, Sarah Anderson on executive pay This week on CounterSpin: Corporate media promised to pay more attention to poverty and race after the Gulf Coast's Katrina disasters in 2005, and for a short time they did a little more reporting. But where was the followup on this year’s August anniversary, when papers like the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, and networks like ABC and Fox offered virtually no coverage. We'll talk to journalist Jordan Flaherty, reporting the story since 2005, about the stories from the continu ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Spencer Ackerman on CIA torture documents, Ed Herman on Lockerbie This week on CounterSpin: a few months ago it seemed like Dick Cheney wouldn't get off your television screen, insisting that secret CIA documents would prove that Bush torture policies saved the United States from further terrorist attacks. Well those documents have surfaced, along with a 2004 CIA inspector general's report. So what's in these documents? And has Cheney been vindicated? We'll speak with reporter Spencer Ackerman about that.Also on CounterSpin today,"Outrageous and disgustin ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Matt Taibbi on Goldman Sachs This week on CounterSpin: Goldman Sachs, Wall Street profiteering and... vampire squids. Wait... what was that last one? Journalist Matt Taibbi wrote a long takedown of the venerable Wall Street firm in Rolling Stone. Business journalists pronounced themselves mostly unimpressed with Taibbi's analysis, and troubled by his language—like calling the company 'a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like mo ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Trudy Lieberman on health care reform, Gary Schwitzer on health news study This week on CounterSpin: Healthcare reform is still the top political story of the moment. But the coverage seems to have gone from bad to worse, with noisy town hall meetings standing in the way of any coherent discussion of the dysfunctional healthcare system in this country, and what can be done about it. Trudy Lieberman has been watching healthcare coverage for Columbia Journalism Review; she'll join us to talk about what she's found. Also on CounterSpin today: An ongoing review of ne ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Alfie Kohn on education 'reform,' Iyanna Jones on 'Disappearing Voices' This week on CounterSpin: Charter schools raise a lot of concerns for educators interested in the future of truly public education; the corporate press have tended more toward boosterism of charters and their high profile promoter, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. That's the subject of a story in the current issue of Extra! and CounterSpin discussed the phenomenon on the occasion of Duncan's nomination with education expert Alfie Kohn, author of The Schools Our Children Deserve, among ot ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sonali Kolhatkar on Afghan women and the war, Dedrick Muhammad on Obama's NAACP speech and ... This week on CounterSpin: Some prominent feminist and liberal voices have recently lent their endorsement to the ongoing U.S. war in Afghanistan, based on the idea that the war is an effort to improve the lives of Afghan women and girls. That was a major argument at the war's onset, but how does it stand up 8 years later? We'll talk with Sonali Kolhatkar, co-director of the group Afghan Women's Mission and host/producer of Uprising Radio. Also on the show: Have you noticed how President Ba ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Swanson on healthcare reform, Harold Meyerson on California’s budget crisis This week on CounterSpin: "Obama May Have To Wait for Health Reform" explained one July 22 headline. Leave it to corporate media to take a life-and-death issue for millions of Americans and reduce it to an item on a president's wish list. But if they're going to mainly cover healthcare policy as inside the Beltway politicking, how good a job are they doing even of that? We'll hear from activist and author David Swanson about the current state of play in healthcare reform efforts and what th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gerald LeMelle on Obama in Africa, Katha Pollitt on Caitlin Flanagan in Time This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama's recent trip to Africa gave the press corps a chance to opine predictably on Obama's "unique role" as a "son of Africa" who was specially suited to "tell African leaders hard truths". It should've also been a chance for a serious look at the substance of U.S. Africa policy. How'd they do on that score? We'll hear from Gerald LeMelle of Africa Action. Also on the show: In her Time magazine cover story, "Why Marriage Matters," Caitlin Flanagan argues f ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sasha Abramsky on 'Breadline USA', Jim Naureckas on the future of journalism This week on CounterSpin: Some 25 million Americans, nearly 9 percent of the population--rely on food pantries. But with rare exceptions, and despite its devastating impact, big media just don't seem to find a reportable story in chronic hunger. A new book hopes to make the issue more visible, by actually talking to people. It's called Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It; we'll speak with author Sasha Abramsky. Also on the show: Hard times and decreasing ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Greg Grandin on Honduras coup, Nomi Prins on Madoff verdict This week on CounterSpin: Coverage of the Honduran coup ousting president Manuel Zelaya has often included the claim that the coup was prompted by Zelaya’s move to change the constitution, removing term limits so he could stay in power. The false claim is central to the anti-Zelaya propaganda that has gone with little challenge in U.S. media. We’ll talk to New York University history professor Greg Grandin about the real reasons certain parts of Honduran society wanted Zelaya ou ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Barsamian on Iran upheaval, Chandra Bhatnagar on UN racism report This week on CounterSpin: Events in Iran continue to unfold with protesters still in the street in what seemed to begin as a rejection of the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Has it become something more now? And how are the press corps--not famously nuanced on Iran--handling events? We'll hear from David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio and co-author of the book Targeting Iran. Also on the show: The UN Human Rights Council's report on racism in the U.S., r ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website D.D. Guttenplan on I.F. Stone This week on CounterSpin: I.F. Stone was not only among the greatest American investigative reporters, he was also an activist and man of the left, according to D.D. Guttenplan, who has just published the latest biography of the journalist. Because he challenged U.S. power, often simply by reporting on the contents of official documents, and because he was a leftist, Stone's reputation has been under assault by vestigial McCarthyites who have been claiming for decades that Stone was a Sovie ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phyllis Bennis on Obama's Cairo speech, Jonathan Tasini on the Boston Globe/GM This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama has either been currying favor with Muslims or extending an olive branch in the Middle East depending on which media you consume. We'll talk with Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies about Obama's major speech in Cairo, and the size of the gap between words and actions. Also on the show: The Boston Globe says it will impose a 23 percent wage cut on its employees on June 14. This is needed, says the Globe’s parent New York Times Com ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fred Clarkson on Tiller murder; Adam Serwer on Sotomayor This week on CounterSpin: There’s been a lot of coverage of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, allegedly killed by and anti-abortion activist. But there has been relatively little discussion of the culture that such violence arises from, where mainstream anti-abortion figures regularly demonize abortion providers—and we’re not just talking about Bill O’Reilly. We’ll talk to Fred Clarkson, who has been monitoring and writing about anti-abortion violence for years. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Feffer on North Korea, Han Shan on Shell & Ken Siro-Wawa This week on CounterSpin: When the media talks foreign affairs, there's generally an assumption that countries have identifiable interests and rationally pursue them as best they can. All that's thrown out the window when it comes to North Korea. That country's apparent decision to conduct an underground nuclear test and test-fire several missiles has re-engaged the media discussion about the nuclear-armed dictatorship. But what do we still not understand about that country's behavior? And ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mike Lillis on climate bill, Joy-Ann Reid on Cheney & torture This week on CounterSpin: Climate change legislation is making its way through Congress, but weirdly, that might not be good news. Some environmentalists are saying that in this case, no law might be better than this bill--that started out as a call to reduce carbon emissions but seems to be turning into something else. We'll talk with Mike Lillis, who covers Congress for the Washington Independent. Also on the show: Did top Bush officials instruct interrogators to torture detainees, not f ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Manan Ahmed on Pakistan, Dean Starkman on 'Power Problem' This week on CounterSpin: There are many legitimate concerns about Pakistan, but our guest, University of Chicago historian Manan Ahmed, says the U.S. media discussion of recent developments there, portraying Pakistan as a country "on the brink," border on hysteria. We’ll talk to Manan Ahmed about the hype, and about what he thinks the media should be paying more attention to in Pakistan. Also on CounterSpin today: It certainly seems like the business press missed the big stories of ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bart Laws on swine flu, Kristin Thomson on radio diversity study 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 overreact, but how much. But how do we assess the role of public health officials, who perhaps by nature are supposed to worry about these kinds of things? And is there a different conversa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Stan Karp on No Child Left Behind, Robert Greenwald on Rethink Afghanistan This week on CounterSpin: No Child Left Behind may be up for reconsideration in Congress soon, but if current coverage of national math and reading scores is an indication, media coverage will need to get a lot deeper to be useful. We'll hear from Stan Karp of Rethinking Schools about what questions ought to be asked. Also on the show: With an online campaign, and the "real time" documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Greenwald and his colleagues at Brave New Films are trying to break th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Glenn Greenwald on Torture, Rose Aguilar on tent cities This week on CounterSpin: While it’s pretty clear that Bush-era torture occurred, and that U.S. and international treaties oblige the U.S. to investigate, the hot media discussion centers not on when investigations will begin, but on whether President Barack Obama—not the Justice Department—thinks they should go forward. We’ll talk to Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com about the torture story. Also on CounterSpin today: Media are flocking to so-called tent cities to try a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Miriam Pemberton on military budget, Terence Samuel on Obama & polarization This week on CounterSpin: The White House's proposed military budget comes to some $534 billion dollars, and that's without including the costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. So why on earth are some saying Obama is "disarming America". We'll hear what this budget does and doesn't do from Miriam Pemberton, research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Also on Counterspin today, the polarization of America. If you watch Fox News or listen to talk radio, America has adopted socialis ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website T.R. Reid on Sick Around America, Mark Danner on torture This week on CounterSpin: Sick Around America, the recently aired documentary on PBS's Frontline purported to ask why the US can't finance universal health care the way other developed countries do. But the picture was at best incomplete, since it seems some options were considered off the table. We'll hear from reporter and author T.R. Reid, who worked on Sick Around America as a follow up to his Sick Around the World from last year, but who disassociated himself from the domestic version ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Weisbrot on the G20, Gareth Porter on the Afghanistan surge This week on CounterSpin: Barack Obama’s military surge in Afghanistan has caught very little flack in the media, even though experts on the region say it doesn’t make sense and distorts realities on the ground in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. We'll talk to journalist Gareth Porter about coverage of the Afghanistan surge, an Obama policy he calls "a stunningly irrational blunder.” Also on CounterSpin today, the G-20 summit in London has attracted a lot of media a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Riki Ott on Exxon Valdez, Harvey Wasserman on Three Mile Island This week on CounterSpin: Disaster anniversaries are readymade news hooks for media always in search of one. March sees 20 years since the Exxon Valdez spilled at least 11 million gallons (and likely much more) of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska. It's also been 30 years this month since this country's worst nuclear accident, the partial core meltdown at Pennsylvania nuclear plant Three Mile Island. Both incidents were seen as watershed revelations of institutional failures and engendere ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Johnson on AIG bonuses, Laura Carlsen on Mexican drug wars This week on CounterSpin: The AIG executive bonuses account for less than one percent of the money taxpayers are turning over to the insurance giant in the largest of the corporate bailouts. But it's the bonus story that has riveted the public attention and outrage. We'll talk to Robert Johnson, formerly the managing director at Soros Funds Management and chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee, about AIG and the power of the bonuses story. Also on the show: CNN has been telling vi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Melissa Harris-Lacewell on earmarks, Alex de Waal on Bashir indictment This week on CounterSpin: The evils of earmarks. Barack Obama signed a spending bill "stuffed with earmarks," the media tell us--despite the fact that he campaigned pledging to reform that practice. The assumption is that Congressional earmarks are bad; but are they? We'll ask Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. Also this week: The International Criminal Court's indictment on March 4th of Sudanese President Omar Has ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ellen Shaffer on health care, Kristen Lombardi on coal ash This week on CounterSpin:. Obama's health care reform plans are being called 'backdoor socialism' by some, while others say it looks like too much of the same. But how good a job are the press doing in parsing those competing definitions and explaining what's on the table? We'll hear from health policy expert Ellen Shaffer of the Center for Policy Analysis. Also on CounterSpin today, when a billion gallons of something called coal ash spilled into a town in Eastern Tennessee, the story mad ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ryan Chittum on Santelli's rant, Maria Elizabeth Grabe on network news bias This week on