CounterPunch
CounterPunch is a biweekly newsletter published in the United States that covers politics from a left-wing perspective. It has a website which contains much more material not published in the newsletter.
Running six to eight pages in length, the CounterPunch newsletter primarily publishes commentaries by Cockburn and St. Clair with regular contributions by others. It is noted for its critical coverage of both Democratic and Republican politicians and its extensive reporting of environmental and trade union issues, American foreign policy, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. CounterPunch considers itself to carry on the tradition of muckraking journalism of earlier investigative journalists such as I.F. Stone and George Seldes, casting its approach as "muckraking with a radical attitude."
History
The newsletter was established in 1994 by the Washington, D.C.-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein. He was soon joined by the journalists Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. In 1996 Silverstein left the publication and Cockburn and St. Clair have since been co-editors.
Since coming online in 1998, the CounterPunch website has become one of the most frequently-visited left-leaning sites on the Internet.[1] The website, which is updated on a daily basis, is supported by revenues generated by the newsletter, as well as fundraising activities and commissions received on click-through sales from Amazon.com.
Contributors
Notable contributors to CounterPunch have included Robert Fisk, the late Edward Said, Tim Wise, Ralph Nader, M. Shahid Alam, Ward Churchill, Lila Rajiva, Tanya Reinhart, and Alexander Cockburn's two brothers, Andrew and Patrick, both of whom write on the Middle East, Iraq in particular.
Some paleoconservative writers like Paul Craig Roberts and William Lind can also be found in CounterPunch. The site regularly publishes veteran radicals, such as Lenni Brenner, Fidel Castro, and the late Stew Albert, as well as younger authours such as Diane Christian, Joshua Frank, Norman Finkelstein, Ron Jacobs, Gary Leupp, Cynthia McKinney[2] and David Price, whose writings appear to have been influenced by Cockburn.
Praise
The Village Voice says CounterPunch, "outshines all its competitors." [1] The stories in CounterPunch have been picked up by or generated articles in Harper's, The Nation, the National Journal, the New York Daily News, The Washington Post, the Texas Observer, and several other publications.[3]
Criticism
Franklin Foer of The New Republic, Eric Alterman, and Steven Plaut has written articles where they have been critical of what they see as a bias against Israel and the USA. In particular they have charged CounterPunch with publishing anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views.[2][3][4][5]
In May 2006, James Taranto, editor of the Wall Street Journal's online Opinionjournal.com website, referred to Counterpunch as a "moonbat site." [6]
References
- ^ "CounterPunch". alexa.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
- ^ McKinney, Cynthia (2002). "Goodbye to All That". counterpunch.org.
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