FAIR

    https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260410.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   New York Times (4/8/26) When a president commits war crimes, including what the Nuremberg trials established as the “supreme international crime” of plotting and waging an aggressive war, as Trump has done, and then blithely threatens more war crimes, as Trump has done, you would hope major news outlets would do much more than type up reports, like one from the New York Times, on how Trump currently “faces new diplomatic tests.” It’s important to call out Trump and his enablers’ particular hatefulness and weirdness, but we’re missing something if we don’t see how they’ve been pulling on pre-existing threads, making use of old narratives that have proven useful before and left unexamined. We’ll hear about that from Sina Toossi, senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260410Toossi.mp3   Defending Rights & Dissent (4/6/26) Also on the show: What can you do about a president like Trump? No, really: What can you do? Impeachment is often talked about in the press as a mean thing that partisan officials threaten each other with, but it was intended as a genuine response to presidents who were deemed unfit for public office. More and more people are saying unto shouting that about Trump now; so what next? We’ll hear from activist/author Chip Gibbons, policy director at Defending Rights and Dissent. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260410Gibbons.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260403.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   USA Today (4/1/26) This week on CounterSpin: In Chiles vs. Salazar, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado’s law prohibiting health practitioners from employing the widely discredited practice of trying to “convert” young people from their sexual orientation or gender identity violates healthcare workers’ First Amendment rights. We’ll hear about what the ruling does and doesn’t do, and how news media might better explain it, from Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260403Minter.mp3   Local News Day Also on the show: April 9 is Local News Day, a new project aimed at lifting up the value of truly local news outlets in an increasingly consolidated media landscape. Alex Frandsen helps lead a group, the Media Power Collaborative, that’s looking to forge a way forward that draws on the particular value of local news, to communities and those representing them, and that doesn’t involve revisiting an imagined past age of benevolent media giants. We’ll hear from him as well on the show. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260403Frandsen.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260327.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Good Jobs First (3/23/26) This week on CounterSpin: Sunshine Week, based on a popular statement from Louis Brandeis that “sunlight is the best disinfectant,” is an effort to spotlight open government and its importance to the public’s right to know what’s being done in our name. The Michigan Press Association usually honors a public official who advances open government, but this year they said they’re giving no award because “this year’s legislative and policy landscape does not reflect the progress or commitment to openness that the award is designed to celebrate.” Ooof. So Sunshine Week, introduced decades ago by the National Association of Newspaper Editors, is meant to be both a celebration and a call to arms. To information advocates—and to journalists who should be natural partners with anyone seeking to bring the actions of the powerful to light. We talk about it with a group that stays on top of government transparency; Arlene Martinez is deputy executive director and communications director at Good Jobs First. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260327Martinez.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at Washington Post prices, the actual cost of oil, the Cuba blockade and Breonna Taylor. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260327Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260320.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Truth Social (3/14/26) This week on CounterSpin: Those not in vigorous denial understand that we in the US are in the midst of not just “foreign” wars—today on, most prominently, Iran—but also a war against our ability to talk about it all, to dissent from it, to hear from people who have different ideas about ways forward. It doesn’t seem too much to say: If we cut off our ability to have a widespread public debate, whatever “solutions” we’re told “we” came up with have nothing to do with democracy. We’ll hear from FAIR editor Jim Naureckas about what news media could call, if only they would, “the Trump administration vs. the First Amendment.” Transcript: ‘A Media System Built on Profit Is Incredibly Fragile’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260320Naureckas.mp3   Just Security (3/17/26) Also on the show: US news media told us that the images of Iraqis tortured at the infamous “hard site” in Abu Ghraib have been “seared into the American consciousness.” That would imply that those US news media were genuinely interested in the horrors meted out at the Iraqi prison where the CIA and the Army committed what Wikipedia comfortably calls a “a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees.” Those media would surely want all of us “consciousness-seared” people to know what was being done to answer for it all, to bring people to account, to make sure it never, ever happened again. (That shouldn’t sound like a joke.) The Center for Constitutional Rights has been in back of the last remaining lawsuit on behalf of victims of Abu Ghraib; and, though you might not have heard about it, they won. We’ll get the update from Baher Azmy, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Transcript: ‘This Is the Only Post-9/11 Case Seeking Accountability for Torture to Reach a Jury’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260320Azmy.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260313.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   New York Times (3/10/26) This week on CounterSpin: House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast declared of Iran: “This murderous regime has posed an imminent threat against every American both at home and abroad for the last 47 years”—leading many at home and abroad to reach for their dictionaries. The Trump White House’s war on Iran is unpopular in the US: “Even the highest level of public support for this conflict falls far lower than that at the start of most other conflicts, including World War II, the Korean War and the Iraq War,” reports the New York Times. That may have something to do with the parade of rationales offered; Popular Information has a roundup of the 17 different reasons the Trump regime has given to date for why we went to war. All of it normalized by corporate media that allow recorded history to be put up for debate, that pretend we haven’t seen what we’ve seen, leaving today’s warmongers free to draw up a historical narrative, or several, that serve their present purpose. As we record on March 12, some 251 groups have sent a letter to Congress demanding they vote against any additional funding for the unconstitutional war, now costing an estimated $1 billion a day. Signers included Public Citizen, the ACLU, Greenpeace, J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace and National Nurses United. A supplemental worth $50 billion, the letter notes, would be enough to restore food assistance for 4 million Americans, establish universal pre-K education and pay for the annual construction of more than 100,000 units of housing. CounterSpin has been tracking US news media failings, omissions and propagandizing on Iran for decades. We revisit some of that conversation this week, hearing from Cyrus Safdari (2009), Vijay Prashad (2012), Murtaza Hussain (2017) and Trita Parsi (2018). Transcript: ‘The Matter Is Being Radicalized and Solutions Are Being Ignored’

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260306.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Column (3/4/26) This week on CounterSpin: As a radio producer, you get pitches; to paraphrase one we got this week: Dear Janine, the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iranian military targets and leaders this weekend. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei was killed, as were key Iranian leaders. President Trump is urging Iranians to rise up and overthrow the regime…. What will the impact be on the economy? On Wall Street? What does this mean for markets and investors going forward? We were then offered a guest who will tell listeners that “concerns about the attacks causing economic chaos are overblown…. The markets will panic initially and then stabilize.” And, most importantly, “this ends the uncertainty that was impacting the markets over Iran…. If American and Israeli objectives are met, it could lead to dramatically reduced gas prices long-term.” No mention of parents in Minab, who dropped their daughters off at school March 3 and now have to bury them. What’s losing a child when we’re talking about you maybe—or maybe not—paying less at the pump, amirite? It would be one thing if it were a guy at the end of the bar, but we have official “smart people” news media instructing us on how we should think and feel about attacks—paid for with our sometimes important “tax dollars”—raining horror on Iranians whose crime is that they didn’t overthrow their disapproved leadership. Ask yourself if you want that to be the criterion for violent aggression around the world. It’s hard to parse US corporate news coverage of the attacks on Iran if you aren’t willing to let go of the idea that might does not, in fact, make right—along with your ideas about what a better world could look like. That’s why we grow our critical faculties, and support media outlets that, whatever else they do, don’t tell us that the US and Israel killing Iranian children is just something to consume with your breakfast cereal. Gregory Shupak is an academic and activist, as well as author of The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media from OR Books. We talk with him about the US war on Iran this week on CounterSpin. Transcript: ‘Even with Congressional Authorization, the War Would Still Be an Act of Aggression’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260306Shupak.