The Official Project Censored Show

In this episode of the Project Censored Show, guest host Mischa Geracoulis, Project Censored’s curriculum development coordinator, speaks with two of the contributors to the “Media Democracy in Action” chapter from Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2024. 

In the first segment, Mischa talks with Maria Armoudian—senior lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and co-director of the Center for Climate Biodiversity and Society—about the need to rethink traditional news values in the 21st century. Focusing on issues around the climate crisis, Armoudian argues that because the media too often report climate issues as news items, they fail to communicate the urgency of these issues while normalizing a perpetual economic growth-expansion model that exacerbates these challenges.

In the second segment, media critic, award-winning documentary filmmaker, and author Jen Senko joins the program. Senko is best known for her film The Brainwashing of My Dad. Senko's work tracks the history of media in the United States, particularly the rise of hyper-partisan media, and its ongoing effects on society. Highlighting some of that history, she illuminates the calculated moves made by politicians and billionaires that have brought us to where we are today.

The post Rethinking Media Values: Climate Crisis and Hyper-Partisan Influence in the 21st Century appeared first on Project Censored.

In the first half of the show, Eleanor sits down with an empty seat – a seat that could easily be filled by dozens if not hundreds of Kashmiri journalists and activists who cannot speak out due to the complex and constant threat of violence by the Indian government. Eleanor contextualizes the current situation in Kashmir while paralleling it to another settler colonialist struggle in Palestine, why we must connect these struggles, and how critical media literacy is vital in the case of silenced stories such as Kashmir. In the second half of the show, Ben Norton joins the program to discuss the recent BRICS summit, how our corporate media fell over itself to frame it as no big deal, the what, how and when of de-dollorization, and what the recent election means for our economy, or rather our economies – one for the rich and the one for the rest of us.

The post Silenced Voices: Kashmir, Palestine, and BRICS Uncovered appeared first on Project Censored.

Iconic consumer and civil rights activist/author Ralph Nader returns to the program to discuss his latest two books with Mickey. They unpack Nader’s analysis from Out of Darkness and Let’s Start the Revolution, which includes commentary on the need to dismantle the corporate state, boost civic engagement from the grassroots level up, and demand that dark money and billionaires be driven of the political system. Next, Mickey talks with former Project Censored director, political sociologist Peter Phillips about his new book Titans of Capital: How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity.

The post Let’s Start a Revolution; Usurping the Titans of Capital appeared first on Project Censored.

Mickey's first guest this week is Project Censored's Associate Director, Andy Lee Roth. Roth is a 2024-25 Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellow where he is developing an "algorithmic literacy" toolkit for journalists. He explains why today's journalists need a basic understanding of the algorithms used by internet and social media tech giants to better serve the public. Issues around horse race poll coverage, shadow banning, and algorithmic gatekeeping are discussed. Then in the second half of the show, Maya Schenwar of Truthout and Lara Witt of Prism introduce the organization they co-founded, the Movement Media Alliance; they explain why social-justice-oriented media outlets should work together, both to enhance their impact and to better the working conditions for journalists in independent media.

The post Algorithmic Literacy for Journalists; and a New Movement Media Alliance appeared first on Project Censored.

Now that the cameras have long since left Hurricane Helene’s trail of devastation, what is the situation on the ground? And what was it about Appalachia that made the devastation so great, and the mutualist response so powerful?

The post Resilience Rising: Community, Care, and the Aftermath of Hurricane Helene in Appalachia appeared first on Project Censored.

With the 2024 US elections drawing near, host Mickey Huff moderates an expert panel discussion with three media scholars and educators about how critical-media-literacy education can enhance civic engagement. They outline the many challenges posed by social media, hyper-partisanship, and fake news, but also explore what educators can do to engage today's students and equip them with critical tools necessary to deconstruct media messaging and bridge communication barriers, both inside and outside the classroom. This program is also a special broadcast that is part of the Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival. See here for more details.

The post Crisis, Culture, and Civility: Critical Media Literacy Education and Election 2024 appeared first on Project Censored.

It’s the 10th annual US Media Literacy Week sponsored by NAMLE, the National Association for Media Literacy Education. We at Project Censored also celebrate Media Literacy Week, critically. On the program today, co-host Mickey Huff welcomes Dr. Nolan Higdon, media scholar and author of many books including The Anatomy of Fake News. Today we’ll talk to Nolan about a brief resource guide to fake news in the 2024 election with helpful hints for the voting public. We’ll talk about the history of fake news, mis- and disinformation and its impacts on the public, and what we can do about it that doesn’t involve censorship. In the second half of the show, co-host Eleanor Goldfield sits down with photojournalist Orin Langelle to talk about his new photography book release, Portraits of Struggle, a small but powerful selection of photographs and stories from a 50-year career. Orin talks about what he’s learned from the frontlines, how he was shunned by corporate media for telling the truth, the importance of documenting a history that is constantly stolen from us, and more.

The post Media Literacy Week: Guide to Fake News and Voices from the Frontlines appeared first on Project Censored.

In the first half of the program, Mickey Huff speaks with independent journalist and author Kevin Gosztola, author of Guilty of Journalism about the cast of Julian Assange. Gosztola joins the show to talk about the Council of Europe Parliamentarians vote that agreed that Julian Assange was in fact a political prisoner. Assange recently spoke to the Parliament and urged them to oppose the US government’s transnational repression and assaults on journalists and press freedoms around the world. Later in the program, Mickey speaks with media scholar Steve Macek about foreign spending to influence US elections and how it goes well beyond Russian covert operations, and in fact involves many other countries and even other entities. But are the corporate media paying attention? Steve Macek explains how they’re not, and what you need to know about the influence of dark money in advance of Election 2024.

The post Attacks on Democracy from Press Freedoms to Dark Money in Politics appeared first on Project Censored.

In the first half of the show, international human rights lawyer Karnig Kerkonian joins the show to discuss Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of the Artsakh Armenians from the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Karnig outlines the genocidal intent of President Ilham Aliyev, what the US knew and didn’t do to stop it, and how the international community should respond, not least of all as this year’s climate summit, COP29 is being held so ironically in what Karnig calls the petrol-dictatorship of Azerbaijan. Next up, journalist, researcher and policy director at Defending Rights and Dissent Chip Gibbons joins the show to discuss Israel’s targeted and mass killing of journalists on the ground in Gaza. Chip highlights the vehement hypocrisy with which the US pretends to uphold freedom of the press while not only ignoring the murder of journalists but while pushing for a media blackout and censorship of reports from Gaza.

The post Greenwashing Genocide in Armenia & Targeting the Truth in Palestine appeared first on Project Censored.

The voices of Palestinians in Gaza are some of the most censored in the world. If they are not killed outright, they are silenced by purposeful omission in order to support Israel’s narrative. It is therefore vital that alternative media work to find and platform these voices, and that people who are not fooled by pro-Israel propaganda engage with it, share it, and allow it to inform our actions. This week Eleanor Goldfield sits down with Dr. Khalil Khalidy, an orthopedic doctor in Deir al-Balah, Gaza. His testimony is necessary and powerful and understandably distressing. We are therefore here including a content warning for this week’s show as Dr. Khalidy does not sugarcoat his lived experiences. The following program includes descriptions of an ongoing genocide, of psychological and physical suffering from the perspective of a doctor trying to work in abominable conditions with little to no supplies.

The post Voices from Palestine: A Doctor’s Testimony from Gaza appeared first on Project Censored.