CounterSpin: The on-air rant by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli is making the media rounds, promoted by the network itself in good part. But did Santelli's outburst, about the Obama White House bailing out "losers" with its mortgage proposal make sense? We'll hear from Ryan Chittum, from Columbia Journalism Review's the Audit. Also on the show this week: Despite mounting evidence against it, the myth of the liberal media just won't die. But scholars haven't stopped trying. A new s ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Parry on conservative bias, Brandon Lacy Campos on digital TV conversion 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 status quo after a brief decrease in conservative media bias caused by Bush era failures. Robert Parry, the publisher of ConsortiumNews.com, and the veteran journalist who broke many Iran-Contra stories, will join us to talk about cu ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lori Wallach on Buy America brouhaha, Dan Beeton on Venezuela This week on CounterSpin: The debate over the White House-backed economic stimulus package has featured all kinds of media misdeeds—an overreliance on Republican rejectionists and an absence of actual economists talking about the plan, just for starters. Pundits and editorial writers have warned us about another problem: the prospect of a global trade war, thanks to the Democrats' protectionism. Is all the media anger totally misplaced? We'll talk to Lori Wallach of Public Citizen's G ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ken Silverstein on Daschle, Miranda Spencer on breast cancer This week on CounterSpin: "If it weren't for those darn tax problems, Tom Daschle was the perfect choice as Obama's Secretary of Health & Human Services," seems to be the establishment refrain over the rise and fall of the Daschle nomination. "No one knows the healthcare issues, or could do a better job pushing through the promised Obama healthcare plan than the former senator," say many pundits. Ken Silverstein begs to differ. The Washington editor of Harpers and the magazine's Washing ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dean Baker on stimulus package, Michael Ratner on torture 'loopholes' This week on CounterSpin: After several weeks of media debate, the House passed a nearly 900 billion dollar economic stimulus package. White House efforts to reach out to Republicans resulted in exactly zero GOP voters, leaving some in the media to wonder if Obama was failing to deliver on his promises of bipartisanship. But what about the stimulus debate was entirely off-the-mark? We'll talk to economist Dean Baker. Also on CounterSpin today: President Obama's executive order said to ban ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Norman Solomon on Obama's inauguration, Ann Jones on Afghanistan This week on CounterSpin: The inauguration of President Barack Obama was undoubtedly historic, and was covered as such by the corporate media. But what are we to make of the idea that the media have gone gaga for Obama? And what are the pundits and editorial writers pushing for from Obama in the first place? Author and columnist Norman Solomon will join us to talk it over. Also on CounterSpin today: "Major Push is Needed to Save Afghanistan, General Says" was the headline on a recent major ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phyllis Bennis on Gaza & the law, Charles Kaiser on Bush-era torture This week on CounterSpin: Listeners have likely seen some horrific and affecting images from Gaza, where the death toll has exceeded an estimated 1,000 overwhelmingly Palestinian people as, as the New York Times had it, "the Israeli military operation continued apace." We'll hear from author and journalist Phyllis Bennis about part of the story that should be central but in the U.S. press is often ignored or gotten wrong, namely international law. Also on the show: Should we be taking a ha ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ali Abunimah on Gaza, A.C. Thompson on Katrina's Hidden Race War This week on CounterSpin: The carnage in Gaza has provoked international outrage among many journalists outside the U.S., but journalists in the U.S. are largely holding on to a storyline that says that Israel is merely defending itself after Hamas broke a ceasefire. We'll talk to Ali Abunimah of ElectronicIntifada.net, for another view of the story. Also on CounterSpin today, a remarkable investigation into post-Katrina racist violence in New Orleans didn't get the mainstream media attent ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Best of CounterSpin 2008 With a longer-than-usual election season and a meltdown in the financial markets, ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was certainly no shortage of news to explain and media messages to unspin. We can't cover it all in one half-hour program, of course, but we can bring together some of the notable critics, activists and journalists that joined CounterSpin in 2008 to talk about the way the corporate media covered—or in some cases ignored—the big stories of the year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Kali Akuno, Andy Worthington and Francesca Grifo on Bush legacy This week on CounterSpin: December 2008 marks not just the conclusion of another calendar year, but the end of eight years of the George W. Bush administration—an era notable for, among other things, particular predations on civil liberties, the free flow of information and the public's right to know. Other administrations have been wary of the press corps, to be sure. But it was the Bush White House whose first attorney general instructed federal agencies to drag their feet on FOIA r ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Ratner on detainee abuse report, Alfie Kohn on education nominee This week on CounterSpin: When the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a report finding former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other high officials responsible for abusive treatment of detainees in Guantánamo, Iraq and Afghanistan--with few exceptions, the media played the story down, preferring, for instance, righteous anger over embroiled Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. We'll discuss the Senate report with the Center for Constitutional Rights' Michael Ratner, whose book, The ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bob McChesney on Tribune bankruptcy, Steve Early on card check This week on CounterSpin: The Tribune Company that owns the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times along with much else declared bankruptcy this week, just a year after new owner Sam Zell took over, with his notable lack of background or interest in newspapers. It sounds like workers will wind up with the short end of the stick but what does it mean in the bigger picture? Are capitalists losing interest in media and if so, what do we think about that? We'll talk with media scholar and author Bob ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Paul Sullivan on Gulf War Syndrome, Peter Hart on Obama's nominees This week on CounterSpin: For years veterans claiming to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome were derided as cranky and hysterical by the department of defense and even by some journalists. Will that change now that a definitive report says the Gulf War illnesses are real, incurable, and caused by toxic materials used by the U.S. military during the 1991 Gulf War? We'll talk to Paul Sullivan, a veteran and the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. Also on the show: As the Obama White ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Brenner on Big 3 bailout, Steve Rendall on the Fairness Doctrine 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 too much money. Mark Brenner of Labor Notes will join us to talk about it. Also on CounterSpin today, with Democrats poised to take more power in Washington, is there really a plan in the works to muzzle right-wing talk radi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Kai Wright on the Proposition 8 vote, Andy Worthington on Guantánamo This week on CounterSpin: The victory of Proposition 8 in California has, at least for the moment, put the brakes on gay marriage in that state. The post-election recriminations are flying, but the main story we're hearing is that black voters turned out in droves—to support Barack Obama, and to defeat gay marriage rights. Is that narrative correct? We'll ask journalist Kai Wright. Also on CounterSpin today: According to the New York Times, Newsweek and NPR, for Barack Obama to keep ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Maurice Carney on the Congo, Sasha Lilley on The War Comes Home This week on CounterSpin: As the Congo sinks again into crisis, U.S. journalism is again largely portraying the conflict as peculiar to the Congo, a story explained by the country's and its neighbors' endless, intractable ethnic struggles. We'll be joined by Maurice Carney, the executive director of Friends of the Congo, who says international corporations and western consumers like you are as key to the conflict as are local African factors. Also on the show: Media activists have called f ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bernie Horn on election mandate, Billy Bragg on art & activism This week on CounterSpin: Media are naturally enough busy trying to draw meaning from the results of the 2008 election that brought Barack Obama to the presidency. One emerging line is notable: That the victory of the African American Democrat either doesn't change or actually confirms that the United States is a "center-right" nation politically. Same goes for Congress, where we're told Democrats won by acting like Republicans. It's unclear if this narrative is going to take hold; meanwhil ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bob Dreyfuss on Syria airstrike, Wally Bowen on "white spaces" 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 over into Syria seemed enough to push the war back into the campaign spotlight. We'll ask national security reporter Bob Dreyfuss for his take on the U.S. attack inside Syria, and what he makes of the current political situation in Iraq itself. Also on Count ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Devin West on 'collateral damage,' Francesca Grifo on science and free speech This week on CounterSpin: Stories about civilian casualties inflicted by the U.S. military in Afghanistan or Iraq may be moving and troubling, but you virtually always come away with the sense that, while regrettable, such deaths are certainly always unintentional and somehow unavoidable in the midst of war. A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies looks at the policies and practices that make civilian casualties so foreseeable, actually, as to seem to be an actual strategy of U.S ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lori Minnite on ACORN & vote fraud, Bethany Albertson on the Bradley Effect This week on CounterSpin: From the reaction of quite a bit of the mainstream media, the community organizing group ACORN is poised to steal the election for Barack Obama. Scattered allegations of voter registration fraud have been the subject of wall-to-wall TV coverage, but what facts are missing from the outraged reporting on CNN and Fox News? And is this a ploy to divert attention from more serious attempts to suppress votes? We'll ask Lori Minnite, an assistant professor of political sc ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Cay Johnston on meltdown/bailout, Isabel MacDonald & Steve Rendall on ... This week on CounterSpin: The bailout story turns again as Congress passes the White House's bailout bill. Will reporters give up questioning the plan entirely now that it has that holy grail of "bipartisan support"? We'll hear from one journalist who's been calling for skepticism from the beginning--author and reporter David Cay Johnston, recently retired from the New York Times. Also on the show: "Smearcasting: How Islamophobes Spread Fear, Bigotry and Misinformation," is the name of a j ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phyllis Bennis on the presidential debate, Wendy Weiser on voter suppression This week on CounterSpin: There's been a lot of discussion about who won or lost the September 26th presidential debate, but little discussion of how it served the voters. What was and wasn't talked about in a debate that focused largely on war and military issues? We'll talk to Phyllis Bennis who directs the Institute for Policy Studies' New Internationalism Project, about the debate. Also on the show: Thousands of people may show up to the polls in November only to be told they are not a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Eartha Jane Melzer on Ohio GOP vote suppression, Sarah Anderson on Wall Street CEO pay This week on CounterSpin: Lose your house, lose your vote? A report from a new investigative journalism outfit says that Michigan Republican Party officials are planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to challenge voters on Election Day—targeting a largely poor, African-American pool of voters who would likely lean heavily towards the Democratic Party. Michigan party denied the allegations just as soon as the story started making its way into the mainstream media. We’ll speak ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website James Galbraith on financial turmoil, Forrest Hylton on Bolivia crisis This week on CounterSpin: Unlike tendentious media debates about government aid to the poor, journalists greeted bail outs of major financial corporations with almost universal approval. We'll talk to economist James Galbraith of the University of Texas about what the news means for regulatory policy and issues such as GOP plans to invest Social Security funds on Wall Street. Also on the show: Headlines from Bolivia speak of violence and possible conciliation but even after reading the rep ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jim Naureckas on McCain/Palin campaign claims, George Farah on open debates This week on CounterSpin: John McCain may have fired-up the GOP base with his pick of Sarah Palin as a running mate, and his campaign's increasingly rancorous rhetoric, but along the way his campaign has made a number of claims that beg for media scrutiny. We'll be joined by Jim Naureckas, the editor of FAIR's publications, to discuss McCain campaign claims and how the media is doing covering them. Also on CounterSpin today: As the 2008 presidential campaign intensifies, some attention is ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Heidi Boghosian on convention protests, David Moore on polling This week on CounterSpin: Most of the coverage of the political conventions focused on what was going on inside the arenas; so what about what was happening outside? Crackdowns on protests, arrests of journalists, and pre-emptive house raids could provide a very different measure of the state of American democracy. Heidi Boghosian of the National Lawyers Guild will join us to tell us what she saw. Also on the show: A new book attests to what some have long suspected: that opinion polls ca ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Katrina Special: Colette Pichon Battle on Katrina three years later, Leigh Dingerson on New ... This week on CounterSpin: All eyes have been focused on Denver and the Democratic National Convention. But while the political calendar suggests the story of the day is the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential nominee, it's hard to forget that the festivities coincide with the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This week on CounterSpin we'll take a special look at where things stand in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The federal government's response to the K ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Thomas Frank on 'The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule' Conservative mismanagement of government is no mistake but the concerted effort of a movement that seeks to further the interests of big business and destroy government's ability to