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260227.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   American Prospect (2/23/26) This week on CounterSpin: US news media don’t show a serious interest in history generally, as you can see from many outlets’ pretense to offer “all you need to know” about current events in a matter of minutes. In the case of the Trump administration, presenting US history through media is important and relevant—as long as Trumpists are fully in charge of who defines what happened and what it means. So when Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr—he who attacks basic anti-discrimination measures in media, and overtly threatens the licenses of outlets determined insufficiently deferential to right-wing powers on the daily—says, “I believe in the greatness of our country,” you’re of course right to beware. And all the more when he adds that he’s “looking forward to broadcasters showcasing the country’s inspiring history” by taking a pledge that he’s drawn up, committing to do the right thing with regard to America’s 250th birthday, for which the White House has big plans. But the man actively orchestrating interference-unto-cancellation of talk shows deemed guilty of “improper ideology” wants us to know that participation in the pledge, by the media outlets under his regulatory control, is “voluntary.” If you didn’t already understand how vital is an understanding of US history, rooted in who’s allowed to tell it, you would suspect it from this White House’s ham-handed efforts to twist and erase and shout over it. There’s a screaming void that journalists could be working to fill. Some are, some aren’t. But as we look to encourage a rising up of people in response to the anti-democratic juggernaut, we can remember the words of Ida B. Wells: “The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press.” We talk about attacks on, and defenses of, our ability to learn and learn from this country’s history with Naomi Bethune. She’s the John Lewis Writing Fellow at the American Prospect. She’s featured this week on CounterSpin. Transcript: ‘Advocates Know How to Fight Attempts to Repress Black History’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260227Bethune.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at coverage of Trump’s “Board of Peace.” https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260227Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260220.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Center for Independent Documentary This week on CounterSpin: CNBC, a news outlet, brought viewers the news that Cuba has suspended its annual cigar festival. The postponement, if you wondered, “comes as the island nation’s Communist-run government endures its biggest test since the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Assured you’ve heard both “Communist” and “Soviet Union,” the “biggest test” bit has a link to another CNBC article, same writer, headed “What’sNext for Cuba? Trump Turns the Screws as the Island Runs Out of Jet Fuel.” Now take a breath: Why does Donald Trump get to punish Cuban people? Why is it cute to talk about “turning the screws”? Can other countries “turn the screws” on the United States if they don’t like the US and its “capitalist-run” government? And above all: When did illegal actions carried out with the express intent of causing misery for other human beings living in other countries become blah blah blah? The Trump White House is openly trying to harm the Cuban people, and US media are openly trying to sell that to us as something to root for. Reed Lindsay has been reporting and making documentary film in and about Cuba for more than a decade. We hear from him on what you likely won’t be hearing from corporate media. Transcript: ‘It’s Taken for Granted That Cuban Sovereignty Doesn’t Matter’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260220Lindsay.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at press coverage of the Rev. Jesse Jackson. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260220Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260213.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Mother Jones (2/11/26) This week on CounterSpin: Trump and congressional Republicans are pushing for changes to the electoral process that would make it harder for millions of people to vote, and some media are still presenting it as a matter of “election integrity.” Voter advocates describe things like the Save America Act as aiming to make the US into a “show us your papers” dystopia. That bill likely won’t make it out of the Senate, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be sounding the alarm, loudly, about the various multi-level efforts this White House is pursuing to take control of elections away from the people. We hear that worrisome and enraging story from Ari Berman, national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, among other titles. Transcript: ‘The Risk Is Reporting This Like It’s a Normal Political Story’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260213Berman.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press commentary on Iran. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260213Banter.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260206.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   The Nation (2/3/26) This week on CounterSpin: “What do you call a ceasefire agreement under which people keep dying? That is the question the people of Gaza have been asking themselves for the past few months.” And it’s the question that kicks off a new issue of The Nation magazine, which they call “A Day for Gaza.” Since a “ceasefire” was declared four months ago, Israel has killed, very conservatively, 420 Palestinians. More than 70,000 overwhelmingly Palestinian people have been reported killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, including more than 300 journalists and media workers. This is without mentioning the destruction of more than half of all religious and cultural sites in the Gaza Strip. The UN has reported Israeli soldiers recording videos in which they mock Palestinians and Palestinian education, before destroying schools and universities. If it ended today, the loss of life, and home, and culture, and history in Palestine would take countless years to reckon, if it could be reckoned at all. But here in the US, we’re being told by media that the conflict is winding down, because there’s a ceasefire in effect; and we are to interpret all events going forward in those terms. That pretense is mainly expressed through a simple drop in coverage, which by itself says, “Not so much to see here anymore, time to move on.” As an interrogation of and a pushback against the suggestion that because powerful people’s words have changed, there is no longer a desperate, attention-worthy crisis in Gaza or for Palestinians, The Nation lifts up the voices of Palestinians themselves, as a kind of intervention into a media conversation that presents Palestinians as subjects—sympathetic or not, depending on the story—more often than as actors, who have the basic right to determine their own future. The issue was edited by writer and translator Rayan El Amine. We hear from him this week on CounterSpin. Transcript: ‘What We’re Witnessing Is a Genocide Sustained’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260206El-Amine.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at the arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260206Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260130.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Free Press (1/26/26) This week on CounterSpin: There are reports that people out in the street opposing ICE abductions of their neighbors are chanting, “We’re not cold, we’re not afraid. Minnesota made us brave.” Around the country, people who never called themselves “political” are moving out of their comfort zone to register their opposition to violent, state-sanctioned power being unleashed on their communities in the service of racist authoritarianism. The spark is the murders by ICE of Keith Porter, Renee Good and Alex Pretti—that’s just this year—but the resistance in Minneapolis isn’t sprouting from nowhere; it has roots. Corporate news media evince little understanding of the kind of local, neighbor-to-neighbor communication and connection that has existed for decades, and that today is pulling people together across race, gender, age, class, religion lines in Minneapolis. That’s just one way elite media remove themselves further every day from the conversations people want to have. But elite reporters could at least use their proximity to power to talk about what the state and corporate forces are doing to try and squelch the growing resistance, including basic rights you’d hope journalists would care about, like that of people to witness actions carried out with their money and in their name. Our guest put together a report on how “DHS Is Expanding Domestic Surveillance While Targeting Efforts to Document and Dissent.” Jenna Ruddock is Advocacy Director at the group Free Press. We hear from her this week on CounterSpin. Transcript: ‘The State Is Exercising Surveillance Over Us, But We Can Push Back’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260130Ruddock.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of the Minneapolis clampdown, and at the lack of recent coverage of Gaza. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260130Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260123.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (1/19/26) This week on CounterSpin: In 1967, when Martin Luther King came out against the Vietnam War, and called the US the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” corporate news had nothing but emphatic condemnation. Life magazine called that speech “demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi.” And the New York Times sniffed in a way today’s readers will recognize, writing that when King argued that the war on Vietnam is “a barrier to social progress in this country,” he fused “two public problems that are distinct and separate. By drawing them together, Dr. King has done a disservice to both.” The elite press corps that now pretend they honor King show that they never heard, much less understood, him or the totality of his vision—or that of those that share that vision today. That’s the space that the coalition headed by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is stepping into with their new report: State of the Dream 2026. We’ll hear from Joint Center president Dedrick Asante-Muhammad. Transcript: ‘There’s an Attack on Racial Equity Analysis Because They Feel It Changes the Conversation’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260123Asante-Muhammad.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Kalaallit Nunaat. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260123Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260116.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Fox 9 (1/15/26) This week on CounterSpin: Headlines today on January 15: “North Minneapolis ICE shooting: Children Hospitalized After Flash Bang, Tear Gas Hits Van.” And from the official Homeland Security website: “ICE Announced the Arrest of More Worst of the Worst Criminal Illegal Aliens From Across the Country, Including Those Convicted of First-Degree Rape of a Child, Homicide and Arson.” So did the hospitalized children commit the rapes, homicides and arson? Is that why they were attacked? Or are we supposed to just muddle it all together, so that we now think “immigration equals crime”? What happens if we do that? What would happen if we didn’t? We’ll hear from Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260116Ghandehari.mp3   TNG-CWA (1/15/26) Also on the show: We see reporters being physically attacked by purported “law enforcement,” and criminalized and threatened by the federal government, as they just try to do their job of witnessing and reporting the actions of powerful state actors. At the same time, we see corporations telling us that journalists aren’t really important; AI can do whatever it is that they do. And if a newspaper doesn’t make the quarterly profit that shareholders have said they want, well, what more evidence do you need? The closure of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will mean a lot to people. But who will be brought on to speak on the meaning of the shutdown, and where it fits with other predations on our right to know what is happening around us? We’ll hear from Jon Schleuss, president of the Newspaper Guild-CWA. Transcript: ‘We’re Seeing the Result of Decades of ICE Being Able to Act With Impunity’: Transcript: ‘‘We’re Looking to Save News for the Folks in Pittsburgh’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260116Schleuss.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260109.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   AP (1/6/26) This week on CounterSpin: For millions of people around the globe, the US under the administration of convicted felon Donald Trump has acted—it’s beyond “illegal”; it’s sort of “a-legal,” as if laws meant nothing—they’ve kidnapped the leader of a sovereign nation, and declared that Trump will henceforth “run” that nation. If you think flagrant bullying, Mafioso, might-makes-right behavior is what international law is created to combat, and basic human decency is designed to reject—you would be supported by the majority of the world’s people. But alas, you live in the US and rely for your world view on US media, and thus you are fed authoritarian apologies disguised as disinterested analysis, like that from AP’s headline on January 6: “Trump’s Vague Claims of the US Running Venezuela Raise Questions About Planning for What Comes Next.” Because, you see, the problem about Trump’s claim that his weirdo government will now run the country of Venezuela isn’t that that is crazy with a capital K, but that Trump “has offered almost no details about how it will do so.” Nation of Change (1/5/26) Our conversation and understanding of our political power is so warped that even a thoughtful piece from Nation of Change says: “The White House has not explained how it intends to legally justify the detention of a foreign head of state, the reported civilian deaths, or the long-term scope of a military “quarantine” designed to coerce a sovereign nation.” When we really need to accept that they will just not justify it, and will simply declare that anyone who asks for justification is a terrorist. And news media will report that as one side of a two-sided argument. As a CounterSpin guest said recently: “The cavalry is not coming. You’re it.” We’ll talk about the Venezuela invasion, as neither a beginning nor an end, with Michelle Ellner, Latin America campaign coordinator of CODEPINK. Transcript: ‘People in Venezuela Can Oppose the Government But Still Reject US Intervention’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260109Ellner.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at media coverage of ICE’s murder of Renee Good. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260109Banter.mp3 Featured Image: January 4 rally in Caracas protesting the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro (photo by Rome Arrieche via Venezuelanalysis—1/5/26).

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260102.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   The Best of CounterSpin for 2025 features Silky Shah on mass deportations, Gregory Shupak on the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Paul Offit on RFK Jr.’s pro-virus policies, Karen Thompson on policing pregnancy, Erin Reed on anti-trans pseudo-science, Farrah Hassen on criminalizing homelessness, Mumia Abu-Jamal on unheard stories and Tom Morello on music as protest. We call it the “best of,” but, as always, we are deeply thankful to all of the activists, researchers, reporters and advocates who appear on the show. These are just a few of the void-filling conversations it’s been our pleasure to host in the last year. 2025 was a rough one; we appreciate everyone who helps us stay informed, forward-looking and in communication. Transcript: ‘A Tribe of Rebels, People Who Struggle, Those Are the Stories That Rarely Get Heard’: Featured Image: Top row: Silky Shah, Gregory Shupak, Paul Offit and Karen Thompson; second row: Erin Reed, Farrah Hassen, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Tom Morello

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251226.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   AAPF (10/25) This week on CounterSpin: After every police killing of a Black person, every announced policy singling out Black immigrants as the cause of crime and disorder, every declaration, like that from Arlington National Cemetery, that as of now materials on Black and female service people will be scrubbed from the website—we hear from corporate media about how, boy, this country is for sure “reckoning” with “racism.” But then: If we reckoned with racism every time elite media claimed this country was “reckoning” with racism, seems like we ought to be fully “reckoned” by now. US corporate media have a white supremacy problem (and you see how that term lands differently than “racism”): They decide who they think, and hence you should think, is worth talking to, based on an accepted conflation of power with worthiness. They decide whose ideas are taken for granted and whose deemed marginal, and they tell us how to define progress: Is it moving toward actual equity, or just things quietening down? Who needs to be reassured, and whose lives is it OK to disrupt, whose basic humanity is it OK to question, day after day after day? A new report titled Anti-Blackness Is the Point, from the African American Policy Forum, engages this age-old if ever-morphing narrative. Kimberle Crenshaw is a leading legal scholar and justice advocate, the force behind the transformative ideas of intersectionality and critical race theory. She’s co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, as well as a professor of law at both Columbia and UCLA. We talk with Kimberle Crenshaw this week on CounterSpin. Transcript: ‘You Cannot Change a Reality That You Cannot Name’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251226Crenshaw.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at nonprofits and diversity, equity and inclusion. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251226Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Truthout (12/8/25) This week on CounterSpin: Forbes reports the Starbucks workers strike as you might expect: “The company claims it already offers the ‘best job in retail.’ … Yet the union is demanding….” “The company says, ‘We’re ready to return to the bargaining table whenever the union is.’ But as of yet, the union is holding out for the company to present a contract that meets demands….” You get the idea: One party is generous, the other is ornery. But even Forbes has to acknowledge that even as the strike “drags” into a second month, “global support grows.” Derek Seidman has been following the strike. He’s a writer, researcher and historian who contributes to Little Sis and to Truthout, where he recently reported on the Starbucks strike and…what Walmart has to do with it? https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219Seidman.mp3   Politico (12/17/25)   Also on the show: Sen. Bernie Sanders is the latest to join a broad group of more than 200 environmental and economic justice advocates that just sent a letter to Congress, calling for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers, the energy sources powering the boom (and, as some would say, predictable bust) of artificial intelligence, until, as Sanders says, democracy “has a chance to catch up.” Turns out as people learn more, opposition grows, and so, Politico notes, “The industry is taking out ads and funding campaigns to flip the narrative and put data centers in a positive light—spinning them as job creators and economic drivers rather than resource-hungry land hogs.” The letter to Congress was spearheaded by Food & Water Watch. We’ll hear from the group’s deputy director, Mitch Jones. Transcript: ‘These Two Powerful Corporations Have a Shared Interest in Trying to Bust This Union’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219Jones.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of Bondi Beach. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251219Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251212.