CounterSpin

Robert McChesney and John Nichols on The Death and Life of American Journalism

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: a special look at the state of the media in America. Every week on CounterSpin we talk mostly about what the media are getting wrong. But the big story inside the media business is the collapse of the business itself. What are the implications for citizens? What can we do about it? And how concerned should we be about the failures of corporate owners that have done so little to promote good journalism in the first place? We'll talk about all that and more with our guests Robert McChesney and John Nichols, co-authors of the new book ''The Death and Life of American Journalism: the Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again.' LINKS: --"How to Save Journalism," by Robert McChesney and John Nichols (book excerpt, The Nation, 1/7/10)

Charlie Cray on Supreme Court election ruling, Mark Weisbrot on Haiti

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 that corporations may not be limited in their spending to influence elections, because they have the same free speech rights as people. Among the many questions raised are not just what this means for elections, but what it means for "free" speech. We'll hear from Charlie Cray of the Center for Corporate Policy on that story. Also on the program: Amidst the misery, there are a many feel-good stories being reported in the U.S. press about the American role in attempting to bring relief to Haiti. But not all American activities are helping Haitian according to our guest Mark Weisbrot, whose column "Haiti Needs Water, Not Occupation" appeared in the January 20 Guardian. CounterSpin: Much of the latest reporting on Haiti disaster relief portrays the U.S. as doing its best under near-impossible circumstances, to bring food, water and medical aid to earthquake stricken Haitians. And indeed, many American efforts are giving aid and comfort to Haitians, but our guest, Mark Weisbrot, says the U.S. is in many ways hindering relief. Mark Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Mark's latest piece, "Haiti Needs Water, Not Occupation," ran in London's Guardian newspaper, on January 20—he joins us now by phone from Washington D.C. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Mark Weisbrot! Mark Weisbrot: Thanks, Steve, it's always great to be here. CS: Well, Americans including many U.S. journalists have been showing their compassion for Haitians in this latest hour of need, and you come along in this feel good moment—at least for the U.S.—saying the U.S. is in some way hurting the relief effort. Are you some kind of ghoul? MW: No, I mean I'm not the only one. There were public complaints from Doctors Without Borders, from the French government, from Italian government officials, from a number of governments in South America that all said the same thing: that, and especially this was the worst during the first ten days or so, the U.S. military controlled the airport, and they had the overemphasis on security and so they're bringing—we don't know how many they've already brought in—but their goal was 20,000 troops and all the military equipment that goes with that. And at various points there were people, for example from the UN World Food Program, saying that most of the flights were being taken up by the U.S. military. Doctors Without Borders put out a press release—this was the Sunday following the earthquake—saying that they lost three days when they could have been saving people's lives, because their planes with 85 tons of medical supplies were rerouted through the Dominican Republic. So clearly this was mishandled in a big way and it did cost a lot of unnecessary suffering and death as well. CS: So you're saying, just to be clear, that half of the airplanes coming into the Haitian Airport in Port-au-Prince were U.S. military planes for U.S. military purposes, not for aid purposes. MW: That's right. You know, the U.S., I mean some of this is just kind of incompetence, some of it is a view of Haitians that, you know, one of the doctors from Partners in Health described as racist: that somehow the entire country is going to descend into complete chaos and people killing each other if they don't have U.S. troops occupying the country. So they had this idea that first you secure as much as you can, or maybe the whole country, who knows what they were trying to do. And then you establish supply chains and distribution centers, and then you get the stuff in the country. And really the most urgent need in the first few days is just to get the medical supplies and the water where they're need, and if you lose some of it along the way, that's not so terrible. There was some looting, some food was lost through looting, but that's not really that big of a deal as compared to people not getting the lifesaving material. CS: As you mentioned, security concerns go hand in hand with reports of rising crime and violence. A January 17 New York Times headline read "Officials Strain to Distribute Aid to Haiti as Violence Rises." We saw many similar reports of rampant violence, later debunked, in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster. What can you tell us about the stories of violence raging in Haiti that we're seeing now. MW: Well, I don't know how much there is. You know it's very hard to tell. I mean you did have fairly early on General Keen from the Southern Command, who's in charge of the operation saying that there was less violence in Haiti since the earthquake than there was before, and the reports from Partners in Health and doctors on the ground were quite similar to that. So I'm sure there's some, but again, you know, it's not enough—it isn't anything drastically different from what was in Haiti before the earthquake, I don't see any evidence for that. CS: Well, you raise concerns about—among Haitians and other concerned people—about the U.S. military occupying Haiti. We talked about some of those concerns and about the history that might suggest that those concerns are bona fide with Bill Fletcher a few weeks ago. But there's a related storyline that's coming out of Haiti, and that is that the disaster could be a blessing in disguise, and perhaps provide the opportunity for Haiti to remake itself. How does that view fit with the sort of "disaster capitalism" model? I mean, you wouldn't think Haiti could be rebuilt without poor people, but they've done it in New Orleans, haven't they? MW: Well, I don't know what they're plans are going to be, I've seen some of course but you know, I think the main thing right now, obviously the most urgent thing, is to make sure that this obsession with security—and part of that, of course, is trying to make sure that people don't leave the country and end up here. And part of it is also political in the sense that the government is of questionable legitimacy, and they were supposed to have elections in February, which were rightfully postponed, but they weren't going to allow the largest political party to run in the election, and 15 other parties. So the United States is also concerned with political control any time there could be a rebellion, because so many of the people don't consider the government to be legitimate, and for valid reasons. They mostly boycotted—89 percent according to the official count—boycotted the last election in April because again they excluded the largest political party, which is of course the party of the overthrown elected president that the United States helped overthrow in 2004. So, you have these political matters too, I think, that are most important. But in terms of the reconstruction of the country. It really is related to the question of just even the most basic electoral democracy. In other words, are you going to reconstruct the country without a state, without a government? I mean almost no—a tiny, tiny percentage of any of the aid that's coming in now goes to the government. And there are reasons, of course, that NGOs want to distribute the aid, and there's obviously a lot of corruption in the government. But this has been a policy for a long time of the U.S. government to not help build a functioning state in Haiti. Their total government revenues are about 10 percent of GDP, that's 50 percent less than any number of countries in Africa that are way poorer than Haiti. So the U.S. program for decades now has been—besides having overthrown the government twice—their idea of reconstruction somehow doesn't involve government, and that's going to be a big problem because they're going to need a functioning government. They wouldn't have as many casualties right now if they had any kind of a functioning government. CS: We've been speaking with Mark Weisbrot, co director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and author of the January 20 Guardian column, "Haiti Needs Water, Not Occupation." Mark Weisbrot, thanks again for joining us today on CounterSpin! MW: Sure, thank you.

