Citations Needed is a podcast about the intersection of media, PR, and power, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson.
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Episode 80: Animal Rights as Media and Pop Culture Punchline
In 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 press––including leading left-of-center media MSNBC, The Nation, and Jacobin––ignore the issue entirely. But what if the subject is worth a second look? And, what if our general cultural dislike of vegans is based not on objective experience but a cheap stereotype that allows for in-group signaling, permitting us, above all, to not ask or answer uncomfortable questions about where animals fit on the left. We are joined by author and professor Dr. Lori Gruen and decolonial theorist Aph Ko.
Episode 79: How 'Neutral' 'Experts' Took Over Trump's Iran Policy
“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 reporting on Iran, experts, analysts, scholars and Fellows are consistently tapped to weigh in on the latest nefarious thing the "Islamic Republic” is up to now. But who are these so-called experts? What’s their track record like and what are their tangential, non-Iranian, related regional political goals? And what does a recent partnership between the Trump State Department and Foundation for Defense of Democracies that targets peace activists on social media tell us about the broader problem of so-called neutral experts? On today’s episode, we’ll dig into some of the resumes of the media’s favorite experticians and breakdown how a revolving door of deeply ideological partisans use US media to pawn themselves off as apolitical scholars. We are joined today by journalist and editor Arash Karami.
Episode 78: The Militarization of U.S. Media's Drug Coverage
Since 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 challenging it. “Drug stories,” with rare exception, fall under the “crime” reporting rubric rather than being seen as stories to be covered by reporters familiar with the actual science of drugs and addiction - skirting empiricism for police stenography and cartoon narratives replete with good guys and bad guys. The result: a feedback loop of a police and federal government determined to keep the War on Drugs in their domain, shaping a media narrative that manufactures and manipulates the public’s and lawmakers’ perception of drugs and drug-related crime. But what if there’s another way? Increasingly, public health advocates and journalists have been pushing back, trying to demilitarize not just the public approach to drugs but how they’re covered in the media. On this episode, we explore how we got to this point––where drugs are viewed as an enemy force to be combated with violence and prisons––and highlight ways people are trying to fundamentally rewire the way we talk about the problems of drugs and addiction. With guest Zachary Siegel, Journalism Fellow at Northeastern University’s Health in Justice Action Lab.
Episode 77: Frugality Fables and the Poor-Shaming Grift of Financial Advice Journalism
“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 the credulous, this genre has a distinct ideological purpose: to obscure generational poverty, largely brought on by the legacy of racism and Jim Crow, and make being poor the result of a series of moral failings rather than a deliberate political regime decided on by powerful actors. This week, we explore the “personal finance” media industry and the corollary, so-called FIRE movement—and how their poor shaming, libertarian ethos has increasingly seeped into our mainstream click-happy online press. Our guest is writer and editor Miles Howard.
Episode 76: The Anti-War Rebranding of Rhodes and Power and the Moral Hazard of Faux Mea Culpas
In 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 their role in an administration that turned Libya into a broken state and assisted the destruction of Yemen before they move on to positioning themselves as truth-tellers on behalf of a kinder, gentler machine gun hand in the run up to a potential Warren, Sanders or Harris administration, Rhodes and Power have tested the limits of liberal amnesia. On this episode, we take a closer look at their rebranding and what it says about the so-called “foreign policy” debate in the 2020 democratic primary and what actual accountability looks like beyond empty tweets and self-serving “I was trying to change things from the inside” revisionism. Our guest is Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi of Michigan State University.
News Brief: The #Bronx120 and Preet Bharara's Woke Rebranding
In 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'
“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 mock “Florida Man”? On this total buzzkill episode, we dissect the anti-poor, mental health-shaming subtext that animates the Florida Man meme and how it too often serves as little more than a socially acceptable way to mock the marginalized and indigent. We are joined by Florida organizer Michelle Bruder.
Episode 74: Liberal Gandhi Fetishism and the Problem with Pop Notions of 'Violence'
"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 occupation and fascism - that’s always to be avoided, condemned and renounced. It must be rejected, our press and politicians declare, in favor of non-violence, so-called "peaceful protests" and the democratic process. But in popular discourse, discussions of violence aren’t really about violence; rather, they’re about sanctioned versus unsanctioned violence. The routine violence of poverty, racist policing, militarism is never called "violence"–––it's just the way things are, a law of nature, the price of "stability". But unsanctioned violence, namely that carried out by activists, non or sub-state actors, and those generally distant from the halls of power, causes outrage without any coherent criteria for this indignation. On this episode, we discuss how what is and isn't deemed "violence" by our media is largely a function of proximity to power and whether those actions challenge or serve the interests of the status quo. We are joined by journalist and author Natasha Lennard.
