Project Censored

By Progressive Radio Network

Project Censored episodes

October 06 Project Censored - 10-6-26
This week: the 44th annual Banned Books Week. This week celebrates the right to read and protecting your right to know. This past year the American Library Association, a co-sponsor of Banned Books Week, tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged - in 2025 alone. That's the second highest ever documented, the highest ever was in 2023. In a special one hour episode this week, Mickey speaks with President of the American Library Association Dr. Maria McCauley, and one of the youth honorary chairs, Marshall Romero.

Notes:
Dr. Maria McCauley is the 2026-2027 American Libraries Association President. Maria is Director of Libraries for the City of Cambridge, where she leads 167 dedicated professionals in delivering an inclusive, futurefocused vision of library service for all. Maria previously served as Director of Libraries in Santa Monica, CA and in Somerville and held key leadership roles at Northeastern University.

Marshall Romero is a youth advocate based in Houston, Texas. Their advocacy journey has taken them from local neighborhoods to the Texas Legislature, where they spoke out against harmful policies targeting LGBTQ+ and marginalized students. As someone who sees themself within banned literature, Marshall believes it is critical we are all engaged to abolish book banning in our country.
58 min
September 15 Project Censored - 9-15-26
Eleanor Goldfield and Mickey Huff host this week’s program.

First up, Trumps dictators toolkit and how we got here. Eleanor sits down with journalist, researcher and policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent Chip Gibbons to talk about the NSPM-7, the latest in a long line of attacks on our basic constitutional rights. Chip warns that we should neither look at this as a new phenomenon in US history nor should we be flippant about the severity of Trumps escalation. By looking at history we can contextualize our current moment and understand more of what the government is thinking with regards to our rights, our movements, and our future.

Next up, cohosts Mickey Huff and Eleanor Goldfield sit down to dig into some news that didnt make the news, focusing on attacks on journalists and academic freedom. They outline how Congress is blackmailing universities to swear loyalty to Israel, the myriad attacks on journalists abroad and at home, and how DHS is using a customs law to obtain the private data and correspondence of journalists, non-profits and unions. They also dig into some recently released documents that show how the powers that be were well aware of the toxicity of ground zero after 9/11, but hid it so that Wall Street could re-open.
Notes:
Chip Gibbons is a journalist, researcher and policy director of Defending Rights and Dissent, and he is currently working on a book on the history of FBI political surveillance for Verso books, coming out in February 2027.

the Project Censored Show:
58 min
August 07 The Expat Files - #1519 FRI, AUG 07 (08-07-26)
·  Avoid Facebook expat groups — they create a dependency bubble full of know-it-alls, sellers, and political ranting.

·  WhatsApp is essential in Latin America; without it you’re basically cut off from daily life.

·  Machetes are common and rarely used for crime except crimes of passion.

·  Cleaning staff often salvage useful items from your trash and may open their purses for inspection when leaving.

·  Most toilets are cemented rather than properly bolted to the floor to save time and money.

·  Cheap steel screws rust rapidly in the tropics; stainless steel is rarely used by local contractors.

·  Peruvian flute bands mysteriously appear in every tourist-heavy park around the world selling CDs no one will ever play.

·  Boa constrictors almost never kill people, but venomous snakes still cause several hundred deaths a year in Latin America, especially in rural areas.

Be sure to pick up my newly updated, "2026 - LATIN AMERICAN HEALTHCARE REPORT":

The new edition for 2026 (and beyond) is available now, including the latest "Stem Cell Clinic" info and data and my top picks for the best treatment centers for expats and gringos. Just go to www.ExpatPlanB.com
28 min
July 28 Project Censored Radio Show - July 28, 2026
This week: combating and reframing big tech. First up, I sit down with Ed from DeFlock to talk about ALPRs - Automatic License Plate Readers, and their handy way of circumventing the 4th amendment meant to protect against unlawful search. Ed also talks about the massive network of data sharing across law enforcement and private corporations, the use of the data for more than stated purposes - from assisting ICE to stalking ex-girlfriends. Ed reminds us that a functioning democracy does not surveil their population, and lists ways that communities across the country are fighting back.

Next up, I sit down with Heidi Lim from AI Resist List to talk about reframing AI, and the possible futures that both buck the current iteration of AI and avoid the binary of anti-tech vs. pro-tech. Heidi points out that the purpose is not just to give people hope but to give them ideas, to become literate in not only what AI is but how to combat it creatively - because if AI is where creativity goes to die, perhaps combating it is where creativity can be reborn.
Notes:
Ed is a member of DeFlock and has been organizing and researching police use of surveillance technologies for nearly a decade.
Heidi Lim is a climate communicator focused on increasing climate literacy and rooted in environmental justice. Her work puts a climate lens on topics like technology, justice, and culture, which is ultimately how she came more recently to working on AI ethics.
58 min
July 21 Project Censored Radio Show - 7-21-26
Mickey Huff hosts this week’s program.

The First Casualty is Truth: Censorship and Propaganda in the US/Isreali Wars in the Middle East, with media scholar Bill Yousman, editor of the special issue of the journal Democratic Communiqu on Freedom of Expression, Campus Politics, Academic Freedom, and the War in Gaza; and Robin Andersen, author most recently of The Complicit Lens: US Media's Coverage of Israels Genocide in Gaza; both interviewed by Mickey Huff.

Notes:
Dr. Bill Yousman is a Professor Communication, Media & The Arts & Director of MLDC Graduate Program at Sacred Heart University

Robin Andersen is a professor emerita of Communications at Fordham University, and author of the recent book "The Complicit Lens: U.S. Media Coverage of Israels Genocide in Gaza."

the Project Censored Show:
58 min
July 14 Project Censored - 7-14-26
Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s program.

First up, I sit down Kels Menchaca, an organizer with the DFW Support Committee to talk about the Prairieland case. With combined sentences of 562 years, the defendants represent the latest intensification in the US governments violent assault on free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to have zines, freedom to think, and more. We discuss the egregious and absurd case - from the prosecution outright lying in court to the judge fining lawyers for defending their clients. Taken all together, it is a terrifying reminder that in these times, you could face decades in jail for not liking your government.

Next up, Leonardo Flores joins the show again to talk about the fallout from the double earthquake in Venezuela. Leo outlines some of the recent US media propaganda attempting to smear Venezuela when in fact it is the US paralyzing Venezuelas disaster response through unilateral economic warfare. Leo and I discuss the US and Israel vying for shock doctrine access, how grassroots coordination post-disaster builds revolutionary solidarity, and more.

Notes:
Kels Menchaca is part of the Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) Support Committee and a friend of some of the Prairieland defendants.

Leonardo Flores is a co-founder of the Venezuela Solidarity Network. He previously worked as an organizer with CODEPINK and as an analyst with the Venezuelan Embassy in the U.S. Leonardo was born in Venezuela and maintains close ties to social movements that have transformed the country over the past twenty-six years.

the Project Censored Show:
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58 min
July 07 Project Censored Radio Show - 7-7-26
This week on the program, a special full show with Palestinian author, historian and academic Dr. Ramzy Baroud about his latest book Before the Flood: A Gaza Family Memoir Across Three Generations of Colonial Invasion, Occupation, and War in Palestine. Dr. Baroud takes us through longue duree, a history that has not been amputated and distorted by colonial narrative. He explains the failings of corporate media, of political discourse, and the need for oppressed peoples to tell their own stories, without countering, without arguing the points of the oppressor. Because dignity cannot be divided. Freedom cannot be sectionalized.

Notes:
Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian author, historian, and academic whose work centers on Palestinian history, liberation, and peoples history. He is the editor of The Palestine Chronicle, a position he has held since 1999, where he has helped shape an alternative narrative grounded in lived Palestinian experience.

He holds a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and has taught mass communication at Curtin University. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Zaim University in Istanbul.

Dr. Baroud is the author of eight books, including Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, The Last Earth, and These Chains Will Be Broken. He is also the co-editor, with Ilan Papp, of Our Vision for Liberation, and the forthcoming volume Gaza Rising. His latest book, Before the Flood, reconstructs Gazas modern history through family memory and intergenerational testimony.