Norman Solomon on Mass. election, Glenn Greenwald on anonymous sources

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: Corporate media chatter about the Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts reflects participants’ priorities: which means you're unlikely to hear advice offered to Democrats other than that they should act more like Republicans. Is that the takeaway? We'll get another angle from journalist and activist Norman Solomon. Also on the show: Anonymous news sources are a journalistic scourge, abetting some of the worst policies of our times, and allowing the powerful to escape accountability. But are they simply an occasional problem in reporting, or central to the way corporate journalism operates? We'll talk to Salon's Glenn Greenwald about his report on the subject, The Fundamental Unreliability of America’s Media.

Bill Fletcher on Haiti, Beau Hodai on Charles Overby

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: Haiti's status as the poorest nation in the hemisphere has been mentioned time and again by journalists covering the current catastrophe, but where were journalists before the earthquake hit? And how are they doing in explaining the larger context of how Haiti got to this point? We'll talk to Bill Fletcher, former president of TransAfrica Forum and executive editor of The Black Commentator. Also on the show: Charles Overby is CEO of the Freedom Forum, a foundation ostensibly dedicated to principles of free speech and a free press. He's also a director and shareholder of the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private jailer in the country. In both roles, Overby engages the public's right to know... but not in the same way. We'll get that story from journalist Beau Hodai. PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT: Though the full impact of the Haiti earthquake is still unknown, it is clear that the death and suffering there will be enormous. U.S. news outlets, with the exception of Pat Robertson and his 700 Club, have done a good job in letting people know how and were they could help. But how are U.S. journalists doing in explaining the larger picture of putting Haiti's current tragedy in the context of the country's beleaguered history? And what should media consumers be looking for as the coverage unfolds? We're joined by Bill Fletcher, the executive editor of The Black Commentator and past president of TransAfrica Forum. CounterSpin: Welcome back to CounterSpin, Bill Fletcher. Bill Fletcher: Glad to be back. CS: Well, as we've watched the news from Haiti unfold, U.S. commentators have frequently mentioned that, even before the earthquake, that in terms of civic order and economics, Haiti was in tough shape. This is often mentioned in the context of explaining how relief efforts may be hindered by the lack of infrastructure, corruption, and so on. Perhaps deep history is too much to expect from the networks, especially at this early point, but what should listeners know about how Haiti's economy and civil life got where it is today? BF: One of the reasons, I think, that this is critically important to look at history is that the problem in the absence of history, is that people tend to then look at Haiti as abasket case . They look at it as pathetic, as opposed to understanding that Haiti today is a direct result of the policies of the United States and France, that go back to when Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804. I mean, if you don't get that, if you don't understand that the United States blockaded Haiti until 1862, that the French demanded that the Haitians pay reparations to France for the loss of the slaves as a result of the Haitian revolution, from the 1820s until 1947; if you don't get that the United States occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934; if you don't get that the United States backed, systematically, repressive regimes in Haiti, the most notorious being Papa Doc Duvalier; if you don't get that the United States was directly implicated in overthrowing PresidentAristide in 1991; you can't understand how Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the poorest on the planet. So the destruction of Haiti through outside interference, the ecological devastation that has taken place, because people burn down trees in order to convert burnt wood into charcoal, in order for them to sell to live. These are the--this is what life is like in Haiti. Eighty percent are living below the poverty line. So the mainstream media, by ignoring this broader context, ends up painting this picture of a pathetic population, as opposed to a population whose main crime was living on an island that is that close to the United States. CS: Well on the first big night of coverage, January 13th, I watched NBC's Brian Williams explain how hard it is for Americans to understand just