CounterSpin

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240322.mp3   KXAS (3/19/24) This week on CounterSpin: 2023 was the warmest year on record. The World Meteorological Organization announced records once again broken, “in some cases smashed” (their words), for greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea-level rise, Antarctic sea ice and glacier retreat. Climate disruption is the prime mover of a cascade of interrelated crises. At the same time, we’re told that basic journalism says that when it comes to problems that people need solved, yet somehow aren’t solved, rule No. 1 is “follow the money.” Yet even as elite media talk about the climate crisis they still…can’t… quite…connect images of floods or fires to the triumphant shareholder meetings of the fossil fuel companies. Narrating the nightmare is not enough. We’ll talk about the latest research on climate coverage with Evlondo Cooper, senior writer at Media Matters. Transcript: ‘In Even the Best Coverage There Is No Accountability for the Fossil Fuel Industry’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240322Cooper.mp3   Also on the show: Part of what FAIR’s been saying since our start in 1986—when it was a fringe idea, that meant you were either alarmist or benighted or both—is that there is an inescapable conflict between media as a business and journalism as a public service. For a while, it was mainly about “fear and favor”—the ways corporate owners and sponsors influence the content of coverage.  It’s more bare-knuckled now: Mass layoffs and takeovers force us to see how what you may think of as your local newspaper is really just an “asset” in a megacorporation’s portfolio, and will be treated that way—with zero evidence that a source of vital news and information is any different from a soap factory. Rick Goldsmith’s new film is called Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink. We’ll hear from him about the film and the change it hopes to part of. Transcript: ‘This Decline in Local Journalism Was Noticed First by Journalists Themselves’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240322Goldsmith.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent coverage of Israel’s flour massacre. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240322Banter.mp3

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240315.mp3   (image: Repair.org) This week on CounterSpin: About this time seven years ago, John Deere was arguing, with a straight face, that farmers shouldn’t really “own” their tractors, because if they had access to the software involved, they might pirate Taylor Swift music. Things have changed since then, though industry still gets up and goes to court to say that even though you bought a tractor or a washing machine or a cellphone, it’s not really “yours,” in the sense that you can’t fix it if it breaks. Even if you know how, even if you, frankly, can’t afford to buy a new one. More and more people, including lawmakers, are thinking that’s some anti-consumer, and anti-environment, nonsense. We get an update from Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of the Repair Association. Transcript: ‘They’re Marketing to Us That We’re Too Stupid to Fix Our Stuff’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240315Gordon-Byrne.mp3   Juan Orlando Hernández(photo: Alan SantosPR) Also on the show: “Former President of Honduras Convicted in US of Aiding Drug Traffickers” is the current headline. You’d never guess from the reporting that Juan Orlando Hernández was a US ally, that the US supported the 2009 coup that went a long way toward creating Honduras’ current political landscape. Instead, you’ll read US Attorney Jacob Gutwillig telling the jury that a corrupt Hernández “paved a cocaine superhighway to the United States.” Because Americans, you see, don’t want to use cocaine; they’re forced to by the wiles and witchery of Honduran kingpins—and, thankfully, one of them has been brought to justice by the US’s moral, as reflected in its judicial, superiority. That’s the narrative you get from a press corps uninterested in anything other than a rose-colored depiction of the US role in geopolitical history. We hear more from Suyapa Portillo Villeda, advocate, organizer and associate professor of Chicana/o–Latina/o transnational studies at Pitzer College, as well as author of Roots of Resistance: A Story of Gender, Race and Labor on the North Coast of Honduras. Transcript: ‘The US State Department Is Complicit With Juan Orlando Hernández’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240315Portillo.mp3

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240308.mp3   Vox (3/4/24) This week on CounterSpin: Among the multitude of harms that could rain on this country should Donald Trump become president again, he could order the Department of Justice to drop any charges against him stemming from his fomenting of an insurrection aimed at overturning by violence the results of the 2020 election. Not to put too fine a point on it, Trump could declare himself above the law—and that’s just been enabled by the Supreme Court, which put off until April the legal case wherein Trump declares himself immune to criminal prosecution. The Court can move quickly; they hopped right to the decision that Trump can’t be removed from presidential ballots in the states. But this, we’re to understand, will take, huh, maybe until after the election, to mull. Vox Court-watcher Ian Millhiser says he tries to reserve his “this is an exceptionally alarming decision” voice, but this occasion calls for it. We hear from him this week. Transcript: ‘This Court Is Not Going to Protect Us From Donald Trump’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240308Millhiser.mp3   Also on the show: Corporate news media have an anti-elder narrative that’s as stupid as it is cruel. “Keep up or you’re in the way,” the line goes, “if you aren’t working 40 to 60 hours a week, you’re a societal drain.” It’s a weird position, erasing and marginalizing elderly people, given that the elderly are a sizable portion of the population, and a community we all get to join if we’re lucky. Alfredo Lopez is a longtime organizer and activist, and a founder of the new group Radical Elders. We talk with him about the space the group seeks to fill. Transcript: ‘That’s What US Capitalism Does Right Now. It Jettisons Its Elders.’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240308Lopez.mp3  

