CounterSpin

    ABC World News Tonight (10/30/22) This week on CounterSpin: ABC World News Tonight told viewers what it thought they needed to know: “Bolsonaro Loses Brazilian Election, Leftist Former President Wins by Narrow Margin.” The victor of Brazil’s consequential presidential race has an actual name; it’s not “leftist former president”…or “former shoeshine boy,” as the New York Times had it–or even “savior,” as CNN suggests supporters view him. He’s a person, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, a popularly supported former president, whose program had, and has, more to do with helping poor people in Brazil than with securing the kind of extractive, profit-over-all, devil-take-the-hindmost international relationships that elite US media applaud. So just, get ready, is all we’re saying. For a Latin American president taking steps to protect the human life–supporting Amazon to be presented in the press as a flawed, corrupt self-server, which maybe suggests that uplifting the poor and saving humanity might just be too expensive a proposition. It’s hard not to imagine the use that a differently focused press corps might make of Brazil’s change of direction. We’ll talk about it with Brian Mier, of Brasil Wire and TeleSur‘s From the South, as well as co-author/editor, with Daniel Hunt, of Year of Lead: Washington, Wall Street and the New Imperialism in Brazil. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221118Mier.mp3 Transcript: “‘Lula’s Victory Is One of the Most Impressive Political Comebacks of the Last 100 Years'”

    New York Times (6/24/22) This week on CounterSpin: As Eric Horowitz noted at FAIR.org, a lot of elite media coverage of housing problems has focused on the idea that landlords of supposedly modest means are being squeezed; or that people living without homes pose a threat to the lives and property of homeowners, as well as to the careers of politicians who dare to defend them—besides, you know, dragging down the neighborhood aesthetics. New views are needed, not only about the impacts of the affordable housing crisis, but also about its causes. It’s not just capitalism run amok, because that doesn’t happen without government involvement. We’ll talk with longtime affordable housing advocate Gene Slater, founder and chair at CSG Advisors. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221111Slater.mp3 Transcript: “‘Who Do We Want to Own Our Neighborhoods?'” NBC Nightly News (11/12/21) Also on the show: Media continue to toss off the term “inflation” as the reason for higher prices, as if in hope that folks will stop their brains right there and blame an abstract entity. We have a quick listenback to our February conversation with Rakeen Mabud of Groundwork Collaborative, when media were working hard to tell the public that “supply chain disruptions” dropped from the sky like rain, rather than being connected to decades of conscious policy decision-making. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221111Mabud.mp3 Transcript: “‘Mega-Retailers Are Using Inflation as a Cover to Raise Prices and Turn Record Profits'” Combined corporate and government choices—and how they affect the rest of us, this week on CounterSpin.

  New York Times (10/21/19) This week on CounterSpin: In 2019, the New York Times reported on Haiti’s hardships with a story headlined “‘There Is No Hope’: Crisis Pushes Haiti to Brink of Collapse.” The “no hope” phrase was a real, partial quote from a source, a despairing young woman in one of Haiti’s most difficult areas. And the story wasn’t lying about babies dying in underserved hospitals or schools closed or people killed in protests, or people with jobs going unpaid, roadblocks, blackouts, hunger and deep, deep stress in a country in severe crisis. But further into the story was another quote, from that young woman’s mother, who told the Times, “It’s not only that we’re hungry for bread and water. We’re hungry for the development of Haiti.” As we noted at the time, there’s a difference between “there is no hope” and “there is no hope under this system”—and to the extent that US news media purposefully ignore that difference, and portray Haiti as a sort of outside-of-time tragic case, and ignore the role that US “intervention” has played throughout history in order to push for the same sort of intervention again—well, that’s where you see the difference between corporate media and the independent press corps we need. We’ll talk to Jake Johnston from the Center for Economic and Policy Research about what elite media are calling for right now as response to Haiti’s problems, versus what Haitians are calling for. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221104Johnston.mp3 Transcript: “‘Intervention Is Actively Destabilizing the Situation'” Time (10/27/22) Also on the show: Is racial discrimination over in the United States? Do universities and colleges already reflect the range of inclusion and diversity a democracy demands, such that they should stop even thinking about whether they’re admitting the sort of students they expressly excluded just decades ago? These questions are in consideration at the Supreme Court, though you might not know it from media coverage. Instead, you may have heard about a fair-minded white guy who just, in his heart, wants Asian Americans to get a fair shot at the Ivy League—against all those undeserving Black kids unfairly leveraged by affirmative action. We’ll talk about SFFA v. Harvard with Jeannie Park, founding president of the Asian American Journalists Association in New York and co-founder of the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221104Park.mp3 Transcript: “‘This Case Was Never About Defending Asian Americans'”

    This week on CounterSpin: A 1995 Washington Post story led with a macabre account from the widow of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, about how when her husband’s bloody shirt was held up in court, his accused killer Mumia Abu-Jamal turned in his chair and smiled at her. An evocatively sinister report, which the paper printed untroubled by the fact that the court record showed that Abu-Jamal wasn’t in court when the shirt was displayed. Mumia Abu-Jamal (BayView, 7/11/19) ABC‘s investigative news show 20/20 used all the techniques for their big 1998 piece on the conviction of Abu-Jamal for Faulkner’s killing—stating prosecution claims as fact, even when they were disputed by some of the prosecution’s own witnesses or the forensic record; stressing how a defense witness admitted being intoxicated, while omitting that prosecution witnesses said the same. At one point, actor and activist Ed Asner was quoted saying, “No ballistic tests were done, which is pretty stupid”—but then host ABC‘s Sam Donaldson’s voiceover cut him off, saying: “But ballistics test were done”—referring to tests that suggested that the bullet that killed Faulkner might have been the same caliber as Abu-Jamal’s gun, but refraining from noting that tests had not been done to determine whether that gun had fired the bullet, or whether it had been fired at all, or if there were gunpowder residues on Abu-Jamal’s hands. ABC used clips of Abu-Jamal from the independent People’s Video Network, without permission, and, as PVN told FAIR at the time, the network added layers of echo to the tape, making him sound “like a cave-dwelling animal.” No one paying attention was surprised when it was revealed that in a letter asking permission from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to interview Abu-Jamal (a request that was denied), ABC noted that “we are currently working in conjunction with Maureen Faulkner and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police.” That kind of overt, proud-of-it bias has shaped coverage of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case from the outset; and current mentions suggest little has changed. Elite media will report without question a right-wing Senate candidate’s tossed-off reference to Mumia as the face of unrepentant criminality—while, out of the other side of their mouths, respectfully noting how Brown University is “acquiring the papers” of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as he’s an acknowledged representative of the very serious problem of mass incarceration, whose communications are “historically important.” Meanwhile, Abu-Jamal’s chances for a new trial, based on significant new evidence, were shot down summarily this week—but a glance at national media coverage, as we taped on October 27, would tell you, well, nothing about that. CounterSpin got an update, and a reminder of the real life vs. the media story of Mumia Abu-Jamal, from someone involved from early days: Noelle Hanrahan is legal director at Prison Radio. We spoke with her for this week’s show. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221028Hanrahan.mp3 Transcript: “‘This is America. That’s the Kind of Trial Mumia Abu-Jamal Had.'” Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Amazon‘s campaign contributions and FCC nominee Gigi Sohn. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221028Banter.mp3

    Guardian (10/20/22) This week on CounterSpin: This midterm is a big-picture election. It’s not just about the laws and policies and priorities governing our lives, not merely about whether we can control our own bodies or the environment has a future, the possibility of racial justice, or whether you can make rent with a full-time job. It’s about all of that, plus how we’re positioned to fight for the system that’s supposed to give each of us a say in those decisions. OK, but here are the elite media headlines: “Did Democrats Peak Too Early Before the Midterm Elections? Signs Suggest They May Have” “Will Inflation Boost Republicans’ Chances in the Midterm Elections?” “With Midterms Looming, Biden Isn’t Attending Big Campaign Rallies” What’s happening here? What’s not happening here? FAIR always says that news media work in election season should be judged not by how reporters “treat” Democrats or Republicans, but about how they inform and engage the public—including vast numbers of people who don’t even vote, because they can’t, or because they don’t see the connection between pulling that lever and their day-to-day life. Is it too much to say it’s journalism’s job to make those connections, and to err on the side of reflecting public needs to politicians, rather than presenting politicians as celebrities for people to muse about from a distance? CounterSpin talks about midterm election coverage with FAIR editor Jim Naureckas and FAIR managing editor Julie Hollar. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221021HollarNaureckas.mp3 Transcript: “‘It’s Extra Problematic When the Implications Are the End of Democracy'” Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Haiti. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221021Banter.mp3  