oversee or regulate those interests. That's the theme of best-selling author and Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank's new book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book has come in for some harsh criticism in the corporate media. Tom Frank will join us today in a specia ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Helena Cobban on Russia/Georgia conflict, Iyanna Jones on black radio's 'Disappearing Voices' This week on CounterSpin: "Russia bad, Georgia good" is the theme of much U.S. coverage of recent hostilities between those two countries and their battles over the breakaway Georgian territory known as South Ossetia. We'll be joined by Helena Cobban of the website Just World News, for some much-needed nuance and context. Also on the show: A new film chronicles a not-so-well-known part of radio history: Disappearing Voices: The Decline of Black Radio talks about the role radio used to play ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Adam Serwer on Obama and race, Eric Boehlert on TV diversity study This week on CounterSpin: Playing the race card. John McCain expressed outrage after Barack Obama suggested his critics would use his race to dismiss his candidacy. Much of the media conversation about the back-and-forth seemed to support McCain's claim that he was the victim. What does all of this say about the kind of discussion we're having about race and the election? Adam Serwer of the American Prospect will join us to share his thoughts. Also on CounterSpin: A new study of primetim ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Juan Cole on Iraq/Afghanistan, Todd Tucker on WTO talks This week on CounterSpin: The media debate on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars seems to rest on the assumption that the troop surge in Iraq has "worked," and more troops in Afghanistan would help turn that conflict in the favor of U.S. and NATO forces. That's the consensus view, but does it make any sense? We'll ask University of Michigan professor Juan Cole. Also on Counterspin today, the Wall Street Journal wonders whether the recent collapse of World Trade Organization talks means the end ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Elizabeth de la Vega on impeachment, Catherine Lutz on Iraq bases This week on CounterSpin: It seems unlikely that media elites would deny that things like maintaining illegal torture programs, unlawfully surveilling citizens, imprisoning children in violation of the Geneva Convention and destroying evidence are serious matters. So why, when such things lead to a call to impeach George W. Bush, does the whole matter become something of a joke? We'll talk to former federal prosecutor and author Elizabeth de la Vega about press handling of impeachment charg ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Dorsey on cap and trade, Ken Picard on Al-Jazeera in Burlington This week on CounterSpin: Media present the cap and trade legislation currently being debated in the U.S. Senate as the green alternative to the voluntary approaches of pro-industry types. But does cap and trade work at reducing global warming causing emissions? And is it the only alternative? We'll talk to Michael Dorsey, Professor of global environmental policy at Dartmouth College. Also on CounterSpin today, Al-Jazeera English has found it nearly impossible to crack the U.S. television ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Pepe Escobar on UN Iran report, Sarah Posner on McCain's Pastor problem This week on CounterSpin: The latest UN report on Iran's nuclear program has been leaked, but what it says depends on which U.S. news outlet you depend on. Does it describe an ominous march toward Iran's nuclear weaponization as is suggested by many stories, or something less serious? We'll be joined by Pepe Escobar, "Roving Eye" columnist for Asia Times Online and correspondent for the Real News Network, to talk about what the UN report actually says. Also on the show: Presumptive Republi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rob Richie on primary coverage, Forrest Hylton on FARC laptops This week on CounterSpin: Voting was almost over in Kentucky's Democratic primary. CNN's Wolf Blitzer told viewers Hillary Clinton would soon find out if she was getting "another monster win," though, apparently Barack Obama was expected to "claim he's won a majority of the pledged delegates." So... which matters more, the delegates or that "monster win"? If you're following the election through day to day coverage like this, you might be genuinely confused. Our guest says the way media hav ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bill Fletcher on Wright and Obama, Andy Worthington on Guantanamo This week on CounterSpin: race, Wright and Barack Obama. You might have been tempted to think that the controversy over Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright ended back when Obama gave a long speech on race and his long association with Wright's church. Or maybe you figured that when Obama gave another set of more forceful comments denouncing Wright, that might be the last we heard of all that. But the discussion of race in the Democratic primaries would suggest that there's plenty more Re ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ben Dangl on Bolivian referendum, Kate Sheppard on McCain & environment This week on CounterSpin: When voters in the Bolivian state of Santa Cruz voted on May 4th to declare an autonomy, U.S. media largely reported it as a democratic expression of the differences between a wealthy, conservative Bolivian state, and the socialist central government of president Evo Morales. But was the Santa Cruz vote legitimate? We'll talk with Ben Dangl, author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia. Also on the show: Is John McCain an environmenta ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Justin Levitt on Supreme Court and voter ID, Sara Robinson on Texas Mormons case This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Indiana's voter ID law; while the decision was difficult to parse, the debate around the law centers on the baseless fears of voter fraud often stoked by right-wing pundits. We'll talk about the issue with Justin Levitt of NYU's Brennan Center for Justice. Also on the show: The state of Texas' raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch, resulting in the removal of more than 500 women and children, has made for weeks of sensationa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Norman Solomon on Pentagon pundits, Sheldon Rampton on Earth Day greenwashing This week on CounterSpin: An April 20th New York Times investigation reveals a secret Pentagon propaganda program providing military pundits with talking points to repeat in media-- in some cases even when "they suspected the information was false or inflated." But could the Pentagon pull off such a program without a willing media? We'll talk to "War Made Easy" author and FAIR associate Norman Solomon. Also on CounterSpin today: Much of the media's celebration of Earth Day involves giving ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Eric Holt-Giménez on food crises, Mark Schapiro on environmental toxins This week on CounterSpin: Recent reporting on food shortages around the world points to rising fuel costs, droughts, a conversion from food crop planting to fuel crop planting, even meat eating, as the reasons for the problem. But is their more to the story? We'll speak with Eric Holt-Giménez of Food First about coverage of the food shortages. Also on the show: Many people are no doubt shocked by a new government report saying that a chemical to which virtually every American is exposed ma ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Weisbrot on Colombia trade deal, Rick Perlstein on John McCain This week on CounterSpin: George W. Bush says a proposed trade deal with Colombia is crucial, and beneficial for all concerned. Rather than dig into that claim, corporate media are making fun of anyone who would dispute it, favoring congressional critics with headlines like, "Democrats Pander to Big Labor, Flirt With Return to Protectionism." (that's USA Today and yes they said Big Labor.) With major media singing pretty much one note, we'll get another take from Mark Weisbrot, co-director ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Raed Jarrar on Iraq, Julie Hollar on Somalia This week on CounterSpin: The war in Iraq re-appeared on American TV screens last week, when the Iraqi government decided to confront Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militias mostly in the southern city of Basra and parts of Baghdad. Those paying attention to the corporate media's coverage of the fighting could have been easily confused by the dominant storyline. We'll try to sort it all out with Raed Jarrar, Iraqi political analyst and blogger. Also on CounterSpin today, the U.S. press ha ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dean Baker on the financial crisis, Keith Poole on Voteview This week on CounterSpin: The crisis in the U.S. housing market is big news, but media coverage of what to do about it seems to feature the same experts and consequently the same sorts of ideas that created the problem in the first place. What ways forward are we not hearing about? And what should progressives make of what could be a real "teachable moment" about the workings of the U.S. economy? We'll hear from economist Dean Baker from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Also on ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jeff Cohen on Winter Soldier, Carl Bogus on 2nd Amendment debate This week on CounterSpin: Veterans and some active duty soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan gathered in Maryland this month for Winter Soldier, offering harrowing and often heartbreaking testimony about their experiences in war. The remarkable event elicited next to no corporate media coverage. FAIR founder Jeff Cohen will join us to share his thoughts. Also on CounterSpin today, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case challenging Washington D.C.'s handgun ban. Conservativ ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Dreyfuss on McCain's foreign policy, Michael Jacobson on incarceration rates This week on CounterSpin: You probably heard about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's little "joke," singing "Bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann. But our guest suggests that that incident wasn't so much a gaffe, as a pretty clear illustration of McCain's foreign policy vision. Robert Dreyfuss is an independent journalist, one of few who have actually examined McCain's record and his plans on issues of international engagement. We'll hear what he has to ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ali Abunimah on Gaza, Cynthia Pearson on Barbara Seaman This week on CounterSpin: Israel's re-invasion of the Gaza Strip has left over 100 Palestinians dead, many of them civilians. The coverage of the attack has featured some familiar media themes—the strained and strange euphemisms for the violence, the skewed chronologies of who-started-what, and the impossibility of peaceful negotiations. We'll sort out the current state of affairs with Ali Abunimah of the website Electronic Intifada. Also on CounterSpin today: As a journalist who cha ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Lori Wallach on NAFTA, J.H. Snider on spectrum policy This week on CounterSpin: Criticisms of NAFTA from Democratic presidential candidates Obama and Clinton made the New York Times feel a need to explain to readers that, despite appearances, the two politicans are not, actually, “hostile to free trade”. But that says less about the toughness of their criticisms than it does about the rareness in the corporate media world of ANY criticism whatsoever of what they insist on calling ‘free trade’. More on that from Lori Wal ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Cole on Protect America Act, Rick Blum on FOIA This week on CounterSpin: The extension of the Protect America Act would have permitted the White House's warrantless wiretapping program and immunized telecommunications firms for cooperating with it. Congress refused, and now the Act’s expiration is being presented as a battle between the White House, which says not extending it leaves the country vulnerable to terrorists, and congressional democrats, who oppose the immunity provision. We'll ask Georgetown Law professor David Cole a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Seymour Hersh on Israel's Syrian air strike, Gerald LeMelle on Bush's Africa trip This week on CounterSpin: An Israeli air strike on a mysterious building in Syria in September prompted weeks of media coverage that buttressed the Israeli line: that Syrians were in cahoots with North Korea on a nuclear weapons program. The reporting was chock full of anonymous sources and mysterious satellite imagery that, to hear the media tell it, sealed the deal. New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh took a look at the evidence, though, and came away much more skeptical than ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tavia Nyong'o on Kenya, Trudy Lieberman on health care policy This week on CounterSpin: A rigged election in Kenya at the end of December plunged the country into chaos and violence—offering U.S. media consumers a familiar view of the continent, but explaining very little about the roots of the crisis. NYU professor and Kenya Comment blogger Tavia Nyong'o will join us to talk about that. Also on the show: The press corps had a chance to use a strategy story to talk about a real issue, with the recent back and forth between the Obama and Clinton ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dahr Jamail on the Iraq surge, Karl Grossman on nuclear power resurgence This week on CounterSpin: Reports that the surge in Iraq "is working" are commonplace, but they rarely confront the question, "Working for whom?" In his latest piece, "Reality Is Totally Different: Iraqis on 'Success' and 'Progress' in Their Country," available at TomDispatch.com, independent journalist Dahr Jamail goes beyond the official Washington view and asks Iraqis how the surge is working for them. We'll talk to Dahr Jamail. Also on the show: It was not just the fiascos of Three Mil ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Glen Ford on Obama-Clinton, Rob Richie on electoral process This week on CounterSpin: media long ago declared the Democratic race for the White House was a two-person race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The campaigns have been squaring off in recent days—on some important issues, and some decidedly less so. This has led some pundits to lament that race and gender have been "introduced" into this campaign. We'll hear what Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report has to say about this. Also on CounterSpin today, media election coverage can c ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gareth Porter on Strait of Hormuz 'incident,' Robert Naiman on Iraq death toll This week on CounterSpin: what did—or didn't—happen to U.S. boats in the Strait of Hormuz? Much of the press coverage parroted the line of the day from various administration officials, even as the storyline changed dramatically. How did this happen? We'll talk to journalist and investigative historian Gareth Porter. Also on CounterSpin today, a new World Health Organization study of deaths in Iraq found what the authors call, "a massive death toll in the wake of the 2003 invas ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Peter Hart on 2008 primaries, Kali Akuno on New Orleans public housing This week on CounterSpin: Expecting the pundits, political reporters and pollsters to learn from their mistakes may be a bad bet considering their performance in covering the recent Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But the bad coverage didn't end at bad predictions about who would win and lose and which candidates would be forced to leave the race. We'll be joined by CounterSpin's own Peter Hart for a discussion of the election coverage so far. Also on the show: Remember how Hu ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Best of CounterSpin, 2007 This week on CounterSpin, a special year-end look behind the headlines of the mainstream news. On this program, we’ll take a look back at some of the stories covered by the corporate media in 2007, but not always covered so well. As usual CounterSpin tried to bring you guests—activists, researchers and journalists—that had an angle on events that we thought worth hearing and, more often than not, one you weren't hearing many other places. Our guests responded to media cov ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nomi Prins on mortgage meltdown, Kamau Karl Franklin on HR 1955 This week on CounterSpin: a special look at two stories. One of them has received significant media attention that you might not always understand; the other is a story that's flown under the media radar altogether. Turmoil in the housing market has been pinned on Wall Street's appetite for so-called subprime mortgages. With house prices declining and foreclosures heading the other direction, the media are now sifting through the debris to tell us what happened. But what should we have know ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Josh Silver on FCC ruling, John Conroy on Chicago police torture This week on CounterSpin: The FCC voted recently to eliminate the cross-ownership ban that was intended to prevent the same company from controlling tv stations and newspapers in the same market. Pretty par for the course for the industry-friendly agency, but this time, after years of activism, there's more pushback than perhaps was expected. What exactly happened and what happens next? We'll hear from Josh Silver, executive director of the media reform group Free Press. Also this week: Th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Max Brantley on Mike Huckabee, Marc Herold on Afghanistan This week on CounterSpin: The Huckabee surge is officially the campaign story of the moment. How did the supposedly second-tier Republican contender become the man to beat? And what has the national media done to boost him to front-runner status? We'll speak with a reporter who's covered Huckabee up close for years—Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times. Also on CounterSpin today, as the U.S. and NATO confront a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan with increased bombing and even talk of a m ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Asli Bâli on NIE, Mark Weisbrot on Venezuela referendum This week on CounterSpin: Old official assumptions about Iran have been swept away by a National Intelligence Estimate that says Iran scuttled its nuclear weapons program years ago. But will journalists question the whole new set of official (and in many ways no less belligerent) assumptions that seem to be emerging in the wake of the NIE? We'll talk to lawyer and peace and security expert Asli Bâli. Also on the show: If you're looking for a thoughtful balanced explanation of the constitut ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Glenn Greenwald on Joe Klein, Dave Tomlin on Bilal Hussein This week on CounterSpin: Time magazine's Joe Klein wagged his finger at Democrats in a recent column for being too anti-war and being civil liberties extremists. Turns out he was completely wrong about the facts, but what did we learn from the back and forth between Klein and his critics? We'll ask the person who started it all, Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald. Also on CounterSpin today: Award winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held without charge by US authorities f ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Norman Solomon on 'Made Love, Got War' This week on CounterSpin: Norman Solomon is a veteran author and media critic who has always been an activist. His latest book uses his own story as a lens to chronicle the political history of the last 50 years, helping us understand, as Daniel Ellsberg puts it in the foreward, "where we are now and how we got here." The book is called Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters With the Warfare State. This week we'll have a special extended interview with Norman Solomon. Link: — Made Lov ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Shahid Buttar on Pakistan, Jonathan Tasini on the writers strike This week on CounterSpin: Martial law in Pakistan made headlines on November 4. Some in the media were calling it a second coup by dictator Pervez Musharraf, not to mention a move that muddies up the Bush White House's alleged democracy promotion project in the Muslim world. What's missing from that media formulation? We'll hear from writer and activist Shahid Buttar. Also on CounterSpin today, the Writers Guild of America strike has generated a lot of coverage of which celebrities are wal ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gareth Porter on Iran, Tarso Ramos on Values Voters This week on CounterSpin: The campaign season and actions by the White House and the Senate have made Iran in some ways a bigger political story than Iraq. How well are the media examining the arguments being put forth about Iranian meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan? We'll talk to journalist and historian Gareth Porter. Also on the show: Remember the wake of the 2004 election, when "values voters" were all the rage? A supposedly clearly defined and enormously powerful voting bloc, so-called ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Edwin Park on SCHIP, Lucinda Marshall on breast cancer This week on CounterSpin: “Why don’t we focus on the poor children?” asked George Bush, who says he vetoed the expansion of the SCHIP children’s health insurance program because it would’ve helped the wrong people. Some outlets adopted that angle, but does it hold up? We’ll hear from Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Also on the show: October is awareness month for both breast cancer and domestic violence. But coverage of the two ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dahr Jamail on Iraq reporting, Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Bill Cosby This week on CounterSpin: One of the most valuable reporters working inside Iraq wasn't living out his life's ambition to be a war correspondent. In fact Dahr Jamail went to Iraq in large part because of how badly he thought the media were doing covering the war. He's collected his experience in a new book 'Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From An Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq.' He'll join us to tell us about it. Also on CounterSpin today, Bill Cosby's latest book, "Come On Peop ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Stan Karp on No Child Left Behind, Aaron Swartz on Rachel Carson The White House is starting a drive to renew its No Child Left Behind law. While it's politically safe nowadays to raise questions about any number of White House policies, for some reason No Child Left Behind manages to get a free ride from the media establishment. Why is that, and what would a critique of the law sound like? We'll talk it over with Stan Karp, an editor at the magazine Rethinking Schools. Also on the show today: Was environmentalist Rachel Carson a mass murderer? That ala ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Cynthia Boaz on Burma, Dean Baker on Social Security This week on CounterSpin: what's going on in Burma? Besides violent crackdowns by the country's military dictatorship, which are covered in the U.S. press, you'd be hard pressed to know that the non-violent, pro-democracy movement there has been organizing for years. We'll talk to Professor Cynthia Boaz, a professor at SUNY Brockport and academic advisor to the International Center on Non-Violent Conflict about Burma and press. Also on the show: none other than the Maestro, former Fed chai ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ervand Abrahamian on Iran, Andrew Tilghman on Al Qaeda in Iraq This week on CounterSpin: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in New York for a meeting at the United Nations, which had much of the media in a frenzy. But does the debate over free speech and Ahmadinejad's criticism of the United States steer us away from more important matters—like whether the U.S. is planning military action against Iran? We'll speak with Baruch College history professor Ervand Abrahamian. Also on CounterSpin today: in 2006 most military experts placed t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website William Greider on Alan Greenspan, Anthony Arnove on Iraq contractors This week on CounterSpin: former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan is back in the news. He has a memoir out in which he tries to put some space between himself and the Bush White House. Will the press, never inclined to challenge the man they call The Maestro, facilitate Greenspan's reinvention? We'll talk with one journalist who's not a fan, Nation correspondent and author William Greider. Also on CounterSpin today, Blackwater security contractors in Iraq are being blamed for a Septemb ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phyllis Bennis and Tom Engelhardt on the Petraeus Report This week on CounterSpin: two major reports measuring developments in Iraq have been released recently and elite media have made no secret of which they prefer. Not the independent, and largely critical, report from the General Accounting Office but the far sunnier report of General David Petraeus on the success of, well, his own efforts, has had the lion's share of the press attention. Given that, how good have media been at making sense of that report? We'll hear from Phyllis Bennis, fell ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Neil deMause on FAIR's poverty study, Alex Koppelman on Lou Dobbs and U.S. Border Patrol criminals This week on CounterSpin: a new FAIR survey of coverage of poverty on the network newscasts finds scant media interest in the topic. Weren't the media committed to changing their ways in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? We'll talk to the co-author of the report Neil deMause. Also on CounterSpin today, How hid U.S. Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting an unarmed suspect and covering up their involvement in the case, became heroes on cable news shows and a cause célèbre of the anti-immig ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Heather Boushey on Census poverty report, Scott Horton on 'Coups 'R Us' This week on CounterSpin: the Census Bureau report on income and poverty came out last week, generating a fair amount of big media attention. This year, it seems, the news was good—or not so good. Depending on which outlet you saw and sometimes, how far into the story you read. We'll help sort through what the numbers mean with Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Also on the show: with the White House pushing for extending the troop surge ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arianna Huffington on Utah mining disaster, Ralph Nader on talk radio payola This week on CounterSpin: the six coal miners buried in Crandall Canyon in Utah are presumed dead. With three additional miners killed in the rescue attempt, the question now is whether media will call the story a tragedy and move on, or track responsibility for the disaster, no matter how high it goes. We'll speak with Arianna Huffington of the blog the Huffington Post about media's record on the story so far. Also on the show: a potential new payola scandal involving talk radio hosts rec ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wayne Barrett on Giuliani's 9/11 lies, Michael Schwartz on Iraq 'benchmarks' This week on CounterSpin: as the mainstream media has it, Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani "owns 9/11" and all attendant September 11 issues. But Village Voice journalist and Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett says that conventional wisdom is all smoke, based in part on some personal myth-making by the former New York City mayor. We'll talk to Wayne Barrett about his recent article, "Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11." Also on CounterSpin today, media chatter about ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Aziz Huq on Protect America Act, Laura MacCleery on White House for Sale This week on CounterSpin: Congress caved in on a White House push to expand its surveillance powers under the out-Orwelling-Orwell "Protect America Act." Some major newspapers wrote blistering editorials against the Act, but the news pages and TV coverage often made the dispute nearly impossible to follow. Aziz Huq of NYU's Brennan Center will join us to try and explain what happened. Also on the show: Hillary Clinton says she will take money from lobbyists, Obama and Edwards say they won ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Laila al-Arian on 'The Other War,' Ann Toback on broadcast news survey This week on CounterSpin: while media watchers and right-wing bloggers went on the attack over a New Republic columnist's writings about the behavior of U.S. troops in Iraq, an exposé in the Nation magazine has gone relatively unnoticed. The magazine spoke to 50 combat vets about things they had seen—and done—in Iraq; we'll speak to Laila al-Arian, co-author of the Nation report "The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness." Also on CounterSpin today: "I must have done ten stories in ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Cole on torture 'ban,' Dean Baker on economic myths This week on CounterSpin: the White House is hailing George W. Bush's latest executive order as a strong statement against torture, but the claims have been met by a remarkably skeptical press corps. We'll talk to Georgetown law professor and author David Cole about the president's supposed torture ban and the press reaction to it. Also on the program: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 14,000 recently and if you’re not excited well you’re just not paying attention—at l ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tammy Johnson on affirmative action and the Supreme Court, Rachel Morris on Sami al-Haj This week on CounterSpin: coverage of the June 28 Supreme Court ruling striking down a key element of affirmative action that promoted racial diversity in American schools featured opponents and supporters of the decision, but did it succeed in accurately describing the real extent of continuing discrimination? Or probing the meaning behind loaded terms like colorblindness, embraced by affirmative action opponents? We'll talk to Tammy Johnson of the Race and Public Policy Program at the App ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bob Dreyfuss on Iraqi politics, Ken Silverstein on "Their Men in Washington" This week on CounterSpin: the political debate over the Iraq War is heating up in Washington again, as the White House attempts to shore up support for continuing the occupation and some Democrats are vowing to press harder to end the war. Absent from much of the media coverage, though, is an understanding of Iraqi politics. We'll talk to journalist Robert Dreyfuss about the question the press isn't asking about Iraq. Also on CounterSpin today: The power and influence of lobbyists is one o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Lloyd, Hannah Sassaman, Dory Graham and Bruce Dixon on the state of radio This week on CounterSpin, we're talking all about radio. Perhaps the most democratic medium -- cheap to produce and to access -- US radio is nevertheless not the most democratic in its content, whether that's music and culture or, especially, political ideas and discussion. How did that happen? What would it take to alter that landscape, and are we seeing an opening for change right now? We'll discuss the political lay of the land with Mark Lloyd from the Center for American Progress. The ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Don McCanne on 'SiCKO' & single payer, Stuart Ewen on health care propaganda This week on CounterSpin: Michael Moore's new film SiCKO is premiering around the country, delivering a blunt message: the U.S. health care system is broken. But Moore doesn't just want to fill movie theaters; he wants to spur a debate about health care policy—namely, getting rid of the private health care system in favor of a public, government-financed one. That'll be a tough sell to the mainstream media; we'll talk to Don McCanne of Physicians for a National Health Program about Si ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ali Abunimah on Gaza, Céline Nahory on Iraq This week on CounterSpin: the struggle for the Gaza Strip. With U.S.