Press inquiries? At this site that usually translates as, "I'd like to interview Ava and C.I." We're used to that. So imagine our surprise when one feature generated press inquiries on another topic? The feature? "Are You On CounterSpin's Guest List?" which ran here October 8th.
Did we reply? Hey, we've got a life and we're not here to spoonfeed. We had intended to do a feature last week to answer the pressing question.
Which was? "Can I see your data?"
Can you see our data? How damn lazy is the mainstream press?
CounterSpin's parent, FAIR, did a study of PBS' NewsHour and that did require a lot of work, a lot of recording data. Us?
Instead of requesting our "data," the mainstream press would have been better served learning how to obtain "data" themselves.
Here's how we did it. We narrowed the scope to October of 2005 through March of 2006. We did that because that's what FAIR did. So we looked at the same time frame.
The hardest work? Counting.
Why is that? Because CounterSpin is online. You can listen online. That includes the archived broadcasts which, if you scroll through, shows you every guest for every episode.
Now maybe the mainstream press was worried that prankster Noam Chomsky or funny man Paul Krugman pop in for "bits" unannounced? Maybe that's why they needed our "data"? If that's the case, no, every guest is listed. The way the half-hour show breaks down is headlines, guest one and then guest two. Sometimes the show devotes itself to only one guest (that was always a male in the time frame we looked at). When that happens, only one guest is listed in the archives.
So we counted up the guests (and got 36 male guests, 13 female). You can check our math, maybe we added wrong? It comes to three less than 39 so it's a little less than one-third. We rounded up for one-third.
We also were asked about the hosts which we found most confusing. Janine Jackson's photos are not classified. She is obviously a woman and she is obviously an African-American woman. Steve Rendell and Peter Hart are obviously males and White males.
For one episode, Julie Holler filled in for a host. That was when Danny Schechter was a guest. Otherwise, week after week, you have two of the three acting as host.
Julie Hollar was also a guest two weeks ago. That wasn't in our time frame studied and we're glad about that because Steve Rendell acted as host and co-guest. The episode would have been better served by having Janine Jackson co-host it with Peter Hart. There were times when Rendell came off not like someone who read FAIR's study on The NewsHour but someone who co-wrote it. To be expected because he did co-write it.
One mainstream reporter e-mailed to ask whether our criticism meant that there was "a split in the left"? We believe we noted (and have before) that we support the work FAIR. We believe we've also noted that CounterSpin can go for fluff. (And in terms of the mainstream press we know, we've noted that the program is not seen as "fair" but as one that hands out passes to some in the mainstream and goes after others over and over.)
A split in the left? There would have had to have been a partnership to begin with. We've never been partners with CounterSpin. Or for that matter FAIR.
We're feeling, more and more, like clones of Alexander Cockburn, we've got disdain for pretty much everyone. (Probably for you reading this right now as well if you're not one of our regular readers.)
CounterSpin was going to be addressed because the issue of how some in the mainstream sees it was being brought up. C.I. had noted it at least twice at The Common Ills without naming the program. That's C.I.'s style. And avoids the queries about "splits"? Rebecca noted her feelings about the program at her own site (Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude) and then, when we were all in DC and getting cornered at one party about why we never point out that the program appears to play favorites with regards to the mainstream? (The ignoring of Dexter Filkins is the second most popular criticism, the first is the attitude/glee towards CBS and, for those interested, the third is never asking the obvious question about Chris Hedges second source for his story about terrorists training in Iraq, which ran right after 9-11, that imploded on him).
The only people we serve here are our regular readers. (And we even manage to piss some of them off from time to time.) The perception about CounterSpin (and we agree with it largely) was hurting FAIR. If the FAIR study hadn't included the fact that The NewsHour did not book a peace activist as a guest, we probably would have addressed in some other manner. But our jaws dropped at that because we've been making the point that independent media needs to be booking and covering the peace movement for some time. FAIR is right to criticize The NewsHour but if it's going to criticize another program, CounterSpin needs to get it's act together.
There is no excuse for it. There's not the excuse of "We cover what the press covers, we critique them." That may be what they do (on good days) but did the press cover the protests against the war? Don't reduce that to a headline (if even that), bring on someone who was there and get their take on the press coverage. That's what they often do. They just don't provide an outlet for that when it comes to peace activists.
When we read over the full study, it was noted by C.I. and Ava that we should also take a look at the male-female ratio of guests because they listen to the program every week and they knew that the only statistic worse than that would be the issue of race. (We were kind, because FAIR's celebrating their anniversary this month, and didn't note the count for race. Anyone wanting to just needs to visit CounterSpin's archives.)
We don't think there's a split because there's never been a "merger." But we do and will criticize those we feel are lacking with coverage of the war. (And tossing out a question in the middle of an interview and noting the war is important is laughable when you and your guests dispense with the topic in about the time it took to ask the question. Which, for the record, happened on the program where they discussed FAIR's study.)
In terms of The Common Ills, it was first noted there (without being named, but you'd have to be headless and brainless not to have known what program was being critiqued) because friends at CBS were really pissed off about the fact that each week, in headlines, there always seemed to be room to knock CBS -- even if its mistake was not as large as other networks that week who got a pass. (They also feel that Peter Jennings pretty much had a permanent pass the entire time he anchored. Whether that's true or not, we don't know. We didn't study that period.) But they are correct that CBS is an excuse to go to town. The same program that couldn't discuss a Guild complaint lodged against Dexter Filkins and John F. Burns was happy to tell you about a lawsuit that they stated alleged racism -- but then that had to do with CBS. They can also point out that there's been no interest in ratings (nor should there be) when critiguing except with regards to CBS. Friends of C.I.'s (at CBS) didn't feel it was fair and so C.I. noted it there. Rebecca's criticism has always been about how the program could hurt FAIR. When we wrote the piece, we wrote it because we already knew we were going to address it after being cornered in DC. The fact that the FAIR study objected to The NewsHour not including peace activists as a guest when CounterSpin had done the same thing meant we were going to address it that week.
Hope that clears it up.