  This week on CounterSpin: Media watchers may know that Katie Halper was fired from her job at Hill TV because she did a thing you can’t do in elite US news media, which is make a statement critical of the state of Israel. Halper described Israel as an apartheid state—a designation supported by the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, as well as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Classroom memorial for Rayyan Suleiman (Middle East Eye, 10/3/22; photo: Shatha Hammad). Her firing, along with others who’ve crossed the same policed line, is a loss for curious US viewers who want to hear a range of not just views on Israel and Palestine, but news: That would include stories like that of Rayyan Suleiman, a 7-year-old boy who died September 29 from a heart attack after Israeli occupation forces chased him home from school, because, they said, some of the group of kids he was with threw stones at them. Dialogue around Palestine and Israel is among the most formulaic that elite media maintain, but growing numbers of people have concerns, not just about uncritical US support for Israel, but also about the shutdown of critics and the conflation of debate with the real problem of antisemitism. CounterSpin talked about these questions in August with Ahmad Abuznaid,  executive director at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. We hear that conversation again this week. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221014Abuznaid.mp3 Transcript: “‘These Organizations Are Doing Critical Work to Advocate for Palestinian Rights'” Also on the show: Apparently cryptocurrency is going through a rough patch. Who would’ve guessed the thing that presented itself as a way for the little guy to go big in wheelin’ and dealin’ was not exactly as presented? CounterSpin spoke back in February with Chicago-based writer Sohale Mortazavi whose article, “Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme,” appeared at JacobinMag.com. We revisit that this week as well. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221014Mortazavi.mp3 Transcript: “‘The Entire Cryptocurrency Market is Basically a Ponzi Scheme'” Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of the Nord Stream sabotage. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221014Banter.mp3  

  This week on CounterSpin: Amazon, the seemingly insatiable megacorporation, still refuses to acknowledge the union at its Staten Island facility known as JFK8, even as the National Labor Relations Board has rebuffed its attempt to overturn that union victory. Now Amazon has suspended dozens of JFK8 workers who refused to go to work after a fire that left the air smelling of chemicals and many feeling unsafe; 10 of those suspended were union workers. Jacobin (9/28/22) The reality that workers around the country are, first of all, simply suffering too much to not feel a need to fight, however scary that is, and then many of them taking to hand the existing tool of worker organizing—through unions and outside of them—is something that corporate media can’t plausibly deny. They can, however, underplay this movement, or patronize it, or try and confuse it by presenting it as “emotional” and irrational. But with tens of thousands of nurses, teachers, timber workers and nursing home attendants walking out around the country, the notion that this is somehow not meaningful, not about fundamental questions of human rights, and not worthy of the most serious, sustained, thoughtful attention journalists can provide, should be hard to maintain. We’ll talk with John Logan; he’s been reporting on organizing in media-friendly corporate behemoths like Amazon and Starbucks for Jacobin. He’s professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221007Logan.mp3 Transcript: “‘People Are Taking Inspiration From Union Victories at Amazon and Starbucks'” Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of the Azov Battalion. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin221007Banter.mp3  