-backed Fatah more or less removed from power by Hamas, media are asking some familiar questions: do Palestinians really want peace, can they be trusted with democracy, and does the United States have any "good options" left? What are we not hearing about the conflict, and the U.S. role in it? We'll hear from author and activist Ali Abunimah. Also this week: a new report from the Global Policy Forum looks at a number of im ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Bryden on Bush & AIDS funding, Lew Koch on Padilla trial This week on CounterSpin: perhaps it was because both Democrats and Republicans supported it, perhaps it was just an eagerness to tell some good news, but mainstream media were all together in cheering the Bush White House's renewed commitment to fighting AIDS. The only trouble was, the key numbers at the center of the conversation turn out to be not as they appear. We'll talk with David Bryden of the Global AIDS Alliance about that "Bush doubles AIDS funding" storyline. Also this week: th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Elizabeth de la Vega on Libby sentencing, Jeff Cohen on John Edwards This week on CounterSpin: media are pondering the fate of Scooter Libby—one of the highest White House officials ever convicted of a felony—recently sentenced to 30 months in jail. But our guest says Libby's sentence, while significant, is really the least important part of the story of the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity and the whole White House abuse of power that lay behind it. Elizabeth de la Vega is an author and a former federal prosecuto ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nancy Cleeland on leaving the L.A. Times, Deepa Kumar on UPS strike This week on CounterSpin: a dispiriting sign of the times—yet another veteran, award-winning journalist leaving the field. Nancy Cleeland was a labor reporter (you've heard of that) at the Los Angeles Times; she wrote on a range of issues affecting working class people, even shared in a Pulitzer for a series on Wal-Mart. But, she says, the paper today just doesn't seem to care about stories about working people or the poor—no matter how critical those stories are. We'll hear fro ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Deepa Fernandes on immigration debate, Laura Carlsen on trade agreements This week on CounterSpin: what was hailed as a "bipartisan" deal on immigration was announced in the Senate earlier this month. Media usually like that kind of political coming-together, never mind the details. With Capitol Hill negotiations certain to continue, journalist Deepa Fernandes joins us to talk about the immigration conversation, and what the press is missing. Also on the program: in a similar vein, Congressional dealings on trade agreements have made headlines recently, with mu ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Swanson on 'benchmarks,' Mark Potok on Dobbs and leprosy This week on CounterSpin: "benchmarks" is the new key word in the talk about pulling out of Iraq. It seems, according to the New York Times and others, that the best way to end the war is to draw up a To Do list... for Iraqis. Our guest finds something ludicrous in the whole discussion; we'll hear from David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org. Also on the show: CNN's Lou Dobbs is under fire for alleging that 7,000 cases of Leprosy have been identified in recent years in the U.S. and for imp ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Joyce Battle on Iraq media plan, Caryl Rivers on 'Selling Anxiety' This week on CounterSpin: we often hear that the Iraq War relied on overly optimistic predictions from the Bush White House and its allies about how everyday Iraqis would react to a military invasion. A new report sheds light on one aspect of that pre-war planning—the Pentagon's plans for Iraq's media. What does the report add to what we know about U.S. propaganda efforts in Iraq? We'll speak with Joyce Battle of the National Security Archive. Also on the show: women—are you tr ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Enders on Iraq, Harut Sassounian on LAT and Armenian genocide This week onCounterSpin:the domestic debate over Iraq is dominating the headlines, usually characterized as a"showdown"between Congress and the White House over Democratic calls to withdraw U.S. troops. The stalemate leaves many reporters asking the question,"What's next?"But in the midst of the partisan scrum on Capitol Hill, what's actually happening in Iraq? Freelance journalist David Enders will join us to share his thoughts.Also this week: the genocide by Turks against Armenians in 191 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gloria Feldt on abortion ruling, David Kotz on Boris Yeltsin This week onCounterSpin: did inadequate reporting help pave the way for the recent Supreme Court ruling on abortion? We’ll hear from veteran women’s rights and women’s health advocate Gloria Feldt on how, she says, media mistakes fueled the high court ruling.Also on the program: did Boris Yeltsin really bring democracy and freedom to the former Soviet Union? That's what many U.S. news outlets have reported since the former Russian president's death on April 23rd. We'll tal ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jared Bernstein on taxes, Sunday Dare on Nigeria This week on CounterSpin: tax day comes and goes, but certain media myths about taxes seem to be perennial. One of the ones we heard this year was about how rich people carry an unfair burden in this country. Get out your handkerchiefs! Our guest went into the belly of the beast—financial cable news—to debate that one. We'll hear from Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. Also on CounterSpin today, Nigeria is scheduled to hold presidential elections on April 21, tho ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Richard Prince on Don Imus, Carlo Bonini on Niger forgeries This week on CounterSpin: the racism and sexism scandal that resulted in the firing of talk host Don Imus by MSNBC after he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy headed hos," has called attention to the culpability of the big media companies who profited from Imus' bigotry and the journalists who lined up to be on his show, trading their silence for publicity. We'll talk to Richard Prince, of the blog Journal-isms at the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. Also on Count ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phyllis Bennis on Iran & British captives, Dean Baker on trade coverage This week on CounterSpin: Iran’s release of 15 British sailors and marines is a forceful rebuke to editorialists and pundits who openly favored the long-failed policy of threats and force over diplomacy in solving the crisis. What other lessons should be learned by US media in the wake of the release? We'll talk to Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies about the British captives story. Also on the show: When corporate media start talking economic issues, many people jus ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Erik Leaver on Iraq bills, Mike Farrell on 'Just Call Me Mike' This week on CounterSpin: what are advocates of peace to make of the war spending bill that's just made its way through the Senate? Press accounts call it a "withdrawal bill" and a "forceful rebuke" to Bush's war policy. Is that how it looks close up? We'll hear from Erik Leaver, of the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy In Focus on that story. Also on CounterSpin: actor Mike Farrell has devoted himself to serious fights for social justice, working against the death penalty, R ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Diane Farsetta on Nuclear Front Groups, E.J. Graff on 'The Opt-Out Myth' This week on CounterSpin: The growing media popularity of nuclear power as a solution to global warming and energy woes is not about the environment, says Diane Farsetta of the Center for Media and Democracy, but the result of a well-funded and stealthy corporate campaign to promote the flagging US nuclear energy industry. We'll talk to her about her new report, "Moore Spin: Or, How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front Groups." Also on the show: “The Opt-Out Re ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mahmood Mamdani on Darfur, Karen Greenberg on Guantánamo This week on CounterSpin: a new essay in the London Review of Books by Columbia professor Mahmood Mamdani argues that by simplifying the story of Darfur, the U.S. press misleads readers and viewers about what is really happening there. He'll join us to explain what is wrong with what we know about Darfur. Also this week: since the outset of the so-called "war on terror" there has been no shortage of incidents demonstrating the contempt many U.S. officials have for the free press. Karen Gre ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Parry on Libby verdict, Paul Porter on Payola settlements This week onCounterSpin: former White House aide Scooter Libby was found guilty of 4 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame leak investigation. The case might be over, but the chatter about what it means for reporters, the White House and the debate over the Iraq War will continue. Veteran reporter Bob Parry ofConsortium Newswill join us to talk about the verdict, and the limits of what trials like this reveal to the public.Also this week: settlements over the lat ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Juan Cole on Iran's Iraq Meddling, Ann Jones on Afghanistan This week on CounterSpin: a look at a war mostly forgotten by the press, and one that could be on the horizon. A recent survey finds Americans are increasingly finding the notion of war against Iran, thinkable. One key reason for this must surely be the volume of U.S. propaganda accusing Iran of aiding Iraqi insurgents that passes largely unmediated from U.S. officials to the public. We'll talk to Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and the blog Informed Comment about the Ira ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Nichols on Molly Ivins, Eric Wingerter on Ch?vez's 'rule by decree' This week onCounterSpin: Listeners may know that the incisive, forceful and funny columnist Molly Ivins died January 31 at age 62. We'll talk with John Nichols, the Washington correspondent for theNationabout Ivins' special place in and impact on the media landscape, and what journalists and activists would like to see happen in her memory.Also on the program: Reports that the Venezuelan congress is conferring powers on president Hugo Ch?vez that would allow him to 'rule by decree' in certa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Elizabeth de la Vega on domestic spying, Kristal Brent Zook on Duke rape investigation This week on CounterSpin: The White House says they've abandoned the warrantless wiretapping program that spied on US citizens. They also say they're continuing it unchanged, both with court approval. Confused? Hard not to be, but how are journalists handling the story? We'll speak to former federal prosecutor and author Elizabeth de la Vega about the domestic surveillance program that won't go away. Also on CounterSpin today: The sexual assault investigation of three Duke University lacro ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rick Perlstein on Conservatives& Martin Luther King, Sarah Olsen on Watada Subpoena This week onCounterSpin: Conservatives, who used to despise Martin Luther King, have begun to warm to his memory. But writer Rick Perlstein says the thaw is the result of an attempt to domesticate King and omit from the memory views that challenged power and privilege and scared the establishment, conservatives and liberals alike. We'll talk to Rick Perlstein about why"Conservatives Still Don't Get Martin Luther King."Also on the show: Sarah Olson is an independent reporter who conducted an ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Alexander Cockburn on NY Times & Iraq, Matt Zimmerman on Spocko & Disney This week on CounterSpin: The New York Times finger prints are all over the Iraq war, says Alexander Cockburn. In his latest dispatch on the subject the CounterPunch proprietor and Nation magazine columnist shows how the nation's leading newspaper is pushed for an escalation of the conflict—even as the American public is rejecting a "surge" and calling for withdrawal. We'll talk to Alexander Cockburn about the War and the New York Times. Also on CounterSpin today, when a blogger in t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Best of CounterSpin 2006 On this special Best ofCounterSpin, program we look back over some of what was news for the mainstream media in 2006—and some of what wasn't news, but should've been.Our guests this year included a range of activists, researchers and journalists—all of whom had an angle on events that we thought worth hearing and, more often than not, one you weren't hearing many other places. Whether the issue was medicare or immigration, Wal-Mart or welfare policy, each in his or her way remin ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robin Andersen on media and war This week onCounterSpin: A special conversation with media historian and scholar Robin Andersen about the media and war. Andersen's new bookA Century of Media, A Century of Wartraces media gullibility, official deception and propaganda through the years. It's a reminder that the media's role in making the case for the Iraq War is part of a larger story, that of a press corps that regularly cheers on American military action while shielding readers and viewers from its consequences. We'll s ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Antonia Juhasz on Iraq and oil, Jenny Toomey& Peter DiCola on radio consolidation This week onCounterSpin: If you wanted to be dismissed by elite pundits and reporters before the Iraq War began, all you had to do was mention oil. Suggesting that Iraq's massive petroleum reserves had anything at all to do with US interest in regime change was a good way to get branded a kook or conspiracy theorist, at best. But years later, Iraq's oil is still coming up convesations about the Iraq War. Are themedia finally catching up with this story, or not? Antonia Juhasz, author of the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sarah Anderson on Augusto Pinochet, Rafael Olmeda on NBC-Telemundo This week on CounterSpin: The death of a dictator. Chile's Augusto Pinochet died this week at the age of 91, eluding the human rights lawyers and activists who demanded Pinochet be held responsible for his brutal rule. How did the U.S. press remember Pinochet's legacy? We'll ask Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies. Also on CounterSpin today, the U.S. Latino population is growing but the number of local Spanish language television newsc ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tom Englehardt on Iraq Study Group, Yifat Susskind on World AIDS Day This week on CounterSpin: If you're a Beltway pundit or media bigshot, the report issued by the Iraq Study Group was a big deal. The group's recommendations were Page One fodder for days on end, but a good question to ask might be: Why? While the report dazzled the press corps, what about the rest of us? Tom Englehardt of the Nation Institute will join us to talk about it. Also on CounterSpin: World AIDS Day came and went—and much like with Labor Day, an issue that could provide comp ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gary Younge on Iraq politics, Ali Abunimah on 'One Country' This week on CounterSpin: As reports