On August 8th at the Real News Studio, a screening of the new documentary Beyond the Wire—directed by filmmaker Dr. S. Rasheem—was followed by a panel discussion featuring seasoned conflict mediation organizers from the film. The participants explored their grassroots efforts to challenge the corporate media establishment’s heavy emphasis on crime—which drives city policy and the local economy—and redefine Baltimore’s historical present as a city of abolition.

Credits:

• Videographer: Cameron Granadino/David Hebden
• Editor: Cameron Granadino

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David Sirota joins Taya Graham and Stephen Janis to expose the enormous financial incentives shaping Democratic politics and why political consultants can accumulate “generational wealth” even when their candidates lose. David Sirota explains how consultants profit from massive television-ad purchases, how billionaire-funded super PACs influence the candidates and policies voters are offered, and how the language of “moderation” and “electability” is used to undermine progressive and populist challengers.

We examine the consequences of legalized political corruption: Washington’s silence on America’s healthcare crisis, the widening gulf between voters and their representatives, and the 50-year campaign to transform elections into auctions while concentrating power in the presidency.

David Sirota is the founder of the investigative news organization The Lever, a former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders, an Oscar-nominated co-creator of the story for the movie Don’t Look Up, and the producer of the podcast series Master Plan.

Additional links/info:

• David Sirota and Jared Jacang Maher co-authored book, Master Plan: The Hidden Plot to Legalize Corruption in America
• The Lever's website, Instagram, and podcast series, Master plan

Credits:

• Production: Stephen Janis, Taya Graham
• Written by: Stephen Janis
• Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
• Post-Production: Stephen Janis, David Hebden

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After a deadly “derecho” storm and flash floods slammed the midwest in early August, downing trees and power lines, tens of thousands of residents in and around Gary, Indiana have been surviving without power for 12 days and counting. According to the Associated Press, “Northern Indiana Public Service Co. said 68,000 customers were still without power as of Thursday morning, the majority of them in Lake County beside the Illinois border. The utility said it has restored power to 306,500 others since Aug. 11. But power is not expected to be fully restored until Tuesday [Aug. 25] in some places, including Gary.” In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with a panel of residents and community leaders about the ongoing blackout in Gary and the conditions that led to this avoidable national tragedy. Panelists include: GlenEva Dunham, president of the Gary Teachers Union, AFT Local 4; Freida Graves, Project Director at the faith-based nonprofit Families Anchored in Total Harmony (FAITH) CDC; and Reverend John Jackson, Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.

Additional links/info: 

• FAITH CDC website and Facebook page
• Gary Advocates for Responsible Development (GARD) Facebook page
• Tilly Robinson, Indianapolis Star, “Braun tells NIPSCO to move faster in Gary, while clergy says state must do more”
• Javonte Anderson, Capital B Gary, “I grew up in Gary. I’ve never seen a power outage like this”
• Belly of the Beast, “US policy causes Cuba’s blackouts. US citizens bring solar panels for pregnant women”

Featured Music: 

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits: 

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

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Today, we are pleased to share with you an episode from the podcast Scene on Radio. It’s hosted by longtime journalist John Biewen, with co-host journalism professor Chenjerai Kumanyika. It’s a series from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and distributed by PRX.

This episode is Season 8, Episode 6, of Scene on Radio: What Could Have Been? 

Ever thought about whether America's overwhelmingly corporate, for-profit news system is working as it should? It didn't have to be this way. In the 20th century, reformers fought for a more democratic and more accountable news media in the United States. They won victories, including the creation of the nation's public broadcasting system. What happened next?

By John Biewen, with co-host Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with John Lowery, Dan Schiller, Victor Pickard, and Mark Lloyd.

Story editor: Diane Hodson. Assistant Producer, Arlene Arevalo. Fact-checking by Anna Pujol Mazzini. Music by Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Michelle Osis, Lili Haydn, Alex Weston, James Nathan Jones, and Jason Hill. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music.

