Chris Lehmann on Multi-Racial Democracy, Mike Rispoli on Funding Local News

  (illustration: The Forum) This week on CounterSpin: Listeners are aware of the no-less-destructive-for-being-baseless assault on critical race theory. Just like with affirmative action (where conservatives said, “steps toward racial equity really means unfair quotas”), media took this charge, “steps toward racial equity really means telling white children to hate themselves,” and made it into “something some folks are saying”—while, of course, out of fairness they’ll acknowledge, “others disagree.”  (Media themselves, they suggest, occupy the intellectually and morally superior center.) A new website engages the attack more productively, by using critical race theory as a prism to explore the current range of threats to multi-racial democracy and our ability to fight for it. The site’s called The Forum; we’ll talk with editor-in-chief Chris Lehmann. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220506Lehmann.mp3 Transcript: ‘The Race Crisis and the Democracy Crisis Are Inseparable’ (photo: New Jersey Civic Information Consortium) Also on the show: Between Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk, who would you prefer preside over what information you can access? It’s kind of like being offered a choice between a poke in one eye or the other. If the problem is media outlets with priorities that poorly serve even our aspirations for democracy—and it is—the response is media with different priorities, which we know really only come from having a different bottom line. How can that work? We’ll talk about one model with Mike Rispoli of the group Free Press; he’s been working with the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium—a new way of thinking about and meeting local communities’ need for news. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220506Rispoli.mp3 Transcript: ‘What if We Use Public Money to Transform What Local Media Looks Like?’ Plus Janine Jackson takes a very quick look back at recent coverage of Roe v. Wade. https://media.blubrry.com/counterspin/content.blubrry.com/counterspin/CounterSpin220506Banter.mp3