from Iraq become increasingly dire, U.S. policy makers and their media enablers are looking everywhere but at themselves for someone to blame. A Nation columnist and New York correspondent for London's Guardian newspaper writes about the finger pointing in his latest Guardian column, "They Lied Their Way Into Iraq. Now They are Trying to Lie Their Way Out." Gary Younge will join us to talk about Iraq and the political endgame. Also on CounterSpin today, ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Parry on Robert Gates, Barbara Kopple on "Shut Up and Sing" This week on CounterSpin: George Bush's choice of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary is being portrayed in the media as a sensible choice; part of a White House turn to more pragmatic policies and advisors in the wake of GOP congressional defeats. But in his report, "The Secret World of Robert Gates," investigative reporter Robert Parry of ConsortiumNews.com sees Gates differently. Robert Parry will joins us to talk about the Gates nomination. Also on CounterSpin ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Glen Ford on Barack Obama, Chris Slevin on trade& the elections This week onCounterSpin: Barack Obama wasn't running for anything this election season, but you may have thought that he was, judging from the media coverage he generated. Obama's appeal extends across the political and pundit spectrum; indeed, finding anything approaching critical coverage of the freshman Senator is next to impossible. So what's going on here? Glen Ford of theBlack Agenda Reportjoins us to talk about it.Also onCounterSpin: We know that media can turn any factoid into a phe ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Nichols on midterm elections, Clarissa Martinez on Latino voters This week on CounterSpin: The November 7th Democratic election victories are being credited to everything from the notion that the winning candidates were largely centrist, to the genius of congressman and democratic strategist Rahm Emanuel. But what was really behind the Democratic victories? Nation contributor John Nichols will join us to sort out the competing storylines emerging from the Democratic election victories. Also on CounterSpin: as pundits slice and dice the exit polls to fig ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Justin Levitt on voting, Richard Kim on 'values voters' This week on CounterSpin: The political commissar at a major TV network says if reporters treat charges of voter disenfranchisement (charges often coming from Democrats, advocates for the poor and immigrants) as being more important than charges of voter fraud (which come most often from the GOP) that’s proof of liberal bias—whether or not there is, in reality, more evidence of disenfranchisement than fraud being beside the point. With reporters having trouble seeing past the pa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Gloria Tristani on Benton media studies, Diane Farsetta on RTNDA and video news releases This week on CounterSpin: Four academic studies about the effects of media concentration on media content have been published by the Benton Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Appropriately, the studies come as the FCC is holding hearings about consolidation and whether broadcast corporations should be able to have even more broadcast licenses. We'll talk with Benton Foundation president and former FCC commissioner Gloria Tristani. Also on the show: Research earlier this y ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Daniel Davies on the Lancet study, Peggy Charren on the FCC and indecency This week on CounterSpin: When a study in the British Medical journal the Lancet found that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a consequence of the war, the Lancet was dismissed by George W. Bush, who called its methodology flawed. American media outlets also cast doubt, calling the peer-reviewed findings"disputed"and pointing to lower, less scientific numbers as more reliable. Daniel Davies, a writer for the Comment is Free blog on the website of London's Guardian, will join us t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Julie Hollar and Bob McChesney on the PBS NewsHour and public broadcasting Today on CounterSpin: A new FAIR study of PBS’s flagship news program, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, finds that the show that describes itself as “evenhanded” and “inclusive of all perspectives” unfortunately fails rather resoundingly on both counts. The findings would be disheartening for any news outlet, but what does it mean that the diversity of the public and the public interest are poorly served even in the arena that was set aside expressly with those va ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arianna Huffington on Woodward's State of Denial, Sarah Anderson on Wal-Mart's pundits This week on CounterSpin: Veteran reporter Bob Woodward has spent much of the last two weeks on television touting his new book State of Denial, which faults the Bush White House for lying and incompetence over the Iraq War. But our guest faults Woodward for being late-to-the-party and says his new book is just an attempt to salvage his reputation. We'll talk to Arianna Huffington of Huffingtonpost.com. Also on the show: It isn't that you never see stories including criticism of retailing ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Ratner on detainee legislation, Hannah Sassaman on suppressed FCC reports This week on CounterSpin: Congress has passed legislation on military commissions and detainee treatment that will allow forms of detainee abuse recognized internationally as torture, and make secret evidence and coerced evidence admissible in court. It will also degrade habeus corpus, the traditional right of prisoners to challenge their detention. Why is the media largely ignoring the substance and historic significance of the legislation in favor the stories about the political battles o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jeff Cohen on his latest book: Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media This week on CounterSpin: Few media critics have been afforded an intimate, on-the-job view of the outlets they criticize, but FAIR founder Jeff Cohen spent years in and out of Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. In his new book, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media, Cohen takes the reader inside TV news and probes the conservative biases, timidity and tabloidism that dominate it. Today, in a special extended CounterSpin interview, we talk to Jeff Cohen about his adventures an ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Parry on Armitage/Plame, John Stauber on The Best War Ever This week on CounterSpin: Do those who called the outing of covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson a scandal owe the White House an apology for suggesting it outed her as revenge against her husband Joe Wilson? In light of recent revelations about former State Department official Richard Armitage, some commentators seem to think so. We'll be joined by journalist Robert Parry for the latest on the coverage of the Plame Wilson affair. Also on the show: The Washington Post has decided to hi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sheldon Rampton on The Path to 9/11, Wayne Barrett on Giuliani and 9/11 This week on CounterSpin: The Path to 911, an ABC docudrama scheduled to air on September 10th and 11th, reportedly falsifies events and lays the blame for 911 on the Clinton administration. Why would ABC insist on airing such a politically partisan program? We'll ask Sheldon Rampton, research director of the Center for Media and Democracy. Also on the show: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend" goes the famous movie line, and that could describe media's treatment of former New ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sue Sturgis on Katrina anniversary, Heather Boushey on welfare 'reform' This week on CounterSpin: the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina was marked by media outlets remembering, among other things, those few days when some reporters decided they wouldn't tolerate lying and deception from government officials. But what's happened on the Gulf Coast since then, away from the cameras and TV anchors? We'll speak with Sue Sturgis of the Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch. Also on CounterSpin today, another media anniversary: It's been ten years since the passage ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Noam Chomsky on 'Failed States' This week on CounterSpin: a special conversation with long-time author, activist and linguist Noam Chomsky. His latest book is called Failed States; we'll talk about the state of democracy here in the United States, the so-called Bush doctrine of democracy promotion overseas, and we'll get his thoughts on the current Mideast crisis. All of that in an extended interview this week on CounterSpin. Links: — Failed States Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ian Williams on U.S. diplomacy, Daphne Eviatar on Lou Dobbs This week on CounterSpin: American diplomacy and prestige abroad has seldom been in lower water, a situation underlined by the White House's destructive role in the Lebanon-Israel crisis. But do US media recognize the degree of the problem? We'll talk to Ian Williams, UN correspondent for the Nation, and author to the blog Deadline Pundit, about the state of US diplomacy. Also on the show: Lou Dobbs used to be known as the ‘money guy’ at CNN, with a long running financial news ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jeff Cohen on Lamont-Lieberman, Chuck Collins on Mexican election This week on CounterSpin: the battle over ballots. In Connecticut, Democratic voters tossed aside Senator Joe Lieberman in favor of anti-war newcomer Ned Lamont. Lieberman has long been the poster boy for media-friendly centrism in the Democratic Party. So what are pundits and political reporters, who've long advised moving the party to the right, saying about the Lamont victory? We'll talk it over with FAIR founder and author Jeff Cohen. Meanwhile in Mexico the fight to recount the ballot ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Stephen Zunes on Israel-Lebanon, Geoff Nunberg on 'Talking Right' This week on CounterSpin: With the resounding margin of 410 to 8, the House of Representatives passed a resolution in late July endorsing Israel's continuing attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip; but our guest explains that that overwhelming bipartisan majority endorsed some other things as well, including the meaninglessness of international law and potential military action against Iran and Syria. Professor and author Stephen Zunes will discuss that and other underexplored aspects of thi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fawaz Gerges on Lebanon, Israel and the Media Israel's attack on Lebanon has left more than 330 dead, 1,000 wounded and half a million displaced; and Hezbollah's attacks on northern Israel have killed 29 Israelis and left more than 30 injured. Meanwhile the U.S. press has chosen sides and is largely running interference for Israel's disproportionate response to an aggressive action by Hezbollah. Today in a special extended interview about Lebanon, Israel and the media, we'll talk to Lebanese-born American scholar Fawaz Gerges, professo ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mark Weisbrot on Mexican election, James Zogby on Gaza crisis This week on CounterSpin: The still-unresolved presidential election in Mexico is a lot of things to the U.S. press: a test of the appeal of trade deals like NAFTA, or a referendum on left-wing populism. It's no surprise that the consensus media favorite among is conservative candidate Felipe Calderón. But what's missing from the reporting? And when leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador calls for counting every vote, why do some in the press consider that a problem? We'll ask Mark W ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Feffer on North Korea, Neil DeMause on welfare and poverty This week on CounterSpin: North Korea's launch of several missiles on July 4th revealed once again the sensational and crisis-driven nature of U.S. media coverage of North Korea. While media dredged up stories of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's irrationality and eccentricity, coverage left many Americans ill-informed U.S./North Korea relations. Korean expert John Feffer will join us to talk about the latest alleged crisis. Also on the show: Remember Ronald Reagan and his Cadillac-driving ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Anthony Riddle on telecom update, Nat Parry on Bush & secrecy This week on CounterSpin: media policy watchers were focused on the Senate Commerce Committee this week, where dozens of amendments to a major telecom bill were debated. With things like net neutrality and cable access TV hanging in the balance, how did things play out? And what's next? We'll get an update from Anthony Riddle of the Alliance for Community Media. Also on CounterSpin today, The Bush White House's expansive view of its own power coupled with it obsessive secrecy and control o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Eric Boehlert on 'Lapdogs,' Ryan King on meth craze This week on CounterSpin: The title of the book really says it all: Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled over for Bush. Author Eric Boehlert will join us to talk about how—and why—the Beltway press corps has done its part to prop up the Bush presidency. And with Bush down in the polls, has the media mood changed at all? Also on the show: "There's no drug worse than meth," claimed US drug czar John Walters in a recent Associated Press story; though the story itself was about how seizu ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Barbara Olshansky on Guantanamo Bay, Trudy Lieberman on Medicare This week on CounterSpin: Since the suicides of three detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention center the US military command has banned all journalists and lawyers, turning what was a remote prison revealing little news into an informational black hole. We'll talk to Barbara Olshansky, lead counsel of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Also on CounterSpin: Now that the deadline for enrollment in the White House's new Medicare drug plan has ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Klare on Iran, Fawaz Gerges on Journey of the Jihadist This week on CounterSpin: A new proposal to Iran from the US and five other nations seems to suggest the possibility of direct negotiations and has resulted in a more upbeat tone to a story that looked to be heading for crisis just a few weeks ago. What does the new proposal mean and how has it changed the tone of media coverage? We'll talk to Professor Michael Klare or Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Also on CounterSpin today: Media largely accept the White House's framing of the war ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tim Rutten on Enron, Peter Dreier on mine safety This week on CounterSpin: the Enron verdicts are in, much to the chagrin of former chairman (and George Bush buddy) Ken Lay and CEO Jeff Skilling. And many in the media are rendering their verdicts too, suggesting that the Enron case brings to an end a lamentable chapter in corporate malfeasance. But what was the media doing all that time? We'll hear from L.A. Times media writer Tim Rutten. Also on CounterSpin today, the disastrous explosion at the Sago coal mine in West Virginia was mere ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Aaron Glantz on Iraq, Doug Henwood on immigration This week on CounterSpin: George Bush cheered the new government in Iraq as "a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror," but the White House’s optimistic view of Iraq is meeting with some media resistance, even in mainstream outlets. Independent journalist Aaron Glantz will join us to talk about the coverage and the situation in Iraq. Also on the program: With some of the people making anti-immigration arguments these days it’s pretty clear their position res ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dave Lindorff on Bush& impeachment, Dean Baker on tax cuts This week onCounterSpin: The impeachment of George W. Bush. You're not likely to hear much about that idea in the media, but is it really beyond the bounds of mainstream media discussion? We'll talk it over with Dave Lindorff, investigative reporter and co-author of the new book,The Case for Impeachment.Also onCounterSpintoday: George Bush says his tax cuts—"extremely tilted toward the wealthy"as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy describe them—will actually mean MORE ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Sirota on Hostile Takeover, Tim Redmond on MediaNews This week onCounterSpin: big money and big corruption in Washington. It's not a new story, but a new book tries to tackle the latest scandals in Washington. We'll speak to David Sirota about his bookHostile Takeover, and about what kind of advice pundits will be giving the Democrats this election year.Also this week: The breakup of theKnight Riddernewspaper chain may well result in MediaNews, a newspaper company owned by Dean Singleton, having something approaching a monopoly on San Francis ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tyson Slocum on gas prices, Charlie Savage on Bush's signing statements This week on CounterSpin: Even if you don't drive much or at all, crude oil at $70 a barrel means higher prices on things like home heating, plastics, jet fuel. Increased transportation costs and increased costs to consumers. Like some Congressmembers, media outlets appear to be in high dudgeon about gas prices, but do their explanations for the situation make sense? We'll hear from Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program. Also on the show: Since taking office in 2001 Geo ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jeff Chester on COPE Act, Ann-Louise Colgan on World Bank This week on CounterSpin: Articles and posts are flying around the web with headlines like 'The End of the Internet'. How serious is the threat of the disturbingly named "Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act" and what can you do about it? And, how does it connect to the threat currently facing public access TV? We'll talk about both issues with Jeff Chester, of the Center for Digital Democracy. Also on the show: when activists used to protest the World Bank and IMF, ma ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Dreyfuss on Dick Cheney, Patrick O'Connor on Israel-Palestine This week on CounterSpin: Dick Cheney and his staff are notoriously eccentric and obsessively secretive. This is why journalists have a hard time reporting on how Cheney exercises his extraordinary power within the Bush administration. However, freelance journalist Robert Dreyfuss reports on how Cheney's office operates in the latest edition of American Prospect magazine. Dreyfuss will join us to talk about his article, "Vice Squad." Also this week: a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv turned med ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Daniel Price on video news releases, Jeff Faux on globalization This week on CounterSpin: Video news releases are one of the ways corporations and government agencies distribute their propaganda. That wouldn't be so bad on its own—except for the fact that those videos often show up on TV newscasts, where viewers are led to believe that these PR stunts are actually news reports. Just how widespread is this practice? We'll find out from Daniel Price, co-author of a new report about VNRs from the Center for Media & Democracy. Also on the show: ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Andrea Batista Schlesinger on immigration, Peter Freyne on AP & Chris Graff This week on CounterSpin: immigration policy is big news this week, with a legislative battle in Washington and massive demonstrations for immigrants' rights across the country. But there are still substantial gaps in the media discussion of the issue—we'll try to fill in those missing pieces with Andrea Batista Schlesinger of the Drum Major Institute. Also on CounterSpin today, it's common knowledge that newspaper companies are slashing jobs throughout the industry. But when a veter ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Phyllis Bennis on George W. Bush & Helen Thomas, Garance Franke-Ruta on NYT's abortion ... This week on CounterSpin: George Bush received high marks from many media commentators for his March 21st news conference performance. But journalists largely failed to scrutinize the accuracy of several of his statements. Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies will join us to have a look at the substance of the president’s remarks. Also on the show: The story about media all being dyed-in-the-wool liberals is full of holes, of course; but big outlets like the New York T ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jack Fairweather on "Heroes in Error," Ben Bagdikian on Knight-Ridder sale This week on CounterSpin: The McClatchy newspaper chain is buying the larger Knight Ridder chain. What does this latest episode of corporate media concentration mean for journalism? We'll hear from Ben Bagdikian, author of the landmark book, The Media Monopoly, and former UC Berkeley Journalism School dean. Also this week: It's well-established that Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress fed all kinds of bogus stories to the US media to help make the case for the Iraq War. With the invasi ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Amitabh Pal on India, Eric Deggans on Hurricane Katrina George W. Bush traveled to India to secure a deal that would allow that country to develop its nuclear industry—all the while telling countries like Iran that there's no room to negotiate when it comes to their nuclear plans. How did the press handle the double standard? And what did we learn—and not learn—about India? We'll talk to Amitabh Pal of the Progressive magazine about all of that. Also this week: Remember the national conversation about institutional racism and ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chesa Boudin on Venezuela, Marjorie Heins on fair use This week on CounterSpin: A new book tries to set the record straight on some of the most straight-forward questions about Venezuela and its president Hugo Chavez. How does reality in Venezuela measure up to the prevailing media myths? We'll ask Chesa Boudin, one of the co-authors of the book The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions, 100 Answers. Also: "Fair use" rights are not well-understood by much of the public, but they are essential to journalistic and intellectual freedom. They are ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dahlia Lithwick on Guantanamo, Sheila Gibbons on Global Media Monitoring Project This week on CounterSpin: Recent reports on Guantanamo detainees from the UN Human Rights Commission, Seton Hall University, and National Journal, raise grave questions about everything from whether detainees are being tortured to why many are even being held. Despite these sensational findings the reports have received little attention. We'll talk to Slate.com editor and legal commentator Dahlia Lithwick about Guantanamo. Also on the program: The findings of the third Global Media Monitor ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Emily Whitfield on Abu Ghraib, Kenneth DeGraff on a la carte cable This week on CounterSpin: An Australian television program aired new images of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison—images the Pentagon had fought in court to keep covered up. The various administration lines on why no one should see the pictures are depressing if not surprising, but what about the fact that a number of US media outlets have evidently been sitting on the images for some time? We'll hear from Emily Whitfield of the ACLU, which has been fighting the Pentagon for the release of th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ali Abunimah on Muhammad cartoons, David Swanson on White House memo This week on CounterSpin: Unflattering and offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper have set off protests around the world. Pundits seem eager to portray the story as the familiar "clash of civilizations," but what else is going on here? We'll ask Ali Abunimah of the website Electronic Intifada. Also this week: According to the February 3rd London Guardian, a memo has emerged revealing that George Bush intended to invade Iraq regardless of UN support o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Cole on NSA spying, Anthony Fenton on Haiti elections This week on CounterSpin: A White House propaganda campaign to sell its warrantless NSA domestic spying to the American people is in high gear, and some are taking the bait. Media discussions focusing on polls and the program’s popularity abound, while discussions of its constitutionality are hard to find. David Cole, professor at Georgetown University Law school will join us to talk about the NSA program. Also on the show: The New York Times ran a big piece on Haiti recently that l ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jordan Flaherty on Katrina reconstruction, Eric Boehlert on the K Street Project This week on CounterSpin: New Orleans is back in the news, along with the debates about how the city should be rebuilt; the White House is accused of stonewalling a congressional Katrina investigation and the administration is offering Louisiana a fraction of the dollars the state says it needs for a homeowner bailout. What many of these stories have in common, says our guest, Jordan Flaherty of Left Turn magazine, is the exclusion of the people who will be most effected by the policies. A ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Danny Schechter on the Alito hearings, Stephen Zunes on Ariel Sharon This week on CounterSpin: Though Judge Samuel Alito revealed little and concealed much at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the media are giving him good marks largely based on his demeanor. Apparently remaining unruffled qualifies one to be on the high court. We’ll talk to MediaChannel’s Danny Schechter about the Alito hearings. Also on the show: Many media outlets have joined George W. Bush in proclaiming recently stricken Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon as a pea ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Patrick Cockburn on Iraq coverage, Brian Dominick on the Sago Mine story This week on CounterSpin: American reporting on Iraq often leaves one with the impression that things will work out, at least for the White House, if officials can just pull off another election or train more Iraqi security forces, veteran Iraq reporter Patrick Cockburn of the London-based Independent newspaper doesn't see it that way, he'll join us to discuss Iraq coverage. Also on the show: According to a New York Times editorial, "Just as Hurricane Katrina forced Americans to look at t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jonathan Kozol on "Shame of the Nation" This week on CounterSpin: In his new book Shame of the Nation: the Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, Jonathan Kozol draws a grim picture of U.S. public schools, particularly those in poor urban neighborhoods. He graphically reports on the decaying infrastructure, the under-spending and overcrowding; the lack of art and music teachers, librarians, doctors—many of the things that are taken for granted in better-off, whiter public schools. But the central theme of Kozol's bo ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Best of CounterSpin 2005 This week on CounterSpin: On this special CounterSpin program we'll take a look back at some of the stories of the past year, and hear again from a few of the many journalists, activists, researchers and critics that brought those stories to us, or helped us make sense of them. Includes comments from Norman Solomon, Ian Williams, Anthony Riddle, Katha Pollitt, and many more. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michael Ratner on spying & civil liberties, Michael Massing on "The Enemy ... This week on CounterSpin: The White House has been under scrutiny for a variety of civil liberties- and human rights-related policies. In mid-December, George Bush reluctantly agreed to support Senator John McCain's so-called anti-torture legislation. Also in December, the New York Times revealed that the White House was directing domestic spying, while NBC News revealed that the Pentagon was doing its own domestic spying on activist groups. We'll talk to Michael Ratner of the Center for Co ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Naomi Klein on torture, Eric Boehlert on Sami al-Arian This week onCounterSpin: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Europe last week to talk abouttorture—but it was hard for the press to parse exactly what she was saying. Writer Naomi Klein will join us to talk about something else that's missing from the current discussion of torture—namely, the history of US support for the practice around the world.Also this week: TheBushJustice Department was embarrassed when a Florida jury acquitted Palestinian activist and academic ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Michelle Goldberg on the War on Christmas, Gadi Dechter on Michael Steele This week onCounterSpin: It's the holiday season again, so many conservatives are concocting stories about how Christmas andChristiansare under attack. To listen to the likes of commentators such as Bill O'Reilly and Pat Buchanan, simply using the words"happy holidays"instead of"Merry Christmas"amounts to anti-Christian hostility. We'll speak withSalon.comsenior writer Michelle Goldberg about the war against Christmas and her article"How the Secular Humanist Grinch Didn't Steal Christmas."A ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Norman Solomon on Iraq withdrawal and Onnesha Roychoudhuri on the Wall Street Journal&torture A Democratic Congressman and combat veteran called for a timetable to pull troops out of Iraq, and suddenly media are talking about a"tipping point"in debate on the war. How real a shift has there been, and is withdrawal from Iraq, an idea that garners major support from the public, really something the pundit class is ready to take seriously? We'll talk with author and media critic Norman Solomon about getting out of Iraq.Also on the show: While evidence that the White House has officially ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mel Goodman on Iraq intelligence, George Monbiot on Fallujah and chemical weapons When theDowning Street Memossurfaced earlier this year, most of the mainstream media shrugged off the suggestion that how or why we went towarinIraqwas worth discussing. That's old news, they told us.George W. Bushdoesn't think so, delivering a scathing speech on Veteran's Day attacking his critics and making some familiar charges about what everyone knew about Iraq's WMDs. So how's the press doing this time around? We'll ask former CIA analyst Mel Goodman.Also this week: An Italian televis ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Joshua Holland on oil-for-food scandal, Andrew Schwartzman on license challenges This week onCounterSpin: For months on end we've heard that the so-called oil-for-food scandal would show deep corruption at the highest levels of the United Nations. So when a lengthy report on the program's mismanagement came out, how did the facts stack up against the right-wing spin that's been driving the story? Joshua Holland ofAlternetwill join us to talk about that-- and the potentially explosive charges that are actually in the report that have escaped media attention.Also this wee ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Parry on White House Scandals, Michael Dorf on Samuel Alito This week on CounterSpin: ConsortiumNews.com editor Robert Parry will join us to reflect on the latest Bush scandal, and how the news media seem eager to help the White House get back on its feet. Parry will tell us about an alternative response to the Bush scandals