KPFA - CounterSpin

This week on CounterSpin: Confederate flags may be coming down in Southern states, but it’s still an open question how much the white supremacist murders in Charleston will re-orient media discourse. One part of a conversation with many parts has to do with when journalists choose to unleash the weaponized language of “terrorism”—and the effect that has on public opinion and policy. There’s research to illustrate media patterns on the issue, including a report out of the University of Illinois. We’ll speak with lead author, Travis Dixon, associate professor of communication at the University of Illinois/Urbana.

Also on the show: When an uprising broke out at a Texas prison earlier this year, media accounts said complaints about medical care turned violent at the facility, which overwhelmingly housed immigrants charged with “illegal reentry.” Investigation suggests media didn’t get the story right, though—not too surprising, given the general lack of attention to US prisons and the people in them. We’ll talk about the Texas story, and the bigger story of using prison to address immigration, with journalist Seth Freed Wessler.

The post CounterSpin – June 26, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: It hasn’t been probing media coverage that’s roughened the road for the corporate power grab known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, now stalled in Congress despite Barack Obama’s personal appeals. How is it that a deal that mega-corporations want, and most political elites wouldn’t dream of challenging, hasn’t shot through like a greased pig? We’ll talk about public interest activism — the missing piece in much top-down media coverage — with Kevin Zeese of the group Popular Resistance, part of the Stop Fast Track coalition.

Also on the show: Beltway paper The Hill captured it in a headline, “EPA Gives Republicans New Ammo in Fight Against Fracking Regs.” And to many, that’s just what the agency did with a new study that, to hear media tell it, found that fracking doesn’t pose any widespread harm to drinking water. Is that really what the science said? We’ll hear that story of spin and more spin from Wenonah Hauter of Food and Water Watch.

The post CounterSpin – June 19, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: Solitary confinement is discussed so matter-of-factly in US media that you wouldn’t guess that many people in the world consider it to be torture—and call not for its restriction, but its abolition. Some of the information driving that belief can be found in a new report from the Vera Institute for Justice. We’ll hear about the report from co-author Jessa Wilcox, senior program associate at Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections.

Also on the show: If I say soccer’s in the headlines, you likely think of the FIFA corruption scandal rather than the Women’s World Cup, although that’s also happening. It’s not your fault: Despite ever-growing popularity, women’s sports just don’t seem to garner big-time media interest. What needs to change? Our guest researches that very subject. Cheryl Cooky is associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Purdue University, and lead author of the new report on TV sports coverage whose name says it all: “It’s Dude Time!”

The post CounterSpin – June 12, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: Proponents say the USA Freedom Act, while not perfect, at least means the end of NSA collection of US citizens’ phone records. Is that really true? Could the law’s shortcomings outweigh its merits? We’ll hear from Sue Udry, executive director of the Defending Dissent Foundation and acting director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Also on the show: Murder charges will be brought against the Bangladeshi factory owners and government officials responsible for the 2013 collapse at Rana Plaza, the garment industry disaster that killed more than 1,100 people. Barbara Briggs is associate director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. We’ll talk with her about what’s being done to prevent such nightmares going forward.

The post CounterSpin – June 5, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: Are banks that are too big to fail, and too big to jail, too big to surveil? You’d get that impression from corporate media’s subdued reaction to the Justice Department announcement that five major banks would plead guilty to felony charges, including price-rigging. Some major papers spilled some ink, but most went with a wire piece emphasizing the $5 billion the banks will supposedly “fork over” for what the DoJ termed “brazen” criminality, and called it a day. Are media reacting to a not-especially-meaningful ruling, or are they dangerously indifferent to questions of criminal banks? We’ll hear from Bartlett Naylor, financial policy advocate at the group Public Citizen, and former chief of investigations for the US Senate Banking Committee.

Also on the show: The whistleblower is on the front line of the conflict between powerful institutions’ desire to keep secrets and democracy’s requirement that people be well-informed, especially of actions taken in their name. Protecting whistleblowers from persecution is one driving idea behind the international Stand Up for Truth tour slated for early June. One of the participants is retired FBI agent-turned-political activist Coleen Rowley. We’ll talk with her about that.

The post CounterSpin – May 29, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: The killing of two Western hostages by a CIA drone strike in Pakistan led some US media to re- engage debate over US drone policy. But media’s discussion is over how and where drones should be used—not whether they should be. We’ll talk to law professor Marjorie Cohn, author of, most recently, Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues.

