https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241115.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Fascists march in Charlottesville, 2017 (cc photo: Tony Crider) This week on CounterSpin: We revisit the conversation we had in August 2017 in the wake of the Unite the Right march in Charlottesvil…

This week on CounterSpin: We talk about what just happened, and corporate media’s role in it, with Julie Hollar, senior analyst at the media watch group FAIR, and FAIR’s editor Jim Naureckas. We also hear some of an important conversation we had with political scientist Dorothee Benz the day after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Plus Janine Ja…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241108.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). This week on CounterSpin: We talk about what just happened, and corporate media’s role in it, with Julie Hollar, senior analyst at the media watch group FAIR, and FAIR’s editor Jim Naureckas. https…

This week on CounterSpin: Reading the news today, you might not believe it, but there was a time, not long ago, in which it was acceptable to say out loud that immigration is a boon to this country, and immigrants should be welcomed and supported. Now, news media start with the premise of immigration itself as a “crisis,” with the only debate aroun…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241101.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). ProPublica (10/22/24) This week on CounterSpin: Reading the news today, you might not believe it, but there was a time, not long ago, in which it was acceptable to say out loud that immigration is …

This week on CounterSpin: Dropped by her law firm after being exposed as an advisor on the post-2020 election call where Donald Trump told Georgia officials to “find” him some votes, Cleta Mitchell has leaned in on the brand of “election integrity.” Platformed on right-wing talk radio, she’s now saying that Democrats are “literally getting people t…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241025.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Intercept (10/17/24) This week on CounterSpin: Dropped by her law firm—or, excuse me, resigning from her law firm—after being exposed as an advisor on the post–2020 election call where Donald Trump…

The official death toll in Gaza is now roughly 43,000 people, very conservatively. As the Lancet and others remind, armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence, including deaths from causes such as reproductive, communicable and non-communicable diseases. In Palestine, the death toll is exacerbated by disp…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241018.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Gaza First Amendment Alert (10/16/24) The official death toll in Gaza is now roughly 43,000 people, very conservatively. As the Lancet and others remind, armed conflicts have indirect health implic…

This week on CounterSpin: For many people and for media, the idea of “racial discrimination in housing” invokes an image of individual landlords refusing to rent or sell homes to black and brown people. But that understanding is so incomplete as to be harmful. A new book doesn’t just illuminate the thicket of effects of systemic racism as it affect…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241011.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). UC Press (2024) This week on CounterSpin: For many people and for media, the idea of “racial discrimination in housing” invokes an image of individual landlords refusing to rent or sell homes to Bl…

This week on CounterSpin: “How Hurricane Helene Could Impact Florida’s Home Insurance Crisis” was a recent Newsweek headline, on a story with a source saying smaller insurers were “especially in danger.” A layperson might wonder why events we pay insurance for should present a crisis for the industry we pay it to. Writer and historian Derek Seidman…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin241004.mp3 Download this episode Newsweek (9/27/24) This week on CounterSpin: “How Hurricane Helene Could Impact Florida’s Home Insurance Crisis” was a recent Newsweek headline, on a story with a source saying smaller insurers were “especially in danger.” A layperson m…

Ken Klippenstein, an independent reporter operating on Substack and an investigative alum of the Intercept, announced (Substack, 9/26/24) that he had been kicked off Twitter (now rebranded as X). His crime, he explained, stemmed from posting the 271-page official dossier of Republican vice presidential candidate’s J.D. Vance’s campaign vulnerabilit…

This week on CounterSpin: On September 17, thousands of handheld pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria. The next day, it was hundreds of walkie-talkies — part of an Israeli attack, intended for Hezbollah, that Israel’s defense minister called “the start of a new phase in the war.” Media dutifully reported the emerging toll of dead…

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin240927.mp3 Al Jazeera (9/20/24) This week on CounterSpin: On September 17, thousands of handheld pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria. The next day, it was hundreds of walkie-talkies—part of an Israeli attack, intended for Hezbollah, that Israel’s de…

In this video, William Bisset interviews eight key speakers from the NZDSOS (New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out with Science) conference, including renowned experts Dr. Paul Marik and Professor Angus Dalgleish. The conference, titled "Empowering Change: Methods, Motivation, and Evidence," delves into critical issues surrounding medical freedom, trans…

Join William Bisset from The Brilin Wellness Support Centre as he interviews Dr. Fre, a dentist and co-founder of NZDSOS (New Zealand Doctors Speaking Out With Science). In this eye-opening discussion, they explore critical questions about modern dental practices: Is there such a thing as too much dentistry? Could common procedures be linked to oth…

This week on CounterSpin: Springfield, Ohio schools are facing bomb threats because some people believe that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating dogs and cats. According to candidates for the country’s highest offices, and the KKK flyers showing up around town, this means that these legal immigrants should be pushed out of the country — or, …

Jen Senko’s film and the book based on it are an effort to engage the effects of that yelling, punching down, reactionary media.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Corporate U.S. news media continue to report things like Israel’s recent strike on the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 19 people in an area designated a “refuge” for Palestinians, and to include warnings of a possible wider war in the region. But there’s little sense of urgency, of something horrible happening that U.S. …

Why do the press corps need a constitutional amendment to protect their ability to speak if all they’re going to say is, “oh well”?Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Corporate economic news can be so abstract that it’s disinforming even when it’s true. The big idea is that there’s something called “the U.S. economy” that can be doing well or poorly, which obscures the reality that we are differently situated, and good news for the stock market, say, may mean nothing, or worse, for me. …

