"Lotteryism" is the use of the media by large corporations to obscure solidarity in favor of morality tales of “making it”. It’s the atomization of parties of mutual interest by lording over them the promise of something greater than what they could achieve if they simply banded together. Lotteryism is an ideology and a PR operation. Lotteryism, above all, renders us politically impotent. Lotteryism is a scam practiced by large corporations in various iterations to extract resources from local g...
Dec 13, 2017•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we dive into the Fake News hole with Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, New York Times best selling author, and activist Chris Hedges. Since Hillary Clinton's surprise 2016 loss to Donald Trump, there have been thousands of articles, columns, and op-eds lamenting the rise of so-called “fake news” and its pernicious effect on our democracy. The definition of what exactly "fake news" is has never quite been made clear - yet this hasn’t stopped major corporate media outlets and eve...
Dec 06, 2017•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Over 15,000 civilians dead and almost a million reported cases of cholera. 17 million people unsure of where their next meal will come from, including 7 million on the brink of starvation. Nearly 3 million people internally displaced. Hunger, disease, and bombs. That's what the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have wrought on Yemen. After almost three years of wanton destruction by U.S.-supported Saudi bombing campaigns and, most recently, a total land, air and sea blockade, the vast majorit...
Nov 29, 2017•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this News Brief Nima and Adam catch up with the latest from the #J20 trial, how the media shaped coverage early in favor of the state, and the racist roots of criminalizing protest. With guest Sam Adler-Bell. “It’s a Police State Mentality” — J20 and the Racist Origins of Criminalizing Protest | Sam Adler-Bell | November 13, 2017 | Mask Magazine http://www.maskmagazine.com/the-organized-issue/struggle/j20-racist-origins-of-criminalizing-protest...
Nov 22, 2017•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Editorial boards are the establishment voice from above, handing out decrees of moral and political import behind an anonymous byline. Major papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post have an Official Position and it's important that Important People hear the Official Important Position. But of what use is this 19th century artifact? Whose interest does it serve and why does it even still exist? On today's show we attempt to answer these questions and more with guests Janine Jackson ...
Nov 15, 2017•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Real Estate sections are mostly breezy, fun profiles of the super rich buying up houses and remodeling the ones they already own. Harmless escapist fun? Maybe. But how we write about real estate reveals casually racist and colonial attitudes that are rarely, if ever, examined. In this episode we talk about why the way we talk about the real estate industry matters and how the white civilizing mission never went away. With guest Aaron Cantú....
Nov 08, 2017•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast We are told time and again from Republicans and nominal liberals alike that Iran desperately wants to acquire nuclear weapons, was "racing toward the bomb" before the implementation of the multilateral Iran Deal - officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and was merely months away from holding the world hostage with a nuclear arsenal before being stopped by diplomacy, aided by "crippling sanctions." The core axioms of this narrative are never really challenged, even by...
Nov 01, 2017•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast "Stumbling", "sliding", "drawn into" war––the media frequently assumes the US is bumbling its way around the world. The idea that the United States operates in “good faith” is taken for granted for most of the American press while war is always portrayed as something that happens to the US, not something it seeks out. On this episode, Adam and Nima explore the media's commitment to the narrative of "United States as reluctant warrior," whose leadership and decision-making always has the "best in...
Oct 25, 2017•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the mid-2000’s, a specific breed of liberalism has emerged broadly called “New Atheism”. While the movement is hardly a monolith, it has at its core features of liberal chauvinism, anti-"political correctness", “science”, secularism, and a general deference to U.S. foreign policy consensus. It’s biggest champions, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Maajid Nawaz, Bill Maher and the late Christopher Hitchens were and are major features in mainstream discourse–from television shows on HBO to major ...
Oct 11, 2017•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast If broad government programs are so popular why don’t we just vote them into existence? One of the primary barriers to democratic socialism--or spending in general--is racist media coverage and racist attitudes about how government programs are administered. In this episode we explore how media-fueled racism and means-tested nickel-and-diming makes radical change that much more difficult. With guests Sean McElwee and Noel Cazenave.
