This week on CounterSpin: Listeners have likely heard about the 'Massachusetts miracle', the healthcare plan passed by Massachusetts' legislature and favored by Gov. Mitt Romney made front pages last week, with many accounts calling it a plan for universal healthcare. Our guest says that's just what it's not. So how is the press getting it wrong? We'll talk with Steffie Woolhandler, associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and cofounder of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Also on the show: A contributor to the New York Post's Page Six gossip column tried to shake down a subject for hundreds of thousands of dollars for "protection" against negative coverage in the column. We'll hear from New York Observer columnist Joe Conason who says the gossip columnist may have been just following the example of Post owner Rupert Murdoch, who has long used his media holdings to trade favors and punish enemies.

Links:

—Physicians for a National Health Program

—Post Scandal Reflects the Murdoch Method, by Joe Conason (New York Observer, 4/17/06)