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Popular Information (12/8/25) This week on CounterSpin: If you see no problem in news outlets reporting on desperately horrific conditions in Gaza, and what various political entities are doing or could do to address them, while a ticker at the bottom of the screen offers you an opportunity to gamble—for money—on whether or not “famine” in the region will be officially declared, this episode is not for you. We’re learning about the deal just struck by “news” outlets CNN and CNBC with the “prediction market operator” (evidently what we’re calling them now) Kalshi Inc. We’ll hear from Judd Legum—founder and author at the newsletter Popular Information—and from author and analyst Adam Johnson, of Substack‘s the Column and the podcast Citations Needed. Transcript: ‘You Have a Double Standard About Which Populations Are Considered Roulette Chips’: Judd Legum’s interview: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251212Legum.mp3   Adam Johnson’s interview: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251212Johnson.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251205.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   CEPR (12/2/25) This week on CounterSpin: A militarized US Drug Enforcement Administration force declared they’d taken out drug traffickers in the Caribbean, killing some of them in what was sold as a successful operation. Locals on the ground reported differently, saying these people weren’t drug traffickers, just human beings who happened to be on the river and got shot up by US forces who were not attacked, as they claimed, but just killed innocent people because they were given orders to kill them. It should sound familiar—but this isn’t today in Venezuela; it’s 2012 in Honduras. An inspector general review from the State Department and the Justice Department found that, no, this was not a Honduran operation, or a “joint operation” the DEA were helping with; it was a DEA operation, and it killed four innocent people and injured others in a remote, Afro-Indigenous part of Honduras. The story that the DEA pushed on Congress and the press corps was just a lie. But you’d hardly know that history reading current coverage of Honduras, where, as we record on December 4, the presidential election is still in question. Not in question: the US’s long history of intervening—violently, dramatically, unaccountably—in Honduras. We’ll talk about it with Alex Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Transcript: ‘Honduras Is a Country Still Recovering From a Coup the US Helped Enable’: https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251205Main.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at media coverage of the murder of Amber Czech. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251205Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251128.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Opening ceremony for COP30 in Belem, Brazil (photo: Palácio do Planalto) This week on CounterSpin: US media didn’t exactly mince words: “Climate Summit Viewed as Flop by Many” was the headline the LA Times put on an AP report. The subhead explained: “The COP30 talks held in Belem, Brazil, end without a timeline for reducing fossil fuels.” The future of climate disruption, if not pulled off course, is devastating, but the present is bad enough, if you are placed, or inclined, to see it. So how could a global climate conference that doesn’t put demands on fossil fuel producers at the center be anything but a flop? The answer is not to absolve COP30 or polluting countries, much less industries, of their responsibility. But focusing some conversation on what people, including those most harmed, are doing, along with what’s being done to them, could help move debate off an outdated dime—onto the kind of work that stands a chance of helping us all. Transcript: ‘COPs Are About the Public vs. Politicians and Their Corporate Interests’: We hear from Jean Su, senior attorney and director of the energy justice program at the Center for Biological Diversity. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251128Su.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a look at coverage of the Tulsa Race Massacre. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251128Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251121.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Foodtank (7/25) This week on CounterSpin: Corporate news media have vilified people who use public assistance, and lied about why they need it, almost like it’s their job. Today is nothing new. But here’s a fun fact, as noted by Michael Klinski from South Dakota News Watch: Ziebach County has the sixth-highest percentage of residents who receive SNAP benefits in the country, at 43.5%, and doesn’t have a single retailer that accepts food stamps. What if SNAP weren’t a story about major political party back-and-forthing, and were instead a story about people who need food? So they can go to their job? And feed their children so they can go to school? Wouldn’t that be something? What if that were the story? It’s a dream, but we’ll talk about it with Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center. Transcript: ‘We Need to Recommit to Building a Nation Free From Hunger’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251121FitzSimons.mp3 Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of Trump corruption. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251121Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251114.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   CNN (11/11/25) This week on CounterSpin: The palace intrigue around the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Bill Pulte, soft-launching the idea of a 50-year mortgage suggests the reveal was perhaps mistimed, but that doesn’t mean it’s not reflective of the sort of policy the Trump White House is intent on. And though the idea of extending payments over time under the guise of making home ownership more accessible seems to have landed poorly with economists right, left and center, much of corporate news media were willing to give it a reflexively respectful whirl. Housing and home ownership represent a critical vector in the project of a multi-racial democracy, and we’ve talked about that a lot on the show. This week we revisit relevant, informed conversations with veteran housing analysts and advocates: Gene Slater, Richard Rothstein and George Lipsitz. Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at media coverage of Donald Trump’s 50-year mortgage scheme. Transcript: ‘Housing Discrimination Harms Health and Steals Wealth’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251114Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251107.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Balls & Strikes (10/13/25) This week on CounterSpin: There is an argument evidently compelling to some: Yes, Black people have been enslaved and excluded and discriminated against for decades, such that today they are born in a hole in terms of wealth, of housing equity, of jobs. If we acknowledge that their discrimination was and is race-based, that would be saying race matters—but haha! Didn’t you all say you don’t want race to matter? It’s an argument so specious a third grader could call it out. But if it comes from the Supreme Court majority, we are forced to consider it as serious, and enjoined to believe it is based in good faith. The history on these efforts helps us see a way forward. Madiba Dennie is deputy editor and senior contributor at the legal analysis site Balls and Strikes, and author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back. Transcript: ‘They Are Creating the Opportunity to Shrink Democracy More’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251107Dennie.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at some recent press coverage of Zohran Mamdani. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251107Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251031.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Union of Concerned Scientists (10/28/25) This week on CounterSpin: Responsible journalism would make clear that climate policy is not a backburner issue, just because many other terrible things are happening. Climate disruption is an active present—not just future—nightmare, intertwined with everything we care about: lives and livelihoods, human rights, health, governance. It’s as much of an “abstract issue” as the hurricane tearing Jamaica and Cuba apart right now. Rachel Cleetus is senior policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. We hear from her about why acknowledging and addressing corporate and government failures doesn’t mean giving up on ourselves and our shared future. But it does require news media locate the fight—not just among dolphins and icebergs—but in the boardrooms of greedy people perversely trying to wring every last dime from our shared inheritance and future. Transcript: ‘The Trump Administration Needs to Be Isolated in Its Anti-Science Actions’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251031Cleetus.mp3   Beat the Press (10/27/25) Also on the show: Isn’t Donald Trump a mean, stupid person? OK, sure. Isn’t this whole presidency so silly? No, not at all. Corporate news media’s notion that time-to-time winking about how Trump is weird somehow amounts to meaningful resistance to the myriad harms of his administration is a monumental failure—from which we have to take lessons, not just about the White House, but about the press corps. We hear from Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, whose recent piece, “Trumponomics: The Economics of Crazy,” appears in his Beat the Press blog on their site CEPR.net. Transcript: ‘Trump Clearly Has No Idea What He’s Doing When It Comes to the Economy’   https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251031Baker.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251024.