Episode 73: Western Media’s Narrow, Colonial Definition of "Corruption"
"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 definition of corruption is the geopolitical equivalent of complaining about “black on black” crime. True in a limited, technical sense but, in practice, often functions as a victim-blaming red herring meant to avoid uncomfortable discussions of white supremacy, deliberate economic dispossession and a far greater global regime of corruption leveled by the super-wealthy. This episode examines the extraction of trillions annually from the global South in illicit transfers of money through the exploitation of tax shelters, so-called "hot money", interests on exploitative IMF loans, trade misinvoicing and a host of other routine and totally unscrutinized financial schemes. We are joined today by anthropologist and author Jason Hickel.
Episode 72: John Stossel: Libertarian Billionaires' Inside Man
Though 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 his peak libertarian phase on 20/20, the ABC News program was frequently a Top 20 show, with an average of 13 million viewers an episode. Through his “Give Me A Break” segments and other high-profile special reports, Stossel – without challenge or balance – spread endless well-worn libertarian scare stories on topics ranging from teachers’ unions to the EPA to anti-tobacco regulators to minimum wage to Black civil rights activists, nut-picking the most fringe elements while building stories on anecdotal, fraudulent data and a black hole of libertarian sourcing. On this episode, we trace today’s neoliberal, far-right toxic media back to Stossel’s brand of mainstream-laundered, libertarian “contrarianism.” We are joined by Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).
Episode 71: Laundering Imperial Violence Through Anodyne Foreign Policy-Speak (Part II)
Kinetic 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 discuss what’s really being said (and what’s always left out) when the media uses banal phrases meant to mask military violence. Our guest is FAIR's Janine Jackson.
Episode 70: Laundering Imperial Violence Through Anodyne Foreign Policy-Speak (Part I)
Barack 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 "expands" its naval and nuclear capacity the US merely “modernizes” its fleet or stockpile. “All options are on the table” when discussing Venezuela and Iran. So much of how we discuss US militarism and imperialism is laundered through seemingly anodyne phrases, rhetorical thingamajigs that vaguely gesture towards an idea without drawing up unseemly images of what’s really being called for. In this two-part episode, we examine what’s being said, what’s being left out when we use “foreign policy-speak,” and how writers can avoid these lazy euphemisms, and instead make a concerted effort to objectively describe the policy being advocated for rather than relying on well-worn thought-terminating cliches that are designed to do all of our thinking for us. Our guest is FAIR's Janine Jackson.
Episode 69: The Rise of the Inexplicable Republican Best Friend
It’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 appeals in liberal and centrist outlets––are ostensibly framed as straight-talk advice that should be accepted as objectively in the Democrats’ best interest, and never presented as an ideological argument that would otherwise make sense coming from a right-winger. “Republican hates socialism” isn’t that newsworthy, whereas “GOP operative identifies Democrats’ best interests" somehow is. As with most ideological scams, it only travels in one direction: leftward. One seldom hears liberals or leftists give “advice” to Republicans about they ought to do to win. But somehow the inverse isn’t true. Anti-choice, climate change denying, racist, rape apologist, warmongering, overpaid mercenary GOP “strategists” are treated like objective, neutral voices simply looking out for the best interests of the people and institutions they’ve spent their entire careers trying to destroy. We are joined by Huffington Post senior reporter Ashley Feinberg.
Episode 68 - A New Gun Control Debate: Dismantling Our Racist 'Lock 'Em Up' Approach
An 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 helping feed mass incarceration by turning to the all-familiar carceral approach to public safety issues? This week, we explore the centering of white, establishment, moneyed interests in the media's gun control debate, a debate that more often than not focuses disproportionately on enacting longer, more severe prison sentences that uniformly criminalize Black and Latino youth, rather than directing resources to non-carceral solutions like targeting gun manufactures and anti-poverty programs. We are joined by Dan Denvir, host of Jacobin’s The Dig podcast, and Sharone Mitchell, Jr., Deputy Director of the Illinois Justice Project.
News Brief: Let's Relitigate the Sh*t Out of 2016 -- with Thomas Frank
In 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).