6:30 PM Pacific Time: Sundays
CounterSpin provides a critical examination of the each week’s major news stories, and exposes what the mainstream media may have missed in their own coverage. Combines lively discussion and thoughtful critique. Produced by the national media watch group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting).
This week on CounterSpin: News site Popular Information alerted us to new Social Security Administration policy effectively requiring tens of thousands of recipients, by the agency’s own estimation, to travel to a field office to verify their ID. An internal memo predicts the shift will create “service disruption,” “operational strain,” and “budget shortfalls” — unsurprising, …
This week on CounterSpin: In early February, when Representative Maxwell Frost tweeted that he and Representative Maxine Waters were denied access to the Department of Education, Elon Musk responded on the platform he owns: “What is this ‘Department of Education’ you keep talking about? I just checked and it doesn’t exist.” That, we understand, was … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: A NASA official warned workers to maybe think about not wearing their badges in public, to protect themselves from harassment against people identifiable as federal workers by MAGA randos who feel deputized by Trump and Musk to do whatever it is Trump and Musk suggest. It’s early days of the Trump/Musk … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: Just because we might witness the daylight robbery of the social benefits we’ve been paying for and counting on for the entirety of our working lives, and just because Black people are no longer officially allowed to even mentor Black people coming in to fields they’ve been historically excluded from, and … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: Donald Trump has declared that the U.S. is going to “take over” the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians who live there will be “permanently” exiled. Asked whether Palestinians would have the right to return to Gaza under his scheme, Trump said “no.” But even those corporate media who aren’t actually endorsing … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: A number of federal agencies rushed to make clear they would be scrubbing activities and events that “celebrate cultural awareness” in an effort to stay on the good side of the weird new White House. Trump and his abettors’ anti-anti-discrimination agenda is as subtle as a sledgehammer. “DEI hire,” for instance, … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: We know that once corporate news label something “controversial,” we’re in for reporting with a static “some say / others differ” frame — even if one “side” of the “controversy” is a relatively small group of people who don’t believe in science or human rights or democracy. As the Trump White … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: You may remember the testimony: former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz pouting to a Senate hearing on the company’s union-busting in which he was referred to as a billionaire that using that “moniker constantly is unfair”: “Yes, I have billions of dollars — I earned it. No one gave it to me. … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: Those with a beating heart can see the horror of Trump’s plans to deputize wannabe vigilantes to denounce community members they suspect “don’t belong here,” to send ICE into schools and churches to round folks up — police records or no — and ship them to detention centers, to ride roughshod … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: While the New York Times rolls out claptrap about how both “the left and the right” have ideas about causes behind the devastating Los Angeles wildfires — the right blame DEI hires, while the left blame climate change — many people have moved beyond that sort of stultifying nonsense to work … Continued
This week on CounterSpin: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s December 17 piece, headlined “How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Can Resolve U.S.-China Relations,” contained some choice Friedmanisms, like: “More Americans might get a better feel for what is going on there if they simply went and ordered room service at their hotel.” We’ll talk … Continued
