Every Monday on GRITtv we look at the good the bad and the downright ugly of the media's work these past seven days. This week, Rebecca Traister of Salon counters Maureen Dowd’s claim that she’s been “twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years” and skewers the NYT for its too little and too late comment from Public Editor Clark Hoyt on sexism and the media’s coverage of Hillary Clinton. Author and media critic Norman Solomon reveals why more war coverage might not be a good thing, and Chris Rabb, chief evangelist at Afro-Netizen, takes stock of Jay Mandle’s Wash Post article on Obama and the small donor fallacy.

Also in this hour an interview with Katrina Browne, director of the forthcoming documentary Traces of the Trade on her personal journey into her family’s past, the legacy of the slave trade, and the question of reparations in “post-racial” America. Traces of the Trade premiers on POV, Tuesday, June 24 on PBS station.

Finally, hello PRIUS drivers --- Are you ready to speak out against worker abuse?

It’s the celebrity vehicle of choice: Arianna Huffington, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Brad Pitt, Bill Maher, and Larry David all have one. It’s green. It’s hip. As the New York Times put it, the Toyota Prius has become, “the four wheel equivalent of those popular rubber issue bracelets in yellow and other colors—it shows the world that its owner cares.”

But do they care about worker rights? Toyota, the largest automaker in the world, also has one of the most atrocious labor and human rights records. In a searing report, detailed here on GRITtv, the National Labor Committee documents Toyota’s intimidation of foreign workers, its role in driving down wages and benefits in the US, and its links to human trafficking and the Burmese military dictatorship. Watch here as Charles Kernaghan and Barbara Briggs of the National Labor Committee discuss the race to the bottom in the auto industry. All that and more on GRITtv.

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