and share his thoughts on the Lewis Libby indictment from the perspective of a veteran reporter who broke some of the most important Iran Contra scandal stories.Also on the show: With Harriet Miers out of the running, George Bus ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Laura Rozen on Niger-uranium, Jeff Chang on Village Voice-New Times merger This week onCounterSpin: While the CIA leak investigation has the Beltway establishment on edge, a parallelscandalof sorts is playing out in the Italian media. The story gets to the heart of the Bush administration'scasefor theIraqwar. So why aren't we hearing more about it? We'll talk to journalist Laura Rozen about the scandal unfolding in Italy, and what it could mean for the White House.Also on the show:"Village Voiceturns 50, merges with chain"--that dry wire service headline unfortuna ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Arianna Huffington on Judith Miller, Dave Zirin on politics&sports This week onCounterSpin: TheNew York Timesfinally published it report onJudith Millerand her grand jury testimony about the CIA leak story. But for many, theTimesreport--far shorter and less probing than its Jayson Blair reporting some years back-- raises more questions than it answers. We'll talk to Arianna Huffington, editor of theHuffington Post, aboutJudith Miller.Also this week: Do sports andradical politicsmix? And when they do, does the mainstream press scrub the messy politics out o ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Katrina and racism, Ward Harkavy on the Bush Beat This week onCounterSpin: Most of the tales of murder and rape that came out of the Katrina catastrophe in New Orleans never happened. But that didn't keep news media from conveyingendless accounts of mayhemsupposedly perpetrated by black thugs and gangs. Our guest says portrayals equatingcrimewith African-Americans reflect a timeworn pattern, even when the stories are false. We'll talk to author and political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson aboutRace, Lies and New Orleans.Also on the show: Th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Andrew Wetzler on Endangered Species Act, Bob Lederer on Filiberto Ojeda Rios This week onCounterSpin: Is the Endangered Species Act in danger itself? The House voted late last month to make significant changes in the landmarkenvironmentlaw. So how much attention did the press pay to this? We'll talk to Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council about that.Also on the show: the FBI killing, underunclear circumstances, of longtime Puerto Rican independence activist Filiberto Ojeda Rios has sparked angryprotestinPuerto Ricoand around the country, but media ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Feffer on North Korea, Melissa Goodman on Patriot Act This week onCounterSpin: There was a big breakthrough in the negotiations onNorth Korea'snuclear program. Or maybe there wasn't. The press played up a tentative deal that looked all the more so just one day later. So what happened? Andwhose interestswere being served by playing up the apparent progress in negotiations? We'll talk to North Korea expert John Feffer.Also this week: What is it that John Ashcroft doesn't want librarians to tell you about thePatriot Act? That's at the heart of a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Elliot Mincberg on John Roberts&David Enders on Iraq Withdrawal This week onCounterSpin:Supreme Courtnominee John Roberts has certainly passed the media confirmation process, with most of the coverage quite favorable toBush's nominee for chief justice. With all that praise, what are we missing? Elliot Mincberg of People for the American Way will join us to answer that question.Also this week: ThoughIraqnews has been largely pushed off front-pages, thewarobviously still grinds on. And opinion-shaping media in the U.S.-pundits and editorial page writers-a ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jamie Court on Gas Prices and Jonathan Landay on FEMA&Michael Brown This week on CounterSpin: Is $4 a gallon gasoline the natural consequence of damage done by Hurricane Katrina? Where some see profiteering, many media analysts, like Newsweek's Robert Samuelson, see the market working exactly as it should. We'll hear from Jamie Court of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights about what's unnatural about price spikes at the pump.Also on the program: Was now-ousted FEMA Chief Michael Brown really in charge of the emergency response to the Hurricane K ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rosa Brooks and Sheelah Kolhatkar on Hurricane Katrina This week on CounterSpin:"Katrina Rekindles Adversarial Media"--that headline from USA Today has been a theme in a number of press reports, which see signs of critical and independent thinking on the part of reporters covering the hurricane and its aftermath. Others aren’t so sanguine, wondering why it took a disaster of this scale to shake reporters into acting like, well, reporters. How is covering this story affecting journalists? And how long will those effects last?We’ll ta ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Will Bunch on Hurricane Katrina and Christopher Martin on Northwest Strike This week on CounterSpin: The devastation from Hurricane Katrina has dominated the mainstream media, and will likely to continue to be the top story for weeks to come. In a time of such utter calamity, though, is there room for the media to ask if at least some of this devastation could have been prevented? Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch will join us later to talk about how many--including some in the media-- were warning that federal spending cuts would spell disaster for New ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Antonia Juhasz on Iraq constitution, Brian Komar on Darfur TV ads This week onCounterSpin: Reporting on the drafting of the Iraqi constitution has included critical concerns over the role of Islamic law, the rights of women, the disposition of the Kurdish region and the inclusion of the Sunni minority. But the coverage has missed something just as important, says our guest:Iraq's U.S.-imposedeconomicstructure. Antonia Juhasz, a scholar withForeign Policy in Focuswill join us to talk about Bush's other Iraq invasion.Also on the program: they say the bigges ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Simona Sharoni on Gaza Withdrawal, Myron Levin on Lawsuit Reporting This week on CounterSpin: The removal of Jewish settlers from their homes inGazais certainly a compelling human interest story. But reporting focusing only on the suffering and angst of settlers and other Israelis largely fails to include Palestinian views and the larger context in which the withdrawals are taking place. Simona Sharoni, University of Oregon professor and activist, will join us from Tel Aviv to talk about Gaza coverage.Also on the show: Are frivolous lawsuits and jury awards ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Wenonah Hauter on Energy Bill, Anthony Riddle on Public Access This week onCounterSpin: It was four years in the making, but is the recently passedenergybill worth the wait? Most of the media coverage seemed to split the difference between the good and the not-so-good, but what else should we know? Wenonah Hauter of Public Citizen will join us with her take.Also on the program: if you're only looking at the country's major media, you likely know nothing at all aboutbillscurrently before Congress that would allow cable companies to offload those pesky p ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jonathan Tasini on AFL-CIO and Greg Mitchell on Hiroshima This week onCounterSpin: The break up of the 13 million member AFL-CIO has been the biggestlaborstory in recent weeks, but have corporate media been doing justice to the story? We'll talk to labor and economics writer Jonathan Tasini about that, as well as about coverage ofCAFTAand what theNew York Timeshas against his response in particular to the passing of that agreement.Also this week: Uncovering the truth about the horrors ofwar. A new documentary revealssuppressedimages of civilian s ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Scott Lipscomb on Iraq Body Count, Charlie Cray on"America's Heartland" Today onCounterSpin: Counting the dead inIraq. A new report from the group Iraq Body Count is perhaps the most exhaustive attempt to document the impact of the IraqWaron that country's civilian population. So how has the press responded to this research? And how has the media's willingness to talk about civilian deaths changed? We'll ask assistant research Scott Lipscomb.Also on the show: the producers are calling it a"Celebration of America's Farmers,"but at least one critic calls a propos ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Adele Stan&Elliot Mincberg on John G. Roberts As we record this show, his nomination is only one day old, yet the Washington Post has already reported Democrats"increasingly resigned to the notion that they cannot stop"the appointment of John Roberts to the US Supreme Court. Those expecting some sort of enlightening debate in the media then, look to be disappointed. But what should we know about Roberts' record? And does it really warrant what seems to be a sort of sigh of relief from some quarters that he's not as bad as he could be?W ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Jim Naureckas on Rove-Wilson, Trudy Lieberman on Drug Industry This week onCounterSpin: As Karl Rove becomes the subject of intense media scrutiny the White House is being raked over the coals by an angry and suddenly reanimated press corp. Why are they so agitated? Is it because they were lied to by the White House? Or because their colleague,Judy Miller, is in jail for refusing to divulge her sources, perhaps including Rove? FAIR editor Jim Naureckas will join us in a discussion of the angry press, and thelimitsof journalistic confidentiality.Also th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Rosa Brooks on Judith Miller, Patrice O'Neill on The Fire Next Time This week onCounterSpin:New York TimesreporterJudith Miller, whose faulty reporting helped the White House take the country towarinIraqin 2003, has became a sort of First Amendment martyr when she was jailed for refusing to divulge sources on July 6th. Our guest, University of VirginiaLawprofessor Rosa Brooks will share with us a different view of Miller and confidential sources.Also on the show: the Flathead Valley in Montana is a community, like many others, with deep divisions aboutracea ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Bob Parry on Bush Speech, Mark Cooper on Brand X Case This week onCounterSpin: BeforeGeorge Bush's June 28 speech declaring theIraqwar 'worth it' and pushing his stay-the-course policies, pundits werepulling for the presidentto make the case and sell the public on a continuingwar. AsNBC's Tim Russert put hours before the speech, Bush"must steel the resolve of the American people."We'll talk to veteran journalist Robert Parry about pundit consensus and the war.Also this week: How you connect to the internet might be more important than you thou ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Chris Slevin on CAFTA, Amitabh Pal on Tom Friedman This week onCounterSpin: The debate over the Central American Free Trade Agreement is heating up, and while there is greater split in political and corporate elites than there was in the 1990'sNAFTA debate, media cheerleading for the so-called freetradelegislation is still a given. We'll talk to Chris Slevin, the deputy director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch about CAFTA.Also on the program:New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman's new book is a bestseller, despite a writing style s ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Salih Booker on Africa Aid, Mark Benjamin on Iraq Body Counts This week onCounterSpin: the Downing Street Memo wasn't the only news to come out of Tony Blair's visit to the White House.Debt reliefand aid toAfricamade headlines-- but what was missing from the media coverage? We'll ask Salih Booker of Africa Action.Also this week: The Pentagon says they don't do body counts, but it's not true. An increasing number of news stories are quotingmilitaryofficials who cite body counts of dead Iraqi insurgents. We'll talk to journalist Mark Benjamin ofSalon.co ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website David Swanson on Downing Street Memo, Betsy Leondar-Wright on Class Reporting This week onCounterSpin: TheDowning Street memo, minutes from a 2002 British intelligence briefing that indicate that the Bush administration was intent on invadingIraqdespite its claims to the contrary, is being called a smoking gun--compelling, new evidence that Bush and Blair lied to get us intowar. So why does the U.S. press corps so far seem asuninterestedin the memo as, well, as the White House would obviously like them to be? We'll hear from David Swanson, co-founder of the new coali ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website John Burroughs on NPT review, Norman Solomon on Deep Throat and Iraq This week onCounterSpin: When media talk about nuclearweapons, their attention is usuallyfocusedon so-calledrogue stateslike Iran or North Korea. Perhaps that's why so little media attention was paid to last month's negotiations over the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. John Burroughs of the Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy will fill us in on what was happening, and what the press made of it.Also on the program: the confirmation of the identity of Deep Throat, the secret source who hel ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Dan Noyes on Bush's Judges, Greg Mitchell on Pat Tillman This week onCounterSpin: Bush'sjudgesare for the most part headed for the federal bench, after a long fight on Capitol Hill. Media consumers know plenty about the back and forth between Beltway politicians, but what don't we know about the actual records of some of these judges? Dan Noyes of the Center for Investigative Journalism will fill us in on the all-too-often missing background on the battle over judges.Also this week:"If this is what happens when someone high profile dies, I can on ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Robert Jensen on Newsweek's Quran Story, Karl Grossman on Weapons in Space This week onCounterSpin: The word is out:Newsweekcommitted a mortal journalistic sin by reporting that interrogators at Guantanamo desecrated a Quran, and the story resulted in deaths inAfghanistan. Well, that'swhat the White House would like you to believe. We'll talk to journalism professor Robert Jensen from the University of Texas at Austin with another view.Also on the show: Not satisfied with an open-ended"war onterror"that spans the planet, the Bush White House now sets its sights on ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Karen Hansen-Kuhn on CAFTA, Ray McGovern on"Smoking Gun Memo" This week onCounterSpin: international trade is on the agenda in Washington, with the White House pushing for Congress to vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. The trade pact is getting next to no mainstream media attention, even though the political fight over it is heating up. We'll talk to Karen Hansen-Kuhn of the Alliance for Responsible Trade about that.Also this week: On May 1, the LondonTimesreported on the secret British intelligence memo that seems to confirm ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Nancy Cauthen on economic"good news," James Bamford on Rendon Group This week onCounterSpin: The economy's on the move, says the Bush White House; now somebody tell the people. Rather than ask why so much of the public seems not to share the administration's good cheer, some media seem content to ponder how the White House can better make its case. We'll hear from Nancy Cauthen of the National Center for Children in Poverty, about what the public understands abouteconomicsthat the press corps evidently doesn't.Also this week: An explosive report inRolling S ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website