CounterPunch

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This article is about the newsletter. For other uses, see Counterpunch.

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CounterPunch is a monthly magazine published in the United States that covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude".[1] It has been described as left-wing by both supporters and detractors.[2][3][4]

CounterPunch magazine has published frequent commentaries by Alexander Cockburn, current editor-in-chief Jeffrey St. Clair, editor Joshua Frank, and includes regular contributions by a wide range of others. Topics include critical coverage of both Democratic and Republican politicians[5][6] and its extensive reporting of environmental and trade union issues, American foreign policy, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.[7]

History

The newsletter was established in 1994 by the Washington, D.C.-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein.[8] He was soon joined by the journalists Cockburn and St. Clair.[9] In 1996, Silverstein left the publication and Cockburn and St. Clair became co-editors.[10] In 2007, Cockburn and St. Clair wrote that in founding CounterPunch they had "wanted it to be the best muckraking newsletter in the country", and cited as inspiration such pamphleteers as Edward Abbey, Peter Maurin, and Ammon Hennacy, as well as the socialist/populist newspaper Appeal to Reason (1895–1922).[11]

CounterPunch-sourced news stories have frequently featured in the Project Censored annual list of top 25 "underreported, mis-reported, or censored" news stories, including three in 1997 ("Dark Alliance: Tuna Free Trade, and Cocaine";[12] "Corporate America Spends Big $$ on Pro-China PR";[13] and "U.S. Alone in Blocking Export Ban of Toxic Waste to Third World"[14]). Other entries include 1998 ("The Scheme to Privatize the Hanford Nuke Plant"[15] and "American Drug Industry Uses the Poor as Human Guinea Pigs"[16]), several in 2000[17][18] and others in 2001[19] 2003[20] and 2004.[21]

Regular CounterPunch contributor Israel Shamir was part of the WikiLeaks organisation and an associate of its director, Julian Assange,[22] and in late 2010 and early 2011 wrote a series of exclusive articles for CounterPunch drawing on materials from the United States diplomatic cables leak.[23] He has also written and co-written articles for CounterPunch on what he alleges to be a campaign of harassment against Assange.[24] One of these articles, "Assange Betrayed",[25] made allegations against a plaintiff in a Swedish rape case against Assange that were widely circulated in the media.[26][27] The allegations in CounterPunch were the topic of controversy in the mainstream media.[28]

Contributions and topics

CounterPunch's "muckraking with a radical attitude" has seen it welcome contributions from a range of contributors critical of conventional wisdom on particular topics. This stance is perhaps most controversial in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, where its contributions are critical of Israeli government actions. This includes contributions from such controversial anti-Zionist figures as Gilad Atzmon, Norman Finkelstein,[29] Ron Jacobs,[30] and Israel Shamir, as well as left-wing Israeli Uri Avnery, founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. Others include Jonathan Cook[31] and Alison Weir of If Americans Knew. Anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes has described organ trafficking and tissue harvesting within Israel.[32] CounterPunch has been criticized by some Jewish and anti-racist groups for some of this material.[33][34]

Within the broader area of American foreign policy, contributors include William Blum and Patrick Cockburn. CounterPunch also has a strong tradition of criticizing US financial and economic policy, including the financial regulation deficits which led to the 2008 crisis. In this area contributors include former Financial Times and Forbes editor Eamonn Fingleton,[35] Paul Craig Roberts (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration), Winslow T. Wheeler and Michael Hudson.[36] On environmental issues, contributors include Joshua Frank[37] and Harvey Wasserman.[38] Some more frequent contributors, such as Dave Lindorff and Saul Landau, cover a wide range of subjects.

Contributors

Contributors to CounterPunch have included Robert Fisk,[39] Edward Said,[40] Faisal Kutty,[41] Tim Wise,[42] Ralph Nader,[43] M. Shahid Alam,[44] Tariq Ali,[45] Ward Churchill,[46] Lila Rajiva,[47] Peter Linebaugh,[48] Tanya Reinhart,[49] Noam Chomsky,[50] Frank "Chuck" Spinney,[51] Paul Street[52] Diana Johnstone,[53] Boris Kagarlitsky, Franklin Lamb,[54] and Alexander Cockburn's two brothers: Andrew[55] and Patrick,[56] both of whom write on the Middle East and Iraq in particular.[57][58]

The site regularly publishes articles by left-wing authors, such as Lenni Brenner,[59] Fidel Castro,[60] and the late Stew Albert,[61] as well as newer contributors, such as Vijay Prashad, Diane Christian,[62] Joshua Frank,[63] Pam Martens,[64] Gary Leupp,[65] Cynthia McKinney,[66] Kelly Overton,[67] David Price,[68] Sherry Wolf and Richard Silverstein.[69] Some paleoconservative and libertarian writers, such as Paul Craig Roberts,[70] William Lind,[71] Sheldon Richman,[72] Sarah Gillespie and Anthony Gregory[73] are also regularly published in CounterPunch. Franklin Lamb contributed a series of articles on the Libyan Civil War from his location in Libya[74] American journalist Patrick O. Strickland is also a regular contributor of on-the-ground dispatches and editorials on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader Middle East.[75]

Reception

In 2003, The Observer described the CounterPunch website as a "popular political sources in America, with a keen following in Washington".[76] Other sources have variously described CounterPunch as a "left-wing",[2][3][4] "extreme" or "radical"[77][78] a "political newsletter",[79] and a "muckraking newsletter".[80]

The Anti-Defamation League in 2007 described CounterPunch as an "anti-Zionist radical left newsletter".[81] The pro-Israel media watchdog group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) in 2007 described CounterPunch.org as an "extremist anti-Israel web site".[82]

In 2004, Max Boot described CounterPunch as an "extreme" "conspiracy-mongering website", citing a 2003 article by Dave Lindorff comparing George W. Bush to Hitler.[77][83] The same article was also referred to by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal as similarly permitting the dismissal of CounterPunch ("an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler"). Lindorff has defended his article against this characterization.[84]

Books

CounterPunch Books, an imprint of AK Press,[85] has published a number of books, typically works by individual CounterPunch contributors, or collections of essays by CounterPunch contributors. The most controversial books, reflecting CounterPunch' stance on criticism of the Israeli government, are The Politics of Anti-Semitism (2003), edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, and The Case Against Israel (2005) by Michael Neumann, a philosophy professor at Trent University Ontario in response to Alan Dershowitz's The Case for Israel. Of the former book, CounterPunch said "Is this the most controversial book of 2003? It was denounced by liberals and neocons alike, numerous reviews in mainstream papers were quashed by editors."[86]

A number of CounterPunch books focus on environmental issues, including St Clair's Born Under a Bad Sky: Notes from the Dark Side of the Earth (2008)[87] and Andrea Peacock's Wasting Libby: The True Story of How the WR Grace Corporation Left a Montana Town to Die (2010), on W. R. Grace and Company's role in Libby, Montana.[88] A Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils (2004), a collection of essays, illustrates CounterPunch's criticism of both the Republican and Democratic parties.[89]

Other books include Serpents in the Garden: Liaisons With Culture & Sex (2004), Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia (2004), and End times: the death of the fourth estate (2007), all edited by Cockburn and St Clair, and How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds (2009) by Paul Craig Roberts.

References

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External links

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