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240301.mp3   This week on CounterSpin: Years ago when media critics called attention to ways corporate media’s profit-driven nature negatively impacts the news, lots of people would say, “But what about the internet?” Nowadays, folks seem to see more clearly that constraints on a news outlet’s content have little to do with whether it’s on paper or online, but on who owns it, who resources it, to whom is it accountable. You’ll see the phrase “crisis of journalism” newly circulating these days, but one thing hasn’t changed: If we don’t ask different questions about what we need from journalism, we will arrive at the same old unsatisfactory responses. Victor Pickard is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and author, most recently, of Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society, from Oxford University Press. We talk to him about the crisis of journalism and its future. Transcript: ‘We Need to Separate Capitalism and Journalism’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240301Pickard.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at coverage of criminalizing journalism, gag rules and diversity data. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240301Banter.mp3

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240223.mp3   Reuters (2/20/24) This week on CounterSpin: International human rights lawyer Craig Mokhiber told Electronic Intifada recently that the International Court of Justice hearings on the legality of Israel’s 56-year occupation of Palestinian land are the largest case in history—more than 50 countries are taking part in this, and the US is virtually alone…in defending the legality of Israel’s occupation. Most states are affirming its illegality and cataloging Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other gross violations of international law. Every day the US falls more out of step with the world in its support for Israel’s violent assault on Gaza. As Mokhiber said, US vetoes of ceasefires in the UN Security Council, after which thousands more were killed, mean the US is directly responsible for those deaths: “Complicity is a crime.” Many in the US press seem divorced from the idea of US responsibility, and somehow we’re seeing more of the opinions of random TV actors than of groups on the ground in Palestine, and international human rights and legal bodies. We get some update on this unfolding nightmare from author and activist Gregory Shupak, from the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto, and from Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Greg Shupak: Transcript: ‘Israeli Violence Is Legitimized and Palestinian Counter-Violence Is Delegitimized’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240223Shupak.mp3 Trita Parsi: Transcript: ‘What in the Slaughter of Palestinians Is So Important to the US?’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240223Parsi.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240216.mp3   CEPR (1/31/24) This week on CounterSpin: There’s an announcement on the New York City subway where a voice chirps: “Attention, everyone! There are 150 accessible subway stations!” One can imagine an alternate world where we’d hear, “Only 150 of New York City’s 472 subway stations are accessible, and that’s a problem!” But people with disabilities are meant to be grateful, excited even, for whatever access or accommodation is made available for them to participate in daily life. There’s often an implied corollary suggestion that any violation of the rights of disabled people is an individual matter, to be fought over in the courts, rather than something to be acknowledged and addressed societally. The overarching law we have, the Americans with Disabilities Act, is meant to be proactive; it is, the government website tells us, a law, “not a benefits program.” In reality, though, the ADA still meets resistance, confusion and various combinations thereof, 33 years after its passage. And news media, as a rule, don’t help. The Supreme Court recently dismissed, but did not do away with, a case that gets at the heart of enforcement of civil rights laws for people with disabilities—though not them alone. Acheson v. Laufer is an under-the-radar case that, our guest says, is “part of a pattern of far-right reactionaries weaponizing the courts to dismantle labor protections, housing rights and health guidelines.” Ariel Adelman is a disability rights advocate and policy analyst. Her piece, with Hayley Brown, appeared recently on CEPR.net, the website of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. She’ll tell us what’s going on and what’s at stake. Transcript: ‘Disenfranchised, Under-Resourced Populations Are Burdened With Enforcing Major Federal Regulation’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240216Adelman.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at coverage of the racist Charles Stuart murder hoax. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240216Banter.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240209.mp3   Other Words (1/31/24) This week on CounterSpin: CNN host Dana Bash asked a question in the Republican presidential debate (1/10/24) in Des Moines, Iowa: The rate of inflation is down. Prices, though, are still high, and Americans are struggling to afford food, cars and housing. What is the single most important policy that you would implement as president to make the essentials in Americans’ lives more [affordable]? Unfortunately, she asked the question of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who answered with word salad involving “wasteful spending on a Covid stimulus bill that expanded welfare, that’s now left us with 80 million Americans on Medicaid, 42 million Americans on food stamps.” Haley concluded with the admonition “quit borrowing. Cut up the credit cards.” “Cut up the credit cards” is interesting advice for people who are having trouble affording diapers, but it’s the sort of advice politicians and pundits dole out, and that corporate news media present as a respectable worldview, worthy of our attention. There is another view, that acknowledges that the same people who earn wages also buy groceries, and pretending that we’re pitted against one another is not just mis- but disinformation. Rakeen Mabud is chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative. They have new work on what’s driving grocery prices, that doesn’t involve getting mad at people using food stamps. We’ll hear from her today on the show. Transcript: ‘It’s Important to Focus on Big Companies Using the Cover of Inflation to Jack Up Prices’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240209Mabud.