Citations Needed
295 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 3.7K ratingsCitations Needed is a podcast about the intersection of media, PR, and power, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson.
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Episodes
Episode 82: 'Western Civilization' and White Supremacy: The Right-Wing Co-option of Antiquity
July 10, 2019 15:50 - 59 minutes - 67.8 MBThe term "Western civilization" has long been a staple of the American Right, but with the recent resurgence of white nationalism, it is having something of a comeback. Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are hosting a two-week Mediterranean "cruise thru history" to "explore the roots of Western civilization." The Intellectual Dark Web's Jordan Peterson tells us “The West is Right,” while The Daily Caller and Fox News are busy “celebrating the West." Neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach hails “Youth for Wes...
Episode 82 - 'Western Civilization' and White Supremacy: The Right-Wing Co-option of Antiquity
July 10, 2019 15:50 - 59 minutes - 67.8 MBThe term "Western civilization" has long been a staple of the American Right, but with the recent resurgence of white nationalism, it is having something of a comeback. Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly are hosting a two-week Mediterranean "cruise thru history" to "explore the roots of Western civilization." The Intellectual Dark Web's Jordan Peterson tells us “The West is Right,” while The Daily Caller and Fox News are busy “celebrating the West." Neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach hails “Youth for Wes...
Episode 81: How US Media Pits Labor and Climate Activists Against One Other
July 03, 2019 15:48 - 42 minutes - 48.2 MB"A growing, and likely irreparable, rift between elite progressive environmentalists," Forbes tells us. "Environmentalists need to reconnect with blue-collar America," The Hill explains. "Labor anger over Green New Deal greets 2020 contenders in California," Politico reports. "AOC's Green New Deal could have Dems facing blue-collar backlash at polls, some say," a Fox News headline reads. One of the few times corporate media cares what "American labor" has to say is when they’re using them ...
Episode 80: Animal Rights as Media and Pop Culture Punchline
June 19, 2019 16:39 - 54 minutes - 61.9 MBIn countless pop culture and media depictions, animal rights advocates and vegetarians in general, are viewed as effete weirdos, dirty hippies and humorless busybodies. Pop culture staples from "South Park" to "How I Met Your Mother" to "Six Feet Under" have used animal rights and those concerned for animal welfare as a go-to, faux populist target. Content-wise, mocking vegans is the lowest hanging fruit. They’re difficult and self-righteous, a ready-made punching bag. Additionally, the pr...
Episode 79: How 'Neutral' 'Experts' Took Over Trump's Iran Policy
June 12, 2019 15:44 - 56 minutes - 64.1 MB“Satellite Images Raise Questions About Iran Threat, Experts Say,” worries The Daily Beast. “Iran And Trading Partners Will Find Ways To Skirt Sanctions, Analysts Say,” frets NPR. “Iran uses proxies to punch above its weight in the Middle East, experts say,” declares NBC News. “Fuel from Iran is financing Yemen rebels’ war, U.N. experts say,” writes the Associated Press. Experts say. Analysts say. Officials say. We hear these qualifiers constantly in the media and when it comes to reportin...
Episode 78: The Militarization of U.S. Media's Drug Coverage
June 05, 2019 16:14 - 52 minutes - 60 MBSince the beginning of the so-called War on Drugs, authorities in the United States have viewed drugs not as a public health issue but one of crime, vice and violence, requiring the funding and mobilization not of medical officials but police, DEA agents and a sprawling network of paramilitary actors. In response, corporate media and its culture of parasitic, “ride-along” coverage has evolved in parallel taking this same line, reflecting the state’s approach rather than influencing or chal...
Episode 77: Frugality Fables and the Poor-Shaming Grift of Financial Advice Journalism
May 29, 2019 15:31 - 1 hour - 70.4 MB“How this millennial saved $1 million by age 30,” The Washington Post writes. “A Millennial Saved $100,000 With This Simple Habit,” CNBC insists. “How to save for retirement when you're living paycheck to paycheck,” CNN confides in us. Everywhere in American media we are told if only we engaged in simple, no-nonsense discipline we can retire at 35. But what is the political objective of this popular mode of journalism? More than just generating clicks to sell investment instruments to...
Episode 76: The Anti-War Rebranding of Rhodes and Power and the Moral Hazard of Faux Mea Culpas
May 22, 2019 15:36 - 56 minutes - 65 MBIn the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, two of the Obama administration's most consistently hawkish advisors, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power have rebranded themselves as anti-war voices in a world turned upside down by Trump’s radical foreign policy and what we’ve been told is an global environment of rising "authoritarianism." With a perfunctory “we could have done more” gesture towards accountability for thei...
News Brief: The #Bronx120 and Preet Bharara's Woke Rebranding
May 09, 2019 21:52 - 11 minutes - 12.7 MBIn this unlocked News Brief we discuss New York media's racist, factually incorrect coverage of the #Bronx120 and how Preet Bharara went from careerist "gang raid" general locking up poor black teenagers to woke MSNBC platitude machine.
Episode 75: The Trouble with 'Florida Man'
May 01, 2019 15:38 - 51 minutes - 59.3 MB“Naked Florida man revealed on video sneaking into restaurant and munching on ramen.” “Florida man broke into jewelry store, cut himself on glass and bled all over everything, police say.” “Florida man arrested at Olive Garden after eating spaghetti with his hands.” We’ve seen this supposedly hilarious stories for years on our social media feeds and wacky listicle. Florida-themed crime stories, we are told, are uniquely bizarre and worthy of derision. But what are we really mocking when we...
Episode 74: Liberal Gandhi Fetishism and the Problem with Pop Notions of 'Violence'
April 24, 2019 16:02 - 1 hour - 83.9 MB"The United States believes any Palestinian government must renounce violence,” a U.S. official told Ha'aretz. When it comes to nonviolence, writes Barbara Reynolds in The Washington Post, “Black Lives Matter seems intent on rejecting the proven methods." "Violence Is Never the Answer," New York Times columnist Charles Blow insists. We are told endlessly that violence is inherently and unequivocally bad, something - when it comes to advocating for social justice or against military occupat...
Episode 73: Western Media’s Narrow, Colonial Definition of "Corruption"
April 17, 2019 15:38 - 53 minutes - 61.6 MB"The scale of corruption in Africa is daunting," warns The Economist. "Corruption a Cause of Poverty in the Developing World," DW tells us. "Why corruption is holding Africa back," CNN laments. Everywhere we turn in elite media and halls of power, we are told the global South is poor, in part or in whole, due to rampant "corruption." But a closer look at the data – and any effort to put notions of corruption in their proper historical context - reveals our limited, racialized definiti...
Episode 72: John Stossel: Libertarian Billionaires' Inside Man
April 10, 2019 15:55 - 1 hour - 70.6 MBThough now a fixture of the fringe right-wing, libertarian pundit John Stossel was a longtime staple of mainstream, Serious Person media. With hour-long specials and a weekly segment on the ABC program 20/20, Stossel built his brand as muckraking Truth-Teller against Big Government and out of control "political correctness", along with an empire of high school “educational” videos, distributed by libertarian billionaire-funded front groups to tens of thousands of American classrooms. In hi...
Episode 72 - John Stossel: Libertarian Billionaires' Inside Man
April 10, 2019 15:55 - 1 hour - 70.6 MBThough now a fixture of the fringe right-wing, libertarian pundit John Stossel was a longtime staple of mainstream, Serious Person media. With hour-long specials and a weekly segment on the ABC program 20/20, Stossel built his brand as muckraking Truth-Teller against Big Government and out of control "political correctness", along with an empire of high school “educational” videos, distributed by libertarian billionaire-funded front groups to tens of thousands of American classrooms. In hi...
Episode 71: Laundering Imperial Violence Through Anodyne Foreign Policy-Speak (Part II)
April 03, 2019 15:26 - 53 minutes - 61 MBKinetic strikes. Limited military coercion. Robust sanctions. No fly zones. Military muscle. Modernization. All options are on the table. So much of how we discuss U.S. militarism and imperialism is laundered through seemingly anodyne phrases, rhetorical thingamajigs that vaguely gesture towards an idea without conjuring the unseemly images of what’s really being called for. In Part II of our two-part episode on “foreign policy-speak," we examine five more ubiquitous euphemisms and discu...
Episode 70: Laundering Imperial Violence Through Anodyne Foreign Policy-Speak (Part I)
March 20, 2019 16:25 - 56 minutes - 64.7 MBBarack Obama unleashes "kinetic strikes” on Libya, Hillary Clinton lobbies for "limited military coercion" in Syria, Congress passes “robust sanctions” on Iran, and Trump gives “US generals more room to run” as he “ramps up” “pressure” on ISIS. The Center for American Progress calls for a “no fly zone” to “protect civilians.” It’s important the US “engage” in the Middle East as it “reasserts itself” on “the world stage,” and backs up “diplomacy” with “military muscle.” While Russia "expand...
Episode 69: The Rise of the Inexplicable Republican Best Friend
March 13, 2019 15:12 - 37 minutes - 43.2 MBIt’s a trope that dates back more than a decade, but the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has seen a recent resurgence in the liberal’s “Inexplicable Republican Best Friend,” a specific genre of concern trolling where a long-time Republican operative, politician or pundit offers supposedly well-intentioned “advice” to Democrats about how they can win elections, which always relies on avoiding veering “too far left.” These takes––frequently featured as earnest a...
Episode 68 - A New Gun Control Debate: Dismantling Our Racist 'Lock 'Em Up' Approach
March 06, 2019 17:30 - 1 hour - 70.7 MBAn uptick in mass shootings over the past decade - one that is well documented and indisputable - has provided the cultural and media context for a corollary effort by big city mayors and certain states to push for harsher, more severe gun laws. This response to these national tragedies is understandable: curb gun possession at all costs. But what if, in this rush to respond to the carnage, states and cities, backed by billionaire funding from the likes of Mike Bloomberg, are simply helpin...
News Brief: Let's Relitigate the Sh*t Out of 2016 -- with Thomas Frank
February 28, 2019 20:04 - 38 minutes - 44.3 MBIn this public News Brief we review the media coverage of Sanders and Clinton in 2016 and how this past is being written and rewritten to set the narrative for 2020. (1000 apologies for the edited swear word, iTunes doesn't allow you to say bad words in show titles).
Episode 67: The Gate-Keeping, Power-Serving Tautology of “Electability”
February 27, 2019 16:26 - 55 minutes - 63.9 MB“How to Choose the Most Electable Democrat in 2020,” advises Politico. “Amy Klobuchar's best argument for 2020: Electability,” CNN reports. “Is Electability The Only Thing That Democratic Voters Want?” WGBH, the Boston NPR affiliate, wonders. These articles, all from a one-week stretch this February, speak to a prevailing compulsion in our politics, boosted by our media. Time and again we hear about the primacy of “electability,” a nebulous but self-evidently important criteria, when selec...
Episode 66: Whataboutism - The Media's Favorite Rhetorical Shield Against Criticism of US Policy
February 20, 2019 14:50 - 59 minutes - 68.2 MBSince the beginning of what’s generally called ‘RussiaGate’ three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of “whataboutism” – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers’ hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, “you, also” - fallacy, but with a unique Slavic flavor of nihilism, used by Trump and leftists alike in...
Episode 65: How Empire Uses ‘Feminist’ Branding to Sell War and Occupation
February 06, 2019 17:31 - 1 hour - 94 MBSince the dawn of the American Empire, thin moral pretexts in our politics and press have been used to justify our wars and conquest. The invasion of Cuba and Philippines in 1898 was declared to be a fight for freedom from Spanish oppression. Vietnam was about stopping Communist tyranny. T he pioneer myth of Manifest Destiny and “westward expansion” was built about “taming” and “civilizing’ the land from violent savages. But one current that flows through all of these imperial incursions h...
Episode 64: Mike Rowe’s Koch-Backed Working Man Affectation
January 30, 2019 17:09 - 1 hour - 77.8 MBIn recent years, television personality Mike Rowe has amassed a wildly popular following due to alleged working-class straight talk about topics ranging from the affordability of college to reasserting a culture of pride in craftsmanship and labor. From his 5.2 million Facebook followers to his cable programs, his everyman schtick, on its surface, can be very appealing: after all, who doesn’t love a hard day’s work and loathe detached, ivory tower eggheads? But hiding under his superficial...
Episode 63: Gambling and Neoliberal Rot - How Our Most Regressive Tax Flies Under the Radar
January 23, 2019 16:03 - 1 hour - 77.1 MBAs more and more states turn to casinos and lotteries to ‘fill the gap” in 'falling' state budgets, the predatory and regressive nature of gambling as an alternative to increasing taxes on the rich avoids nearly any media scrutiny among centrists and liberals. Even the Left has mostly ignored the issue––ceding criticism of our most regressive tax to the Christian Right, who largely oppose gambling for all the wrong reasons. In this episode, we explore how lotteries and casinos have come to...
Episode 62: Sanitizing Our Settler-Colonial Past With ‘Nation of Immigrants’ Narratives
January 16, 2019 15:36 - 49 minutes - 56.4 MB“The United States is a nation of immigrants.” It’s a phrase we hear constantly – often said with the best of intentions and, in today’s increasingly cruel environment, meant as a strong rebuke of Donald Trump and his white nationalist administration. The metaphor of the “melting pot” serves a similar purpose: the United States is strong and noble because we are a place that takes people in from across the globe, an inclusive, welcoming, compassionate in-gathering of humanity - e pluribus ...
Episode 61: What The Hell Is Wrong With MSNBC, Part II -- A Rebuttal
January 09, 2019 17:23 - 57 minutes - 65.2 MBIn Ep. 34: 'What The Hell Is Wrong With MSNBC', we discussed with our anonymous MSNBC informant, well, what the hell was wrong with MSNBC? Why do they routinely focused on inane horserace and RussiaGate fear-mongering over objectively important topics like climate change, the destruction of Yemen, and worker strikes? One listener, former MSNBC host and current MSNBC contributor, Touré thought our episode was lacking in significant context and, in many ways, unfair. So we invited him on to ...
Episode 60: Kitten Rescues, Lip-Syncing & Christmas Traffic Stops - Your Guide to Clickbait Copaganda
December 12, 2018 16:13 - 48 minutes - 55.8 MBThe media – local and national, print and TV – love puff pieces designed to make the police look good and generally improve their overall brand with the public. More often than not, these human interest stories are typically fed to local news by the police themselves. This type of pseudo-journalism is most transparent in its most overly saccharin iteration, something we like to call clickbait copaganda. Stories involving noble patrolmen rescuing cats from car engines, helping little Jimmy ...
Episode 59: National Pastimes: Mindless Militarism in American Sports
December 05, 2018 16:25 - 57 minutes - 65.8 MBF-22 flyovers, 160-foot flags draped across the playing field, full color guards, camouflage uniforms, The Star-Spangled Banner, God Bless America, Support The Troops Nights, special perks for vets. What is the origin of the runaway military worship so ingrained in our sports? How did our professional baseball and football leagues become so infused to our military state and what can fans of these sports do to deconstruct and pushback against the forces of jingoism and military fetishizing?...
Episode 58: The Neoliberal Optimism Industry
November 28, 2018 16:10 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBWe're told the world is getting better all the time. In January, The New York Times' Nick Kristof explained "Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History." The same month, Harvard professor and Bill Gates' favorite optimist Steven Pinker lamented (in a special edition of Time magazine guest edited by - who else? - Bill Gates) the “bad habits of media... bring out the worst in human cognition”. By focusing so much on negative things, the theory goes, we are tricked into thinking things are get...
News Brief: Consumer Society and the Curation of Culture
November 21, 2018 17:35 - 40 minutes - 46.1 MBFocus groups have long-been derided by the left, right, and center for watering down culture and reducing creative and political endeavors to dull, show-of-hand reductionism. But what if focus groups – which first arose from socialist experiments in 1920s Vienna – are not inherently bad? What if they've simply been exploited by the capitalist class and could, potentially, have much to offer a left-wing, democratic vision of the world? We are joined by author and professor Liza Feathersto...
Episode 57: A Matter of Survival - Trivializing Trans Rights as a Boutique “Identity” Issue
November 14, 2018 15:46 - 54 minutes - 62.6 MBIn the wake of the 2016 election, many conservatives, liberals, and - unfortunately - even some on the left pointed to Democrats' reliance on so-called "identity politics" to explain Donald Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton. One of the most popular manifestations of this sentiment was the controversy surrounding bathrooms and transgender rights. The general theory was that some unspecified cohort of voters, outraged by the oppressive nature of trans politics, responded by voting f...
Episode 56: How The Media Learned to Worry About War Without Ever Opposing It
November 07, 2018 14:28 - 1 hour - 84 MB“Bush didn’t send enough Troops.” “Trump needs authorization from Congress before launching a war.” “Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories are not helpful.” We hear these liberal objections to war and occupation all the time. On the surface, they sound opposed to injustice—and maybe sometimes are—but what if, more often than not, they nitpick process, protocol, and procedure without ever offering substantive, existential critiques of American war-making a...
Episode 55: Jake Tapper and the Art of Faux-Adversarialism
October 31, 2018 15:39 - 1 hour - 72.5 MBJake Tapper’s career trajectory is an object lesson in how to succeed in corporate media. The formula generally goes like this: go after the fringes of the left and the right––but mostly the left. Never offend any traditional centers of power. Mug. Constantly mug for the camera. Hitch your brand to “The Troops” And-always, always––attack from the neoconservative right. As previously discussed in our John McCain News Brief, the issue with John McCain was less so about the man himself ...
Episode 54: Local 'Crime' Reporting as Police Stenography
October 17, 2018 15:55 - 1 hour - 71.5 MB"The suspect fled on foot, police said. Call this number if you have any information." "The incident took place at the 1200 block of Grove." "Police say." "Police sources are telling us." "Suspect is thought to be armed and dangerous." We’ve all heard this type of Official Copspeak before. The local press dutifully informs us about "suspects" and "gang members" and "burglars." They're infiltrating our neighborhoods, rampaging through our streets, climbing in our windows. The police, of cou...
Episode 53: The Increasingly Dull Edge of 'Hypocrisy' Takedowns
October 10, 2018 14:46 - 50 minutes - 57.4 MBTrump says he opposed the war in Iraq, but in fact said he supported it in an obscure interview in 2004. McCain was for the tax cuts before he was against them. Republicans say they’re Christians, yet support a philandering liar. Hypocrisy takedowns – which reached peak popularity during the heyday of The Daily Show – have been the bread and butter of liberal discourse for years. Gawker founder Nick Denton famously said that “Hypocrisy was the only modern sin”––doctrine-driven ideologies h...
Episode 52: Attacks on Affirmative Action and the Commodification of Diversity
October 03, 2018 14:56 - 1 hour - 79.5 MB"Diversity" is a simultaneously important and buzzword-y term beloved by the media, corporations, real estate agents and elite universities. It’s something to strive for and take pride in, a symbol of inclusion and tolerance. While diversity is a noble feature – and something all large systems should strive for – it originally was not supposed to be an ends in-and-of-itself. Diversity, in this vein, has morphed under capitalism into a PR industry, supplanting notions of equity, decolonizat...
Episode 51: How 'The West Wing' Poisoned the Liberal Mind
September 26, 2018 15:53 - 57 minutes - 65.7 MBPost-Cold War liberal chauvinism knew no better ideological conduit than the hit NBC series The West Wing. Foreign policy was imperial, staffers were self-satisfied, and Serious Democrats fended off radical leftists and made the Tough Choices needed to run a benevolent superpower. The West Wing, created and primarily written by Aaron Sorkin, heavily influenced the politics of dozens of high-status Obama-era liberals. By their own admission, we know it had among its superfans Obama st...
Episode 50: Anti-Imperialism and MSNBC-Approved Socialism
September 19, 2018 15:37 - 1 hour - 82.6 MBWith recent primary election wins by candidates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, James Thompson, Julia Salazar and others, the terms “socialist” and “democratic socialist” are everywhere. Media outlets across the political spectrum - from The Washington Post andBusiness Insider to NPR and MSNBC to Jacobin - have rushed to publish explainer articles, demystifying the tenets of socialism and its variations for a mass American audience. But one thing missing from the bulk of thes...
Episode 49: Shifting Media Representations of Abortion (Part II)
September 12, 2018 14:55 - 46 minutes - 53 MBIn the mid-1990s there was a rhetorical and cultural shift on the issue of abortion, namely the result of anti-abortion activists successfully introducing the term "partial birth abortion" into both the media and cultural lexicon. Major Democrats conceded the language, along with the moral high ground, to the extremist right-wing. They hammered home the message that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare" - signaling that abortion was something to be ashamed of, a barely tolerable abomi...
Episode 48: Shifting Media Representations of Abortion (Part I)
September 05, 2018 15:16 - 48 minutes - 56 MBFrom the shame-inducing “safe, legal and rare” framing of the 1990s to normalizing efforts like the #ShoutYourAbortion campaign and an uptick in abortion plot lines in mainstream television, dialogue surrounding abortion has shifted in recent years from one of apologism and soft-pedaling to a more frank, straightforward approach. These efforts, largely animated by Republican attacks on reproductive health since the Tea Party wave of 2010, seek to take back the moral high ground on an issue D...
News Brief: Don't Let the Media Erase McCain's Far Right Legacy
August 26, 2018 01:31 - 18 minutes - 15.6 MBThere must be an account for the thousands of dead Arabs and Asians McCain helped create. On this News Brief we attempt to do that.