how poor Haiti is. And it made me think, well, isn't that your job? If it's so remarkable, shouldn't NBC and other major outlets have been providing ongoing coverage of this? BF: Well that's certainly what they should have been doing. And what's interesting is that--I contrast major media outlets in the United States with Al Jazeera. I mean, if I want more in-depth news, I'll look at Al Jazeera, I'll look at BBC. I mean, when you look at the mainstream U.S. news, you get no in-depth analysis as to what's going on. And you're absolutely right, NBC should've been providing the background, not just showing a picture of Haiti, or showing a picture of the suffering people, but giving the viewer an idea as to how it is that they've come into the situation. Because the level of poverty, the lack of infrastructure, the fact that there was a coup in 2004 that overthrew, for the second time, PresidentAristide , and that the United States was again directly implicated in that coup, these things help us understand the state of Haiti as it is. And so what we also have to get is that, while there's emergency relief that's absolutely necessary, that Haiti fundamentally needs the equivalent of a Marshall Plan. It needs massive re-development that goes beyond the devastation that's taken place in the aftermath of the earthquake. CS: Well, I almost hesitate to bring this up, but also on January 13th, yesterday, on his Fox news show Bill O'Reilly explained that Haitians needed discipline imposed on them to get through this crisis. The same day that PatRobertson's 700 Club viewers ... that Haiti's problems are a result of having signed a pact with the devil 200 years ago. I wonder if you can comment on that? BF: The comments, along with the comments made by Rush Limbaugh, are nothing short of racist, and I don't use that word loosely. Robertson's notion that there was a pact with the devil--I mean, what is that based on? I mean, what could he possibly be thinking? What was he drinking when he made that statement? I mean, here you had a country that was suffering vicious oppression and colonialism by the French, they were able to win independence, and the United States, under Thomas Jefferson, did nothing, absolutely nothing to help them, and he's going to talk about a pact with the devil? CS: Even though the Haitian Revolution, the Haitian revolt was based on the American Revolution and on the Enlightenment; it's amazing. BF: And in fact that Haitian volunteers participated in the U.S. war of independence. A fact that many people don't know. CS: Bill Fletcher, in your work with TransAfrica you have been deeply involved in Haiti issues over the years, what will you be doing to address the ongoing crisis as a journalist and as an activist? BF: Well, one of things that I've been trying to do is precisely what we're doing right now, to give the reader and the listener a broader context for the situation, to understand that we have to make sure that, right now, that the forces of evil do not take advantage of the situation, in order to push through economic policies that are more to the advantage of the corporations than they are to the advantage of the population of Haiti. The other thing that I'm encouraging, in the immediate, is for people to contribute to reliable relief funds. For example, Grassroots International, an organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, theAFL-CIO's Solidarity Center here in Washington, D.C., also has a fund that people can contribute to, to get aid in the system to get to the people of Haiti. So I think these are the urgent tasks of the moment. CS: We've been speaking with Bill Fletcher, the executive editor of the online news and commentary outlet, The Black Commentator, and former president of TransAfrica Forum. Thanks again for joining us on CounterSpin, Bill Fletcher. BF: My pleasure. Thank you.

Sam Husseini on Gaza Freedom March, Dean Baker on WaPo & Fiscal Times

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: It had the elements of a nightly news story: Protestors, including some Americans, being abused by officials in an Arab country. But this story was a non-starter with U.S. media. We'll talk to Sam Husseini of the Institute for Public Accuracy, who just left Egypt where a delegation of human rights activists were abused by Egyptian police when they protested that country’s refusal to let them cross the Egyptian border into Gaza for a Freedom March. Also on the show: The Washington Post has been on the deficit hawk beat for some time, so readers might've thought a recent article "Support Grows for Tackling Nation's Debt" was just par for the course. The paper didn't let on that there was more to this particular piece than met the eye, and when you hear the background, you'll understand why. We'll hear from economist Dean Baker about the story behind that story.