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   AP (via WTTW, 9/10/25) This week on CounterSpin: Some outlets report that the White House’s designation of people in boats in the Caribbean, and now in the Pacific, as “drug smugglers,” therefore “unlawful combatants,” therefore targets in the “war on terror,” therefore undeserving of due process, “raises legal questions.” That’s corporate mediaspeak for “We’re going to wait till the White House comes up with some language we can report as making some kinda sense, so we can pose it against everyone else who says, what the actual hell is going on here?” Even the resignation of the head of US Southern Command, which oversees US military operations in Latin America, didn’t move corporate reporters beyond scratching their heads over how this bombing campaign might be legal, rather than discussing what tools we have to respond to wildly illegal actions by government officials. We talk with Jeffrey Stein, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, about efforts for, minimally, transparency on these lethal actions that look to be expanding by the day. Transcript: ‘The Government’s Own Disclosures Demonstrate These Strikes Are Not Lawful’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251024Stein.mp3   Truthout (8/7/25) Also on the show: When it comes to airlines and other companies mining your personal data to suss out how much you can possibly pay so they can charge you precisely that and no less, media have a choice. They can write, like USA Today, about how “AI might make airline pricing more complex”—an explainer that explains that, in answer to how airlines price tickets, “a shrugging emoticon is appropriate,” and ends with, no joke, “trust your gut.” Or you can do what our guest is doing: ask why industries are talking about saving consumers money with AI surveillance pricing, while at the same time telling investors how they’re maximizing revenue by pushing consumers to their “pain point.” How does that square? And who’s standing up for consumers, since it doesn’t? We hear from reporter Katya Schwenk on that story. Transcript: ‘They Are Trying to Maximize the Amount of Money They Can Get Any Given Consumer to Pay’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251024Schwenk.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251017.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Drop Site (10/3/25) This week on CounterSpin: Trump and his enablers have a plan: to officially define anyone who opposes an agenda of white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy—any dissenters—as “terrorists,” the “enemy within.” The question is no longer if that’s happening, but how we respond, and that response is enriched by understanding the history. We’re in a fight for our right to speak up, and out—but it’s not the first time. We’ll learn from Chip Gibbons, policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent, about the old in the new “counterterrorism” project. Transcript: ‘Decades of National Security Policy Have Gotten Us to Where We Are’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251017Gibbons.mp3   CBPP (9/29/25) Also on the show: The Department of Agriculture says they’re defunding the annual survey on food security, just as the largest-ever cuts to food assistance through SNAP hit families, and as food prices continue to rise. It doesn’t mean the predictable harms won’t happen, just that policymakers will have less information to use to respond to them. Is that the plan? We’ll hear about that from Cara Brumfield, vice president for housing and income security at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Transcript: ‘These Changes Are Reducing Our Power to Effect Positive Change for Families’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251017Brumfield.mp3  

  The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in Chiles v. Salazar, a challenge on free speech grounds to Colorado’s ban on LGBTQ “conversion therapy” for children under 18. Kaley Chiles is a Colorado therapist and evangelical Christian who argues the state’s 2019 law that bans this discredited and dangerous treatment, which seeks to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, is a violation of her First Amendment rights. The other side of the case is the state of Colorado, represented by regulator Patty Salazar. The state argues that it is regulating healthcare and protecting children from a practice that every major medical and mental health organization in the US, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Social Workers, has linked to increased suicidality, depression and other serious mental health issues. The fundamental question before the Court is whether talk therapy is protected speech or medical activity. Chiles argues that it’s speech, and that Colorado’s law unlawfully regulates the content of her speech; Colorado argues that it’s medical conduct, which is not protected by the First Amendment—states are permitted to regulate such conduct to protect patients from harmful or substandard care. The Supreme Court’s decision will affect the fates of queer youth in more than two dozen states that ban or restrict this “therapy.” The Trump administration is backing Chiles, with lawyers from the far-right Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) representing her. Such a consequential case should be given careful framing and context from the media. Unfortunately, in their coverage previewing the October 7 hearing, the New York Times—and, to a lesser degree, the Washington Post and USA Today—failed in striking ways. These three articles from three major papers were significant because they set the framework for readers to understand the case. They were also placed prominently in the papers, with the Times (10/6/25) and Post (10/7/25) articles both appearing on page A1, and the USA Today (10/7/25) piece on A4. (The stories appeared online a day or two earlier.) The Times‘ framing skewed heavily toward Chiles’ perspective. While the Post and USA Today presented more thoroughly the experiences of LGBTQ people and the arguments of the respondents, all three pieces left out scientific and legal information that are necessary for a complete understanding of the case—and what’s at stake for LGBTQ youth. ‘Free speech test’ Who wants to lose a “free speech test”? The New York Times (10/5/25) put the emphasis on the rights of the therapist, rather on protecting at-risk youth from demonstrable harms. Supreme Court reporter Ann E. Marimow previewed the hearing for the New York Times (10/5/25) under the headline, “Can Conversion Therapy Be Banned? Colorado Faces Speech Test at the Supreme Court.” By describing the case as a “free speech test” that Colorado is facing, the Times headline frames the case exactly the way Chiles and the ADF are asking the Supreme Court to interpret it: as a question of speech, as opposed to a medical regulation issue. The lead image is of Chiles gazing thoughtfully into the distance, and the article begins with a description of her “tranquil” Colorado Springs office and offerings of “loose leaf tea.” It paints Chiles as a well-meaning professional who, under Colorado’s ban, is unable to perform her job properly because her speech is limited: Mrs. Chiles, an evangelical Christian with a master’s degree in clinical mental health from Denver Seminary, says the law violates her First Amendment rights, constraining what she is allowed to say in therapy sessions with young people who have sought out her care. The article acknowledges that major medical groups disavow the conversion therapy as ineffective and potentially harmful, before returning to Chiles’ argument that “it seemed like an invasion for the state to kind of be peering into our private counseling sessions.” Marimow goes on to lay out the legal arguments on both sides, but returns again to Chiles’ claim that these children are “voluntarily” seeking this treatment. The article notes that both sides cite last year’s decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which allows states to ban gender-affirming treatments for youth that they consider harmful. But it glides silently over the contradiction of anti-LGBTQ activists’ claims: On the one hand, youth under 18 are unable to consent to gender-affirming care—which has been shown to save lives—and therefore in need of protection from the state to avoid coercive pressure from medical professionals. At the same time, they are fully capable of “voluntarily” engaging in conversion therapy, which has been shown to put them at risk. (A 2024 Trevor Project survey found that 13% of LGBTQ youth report being threaten

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251010.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Al Jazeera (10/7/25) This week on CounterSpin: In the immediate wake of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel in October 2023 that killed some 1,200 people, the Washington Post editorial board was warning that it was unacceptable to suggest that the attack “should be considered in context with previous actions by Israel”—those actions including decades of occupation, dispossession, deprivation, harassment and fatal violence. Even now, two years on, as NBC News’ “What to Know” feature includes the information that Israel’s actions, denoted as “in retaliation” for October 7, have killed more than 67,000 people in Gaza—with many more wounded and maimed—US corporate media still twist themselves in knots trying to say that, yes, something very wrong is happening in Gaza—but somehow trying to stop it is worse than enabling and prolonging it. They do this in part by saving respectful space for someone like Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton to flatly declare there is “no famine in Gaza,” that “Palestine is a made-up fiction,” and that there is an “international media and political chorus…try[ing] to bully Israel into submission.” Academic and writer Gregory Shupak, author of The Wrong Story: Palestine, Israel and the Media, has been looking at the tactics major media deploy to suggest that we use something other than our own eyes and judgment and humanity to assess the situation, and how to act in the face of it. We hear from him this week on CounterSpin. Transcript: ‘You Had US Media Carrying Out Incitement to Genocide, and Then Shifting to Genocide Denial’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251010Shupak.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at CBS‘s coverage of the Supreme Court’s Amy Coney Barrett. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin251010Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250926.