Media
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The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy By Alan MacLeod
To the shock of many, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential elections, becoming the 45th president of the United States. Not least shocked were corporate media, and the political establishment more generally; the Princeton Election Consortium confidently predicted an over 99 percent chance of a Clinton victory, while MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow (10/17/16) said it could… Continue reading
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The Sanctification of NATO By Gregory Shupak
Claims that US President Donald Trump is undermining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by criticizing some of its members and having a cordial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin have sent establishment media into a frenzy to sanctify NATO as a force for peace and democracy. Continue reading
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Jeff Bezos’ Paper Tells You Not to Worry About Those Billionaires by Dean Baker
Just when you thought economic commentary in the Washington Post couldn’t get any more insipid, Roger Lowenstein proves otherwise. In a business section “perspective” (7/20/18), he tells readers: But what if inequality is the wrong metric. Herewith a modest proposition: economic inequality is not the best yardstick. What we should be paying attention to is… Continue reading
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Key Fact Obscured in Immigration Coverage: MS-13 Was Made in US By Justin Anderson
In a piece for the Atlantic (6/20/18), former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum countered statements by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, in which Hayes described a harrowing first-person account of a mother forcibly separated from her child at the US/Mexico border as reading like “the literature of a totalitarian government”: Continue reading
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Can Truth Survive Trump? WaPo Fails to Ask How Well Truth Was Doing to Begin With By Dean Baker
Carlos Lozada, the nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post, promised “an honest investigation” of whether truth can survive the Trump administration in the lead article in the paper’s Sunday Outlook section. He delivered considerably less. Continue reading
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In Wake of AMLO Victory, US Media Fear Chavismo and Hope for 'Business-Friendly' Change By Gregory Shupak
Neoliberal capitalist dogma pervades mainstream media. A case in point is coverage of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s resounding victory in Mexico’s presidential election. Continue reading
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Immigration Story Missing Context of Hunger and Freedom By Jane Regan
In the classroom, I emphasize that every news story—even a little one about a city sidewalk repair—must provide context. Why that sidewalk, why now? Who lives there and walks there? What sidewalks are not getting repaired? When was the sidewalk first built? What’s the budget? And so on. Continue reading
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NYT Sees 'Dystopia' in Chinese Surveillance—Which Looks a Lot Like US Surveillance By Jim Naureckas
There’s a category of story we call “Them Not Us”—US media reporting on problems abroad, and seemingly not noticing that they have the same problems at home. There’s a great example of that in the New York Times (7/8/18), headlined “Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: AI, Shame and Lots of Cameras.” Continue reading
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'Data Needs to Serve a Public Safety Purpose'
6 July 2018 — FAIR by Janine Jackson Janine Jackson interviewed Tracy Rosenberg about ICE’s corporate collaborators for the June 29, 2018, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript. Continue reading
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EU Copyright Law Rejected!
We did it! Today, the European Parliament voted to reject the proposed copyright proposal, which includes the dangerous Link Tax and Censorship Machine provisions. Continue reading
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Korean Voices Missing From Major Papers’ Opinions on Singapore Summit By Adam Johnson
In major-paper opinion coverage of the Singapore summit, the people with the most to lose and gain from the summit, the people whose nation was actually being discussed—Koreans—were almost uniformly ignored. Continue reading
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Pundits Worry Threat of Nuclear War Is Being Reduced By Gregory Shupak
On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the host was aghast (6/12/18) that the US says it will halt the annual war games it conducts with South Korea on North Korea’s doorstep, because doing so is “an absolute jackpot for the North Korean dictator,” “one of the things he wants most on earth,” and now Washington “has… Continue reading
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NYT Carries IDF Attack on Murdered Medic–Reveals It’s a Smear in 20th Paragraph
Journalism how-not-to: New York Times (6/7/18) puts the attack in the headline, reveals it’s a smear in paragraph 20. A reporter at the most influential paper in English-language media appears to not know the difference between a government “tightly editing” and selectively editing video. Continue reading
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Your favourite websites CENSORED!
URGENT: The European Union is just weeks from passing a law that would destroy the best things about the Internet as we know it. As a result of lobbying by big corporate publishers, the European Commission is proposing to force websites to pay a tax to link to news content and use censorship machines to… Continue reading
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With Literal Nazis Running for Office, NYT Suggests Candidate’s Israel Criticism Is Antisemitic By Adam Johnson
With the increase on the US right in overt Nazi activity, one might be surprised to see the paper of record (New York Times, 5/29/18) turn its sights not on this disturbing trend, but on progressive candidate Leslie Cockburn, whose criticism of Israel is being cynically exploited by her opponents in the Republican Party—the same… Continue reading
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The Empire’s Media and the Quest for Veto Authority in the Americas by Joe Emersberger
In April, the Summit of the Americas in Peru predictably led to articles fretting about declining US influence in the Western Hemisphere. Analysts were quoted (Christian Science Monitor, 4/11/18) worrying that Trump’s belligerent and racist outbursts would weaken Washington’s power in the region. Continue reading
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‘There’s an Asymmetry Not Only in Power, but in Compassion By Janine Jackson
The May 18, 2018, episode of CounterSpin was a special on Gaza that featured three classic interviews—with James Zogby from July 5, 2006; with Yousef Muneyyer from November 23, 2012; and with Phyllis Bennis from April 6, 2018. This is a lightly edited transcript. Continue reading
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How the "Skripal Effect" Was Stopped By Ulson Gunnar
While the United Kingdom’s credibility unraveling played a major role in the UK’s own narrative failing, it has been the growing global alternative media that has exposed and diminished the true nature of British credibility in the first place. Continue reading
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Frankie Boyle: Your new show betrayed Gaza By Jonathan Cook
Having purged your Twitter feed of critics, you have created a series of straw men. In the worst, you have suggested that those unhappy with the show are really closet racists for objecting to the fact that you spent half of your 30-minute schedule allowing your guests, led by David Baddiel, to flay Jeremy Corbyn… Continue reading
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Gaza & the US Press by CounterSpin
This week on CounterSpin: The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza says Israeli soldiers killed at least 60 Palestinians and wounded as may as 2,700 in an eight-hour period pm May 14. Palestinians protesting both the horrific living conditions in Gaza and their inability—despite international law—to leave it, to return to the homes from which they… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 