https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250328.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Mondoweiss (3/18/25) This week on CounterSpin: Israel has abandoned the ceasefire agreement and restarted its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, a war that has destroyed the region and kil…

This week on CounterSpin: News site Popular Information alerted us to new Social Security Administration policy effectively requiring tens of thousands of recipients, by the agency’s own estimation, to travel to a field office to verify their ID. An internal memo predicts the shift will create “service disruption,” “operational strain,” and “budget…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250321.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Public Information (3/17/25) This week on CounterSpin: News site Popular Information alerted us to new Social Security Administration policy effectively requiring tens of thousands of recipients, b…

This week on CounterSpin: In early February, when Representative Maxwell Frost tweeted that he and Representative Maxine Waters were denied access to the Department of Education, Elon Musk responded on the platform he owns: “What is this ‘Department of Education’ you keep talking about? I just checked and it doesn’t exist.” That, we understand, was…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250314.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). This week on CounterSpin: In early February, when Rep. Maxwell Frost tweeted that he and Rep. Maxine Waters were denied access to the Department of Education, Elon Musk responded on the platform he…

This week on CounterSpin: A NASA official warned workers to maybe think about not wearing their badges in public, to protect themselves from harassment against people identifiable as federal workers by MAGA randos who feel deputized by Trump and Musk to do whatever it is Trump and Musk suggest. It’s early days of the Trump/Musk federal smash and gr…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250307.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Reuters (3/6/25) This week on CounterSpin: A NASA official warned workers to maybe think about not wearing their badges in public, to protect themselves from harassment against people identifiable …

This week on CounterSpin: Just because we might witness the daylight robbery of the social benefits we’ve been paying for and counting on for the entirety of our working lives, and just because Black people are no longer officially allowed to even mentor Black people coming in to fields they’ve been historically excluded from, and just because any …

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250228.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). EarthRights (2/20/25) This week on CounterSpin: Just because we might witness the daylight robbery of the social benefits we’ve been paying for and counting on for the entirety of our working lives…

This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump has declared that the U.S. is going to “take over” the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians who live there will be “permanently” exiled. Asked whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his scheme, Trump said “no.” But even those corporate media who aren’t actually endorsing this illegal, in…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250221.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). CNN (2/21/25) This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump has declared that the US is going to “take over” the Gaza Strip, that the Palestinians who live there will be “permanently” exiled. Asked whethe…

This week on CounterSpin: A number of federal agencies rushed to make clear they would be scrubbing activities and events that “celebrate cultural awareness” in an effort to stay on the good side of the weird new White House. Trump and his abettors’ anti-anti-discrimination agenda is as subtle as a sledgehammer. “DEI hire,” for instance, is super-c…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250214.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). New York Times (1/29/25) This week on CounterSpin: A number of federal agencies rushed to make clear they would be scrubbing activities and events that “celebrate cultural awareness” in an effort t…

This week on CounterSpin: We know that once corporate news label something “controversial,” we’re in for reporting with a static “some say / others differ” frame — even if one “side” of the “controversy” is a relatively small group of people who don’t believe in science or human rights or democracy. As the Trump White House comes out fast and furio…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250207.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). (CC photo: Ted Eytan) This week on CounterSpin: We know that once corporate news label something “controversial,” we’re in for reporting with a static “some say/others differ” frame—even if one “si…

This week on CounterSpin: You may remember the testimony: former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz pouting to a Senate hearing on the company’s union-busting in which he was referred to as a billionaire that using that “moniker constantly is unfair”: “Yes, I have billions of dollars — I earned it. No one gave it to me. And I’ve shared it constantly with…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250131.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Tech billionaires at Trump’s second inauguration: Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and X‘s Elon Musk (image: C-SPAN) This week on CounterSpin: You may remember the testimony: former Star…

This week on CounterSpin: Those with a beating heart can see the horror of Trump’s plans to deputize wannabe vigilantes to denounce community members they suspect “don’t belong here,” to send ICE into schools and churches to round folks up — police records or no — and ship them to detention centers, to ride roughshod over time-honored concepts of s…

Immigration itself is now not a human rights story, or even an economic one, but yet another story about “their” crimes and “our” safety.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: While the New York Times rolls out claptrap about how both “the left and the right” have ideas about causes behind the devastating Los Angeles wildfires — the right blame DEI hires, while the left blame climate change — many people have moved beyond that sort of stultifying nonsense to work that directly confronts the foss…

Many are calling out insurance companies that take folks’ money, but then hinder their ability to come out from under when these predictable and predicted crises occur.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s December 17 piece, headlined “How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Can Resolve U.S.-China Relations,” contained some choice Friedmanisms, like: “More Americans might get a better feel for what is going on there if they simply went and ordered room service at their hotel.” We’ll talk abo…

How different is Thomas Friedman's insistence that China "let in more Taylor Swifts" from US media coverage of China and trade policy generally?Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Among many other things, 2024 was a series of reminders that corporate news media, tasked primarily with enriching the rich and shoring up entrenched institutions, will not, today or ever, do the liberatory, illuminating work of independent journalism — that boldly speaks truth to power, that stands up for the societally v…

Corporate news media, tasked primarily with enriching the rich and shoring up entrenched institutions, will not do the liberatory, illuminating work of independent journalism.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This is the time of year when we listen back to some of the conversations from the past year that have helped us clarify the events that bombard us — in part by showing how elite media are clouding them. It’s not to say Big Media always get the facts wrong; but that what facts they point us toward, day after day, whose interpretation of those facts…

This is the time of year when we take a listen back to some of the conversations from the past year that have helped us clarify the events that bombard us.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Writing for a DC court of appeals, Douglas Ginsburg said yes, banning the wildly popular platform TikTok does raise concerns about First Amendment freedoms; but it’s still good, because in pushing for the ban, the U.S. government “acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation.” If that’s clear as mud…

Does banning TokTok threaten First Amendment freedoms? A judge says the government “acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation.”Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: The New York Times says that Amnesty International recently became “the first major international human rights organization to accuse Israel of carrying out genocide in Gaza.” That makes sense if you ignore the other human rights groups and international bodies that have said Israel’s actions in the wake of Hamas attacks o…

While not the first to ask us to see the assault on Palestinians as genocide, Amnesty’s report offers an opening to ask why some are so invested in saying it isn’t.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Few corporations have changed the U.S. business and consumer model more than Amazon. So when that corporate behemoth buys one of the country’s national newspapers — it’s a conflict writ large as can or should be. But things as they are, reporting on Amazon has in general looked more like representing that conflict than con…

When a corporate behemoth like Amazon buys one of the country’s national newspapers, it’s a conflict writ large as can or should be.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting