Rosa Brooks on Judith Miller, Patrice O’Neill on The Fire Next Time
This week on CounterSpin: New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose faulty reporting helped the White House take the country to war in Iraq in 2003, has became a sort of First Amendment martyr when she was jailed for refusing to divulge sources on July 6th. Our guest, University of Virginia Law professor Rosa Brooks will share with us a different view of Miller and confidential sources.
Also on the show: the Flathead Valley in Montana is a community, like many others, with deep divisions about race and class, and the best way to use the land. Add anti-government extremism and a talk radio host who compares environmentalists to Nazis and you have a very volatile mix and the subject for the new documentary film, The Fire Next Time. We’ll talk to director Patrice O’Neill about what the film’s story says about the power of media to divide as well as to unify.