It's Not You, It's The Media

Featuring journalists Ism’ail Kushkush and Raghdan Orsud. Even as Sudan enters the 4th year of devastating war, media coverage remains abysmal. Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure speak to two Sudanese journalists about why the deadliest conflict in the world has become the the casualty of today’s media attention economy.

Isma’il Kushkush is a journalist who has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta, Guernica, Nieman Reports, Columbia Journalism Review, Smithsonian, The Nation, the Associated Press and others. He was based in Khartoum, Sudan, for eight years, and has been acting bureau chief for the New York Times in East Africa. He was a Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and an Ida B. Wells Fellowship recipient with Type Investigations.

Raghdan Orsud is a digital ecosystems and media development specialist with 15+ years working at the intersection of technology, information integrity, and development programming. She’s built misinformation monitoring systems, designed digital initiatives for public-interest media, and advised organizations operating in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. As Co-founder of Beam Reports, she’s now channeling that expertise into building smarter tools for stronger information ecosystems.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Listen to previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch previous episodes of It’s Not You, It’s The Media here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure speaking with guest Robin Andersen, author of The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. (OR Books, 2025). They discuss why the media framing of October 7th narrative became pivotal to manufacture consent for the genocide in Gaza. Andersen explains that the New York Times, in particular, played an outsize role in framing this October 7th origin story. However, Andersen argues that this has led to the downfall of establishment media since popularity of Israel is at an all time low in the US. They also discuss the current media ecosystem, the need to dismantle existing ways in which journalism is practiced.

Buy the book here: https://orbooks.com/catalog/the-complicit-lens/

“Gaming the Iran war and the Gaza Genocide Syndrome” by Robin Andersen https://mondoweiss.net/2026/03/gaming-the-iran-war-and-the-gaza-genocide-syndrome/

Whether its adoration or demonization, why is the media obsessed with the wives? Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure unpack the ways in which first wives, first ladies or duchesses are always under scrutiny and what this says about our media ecosystem but also about us!

Listen to previous podcast episodes here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch the previous podcast episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Bhakti Shringarpure & Madhuri Sastry unpack the ways in which the "No Kings" protests were anchored in mainstream, white and liberal feminist ideas. They ask why there was no popular interest in protesting genocide in Palestine and analyze the rampant American patriotism on display, the obsession with aesthetics as posters about royalty, crowns and the statue of liberty proliferated. The No Kings protests were mired in a nostalgia for a pre-Trump America thus operating under the delusion that previous American president were not invested in wars, imperials foreign policies and border regimes. The protests lacked any solid agendas to bringing about change and dismantling existing structures of violence.

Listen to previous podcast episodes here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media

Watch the previous podcast episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLstXMEF0r05bhdfv7yCt5V2KXTdK4cO5F

Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry discuss the acute escalation in US-Israeli wars in Lebanon and Iran. The mainstream media barely reports on the shocking death toll and numbers of displaced in Lebanon. Not only is Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon expanding, the Gaza playbook seems to be in full effect with the targeting of civilian infrastructure, hospitals, women and children. In Iran, the war comes at immense material cost for Iranians as the death toll rises. The hosts unpack the ways in which Iran is winning the cultural war through a proliferation of AI & Lego videos that humiliate, shame and heckle US and Israel on the cyber battlefront. These videos are changing the narrative and shifting public opinion by stoking the existing unpopularity of US and Israel on the world stage. However, the abundance of videos, deepfakes, memes and satirical movie trailers creates a fog around what is real and what is not. The question remains: with legacy media being ideologically compromised and the social media flooded with fake videos, where do we turn to for news and information?

Palestinian American activist Nerdeen Kiswani joins Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry to discuss the recent concerns about NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani backtracking on Palestine. In light of Mayor Mamdani’s harsh words about writer Susan Abulhawa and her powerful video response, the fear of betrayal around Palestine looms large, a core issue for the base of supporters that brought him to power.

References

—The Polis Project holds the NYC Mayor accountable with their dossier 100 Days of Zohran: https://100daysofzohran.thepolisproject.com/

—“Here are four ways Zohran Mamdani can end financial support in New York City for Israeli settlements, and he must act soon” by Nerdeen Kiswani: https://mondoweiss.net/2026/01/here-are-four-ways-zohran-mamdani-can-end-financial-support-in-new-york-city-for-israeli-settlements-and-he-must-act-soon/

Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry host a pre-Oscars film club. They admit that there have been lots of surprises in the mainstream blockbuster film industry this year. The discussion focused on films about revolution (One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent and Bugonia), the hyper-emphasis on masculinity and paternity despite some women-centered films (Hamnet and Sentimental Value), what Marty Supreme really stands for, and the sheer power of Sinners. Palestine is at the movies with one nomination for The Voice of Hind Rajab the same year as 4000 film workers have signed a pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions that are complicit in genocide in Palestine. Iran’s Jafar Panahi also has a nominated for his social-realist revenge drama It Was Just An Accident at a moment when US and Israel are devastating the country with strikes. How will the Oscars unfold? Who will win? What do these films and the awards say about our cultural moment at a time when the world is in flux?

Suchitra, Madhuri and Bhakti unpack Western media propaganda about Iran as the war escalates and the death toll mounts in Iran and Lebanon.

Madhuri, Suchitra and Bhakti unpack an apocalyptic week of events and how the media (did not) cover them in an analytical or critical way. Trumps’s State of the Union, BAFTA debacles, Andrew arrested amid more US cover up of Epstein files + Modi’s Islamophobic agenda bolstered with visit to Israel.

Bhakti, Suchitra and Madhuri tackle celebrity activism and activist celebrities: who gets heard, who gets shut down, whether it works, what are its limits and what we need to demand from our celebrities. Can they move the needle on important causes? Or are they too deeply entrenched in the capitalist ruling class?