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Alternative Radio for February 21, 2011
1:00 PM - 1:58 PM
[Program Website]
Today's Highlight: Wendell Potter - Whistleblowing: Health Insurance
Whistleblowers perform valuable societal functions as they reveal information of crimes, corruption, and lying. Daniel Ellsberg was a noteworthy example of whistleblowing when, in 1971, he leaked the Pentagon Papers, Washington's top secret Vietnam war documents. John Stockwell and Phillip Agee were former CIA agents who went public and exposed some of that agency's illegal operations. Remember the film "The Insider" with Russell Crowe? It told the tale of Jeffrey Wigand. He was the Brown and Williamson corporate executive who blew the whistle on that tobacco company's deceptive practices in suppressing scientific evidence that cigarettes cause cancer. Today, whoever gave Wikileaks the massive trove of government documents faces harsh punishment. Powerful states and corporations want to keep the lid on what the public knows about what they are doing.
Wendell Potter
Wendell Potter is a whistleblower. Wendell Potter was a former CIGNA public relations executive. He is now an outspoken critic of the health insurance industry. He is Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy. He is the author of "Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out On How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care And Deceiving Americans."
Alternative Radio is a weekly one-hour public affairs program offered free to all public radio stations in the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and on short-wave on Radio for Peace International.
Established in 1986, AR is dedicated to the founding principles of public broadcasting, which urge that programming serve as "a forum for controversy and debate," be diverse and "provide a voice for groups that may otherwise be unheard." The project is entirely independent, sustained solely by individuals who buy transcripts and tapes of programs.
Its "headquarters" is situated to correspond with its position in the mainstream mass media: down an alley, behind a house, on top of a garage in Boulder, Colorado. From this rarefied location, AR's programs manage to reach over 125 radio stations and millions of listeners. AR is part of the non-profit Institute for Social and Cultural Change.
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