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   MediaJustice (9/9/25) This week on CounterSpin: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports new rules from St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer about building data centers in the city, basically calling on builders to address their impact: “Will they support artificial intelligence or cryptocurrency mining? How much energy and water will they consume? How many permanent jobs will they provide? How will they limit pollution and noise?” The questions might sound weird to people who don’t understand that something so vaguely named as a “data center” is actually a physical thing in real neighborhoods affecting real people. Mayor Spencer says, “We want to be open for business…. But we do want to be thoughtful in the regulation that we’re putting forward.” That’s a rule we could use reporters to follow, but it’s a safe bet that many people relying solely on the press don’t understand what’s involved materially, much less what’s at stake, with what the Post-Dispatch describes as “an industry that is at once driving development and prompting backlash across the country.” The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers in the South, is a new report from the group MediaJustice. They keep an eye on developments in media and technology, and try to center conversations about the inequities around them in the voices of communities most harmed. We spoke with Jai Dulani from Media Justice, and with Vivek Bharathan from the No Desert Data Center Coalition in Tucson, Arizona. Transcript: ‘Media Need to Report on the Real Cost of Data Centers’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250926Bharanthan_Dulani.mp3   Also on the show: While media were seeing who to fire for their insufficient worship of a racist, a Fox host called for killing homeless people, said oopsie, and went right back to his job. News media are comfortable talking about killing unhoused people, in large part because they never talk with them as human beings, or about homelessness as something that could happen to anyone. We learned from Keith McHenry last summer; he’s an activist, author and artist, and the co-founder of Food Not Bombs. We’ll hear part of our conversation with him this week on CounterSpin. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250926McHenry.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250919.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Exposed by CMD (9/9/25) This week on CounterSpin: The reason those of us not directly on the sharp end of the violence of ICE agents disappearing brown people off the streets know about it is because we see it. Because people—journalists, but also regular folks—are recording these actions and sharing them with those of the public who care to look. Witness testimony is the reason we are able to resist official testimony about people “attacking officers” or “resisting arrest.” And you can tell how much it matters by the efforts to shut it down. We’ll talk about making it a crime to record ICE being ICE with Matthew Cunningham-Cook, writer and researcher, working with the Center for Media and Democracy. Transcript: ‘Kristi Noem Is Actually Claiming Videotaping DHS Officers Is Violent’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250919Cunningham-Cook.mp3   Charlie Kirk Also on the show: You could spend a lot of energy trying to make sense of the notion that anyone criticizing Charlie Kirk is more of a threat to the country than Kirk himself. But the fact that quoting Kirk’s own words is enough to get you fired, get your professor to state that “we will hunt you down,” get your show cancelled, get your group sanctioned—tells you we are not in a good faith debate. And that the prominent news media aren’t here to help. Judging by the New York Times, the Trump who promotes the idea that Joe Biden was “executed in 2020” and replaced by a robotic clone, should be described as having “a penchant for sharing debunked or baseless theories online.” So why not offer the same respect given to his “ideas” about transgender mice to his “ideas” about the First Amendment? It comes down to whose ideas we get to hear, which in turn comes down to: Who gets to own the media outlets we look to? We’ll talk about where structure meets content with Tim Karr, senior director of strategy and communications at the group Free Press. Transcript: ‘The White House Is Shaking Down Media Owners to Get Them to Follow the Trump Agenda’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250919Karr.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250912.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Image of the boat released by Donald Trump on social media. This week on CounterSpin: The US ordered a lethal strike on a small boat in the southern Caribbean that, we’re told, carried Venezuelan drug cartel members on their way to poison this pristine country of ours. How do we know that? We don’t. Who were they? We don’t know. Does it matter? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? News media have basic questions to address on behalf of the US people: Can the Trump administration, or any administration, declare people guilty and treat them as criminals, absent the transparent legal processes we all understand as fundamental? Can they summarily kill people based on that declaration? And can they aim that illegal nightmare overwhelmingly at brown people and “enemy nations” without any principled interrogation on journalists’ part? We hear about the killing in the southern Caribbean, and its various contexts, from Alex Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Transcript: ‘Media Really Took at Face Value What Trump Said About This Boat and Its Occupants’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250912Main.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250905.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   New York Times (9/1/25) This week on CounterSpin: Multiple previous heads of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention wrote for the New York Times that “what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the CDC and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago—is unlike anything we had ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.” Kennedy, they wrote, fired thousands of federal health workers, and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of US support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Sounds like speaking truth to power, facing fascist fantasy with fact, like…journalism. Except that the country’s so-called paper of record labeled it “opinion.” It’s only an opinion, the Times says, that it’s wrong that the leadership of our federal health agency is a guy without a medical degree who claims he can diagnose children he walks past at the airport. For a lot of folks, that’s A-OK! And they deserve to be heard! Corporate journalism is failing us at every turn, and the only upside is that every day they make it more obvious, and re-direct us to other sources. On RFK Jr., one of those sources is the group Defend Public Health. We’ll hear from a founding member, Elizabeth Jacobs, on this week’s show. Transcript: ‘Kennedy Is Not a Skeptic. He Is an Anti-Vaccination Enthusiast’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250905Jacobs.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of genocide and starvation. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250905Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250829.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Other Words (7/30/25) This week on CounterSpin: Climate disruption and its predicted, measurable, life-altering impacts provides a clear example of an instance where countries and industries and science could come together: Here’s this problem that’s facing literally all of us. How do we cut it off at the source, and mitigate its obviously unequal fallout? “We have the technology.” But the people using jets to ferry them from one state to another are not the same people who can’t escape the heat in treeless communities. The CEOs of fossil fuel companies can move home any time they want; they don’t have to care that communities are newly exposed to droughts or floods or storms. Climate change, according to elites, is a “sucks to be you” sort of problem. So much so that they can spend time ginning up arguments about how it isn’t even happening, so as to get more money out of the money machine while they can. And for the kicker, corporate media will recite those arguments and hold them up alongside science and humanity, as though we can and should choose what to believe as it suits us. One obvious stress point of this institutional dystopia is insurance. You buy insurance in case something bad happens—like a fire, or a flood. But if that fire or flood is driven by climate disruption? Well, wait a minute. Turns out you’re no longer covered. And the fact that your insurance company is deeply invested in the fossil fuel companies that are driving the disaster? Well, that is neither here nor there. We need journalism that would help us connect those obvious dots and act on what we learn. We’ll talk about that today with Cathy Cowan Becker, responsible finance campaigns director at the group Green America. Transcript: ‘Insurance Companies Are Moving to Protect Their Profits in a Short-Term Way’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250829Becker.mp3   Beacon Broadside (1/13/16) Also on the show: As we go into Labor Day weekend, we’ll revisit a conversation we had about the simple power of including worker voices in reporting—and, maybe more so, the power of silencing them. In 2016, the Boston Globe brought a story to its own doorstep with the decision to contract out its subscriber delivery service. We heard about it from Aviva Chomsky, history professor and coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University, and author of, among other titles, Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal. We’ll hear part of that conversation this week. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250829ChomskyReEdit.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250822.