CounterSpin

Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, explains the Supreme Court ruling on bans of conversion therapy and its limits. Alex Frandsen, organizer with Free Press and Media Power Collaborative co-lead, discusses Local News Day and efforts to strengthen community-rooted journalism. They explore legal framing, media coverage, and strategies for rebuilding local news.

  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