Episode 47: American Magnanimity - Spinning Crimes Against Humanity as Benevolence
August 08, 2018 17:24 - 49 minutes - 56.5 MBSince there's been America, there have been American war crimes, and since there have been American war crimes, there's been a parallel cottage industry of hacks, shills and propagandists willing to not only apologize for, deny and downplay these crimes, but actually spin them as benevolent charity. While Karl Rove mastered the art of taking a politician's weakness and projecting it onto one’s opponent, the American political and media class has mastered the art of taking the most blatant ...
Episode 46: The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire, Part II - Bill Gates in Africa
August 01, 2018 17:02 - 54 minutes - 75.4 MBRussia, as we all know, has sinister “oligarchs” whereas in the United States, we are told, we have “philanthropists,” “job creators,” and “titans of industry” who earn their wealth through hard work, moxie, and guile. Aside from a few cartoonishly evil billionaires – like the Walton family, Peter Thiel, and the Koch brothers – the average American has a warm and fuzzy feeling about the super wealthy. The most notable of these Benevolent Billionaires is Bill Gates, whose foundation, The Bi...
Episode 45: The Not-So-Benevolent Billionaire: Bill Gates and Western Media
July 25, 2018 14:45 - 1 hour - 95.3 MBRussia, as we all know, has sinister “oligarchs” whereas in the United States, we are told, we have “philanthropists,” “job creators,” and “titans of industry” who earn their wealth through hard work, moxie, and guile. Aside from a few cartoonishly evil billionaires – like the Walton family, Peter Thiel, and the Koch brothers – the average American has a warm and fuzzy feeling about the super wealthy. The most notable of these Benevolent Billionaires is Bill Gates, whose foundation, The B...
Episode 44: RussiaGate, Year 3 - Using the Nonstop Specter of Russia to Tarnish Black Activists
July 18, 2018 15:16 - 51 minutes - 68.2 MBFor over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called “deep state.” Liberals have been turned into even more extreme hawks, not just on the issue of Russia, bu...
Episode 43: RussiaGate Year 3 -- How Liberals' Martial Posture Harms the Left
July 11, 2018 14:59 - 49 minutes - 67.7 MBFor over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called “deep state.” Liberals have been turned into even more extreme hawks, not just on the issue of Russia, bu...
Episode 42: 'Populism' - The Media’s Favorite Catch-All Smear for the Left
June 27, 2018 19:40 - 1 hour - 81.3 MBWith the rise of Trump, Sanders, Corbyn and Brexit, hundreds of pundits, reporters, and talking heads have been warning about the problems of "populism" and its alleged attack on democracy over the past three years. “Populism and immigration pose major threat to global democracy,” the Gates Foundation insists. “The Dangerous Rise of Populism - Global Attacks on Human Rights Values,“ wrote Human Rights Watch in 2017. “Trump's Rise Proves How Dangerous Populism Is for Democracy” NBC say...
Episode 41: The Moral Poverty of Capitalist Healthcare Framing
June 20, 2018 15:45 - 58 minutes - 74.9 MBHealthcare marketplaces,” “private insurers competing for your business” “insurance subsidies,” For years, Democrats bet big on framing the healthcare debate using technocratic, capitalist terms––they weren’t going to radically change the system of healthcare, simply accent the existing private insurance-based model making things “smarter,” “easier,” more “tech-driven.” As the Affordable Care Act faces continued right-wing attacks and liberal-leaning activists increasingly look to single-p...
Episode 40: The Civility Fetish
June 13, 2018 16:18 - 53 minutes - 42.2 MBThey’re not lies, they’re “falsehoods”; it’s not racism, it’s “racially charged comments”; it’s not torture, it’s “enhanced interrogation.” For years, U.S. media has prioritized, above all else, norms and civility. Mean words or questioning motives are signs of declining civility and the subject of much lament from our media class. However, op-eds explicitly advocating war, invasion, sanctions, sabotage, bombing and occupation or cutting vital programs and lifelines for the poor are just t...
Episode 39: From Cradle to Courtroom: How The Media Stacks the Deck Against “Defendants”
June 06, 2018 15:26 - 1 hour - 62.1 MBThe United States, far and away, has the largest prison population in the world. It also has one of the greatest disparities in their prison population of ethnic minorities in the world. How does a country that prides itself on being a “beacon of freedom” and whose leaders travel the world scolding other countries on “human rights” find itself to be the largest carceral state of the 21st century? What are the cultural forces that reinforce racist attitudes, deference to the police and pro...