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Objective (7/18/25) This week on CounterSpin: Trump’s threats to media corporations are laying bare what many already knew: Media corporations are reliant on government for policies that benefit them as profit-driven corporations, because they are primarily profit-driven corporations, even though we may still see them as the journalistic institutions whose job is to inform us about the world and one another—without, as is sometimes quaintly referenced, “fear or favor.” But while many are meaningfully and rightfully engaged in this White Houses’ harmful overreach and gross predations on the First Amendment, there is less attention to the role of the 14th Amendment—meant to secure basic rights of equal protection and due process for formerly enslaved people. That’s in play here too; if, like our guest, you are able to contextualize this retrograde White House’s assaults on the press corps as part of, and not ancillary to, their direct assaults on Black and brown people, on the policies that aim to afford us equal rights, on the programs that allow us to enter the country as immigrants, on the laws that resist active discrimination against us on jobsites, in public accommodations, in housing, on the street, at the bank. They don’t actively, aggressively, despise Black and brown people over here, but then just have some sort of principled problem with news reporters, separately, over there; it’s all of a piece. And that piece has a history that we’d do well to learn—not only because of the ongoing, institutional harms it helps us see, but also the hope and resistance that’s there in that history, as well. We get into it with Joseph Torres, senior advisor for reparative policy and programs at the group Free Press, co-creator of the project Media 2070, and co-author, with Juan Gonzalez, of News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media. Transcript: ‘The FCC Is Trying to Roll Back Protections Won Over the Past 60 Years’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250822Torres.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at recent press coverage of Trump and TikTok. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250822Banter.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250815.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Mother Jones (8/6/25) This week on CounterSpin: In July last year, CounterSpin recalled a statement from Donald Trump 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 more widely accessible, Trump said, “You’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” Many of us wondered at the time why news media wouldn’t call that out as anti-democratic, and talk up the multivocal, multiregional, multiracial democracy we’ve always said we’re aspiring to. But here we are, dealing with the fallout of, among many things, that news media failure—now including the possible erasure of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Ari Berman is national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, and his new book is called Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It. We talk about that with him this week. Transcript: ‘It’s Really a Full-On Attack on the Voting Rights Act’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250815Berman.mp3   Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of Trump’s DC occupation and starvation in Gaza. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250815Banter.mp3  

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250808.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   Jacobin, (7/30/25) This week on CounterSpin: When the Washington, DC, city council voted to gut plans to raise wages for tipped workers, they weren’t just stiff-arming restaurant and hospitality workers; they were overturning the express will of the public, who had voted overwhelmingly, for the second time, to raise those wages. They were telling the electorate: You just don’t matter to us as much as the restaurant lobby. They say no, so we say no. It’s obviously a story about a rigged game that goes well beyond restaurant workers, but it’s also a story about restaurant workers, and how elite news media serve as frictionless transmitters for this weird worldview that it’s appropriate for overwhelmingly women and people of color to have to please and appease patrons in order to survive. We’ll hear from worker advocate Raeghn Draper from the CHAAD Project; their recent piece about the rise-up of efforts for a better wage system for restaurant workers appears in Jacobin magazine. Transcript: ‘People Don’t Know the Deep Inequities Baked Into the Tipped Wage’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250808Draper.mp3   ABC News, (7/21/25) Also on the show: Media reported on how “Trump Threatens Washington Stadium Deal Unless NFL Team Readopts Redskins Name.” and some, like ABC News, dutifully noted that there is no “deal” that Trump himself is involved in, and so it’s not clear what restriction he could actually put in place. Would that these outlets showed equal interest in interrogating the threats and disinformation from other sources that led to the DC city council’s approval of a plan that exempts a profitable enterprise from property taxes and leases the land underneath the stadium for just $1 a year over some 30 years. Sales taxes from the stadium don’t even go to DC, but to a “reinvestment fund” for the stadium’s maintenance and upgrades. The Commanders and their owner don’t need millions of dollars from a district where some 14% of the population live in poverty, and the people of the district said they didn’t want to give it to them. They got it anyway. That’s the story. But it’s a story that predates and will post-date Trump, so apparently it doesn’t rate. Pete Tucker reports on government and media from the Washington, DC, area, including for FAIR.org and his own Substack. He joins us this week to talk about that. Transcript: ‘DC’s Not Making Money Here, DC Is Paying Billions’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250808Tucker.mp3

Janine Jackson interviewed FAIR contributor Ari Paul about genocide in Gaza for the August 1, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250801Paul.mp3 Janine Jackson: The International Rescue Committee, among other groups, is declaring that Israel’s starvation of Gaza has reached a “tipping point”: “The window to prevent mass death is rapidly closing, and for many, it’s already too late.” Famine historian Alex de Waal describes Israel’s food distribution sites as “not just death traps…[but] an alibi.” New York Times, 7/24/25 Meanwhile, the New York Times describes Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians trying to access those food sites “a crude form of crowd control.” The epic horror of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has been abetted at every turn by a US press corps too compromised, corrupt and complicit to mount a serious defense of basic human rights or international law. In the face of overwhelming public disapproval, and Senate Democrats trying and failing to block weapons sales to Israel, will anything in media coverage change? And will that matter? Joining us now is independent reporter and frequent FAIR.org contributor, Ari Paul. Welcome to CounterSpin, Ari Paul. Ari Paul: Thanks for having me. JJ: We could start anywhere, but you have just written about the recent increase in the use of the word “genocide” in some elite outlets’ reporting. How meaningful is that in the scale of things in July 2025, do you think? AP: I think it’s been very frustrating for people who have been sounding the alarm ever since October of 2023. It’s been very clear in a lot of Israel’s public statements, from public officials and army officials, military officials, in the press that there’s certainly genocidal intent, or an intent to commit horrific war crimes, throughout Gaza. And I think, seeing over the years, the destruction of hospitals, the destruction of educational facilities, the inability to function as a society, not just bombing sites, but making it an impossible place to live, the type of humanitarian crisis that isn’t just a humanitarian crisis; it reaches the level of worry that we’re reaching a genocidal moment. And activists all over the world have been sounding the alarm about this. And so when it’s seen now, I think there is some sliver of hope, for people who care about what’s happening in Gaza, that this might bring about some sort of end to it, but given the horrific slaughter of people, the starvation, and just the fact that a once-functioning society has now been reduced to rubble, it feels a little too late for a lot of people watching this. JJ: Right. And it’s kind of uncanny to hear media suggesting that now people are starting to say this might be a genocide. It is just a kind of blithe, rhetorical erasure of those people who’ve been saying this for a while, and who media have marginalized and worse, all along. But the idea is: now it’s real, because important people are saying it might be real. AP: Yeah, I think one thing that a lot of people who have been worried about the Gaza situation have pointed out is that it’s very reminiscent of what Nigeria had done to Biafra several decades ago, that they had surrounded this area, that they had the military upper hand, but also kept food out of going into this area, which caused mass starvation. Now, this incident in Biafra had been, for the Western world, this moment where everyone kind of dropped what they were doing and said, ”Oh my gosh, this is just horrible. How could anything like this happen?” And that, given the control that Israel has always had over Gaza, the potential for just shutting everything off and just letting it die, while raining missiles and conducting raids, was just always so obviously there, that from day one, when this started two years ago, it’s just been impossible to ignore the catastrophe that was waiting to happen, especially when you had people all throughout the Israeli government saying things like that they wanted another Nakba, that they wanted to destroy Gaza, that no one is innocent, things like this. These are the things that were said in places like Rwanda or Bosnia before the worst things happened. And so I think there were a lot of people on the activist left, the pro-Palestine community, who were taunted as, at best, catastrophists or, at worst, they were derided as antisemitic, blood libel. But the fact of the matter is that these were predictions that were all too real, and now we’re looking at it. New York Times, 7/28/25 JJ: I was struck by a line in a New York Times report from July 29 that was “Leading Israeli Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Committing Genocide in Gaza.” First of all, I know a lot of listeners will know that you can get a lot more critical information about Israel in the Israe

