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Editors | |
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Former editors | Ken Silverstein Alexander Cockburn |
Staff writers |
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Categories | Politics |
First issue | 1994 |
Country | United States |
Based in | Petrolia, California, United States |
Language | English |
Website | www |
ISSN | 1086-2323 |
CounterPunch is a left-wing [1] [2] online magazine. Content includes a free section published five days a week as well as a subscriber-only area called CounterPunch+, where original articles are published weekly. [3] CounterPunch is based in the United States and covers politics in a manner its editors describe as "muckraking with a radical attitude". [4]
From 1993 to 2020, CounterPunch published a newsletter, and a magazine. [5]
CounterPunch began as a newsletter, established in 1994 by the Washington, D.C.-based investigative reporter Ken Silverstein. [6]
Silverstein was soon joined by Alexander Cockburn (b. 1941—d. 2012) and then Jeffrey St. Clair, who became the publication's editors in 1996 when Silverstein left. [7] [8]
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). [9] When Alexander Cockburn died in 2012 at the age of 71, environmental journalist Joshua Frank became managing editor and Jeffrey St. Clair became editor-in-chief of CounterPunch. [10] [11]
In 2003, The Observer described the CounterPunch website as "one of the most popular political sources in America, with a keen following in Washington". [12] Other sources have variously described CounterPunch as "left-wing", [1] [2] "far-left", [13] "extreme", [14] a "political newsletter", [15] and a "muckraking newsletter". [16]
During the 2016 presidential election, CounterPunch published a piece attributed to Alice Donovan, [17] who purported to be a freelance writer but US intelligence officials alleged to be a pseudonymous employee of the Russian government. [18] Donovan was tracked by the FBI for nine months, as a suspected fictitious persona created by the GRU. [18] [19] In late November 2017, after CounterPunch had published several more pieces by Donovan, The Washington Post contacted Jeffrey St. Clair about her. The co-editor said that Donovan's pitches did not stand out among the pitches that CounterPunch received daily [18] and began making inquiries. St. Clair asked Donovan to substantiate her identity by sending a photo of her driver’s license but she did not. [18]
On the same day The Washington Post article about Donovan was published, St. Clair and Frank published a piece stating that CounterPunch only ran one article by Alice Donovan during the 2016 election, which was on cyber-breaches of medical databases. Donovan was also exposed by the newsletter as a serial plagiarizer. [17] CounterPunch removed all of the articles from their site. [20]
In a January 2018 follow-up article, St. Clair and Frank exposed a network of alleged trolls that operated a site called Inside Syria Media Center, promoting a pro-Bashar al-Assad and pro-Russian view of the Syrian Civil War. St. Clair and Frank speculated that the website was connected to the same network of trolls as Alice Donovan, which was later confirmed by the Atlantic Council and other researchers. [19] [20] [21]
On 8 June 2016, "Alice Donovan", [22] and other Russian-controlled fake American personas began promoting the DCLeaks website on Facebook. [23] [24]
In 2016, CounterPunch appeared in a PropOrNot list of websites which it described as Russian propaganda outlets. Writing in the New Yorker , Adrian Chen described the list as a mess and CounterPunch as a "respected left-leaning" publication. [25]
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, formerly the Main Intelligence Directorate, and still commonly known by its previous abbreviation GRU, is the foreign military intelligence agency of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The GRU controls the military intelligence service and maintains its own special forces units.
Alexander Claud Cockburn was a Scottish-born Irish-American political journalist and writer. Cockburn was brought up by British parents in Ireland, but lived and worked in the United States from 1972. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair, he edited the political newsletter CounterPunch. Cockburn also wrote the "Beat the Devil" column for The Nation, and another column for The Week in London, syndicated by Creators Syndicate.
Francis Claud Cockburn was a British journalist. His saying "believe nothing until it has been officially denied" is widely quoted in journalistic studies, but he did not claim credit for originating it. He was the second cousin, once removed, of the novelists Alec Waugh and Evelyn Waugh. He lived at Brook Lodge, Youghal, County Cork, Ireland.