D.D. Guttenplan on I.F. Stone, Peter Richardson on Ramparts

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: Some of the current conversations about the future of journalism trade on some pretty rose-colored notions of journalism's past. The reality is journalism has always been a very mixed bag, with just some reporters doing the challenging, talking truth to power work that later generations may imagine everyone was doing. This week on the show we’re going to take a look back at a couple critical institutions in the history of what we now think of as investigative journalism � the sort of hardhitting, independent reporting current discussion is focused on 'saving'. One of those institutions was actually a person—I.F. Stone. Stone wasn’t just among the greatest American investigative reporters, he was also an activist and a man of the left. Earlier this year, CounterSpin spoke with D.D. Guttenplan, author of the latest biography of the journalist, American Radical: the Life and Times of I.F. Stone. Because he challenged U.S. power, often just by reporting the contents of official documents, and because he was a leftist, Stone's reputation has been under assault by vestigial McCarthyites who have been claiming for decades that he was a Soviet agent. Guttenplan discussed those charges, and Stone's actual ideas, in this interview about a man whose story, even after his death, has much to tell us about U.S. media and politics. Also on the show: Ramparts magazine has also been important even to people who never read it. Originally a small literary magazine pitched to the "mature American Catholic," Ramparts became a rollicking left-wing muckraking enterprise that exposed CIA misdeeds and Vietnam War lies and atrocities. Contributors to Ramparts resemble a who's who of progressive journalism and the American left, including Angela Davis, Seymour Hersh and Robert Scheer to name a few. The story of Ramparts' rise and fall, and its impact on U.S. journalism, is told in a new book, A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America. CounterSpin spoke with author Peter Richardson. A little media history, this week on CounterSpin.

Best of CounterSpin 2009

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:00:00 +0100

On this special CounterSpin program we’ll take a look back at some of the stories of the past year, and hear again from a few of the many journalists, activists, researchers and critics that brought those stories to us, or helped us make sense of them.

Michelle Chen on Copenhagen, Joe Conason on ACORN videos

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: Walkouts and protests at the Copenhagen summit have highlighted the political friction in responding to climate change. But is the press corps that brings us headlines like the New York Times' "Poor and Emerging States Stall Climate Negotiations" the right place to look for an understanding of concerns about the inequality of climate change's human impacts? We'll get a different perspective from writer Michelle Chen, who’s been following the story. Also on the show: An independent report on ACORN, commissioned by the group and authored by the former attorney general of Massachusetts, has some harsh criticism for the community group, but also finds that those secret videos taped in ACORN offices by conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute, were deceptively edited, a fact missed by virtually every media outlet. Salon.com columnist Joe Conason joins us to talk about the ACORN report and the lessons it holds for journalists. LINKS: --"Shifting Climate, Moving People: Immigration and Climate Justice," by Michelle Chen (RaceWire, 12/15/09) --"ACORN videos were propaganda," by Joe Conason (Salon.com, 12/11/09)

Curtis Brainard on "Climategate," Corie Wright on NBC/Comcast

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: The so-called "Climategate" email scandal seems to have thrown media coverage of climate change back a decade, with news outlets giving warming deniers more or less equal time alongside actual climate scientists. Part of the problem has been the media's general laziness in explaining what actually was in the hacked emails that are the source of the scandal; Curtis Brainard of Columbia Journalism Review will join us to provide some of that missing context. Also on the show: the Comcast NBC merger might sound like inside-industry news, but those looking at it carefully say the combining of the country's biggest cable provider and NBC Universal poses very real and significant threats to the diversity of video content we can get and how much we'll have to pay for it. We’ll hear that story from Corie Wright, policy counsel at the group Free Press. LINKS: --CJR: The Observatory --Free Press

Norman Solomon on Afghan escalation, Robert Naiman on Afghan civil war

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:00:00 +0100

This week on CounterSpin: 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan at the 'fastest possible pace,' President Obama has declared, are in our vital national interest. The Washington Post called it a strong but carefully calibrated to Afghanistan and Pakistan, describing the plan as "a counterinsurgency strategy aimed at protecting the Aghan population." Perhaps some message shifting going on, about whether US actions are aimed at helping Afghans or defending ourselves, (or maybe you can take your pick) but what doesn't seem up for serious discussion is whether the actions will have the effect of doing either. We’ll be talking about how media are explaining this latest surge in Afghanistan to a public who show increasing dislike for the war however it's framed. Peter Hart speaks with author and activist Norman Solomon about the politics and language of escalation. Also on the show: Much of the current media conversation seems to start the clock with the 2001 invasion, but what’s the impact of misunderstanding- or missing- the history in Afghanistan as we talk about what’s likely in the future? We'll hear from Robert Naiman, of Just Foreign Policy on that question. LINKS --Norman Solomon --Just Foreign Policy