A people-centered press corps would spell out the meaning of economic “indicators” in relation to where we want to go as a society that has yet to address deep historical and structural harms.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: The country’s largest and second-largest grocery store chains want to merge and, surprising no one, they claim that giving them that tremendous market power will lead to lower prices, better quality food, and better conditions for workers. The FTC says, hold on a second, how does that square with on-the-record statements t…

Kroger is currently raising the prices of things like eggs and milk above inflation rates, simply because they can get away with it.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: One of many things wrong with corporate news media is the way they hammer home the idea that the current system is the only system. If you don’t see yourself and your interests reflected in either of the two dominant parties, the problem is you. On the other hand, independent media gives us new questions to ask. For exampl…

More than 20 years after the New York Times was catastrophically wrong on the Iraq War, the paper cannot forgive anyone who was right.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

How do we acknowledge the fact that many people’s opinions are shaped by messages that are created and paid for by folks who work hard to hide their identity and their interests?Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Climate disruption is outpacing many scientists’ understanding of it, and it’s undeniably driving many harms we are facing: extreme heat, extreme cold, devastating hurricanes and tornadoes. News media are giving up pretending that these extreme weather events are just weird and not provably driven by the continued use of f…

The crickets you’re hearing about efforts to eviscerate the right to protest the impacts of climate disruption? That’s all intentional.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

Breaking! WEF Openly Announces Plan For Quarantines and Forced Injections Here is the link to the New Zealand Plan: https://health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/interim_nz_pandemic_plan_v2.pdf Check out numbered page 125 (page 133 of the PDF) under Special Powers This will be BETA tested in New Zealand then implemented throughout the …

A sustained three-week propaganda campaign carried out by Liz Gunn, former New Zealand Loyal Party Leader against Kelvyn Alp, Hannah Spierer, and Counterspin Media, has necessitated this response. Liz Gunn arbitrarily shut down the New Zealand Loyal Party in violation of the party's constitution, opting instead to promote a 'New Zealand Loyal Peopl…

This week on CounterSpin: You don’t hear the phrase “free market capitalism” so much anymore, but the idea still tacitly undergirds much of what you do hear about why products and services are the way they are. We all know about corruption and cronyism, but we still accept that the company that “wins” — “cornering the market” — does so because peop…

Does the company that "corners the market" do so because people simply prefer what they sell? The anti-monopoly ruling against Google challenges that idea of how things work.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Dog whistles are supposed to be silent except for those they’re intended to reach. But as listeners know, the right wing has gotten much more overt and loud about their intention to defeat the prospect of multiracial democracy. We unpack the latest weaponized trope — the “DEI hire” — with anti-racism educator and author Ti…

The right wing has gotten much more overt about their intention to defeat the prospect of multiracial democracy, as demonstrated by its latest weaponized trope—the “DEI hire.”Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump said, on Fox & Friends in 2020, that if voting access were expanded, meaning easing of barriers to voting for disabled people, poor people, rural people, working people … if voting were made easier, Trump said, “You’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Why wouldn’t news media label that st…

New allegations of child sex abuse at Auckland's Destiny Church have ignited a firestorm of concern, but is this a singular incident or a symptom of a far more sinister epidemic? Samantha Costello delves deeper into the church's troubled past, exposing a disturbing pattern of pedophilia among its leadership, including a shocking case where a childr…

If voting were made easier, Donald Trump said, "You'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: In March, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories concluded that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.” But as Greg Shupak writes, even as evidence accumulates, denial is becoming socially and journalistically accept…

Years from now, we’ll hear about how everyone saw the nightmare and everyone opposed it. But history is now, and the world is watching.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: At some point, we will get tired of hearing news reports on “record heat” — because the “records” will continue to be broken, and “heat” will have stopped meaning what it once may have meant. Media play a role in moving us from questions about where to buy a good air conditioner to what stands in the way of addressing a pu…

At some point, we will get tired of hearing news reports on "record heat"—because "heat" will have stopped meaning what it once may have meant.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: The power of the algorithm is ever clearer in our lives, even if we don’t understand it. Algorithms don’t just guess at what you might like to buy: sometimes they’re determining whether you get a job, or keep it. Some 40 million people in the U.S. use online platforms to find work. The algorithms these platforms use create…

Algorithms create an environment where organizations enact rules for workers’ behavior, reward and sanction them based on that, but never allow workers to see these accountancies.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Headlined “The Cash Monster Was Insatiable,” a 2022 New York Times piece reported insurance companies gaming Medicare Advantage, originally presented as a “low-cost” alternative to traditional Medicare. One company pressed doctors to add additional illnesses to the records of patients they hadn’t seen for weeks: Dig up eno…

The cynical maneuvers of Medicare Advantage don’t lead to good health outcomes, but they serve the real goal: netting private insurers more money.Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

This week on CounterSpin: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote dozens of pages justifying his decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, stating the Constitution does not confer the right to determine whether or when to give birth. None of those pages mention his intention to make the United States “a place of godliness,” or his belief that there can be no …

This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump told a Las Vegas crowd earlier this month that, if elected, the “first thing” he would do would be to end the IRS practice of taxing tips as part of workers’ regular income. “For those hotel workers and people that get tips, you’re going to be very […]Kirjoittanut Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting