In this episode, we detail the vague, baseless racism-sowing media coverage and pop culture obsession with so-called "sleeper cells," a construction that has consumed post-9/11 America but suffers from one major problem: there's no evidence it exists.
This is a live recording between Nima and Adam at the Word is Change Bookstore May 7, 2026. In this conversation, we discuss key findings that can be found in Adam's new book, How to Sell a Genocide: The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza.
In this News Brief, we talk with Miranda Banks and Kate Fortmueller, authors of the new book Boom to Bust: How Streaming Broke Hollywood Workers, about rising inequality and precarity in Hollywood, studio consolidation, and how the dream of fame and fortune, 100 years on, is still used to concentrate power and drive down wages.
In this News Brief, we talk with A. J. Bauer, assistant professor at the University of Alabama, about his new book," Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press". In our discussion we break down the corporate and ideological forces that shaped the popular idea mainstream media was crawling with fifth columnist agitators hostile to the values of Real America.
In this episode, we break down the long history of US media reducing recalcitrant populations' grievances to "terrorism," "hate," and "radicalism" in urgent need of re-education. With guest Prem Thakker.
In this episode we discuss how privatization was rebranded 'Public-Private Partnerships' and unleashed decades of raiding of the public coffers by Wall Street. With guest Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest.
In this News Brief we examine CNN, the Atlantic, Washington Post and NYT's blatant 'human shields' double standard as reports emerge of US troops hiding from Iranian attacks in civilian infrastructure.
In this News Brief, we discuss a recent poll showing 70% of Americans are fundamentally wrong about the nature of Iran's "nuclear program"—including 1 in 4 who think Iran currently possesses a nuclear weapon, and detail how decades of sleazy media innuendo and fabrications got us to this point.
In this episode, we explore how arbitrary—often unilateral—sanctions against Enemy States are given the halo of international legal legitimacy with a combination of lies, slippery language and brainless court stenography. With guest Maryam Jamshidi, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Colorado School of Law.
In this News Brief, we are joined by Chenjerai Kumanyika and Todd Wolfson of the American Association of University Professors to discuss Trump's gutting of higher education, its expansion on previous neoliberal privatization efforts, and how big donor and media backlash against "woke "academics and anti-Gaza genocide protestors is fueling the possible end of academic independence as we know it.
In this episode, we examine our political class' TikTok neurosis, how Gaza fueled its sell to US and Israeli military contractors, and the long history of elite panics around unsanctioned information flows. With guest Omar Zahzah.
In this News Brief, we detail the fundamental problems with Senate Democrats' cosmetic reforms, the strategy of letting outrage blow over and the conspicuous absence of any proposal that touches ICE's obscene budget.
In this episode, we examine how billionaires and corporations threatening capital strikes and capital flight to discipline populist politicians and movements is treated as normal, obvious, and healthy by US media.
In this News Brief, we break down Dem leadership's fatuous "body cam" and "training" response to ICE brutality, and how organizers in the Twin Cities are not settling for cosmetic reform. With guest Janette Corcelius.
In this News Brief, we discuss mainstream media coverage of ongoing protests across Iran and how nearly every major Western outlet has been uncritically framing any potential regime change plans by the US government—including Trump ordering a military attack on the country—as being motivated primarily, if not solely, by concern for the lives, safety and rights of demonstrators.
In this News Brief, we detail how CBS, Fox, WSJ, and NYT promoted an essentialized, overblown narrative on the "Somali Minnesota fraud" story, teeing up a full blown rightwing incitement campaign against Minneapolis's immigrant communities.
In this episode, we discuss the uses and misuses of liberal standpoint theory to promote US meddling, sanctions, and bombing. With guest Vincent Bevins.
In this News Brief, we interview journalist Daniel Trilling and discuss his investigation into the BBC's systemic anti-Palestinian bias.
In this episode, we detail the buyers' market for superficial Gaza critiques that permit ambitious Democrats to look pro-Palestine without the downside of actually being so. With guest Tariq Kenney-Shawa.
In this episode, we detail recent attempts by former Biden officials to rewrite history and absolve themselves of responsibility for the horrors of Gaza, and lay out the emerging Dem-aligned media industry of vibing past Democrats' lockstep support for genocide.
In this Live Show Beg-a-Thon from 10/13, we are joined by Justin Feldman to discuss the rise of MAHA, the broader Granola-to-Fascist Pipeline and how corporate-written food policies and our shitty for-profit medical system fuel hucksterism.
In this News Brief, we detail how the AP, Atlantic, Washington Post and New York Times are accepting Trump's framing that his attacks on Venezuela and Colombia are about "going after drug cartels" when it's clear they are—based on Trump's own words—about controlling Venezuela's oil.
In this News Brief, we are joined by Matthew Cunningham-Cook to discuss his recent media analysis of "embedded reports" of ICE raids that prime the public for brutal crackdowns on undocumented immigrants.
In this News Brie, we detail the major factions seeking to rewrite the history of the 2024 election as "woke" Gone Too Far, downplay Gaza, and prevent economic populism at all costs.
Please join us Monday, Oct 13 for a Beg-A-Thon live show @ 9:30ET/8:30CT! We will be joined by Justin Feldman to discuss the rise of MAHA, the broader Granola-to-Fascist Pipeline and how corporate-written food policies and our horrible, for-profit medical system fuel hucksterism.
In this episode we detail the rise of detached "who's winning and who's losing" political analyses that reduces high stakes life and death issues to fodder for ESPN-style navel-gazing. With guest Jack Mirkinson.
In Ep 228, "Billionaires as Insta-Experts: How Our Media Conflates Extreme Wealth with Expertise," we break down the media convention of assuming the rich are per se experts on everything from education to "the economy" to poverty in Africa when, in reality, they are Just Some Guys. With guest Rob Larson.
In this News Brief, we detail recent "updates," "clarifications" and "added context" pro-Israel crybullies have pressured Western media outlets to make (some more willingly than others) that give readers the distinct impression emaciated children in Gaza aren't really an urgent humanitarian crisis if they have rickets, cancer, or cerebral palsy. With guest Beatrice Adler-Bolton.
"Exclusive Look at Life in War-Ravaged Gaza," reads the title for a CNN interview with correspondent Clarissa Ward. "'It's a Killing Field': IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid," report Yaniv Kubovich and Bar Peleg for Ha'aretz. "I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It," argues Omer Bartov in The New York Times. These stories have something in common: they're vital pieces of journalism about Gaza, or Palestine more broadly, published ...
"12 UN Relief Works Agency staff members are accused of involvement in Hamas' attack against Israel," reports NPR. "Details Emerge on U.N. Workers Accused of Aiding Hamas Raid," announces The New York Times . "Hamas Military Compound Found Beneath U.N. Agency Headquarters in Gaza," claims The Wall Street Journal . In January 2024—literally on the same day the International Court of Justice deemed Israel was committing "plausible genocide"—a number of sensationalistic headlines broke across U.S. ...
