Episodes

The New York Times‘ obituary (5/18/26) for former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman quotes him saying that “policemen never get the benefit of the doubt.” The racism of Mark Fuhrman, the Los Angeles police detective whose involvement in the O.J. Simpson murder investigation helped sink the prosecution’s case, was so well-known comedian Dana Carvey once mocked him with a Nazi salute, calling him “Mark the Fuhrer-man.” Fuhrman’s death this month (New York Times, 5/18/26) took middle-aged and older Amer...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260529.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). New Republic (3/10/26) This week on CounterSpin: It’s a safe bet that a majority of US citizens know that “we” are currently at “war” with Iran. I am equally confident that very few people could explain why. Or what “war” means. Or what it has to do with their day-to-day life, much less how it could possibly make it better. That’s a problem of ...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260522.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Texas Tribune (5/20/26) This week on CounterSpin: You may have seen videos of college commencement speakers telling students who’ve spent time and money learning how to read, write and think critically that that was dumb, cuz AI is going to be doing that from now on, so just get on the train or else—wait, why are you booing? That’s far from the...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260515.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). FIFA, the governing body of association football, concocted a “FIFA Peace Prize”—described as recognizing “individuals for exceptional contributions to peace and unity”—in order to award it to Donald Trump. Alongside revelations of deep-seated corruption—collusion, bribery—involving official bodies and executives, and now ticket prices for this...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260508.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Media Matters (11/16/23) This week on CounterSpin: In 2023, the group Media Matters reported that social media platform X was placing ads for major brands like Apple and IBM alongside content touting Hitler and the Nazi Party—despite the claim of X’s CEO that brands are “protected from the risk of being next to” toxic posts on the platform. Mu...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260501.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Yahoo Finance (4/25/26) This week on CounterSpin: A CNN headline a few months back told us that Instacart—which used to call itself a company that delivers groceries, but now, as its CEO told investors, is the “leading technology and enablement partner for the grocery industry”—was now using AI to “Gauge Customer Price Sensitivity.” “Price sens...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260424.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). NHLC (3/24/26) This week on CounterSpin: From the federal level on down, many laws and policies that claim to be about “ending homelessness” seem to be clearly more about hurting homeless people than changing their circumstance. Even if you, or anyone you know, has never been unhoused: How hard is it to understand the difference between chargin...

https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin260417.mp3 Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”). Inequality.org (3/4/26) This week on CounterSpin: Tesla reported $5.7 billion in US profits in 2025 and paid $0.0 in taxes. As Rebecca Crosby and Judd Legum at Popular Information report, there’s little mystery to this miracle: Tesla used corporate tax breaks, proffered by Trump and co. in what reporters with straight faces call the “One Big Be...

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, ...

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...

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 wh...

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 ...

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 u...

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 Iranian...

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...

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 “Commu...

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 th...

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 de...

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 ...

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 li...

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 ...

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 th...

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 mu...

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 co...