  (New York, 9/22/22) This week on CounterSpin: As Puerto Rico struggles under another “natural” disaster, we’re seeing some recognition of what’s unnatural about the conditions the island faces, that determine its ability to protect its people. We’re even getting some critical mumblings about “finance bros”—people from the States who go to the island to exploit tax laws designed to reward them wildly. New York magazine described “a wave of mostly white mainlanders” that “has moved to Puerto Rico, buying real estate and being accused of pushing out locals who pay their full tax burden.” Gotta get that passive voice in there. But of course, it isn’t just that these tax giveaways favoring non–Puerto Ricans are gross and unfair; you have to acknowledge in the same breath that money going to them is money not going to Puerto Rico’s energy systems, schools, hospitals, housing. We talk about the harms inflicted on Puerto Rico that have nothing to do with hurricanes, with Julio López Varona, co-chief of campaigns at the Center for Popular Democracy. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220930Varona.mp3 Transcript: “‘Puerto Rico Has Become a Microcosm for the Worst Kind of Capitalist Ideas'” (AP via PBS, 9/24/21) Also on the show: Customs and Border Protection released findings from an internal investigation a few months back, declaring that no horse-riding Border Patrol agents actually hit any Haitian asylum seekers with their reins, as they chased them down on the Southern border last fall. That finding is disputed, but consider the premise: that people would need to create tales of horror about the treatment of Haitians at Del Rio, where people were shackled, left in cold cells, denied medicine, and separated from children as young as a few days old. Media subtly underscore that skepticism: AP ran a piece at the time telling readers that the appalling images shocked everyone: But to many Haitians and Black Americans, they’re merely confirmation of a deeply held belief: US immigration policies, they say, are and have long been anti-Black. The Border Patrol’s treatment of Haitian migrants, they say, is just the latest in a long history of discriminatory US policies and of indignities faced by Black people, sparking new anger among Haitian Americans, Black immigrant advocates and civil rights leaders. Understand, then: The racism in US immigration policy is a mere “belief,” held by Black people, and only they are upset about it. And this dismissive, divisive view is “good,” sympathetic reporting! We get another, grounded perspective from Guerline Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220930Jozef.mp3 Transcript: “‘The Moment Black People Showed Up, We Responded With Violence'”

    Newspaper ad from the Freedom on the Move database. This week on CounterSpin: If US news media never used the terms “wake-up call” or “racial reckoning” again, with regard to the latest instance of institutional white supremacy brought to light, that would be fine. Far better would be for them to do the work of not just acknowledging that US news media have supported and inflicted racist harms throughout this country’s history, but shedding critical light on the hows and whys of those harms—and taking seriously the idea of repairing them and replacing them with a media ecosystem that better serves us all. The Media 2070: Media Reparations Project encourages conversation and action around that vision. We’ll hear about the work from Alicia Bell, a co-creator and founding director of Media 2070 and current director of the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund, housed within Borealis Philanthropy. And from Collette Watson, director of Media 2070 and vice president of cultural strategy at the group Free Press. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220923Bell_Watson.mp3 Transcript: “‘There’s a Lot of Jubilance and Healing in Reparations'” Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of student debt relief, China’s zero-Covid policy and Afghan sanctions. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220923Banter.mp3  

    CNN‘s John Miller This week on CounterSpin: Journalist-turned-cop-turned-journalist-turned-cop-turned-journalist John Miller makes a blur of the revolving door. For years, he’s been back and forth between the New York Police Department (and the FBI) and news media like ABC. And now he’s the new hire at CNN. Don’t miss the message: For corporate media, being a paid flack for the police in no way disqualifies you to offer what viewers will be assured is a dry-eyed analysis of law enforcement patterns and practices. The hire is part of CNN‘s rebranding under new leadership; the major stockholder cites Fox News as an exemplar. But while it’s tempting to say CNN is acting like the kid who imagines his bully will let up if he offers both his and his little brother’s lunch money, the harder truth is that CNN knows it won’t attract or appease Fox or Fox viewers. So we should focus less on how one network “counters” the other than on whom they’re both ready to throw under the bus—in this case, Muslims. We’ll talk about the Miller hire with Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy counsel at Muslim Advocates. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220916Waheed.mp3 Transcript: “John Miller ‘Chose to Lie About Something That’s Well Documented'” Atlantic (9/5/22) Also on the show: Listeners may have seen the “just asking questions, don’t get mad” Atlantic article about how it might make sense to keep pricing insulin out of the reach of diabetics because, wait, wait…hear me out. (The idea was that if insulin winds up cheaper than newer, better drugs, more people might die.)  Other outlets are musing about how higher unemployment might be the best response to higher prices. Why are we doing thought experiments about hurting people? Implied scarcity—”obviously we can’t do all the things a society needs, so let’s discuss what to jettison”—is a whole vibe that major media could upend, but instead enable. We’ll talk about how that’s playing out in coverage of inflation with Chris Becker, associate director of policy and research and senior economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220916Becker.mp3 Transcript: “‘We’ve Incentivized Corporations to Go After This Price-Gouging Strategy'”