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at analogies that encourage genocide. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240209Banter.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240202.mp3   Texas Tribune (1/22/24) This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court ruled that federal agents can remove the razor wire that Texas state officials have set up along parts of the US/Mexico border. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that “allows Biden to continue his illegal effort to aid the foreign invasion of America.” Elite news media, for their part, suggest we seek a hallowed middle ground between those two worldviews. Corporate media are filled with debate about the best way to handle the “border crisis.” But what if there isn’t a border crisis so much as an absence of historical understanding, of empathy, of community resourcing, and of critical challenge to media and political narratives—including that reflected in President Joe Biden’s call to allow access for “those who deserve to be here”? We hear from Aron Thorn, senior staff attorney at the Beyond Borders program of the Texas Civil Rights Project. Transcript: ‘Texas Is Fighting for Its Right to Lay Concertina Wire’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240202Thorn.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent coverage of Gaza protest and the New Hampshire primary. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240202Banter.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240126.mp3   Guardian (1/8/24) This week on CounterSpin: Elite media can give the impression that problems wax and wane along with their attention to them. And, not to put too fine a point on it, they’re done with police brutality. So if you think news media show you the world, you’ll be surprised to hear that 2023 saw killings by law enforcement up from the previous year, which was up from the year before that. More than 1,200 people were killed, roughly three people every day, including not just those shot dead, but those fatally shocked by a stun gun, beaten or restrained to death. Thirty-six percent of those killed were fleeing, and, yes, they were disproportionately Black. As far as corporate media are concerned, we’ve tried nothin’, and we’re all out of ideas. Communities, on the other hand, are hard at work reimagining public safety without punitive policing. There’s new work on those possibilities, and we hear about it from Monifa Bandele from the Movement for Black Lives. Transcript: ‘We Know What Keeps Us Safe: People Need Care and Not Punishment’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240126Bandele.mp3   Extra! (7–8/14) Also on the show: There is little research that is more important or less acknowledged than that from Princeton’s (now UCLA’s) Martin Gilens and Northwestern’s Benjamin Page in 2014 on the translation of public opinion into public policy. They looked at more than 1700 policies over 20 years and concluded that where economic elite views diverged from those of the public—as they would—the public had “zero estimated impact upon policy change, while economic elites are still estimated to have a very large, positive, independent impact.” Awareness of that fundamental disconnect is always relevant—but maybe especially when it comes to election season, where corporate coverage suggests we have an array of choices, we’re able to vote for people to represent our interests and choose our way forward, and let the most popular candidate win! We know it’s not like this, but the reporting that could show us how and why elections don’t work the way we think they do, is just not there, in a vigorous, sustained way. Add that to amped-up efforts to impede voting, even in this imperfect system, and people get discouraged—they don’t vote at all, and problems are compounded. So how do we acknowledge flaws in the system while still encouraging people to participate, and to fight the roadblocks to voting that we’re seeing right now? We get at that with Svante Myrick, president of People For the American Way, as well as former mayor of Ithaca, New York. Transcript: ‘If You Can’t Choose Your Own Leaders, Nothing Else Matters’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240126Myrick.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240119.mp3   New York Times (10/14/23) This week on CounterSpin: US corporate news media’s initial response to Israel’s terror campaign against Palestinians, unleashed in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas, was characterized, broadly speaking, by legitimization, a rhetorical blank check for whatever Israel might do. Israel, the New York Times editorial board said, “is determined to break the power of Hamas, and in that effort it deserves the support of the United States and the rest of the world.” We’re more than three months into that “effort.” The death toll for Palestinians is, conservatively, as we record on January 18, over 24,000 people. The UN secretary general calls Gaza a “graveyard for children.” So how does the Times’ assertion that “what Israel is fighting to defend is a society that values human life and the rule of law” stand up now? We’re talking this week with media critic, activist and teacher Gregory Shupak. He teaches English and media studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Toronto, and is author of The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, from OR Books. Transcript: ‘When You’re in a Colonial Situation, the Colonial Power Initiates Violence’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240119Shupak.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at some recent press coverage of immigration. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240119Banter.mp3