Wladimir Klitschko is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017. He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time. He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, quick hand speed, great physical strength which he employed when clinching opponents, and his athletic footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.
Alexander Vladimirovich "Sasha" Povetkin is a Russian former professional boxer who competed from 2005 to 2021. He held the World Boxing Association (WBA) heavyweight title from 2011 to 2013; the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title from 2020 to 2021; and challenged twice for the unified heavyweight championship in 2013 and 2018.
Jeffrey St. Clair is an investigative journalist, writer, and editor. He has been a co editor of CounterPunch since 1999.
Ken Silverstein is an American journalist who worked for the Los Angeles Times as an investigative reporter, for The Associated Press in Brazil, and has written for Mother Jones, Washington Monthly, The Nation, Slate, and Salon and Harper's Magazine.
Russian web brigades, also called Russian trolls, Russian bots, Kremlinbots, or Kremlin trolls are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Government of Russia. Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets, social bots, and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Vladimir Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.
Deontay Leshun Wilder is an American professional boxer. He held the World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title from 2015 to 2020. By winning the title, Wilder became the first American world heavyweight champion since 2007, which was the longest period of time in boxing history without an American heavyweight champion.
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the unified heavyweight titles since 2021, and the Ring magazine title since 2022. He has also held the International Boxing Organization (IBO) title since 2021. Previously, he held the undisputed cruiserweight championship from 2018 to 2019, being the first boxer in that division to hold all four major world titles.
Igor Dmitrievich Sergun was Director of GRU, Russia's military intelligence service, from 2011 until his death in January 2016. He was promoted to colonel general on 21 February 2015.
The Internet Research Agency, also known as Glavset, and known in Russian Internet slang as the Trolls from Olgino or Kremlinbots, was a Russian company which was engaged in online propaganda and influence operations on behalf of Russian business and political interests. It was linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former Russian oligarch who was leader of the Wagner Group, and based in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Joshua Frank is an American investigative journalist, author and editor living in the United States and covers current political and environmental topics. His work has been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists. Along with Jeffrey St. Clair, he is the editor of the alternative political magazine and website CounterPunch. His articles have appeared in Seattle Weekly, OC Weekly and regularly at CounterPunch and TomDispatch. Frank's journalism has been supported by The Nation Institute's Type Investigations.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. intelligence community, the operation—code named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller Report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) is a political advocacy group formed in July 2017.
The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, also known as the Salisbury Poisonings, was a botched assassination attempt to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military officer and double agent for the British intelligence agencies in the city of Salisbury, England on 4 March 2018. Sergei and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were poisoned by means of a Novichok nerve agent. Both spent several weeks in hospital in a critical condition, before being discharged. A police officer, Nick Bailey, was also taken into intensive care after attending the incident, and was later discharged.
This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, sorted by topics. It also includes events described in investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies. Those investigations continued in 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and 2019, largely as parts of the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation, the Special Counsel investigation, multiple ongoing criminal investigations by several State Attorneys General, and the investigation resulting in the Inspector General report on FBI and DOJ actions in the 2016 election.
This is a chronology of significant events in 2016 and 2017 related to the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies during the Trump presidential transition and the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016, this article begins on November 8 and ends with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20, 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Kevin Alexander Gray was an American political activist and author, based in South Carolina. Gray was involved in community organizing, working on a variety of issues ranging from racial politics, police violence, third-world politics & relations, union organizing & workers’ rights, grassroots political campaigns, marches, actions & political events.
In sum, we published five stories by Donovan. One was apolitical. Four could be considered critiques of US foreign policy during the Trump administration. None mentioned Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Putin, the 2016 elections, Wikileaks or Julian Assange.
The GRU ultimately used the Alice Donovan account to create its DCLeaks Facebook page, according to a U.S. indictment of GRU operators.