His work brings together history, journalism, and political analysis, contributing to global conversations on Palestine, decolonization, and resistance. He has lectured widely at universities and institutions around the world, engaging audiences on Palestine, media, and popular resistance.
58 min
June 30 Project Censored - 6-30-26
First up, Mickey Huff sits down with public health researcher and journalist Lily Minh Wass to talk about the sycophancy machine. Lily outlines the subtle and disturbing quirks of AIs large language models, amplifying our human desire to be agreed with, which supersedes the desire to be factual. Lily highlights our cognitive offloading onto AI, breaks down how these systems operate, and more.

Next up, Mickey and Eleanor dig into some of the news that did make the news but was wrong. We highlight the need for critical media literacy, especially when were confronted with something that pings our confirmation bias. We also dive into some history, the US at 250, the framing of our nationalistic ideals, the society of the spectacle, Idiocracy, and finding our way to solidarity.

Notes:
Lily Minh Wass is a public health researcher, independent journalist, and creative writer. She has held positions at Cornell University, CUNY School of Public Health, and The Vaccine Confidence Project. Her work explores the psychology of disinformation and the algorithmic spread of ideas, which she writes about for Repro Uncensored.
58 min
June 23 Project Censored - 6-23-26
Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s program.

First up, I sit down with professor Abboud Hamayel to discuss the misuse of history, in particular archaeology as a tool of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Abboud also deconstructs the performative solidarity of pity, the entangled histories that make Palestine a lens through which to frame our own struggles, the jealousy of the settler, and stepping outside of colonial time.

Next up, Meta's censorship of LGBTQ voices brings together digital activists, legal experts and LGBTQ communities to combat invisibilization. We discuss the problematic dependency on social media platforms, how this can spur the creation of alternative comms and organizing methods, digital legal frameworks in the EU vs the US, and more.

Notes:
Abboud Hamayel is a Palestinian intellectual, lecturer, and political analyst. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University, near Ramallah.

Caspar Pisters is the head of communication for Amsterdam’s wonderful & notorious Club Church. With a background in journalism, currently Caspar does communications for the Dutch HIV organization.

Martha Dimitratou is the founder and Executive Director of Repro Uncensored, a global nonprofit documenting and challenging systemic online censorship, AI-driven harms, and the influence of Big Tech on access to information, freedom of expression, and democratic participation. Repro Uncensored’s research and investigations have been featured by hundreds of media outlets worldwide. Through Repro Uncensored, she also develops cultural initiatives and movement-building projects that bring together art, technology, digital rights, and social justice.

Lotje Beek is a policy advisor at the Dutch digital rights oranization Bits of Freedom, focusing on Big Tech and online platforms. She mainly works on digital rights within European platform regulation. In that context, she advocates for the effective enforcement of the Digital Services Act. Successfully so: Bits of Freedom recently won a court case against Meta Platforms based on that law.
58 min
June 02 Project Censored - 6-2-26
First up, Dr. Gerald Horne joins the show to ring in 250 years of the US project - how is that going? Dr. Horne sets the record straight not only about what’s missing in our ever censored history books but how that affects our understanding of issues and struggles today. As James Baldwin noted, history is not past, after all. We discuss the selective teaching and pedestaling of state-sanctioned violence, the moving target of whiteness, and more.

Next up, José Luis Granados Ceja comes back on the show, this time to dig into HondurasGate, the ongoing plot to oust leftist governments in Latin America, using narcoterrorism as an excuse to covertly attack sovereignty across the region, and what these escalations mean for people across the Americas, including right here at home.

Notes:

Dr. Gerald Horne holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at University of Houston. His research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of relations involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. Dr. Horne is the author of more than thirty books and one hundred scholarly articles and reviews including the paradigm shifting book, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States.

José Luis Granados Ceja is an experienced journalist based in Mexico City, co-host of the Canal Once public affairs television program Sin Muros, as well as Soberanía: The Mexican Politics Podcast. He covers Latin America for DropSite News, and has worked as a writer, editor, photographer, correspondent, radio host, TV producer, and as on-camera analyst, with a particular focus on social movements and labor unions throughout Latin America.
58 min

About Project Censored

From the publisher's feed

Mickey Huff is co-host of the Project Censored Show with former Project Censored director Dr. Peter Phillips. It airs on the progressiveradionetwork.com out of New York City