Also on the show: Sometimes called the Green Nobel, the Goldman Environmental Prize is given to grassroots environmental activists from each of six world regions. This year’s winners, including Honduran indigenous rights leader Berta Caceres and the group COPINH, are fighting not just governments but some of the world’s most powerful corporations to protect their land and livelihood. That’s why Caceres and her colleagues face death threats and repression. And it surely has something to do with why you can read all of the US media coverage of Caceres and the Goldman Prize in the time of an elevator ride. We’ll hear from Beverly Bell of the group Other Worlds about this story.

The post CounterSpin – May 1, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

of opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. But in corporate press accounts, the whole debate is reduced to battling soundbites. More useful and more interesting journalism would include getting outside the Beltway and talking to people about what the fallout from TPP and similar corporate-centered international agreements really looks like. We’ll fill in some of the picture with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, director of international strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Also on the show: In all the media talk around newly confirmed Attorney General Loretta Lynch, her role as US attorney in brokering a deferred-prosecution agreement with HSBC when the bank was found guilty of money laundering for the likes of the Sinoloa drug cartel was hardly considered. This says something about Lynch–but also about media’s general lack of outrage about government support for big banks, no matter what crimes they commit. A few months back, CounterSpin spoke with journalist James Henry about more HSBC violations recently come to light — violations, it turns out, Loretta Lynch knew about when she worked on that deal.

The post CounterSpin – April 24, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: The extremist group Al Shabab attacked a government building in Mogadishu on April 14, leaving 17 people dead, just weeks after a horrific attack at Garissa University in Kenya in which at least 148 people were killed. Media readers will know that Al Shabab is based in Somalia and that they’re “linked to” Al Qaeda, but what more should we know? And what needs to happen in Somalia and elsewhere to help that country move forward? We’ll talk about that with Abdi Ismail Samatar, professor and chair of the Department of Geography, Environment & Society at the University of Minnesota and a member of the African Academy of Sciences.

Also on the show: Many were heartened, if that’s the word, to see four former Blackwater security contractors going to jail for killing 14 unarmed Iraqis in Nisour Square in 2007. But does this mean others who committed atrocities under cover of war will face justice? The Obama administration doesn’t even want to release more photographs unearthed of torture and abuse at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, so how likely is anyone with power to be prosecuted for it? There is one Abu Ghraib-based lawsuit making its way through the courts, with the help of the Center for Constitutional Rights. We’ll talk to senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher about the state of that case.

And as usual, the show starts with a look back at the week’s press.

The post CounterSpin – April 17, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: What should we look for in media coverage of the current Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, given Saudi Arabia’s role as a US ally and the sort of press treatment that generally entails? The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius, for one, says US support for Operation Decisive Storm shows that Obama understands the need for “pushback” against Iran in its “proxy wars.” What’s wrong with that picture? We’ll get some background on Yemen and the US’s involvement there from Sheila Carapico, professor of political science and international studies at the University of Richmond, and author of Civil Society in Yemen.

Also on the show: Current conversations about domestic surveillance focus on revelations of what’s often described as “indiscriminate” data collection by the NSA. But before we entertain the idea of “targeted” surveillance as a rational alternative, we should know who the most frequent targets are—historically and today. We’ll talk with Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, about her article “Black America’s State of Surveillance” from the April issue of The Progressive.

The post CounterSpin – April 10, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.

This week on CounterSpin: The backlash was immediate and strong against the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act just passed in Indiana. The law’s proponents, including Gov. Mike Pence, say it’s just intended to “open a door” to conversations about how people can express religious beliefs. Legal scholars and rights advocates say that the law as originally written actually invites conflict and sanctions discrimination, particularly against LGBT people. The scores of organizations saying they will reconsider doing business with and in Indiana seem to know who they believe. What can journalists do to shed light on this story without resorting to a “some say, others differ” approach? We’ll hear from Jennifer Wagner from the group Freedom Indiana on that.

Also on the show (and speaking of backlash): The Internet and Twitterverse made short work of lambasting entertainment-industry outlet Deadline for a piece that legitimized the idea that the presence of a larger than usual number of people of color in broadcast TV series means “the pendulum might have swung a bit too far in the opposite direction”–that white actors, in other words, are now the ones being discriminated against. But the thesis and tone of that piece didn’t come from nowhere, and denouncing the article doesn’t erase the climate that produced it. We’ll talk about Hollywood and race with Darnell Hunt, professor of sociology and director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African-American Studies at UCLA.

The post Counterspin – Apr 3, 2015 appeared first on KPFA.