Oct 04, 2017•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast The idea that we’re “running out of money” and have to “tighten our belts" is a common trope in US media; the premise that the US government is like a household that must balance its books, largely taken for granted by liberal and right-wing outlets alike. But is this premise correct? Is it true that the United States is over-budget and ready to explode with insolvency? Where does this conventional wisdom come from and whom does it benefit? On this and next week's show we seek to answer some of ...
Sep 27, 2017•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast “Insane”, “crazy”, “totally fucking nuts”–Trump’s mental capacity is the subject of much speculation, joke-making, and earnest concern. But how should the subject be approached by the media? On this week’s show we explore the ethics of diagnosing mental health from afar, the conflation of mental health issues with moral turpitude, the negative effects of the media’s nonstop stigmatizing of “insanity” and how to balance all of the above in the face of the unique threat of Trump. With guests s.e. ...
Sep 20, 2017•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast The #Resistance warms up to rightwing ghouls David Frum and Evan McMullin while ignoring anti-Trump protesters facing 80 years in federal prison. With guest Sam Menefee-Libey.
Sep 13, 2017•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast We discuss the cynical use of "human rights" to advance US interests with guest Glenn Greenwald. The conceit that the U.S. has been a dedicated and earnest promoter of “freedom”, “democracy,” and “human rights” throughout the world — even if, at times, a “flawed” one — is a defining narrative, largely taken for granted by major media. But how accurate is this assumption? What do we mean when we talk about human rights? What abuses are highlighted and which aren’t? Where do labor rights fit into ...
Sep 06, 2017•1 hr 15 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this news brief we discuss the media's fear of covering Harvey in the context of race, class, and the manifest threat of climate change. With guest Katherine Krueger of Splinter News.
Sep 03, 2017•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast In Episode 7 we explore how the media discusses the issue of BDS and the broader topic of Palestinian liberation with guest Steven Salaita.
Aug 23, 2017•1 hr 12 min•Transcript available on Metacast We discuss the virtue of defending lofty free speech ideals in the Trump era with our guest George Ciccariello.
Aug 15, 2017•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In Episode 06 we explore how the media both consciously and subconsciously works to smear black victims, protect the police, and works overtime to ameliorate the sensibilities of white media consumers with our guest Dr. Jared A. Ball. The white supremacist regime at work in the media can be broken down into three main narrative devices: 1) The use of language to downplay state violence and assert false parity 2) The uncritical dissemination of exaggerated or made up threats to police to turn the...
Aug 09, 2017•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson recap today's North Korea escalation.
Aug 09, 2017•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast On Episode 5, we explore the history of the media erasing socialists of color from the history books and present day discourse––a tactic that serves to both commodity and water-down black radicalism and pawn off leftwing politics as a uniquely white or middle class enterprise. Our guests: Robert Greene II and Roqayah Chamseddine. Show notes: goo.gl/QPYT7C...
Aug 02, 2017•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast On Episode 04 we talk about a recent New York Times article — and the broader media habit of painting the US as benevolent democracy-seeker and Iran and other Official Enemies as cynical imperialists. In this episode we dissect the true history of what caused chaos in Iraq, who’s to blame and what the real motives were behind the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations designs for the country. All this in the context of a battle for control over remaining ISIS territory in Syria and Washington, Ri...
Jul 26, 2017•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode 03: The Rise of Superpredator 2. Episode 3 is about the media narrative surrounding the rise of so-called “gang raids” that have exploded over the past three years. These high-stakes, headline-grabbing spectacles target, almost exclusively, black and brown people and are carried out by hundreds of local, state, and federal officials with little scrutiny from the media. Our guest: Josmar Trujillo, a Harlem-based organizer, writer, trainer, and agitator. See show notes here: https://medium...
Jul 21, 2017•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the second episode of Citations Needed, Nima and Adam breakdown the history and present "crisis" on the Korean peninsula.
Jul 19, 2017•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first episode of Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson's podcast, Citations Needed, tackles the media hype surrounding the privatization of education. Show notes can be found here: 2010 tax form for Participant Foundation used to fund Waiting for Superman (note: four donors-- Waltons, Eli Broad, Donald Fisher, Dave Einhorn): 990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_ar…06_990PF.pdf Gates $2 million contribution to film web.archive.org/web/2010101600404…C-OPP1019819.aspx Guest Jennifer Berkshire’s blog: ha...
Jul 12, 2017•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