Janine Jackson interviewed the ACLU’s Scout Katovich about forced institutionalization of poor and disabled people for the August 1, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250801katovich.mp3 Janine Jackson: Poverty and homelessness—and their confluence with mental health challenges, including addiction—reflect societal and public health failures. But rather than take on rising rents and home prices, unlivably low wages and the retraction of social services and healthcare, the Trump White House has issued an executive order titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” that calls for involuntary institutionalization and the elimination of federal support for evidence-based lifesaving programs. Oh, and also increased “data collection” on unhoused people. As Southern Legal Counsel puts it, the order is a “continuation of [this administration’s] strategy of depicting anyone whose rights they seek to take away as inherently dangerous.” This White House is what it is, but this development also trades on years of media coverage that defines poverty, and the cascade of harms attendant to it, as a “crisis” not so much for the people who experience it, as for those made uncomfortable by being exposed to it. Scout Katovich is senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality. She joins us now by phone from the Bay Area. Welcome to CounterSpin, Scout Katovich. Scout Katovich: Thank you, I’m happy to be here. JJ: There’s been some coverage of this July 24 executive order, but I know that many listeners won’t have heard about it. Could you just please tell us what this order says, and what it calls for? SK: Absolutely. So this order came out last week, and it is somewhat wide-ranging in terms of the mechanisms that it puts in place, but the gist of it is that it’s taking aim at people who are at the intersection of homelessness, mental health disabilities and substance use. And what it does is it directs federal agencies to use the power they have over funding, as well as over technical assistance, to encourage states and local governments to criminalize people for living on the streets, to push people into involuntary treatment and civil commitment, including lowering standards to get there, and to destroy programs like housing first and harm reduction that we know save lives. So the way that the Trump administration is trying to go about this remains a bit to be seen, because it’s directing agencies to take certain actions. And so we’ll see what those agencies do. But it is really troubling in terms of the entire framing of pushing for criminalization and institutionalization as a “solution” to homelessness. We know that’s not a solution. We know that that only makes homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse worse, and it’s really troubling to see this coming out from the federal government, though I can’t say it’s too much of a surprise. JJ: The order basically says, “Let’s get them into treatment,” which sounds good as a phrase, if you are just blissfully ignorant of anything to do with unhoused people or the history of involuntary warehousing. But for a lot of folks, it sounds like, “Well, golly, just help them.” What do people who think “get them into treatment,” what do they need to understand? SK: That’s a great point. And this is not the first time that compassion has been co-opted. We actually see this on the left as well, as Governor Newsom in California pushed for the CARE Courts as this compassionate solution, and, really, it was doing a lot of the same thing: targeting unhoused people perceived as having mental illness for forced treatment and institutionalization. And what this kind of cloaking in care does is it obscures the fact that involuntary treatment is not effective. If you care about providing people who need help with help, the most effective way to do that is by providing accessible, voluntary services that match a person’s need. And it’s really disingenuous for the federal government to be saying this now, saying people need care, while at the same time blasting Medicaid, and stripping all the voluntary mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, that actually works. The Register Citizen (7/29/25) JJ: The University of New Haven journalism professor Susan Campbell, in one of the few media pieces that I’ve seen so far, describes this order as essentially “fact-free.” And she was noting some kind of baseline falsehoods, like it starts out saying the “overwhelming majority of individuals [who are unhoused] are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.” And it also says both federal and state governments “have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root cau

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250801.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   New York Times (7/22/25) This week on CounterSpin: The mainstream US media debate on the starvation and violence and war crimes in Gaza still, in July 2025, makes room for Bret Stephens, who explains in the country’s paper of record that Israel can’t be committing genocide as rights groups claim, because if they were, they’d be much better at it. Says Stephens: It may seem harsh to say, but there is a glaring dissonance to the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. To wit: If the Israeli government’s intentions and actions are truly genocidal—if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans—why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? “It may seem harsh to say” is a time-honored line from those who want to note but justify human suffering, or excuse the crimes of the powerful. It looks bad to you, is the message, because you’re stupid. If you were smart, like me, you’d understand that your empathy is misplaced; these people suffering need to suffer in order to…. Well, they don’t seem to feel a need to fully explain that part. Something about democracy and freeing the world from, like, suffering. It’s true that corporate media are now gesturing toward engaging questions of Israeli war crimes against Palestinians. But what does that amount to at this late date? We’ll talk about corporate media’s Gaza coverage with independent reporter and frequent FAIR.org contributor Ari Paul. Transcript: ‘The Fact That It’s Happening Shouldn’t Be a Surprise’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250801Paul.mp3   Disability Scoop (8/1/25) Also on the show: The Americans with Disabilities Act is generally acknowledged in July, with a lot of anodyne “come a long way, still a long way to go” type of reporting. There’s an opening for a different sort of coverage this month, as the Trump administration is actively taking apart laws that protect disabled people in the workplace, and cutting off healthcare benefits, and disabled kids’ educational rights, and rescinding an order that would have moved disabled workers to at least the federal minimum wage; and, with a recent executive order, calling on localities to forcibly institutionalize any unhoused people someone decides is mentally ill or drug-addicted or just living on the street. Does that serve the hedge funds pricing homes out of reach of even full-time workers? Yes. Does it undercut years of evidence-based work about moving people into homes and services? Absolutely. Does it aim to rocket us back to a dark era of criminalizing illness and disability and poverty? Of course. But Trump calls it “ending crime and disorder,” so you can bet elite media will honor that viewpoint in their reporting. We’ll get a different view from Scout Katovich, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality. Transcript: ‘Criminalizing Homelessness Only Perpetuates It’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250801katovich.mp3

  https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250725.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).   PBS NewsHour (7/18/25) This week on CounterSpin: The Trump administration is funding a genocide in Gaza—never mind headlines like July 24’s Washington Post: “Mass Starvation Stalks Gaza as Deaths From Hunger Rise.” (No, it’s actual human beings stalking Gaza, who could right now choose to act differently.) The White House is deploying masked men to disappear people out of job sites and courtrooms, and offering them salaries orders of magnitude more than those paid teachers or nurses. They’re daylight-robbing hard-earned benefits from everyone, with the most vulnerable first; operating wild grifts for Trump himself; and shutting down any openings for dissent. None of this, while we acknowledge individual regretters, has radically shaken the MAGA base. But now that group, we’re told, may be fracturing, around the Epstein files. To tell this as a tale about two uniquely bad men, one of whom mysteriously died in prison while the other mysteriously became president, is a terrible disservice to a story of thinly veiled institutional, professional machinery employed in the systemic criminal victimization of women. But how can we expect elite news media to tell that story when they’re busy wasting ink on Trump denials as though they were something other than nonsense? There’s a lot going on here; we’ll talk about just some of it with Thom Hartmann, radio host and author of, most recently, The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink. Transcript: ‘Everything Makes Sense if You Get That Most of the MAGA Base Are Members of a Cult’ https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250725Hartmann.mp3   Ken Saro-Wiwa Also on the show: Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has just announced a posthumous pardon for Nigerian writer, teacher and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged in November 1995, along with eight of his comrades in the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Their crime was nonviolent protest against the exploitation of their land and their people by oil industry giant Royal Dutch Shell. CounterSpin covered it at the time—and then in 2009, we caught up on still-ongoing efforts to bring some measure of accountability for those killings, and Shell’s unceasing human rights and environmental violations, with Han Shan, working with what was then called the ShellGuilty campaign, a coalitional effort from Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth and Platform/Remember Saro-Wiwa. In light of this pardon, which is being acknowledged as necessary but insufficient, we’re going to hear that conversation with Han Shan again this week. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin250725Shan.mp3