Links
Their website - https://sceneonradio.org/
Latest season - https://sceneonradio.org/the-news/


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In her 2001 masterwork Nickel and Dimed, the late Barbara Ehrenreich went undercover to report on the daily realities working people in America face trying to get by on minimum-wage. After working as a housekeeper, a nursing aide, a home cleaner, a server, and more, Ehrenreich wrote that “The first thing I discovered is that no job, no matter how lowly, is truly ‘unskilled.’” It is difficult to overstate the impact that Ehrenreich’s book and body of work have had on US culture and working-class politics over the last 25 years, and the enduring relevance of her work today. In this special episode of Working People, we commemorate the anniversary of Nickel and Dimed and celebrate the life and legacy of Ehrenreich by speaking with a panel of guests who are carrying on that legacy today.

Panelists include: Deirdre English, coauthor of three books with Barbara Ehrenreich, former editor in chief of Mother Jones, and a former director of the Magazine Center at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley; Alissa Quart, editorial director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and author of seven books, most recently Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream; and Ann Larson, author of Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View from Behind the Supermarket Register and a fellow with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Additional links/info:

• Barbara Ehrenreich, Metropolitan Books, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
• Alissa Quart, Deirdre English, Ai-jen Poo, Ann Larson, & Bill Fletcher, The Nation, “Saluting a Matriarch—25 Years After Nickel and Dimed”
• Economic Hardship Reporting Project website, Facebook page, and Instagram

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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Effective public safety policy is founded on preventing crime and repairing harm, but these are not the foundations of America’s reactionary criminal justice establishment. This week on Rattling the Bars, we host a roundtable discussion about the DC Justice Lab’s 2026 Public Safety Policy Agenda, which has been endorsed by 30 progressive organizations working directly with system-impacted individuals, and about criminal justice reforms that would ensure safer communities through restorative justice, not draconian punishment.Additional links/info:

• DC Justice Lab website, Facebook page, X page, and Instagram
• DC Justice Lab, 2026 DC Public Safety Policy Agenda

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

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How are hip hop and Black Liberation connected? In this special Black August edition of Rattling the Bars, former political prisoner and Black Panther Mansa Musa sits down with artist, producer, and "Panther Cub" Mopreme Shakur on the rooftop of a hotel in the nation's capital. Together, they explore Shakur’s memoir, This Thug's Life, tracing the trajectory from the rise and fall of Black Power to the birth of hip hop through the eyes of the son of a Panther and the stepbrother of a legend.

Additional links/info:

• Mopreme Shakur, Penguin Random House, This Thug’s Life: An Unapologetically Black Story

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

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In 2024, at the height of Israel’s US-backed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, one of the most widespread waves of college campus protests since the Vietnam War exploded across the United States. Then came the repressive backlash. Over the past two years, we’ve seen a harrowing assault on free speech and the right to protest from the federal government and Zionist organizations, and universities themselves have ramped up their own internal surveillance and repression machines, weaponizing them against their own students, grad students, and faculty.

Life, learning, and activism on American college campuses looks very different today than it did in 2024, but the student-led Palestine solidarity movement is not going away. As a new school year begins, we speak with four students at different college campuses across the University System of Maryland (USM), who are all organizers and members of the USM Divestment Coalition for Palestine, about how the movement is maintaining its demands and adapting its tactics in 2026.

Additional links/info:

• USM DIvestment Coalition for Palestine website, Instagram, and Linktree
• Diamondback Staff, The Diamondback, “USM students call for divestment from defense companies at Board of Regents meeting”

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

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Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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Frontline healthcare workers and the patients they serve are facing a major crisis at the University of Vermont Health network—the state’s leading healthcare provider. “In June, UVM Health eliminated over 140 positions across its network, a third of which were union positions,” Matt More reports at The Rake Vermont. “The cuts, which the hospital estimated will save $9.5 million, comes as the network faces a $300 million budget shortfall… Later that month, UVM Health handed down a speed-up order to its Medical Group, which includes outpatient clinics and more than 1,000 physicians, which practitioners say will result in briefer appointments with patients.”

How did Vermont’s flagship health network end up in this crisis? How is it affecting healthcare workers and their patients? And what can be done to fix it? In this episode of Working People, we speak with Melissa Lavallee, secretary of UVMMC Support Staff United and VP of healthcare for AFT-Vermont; and Teagan Cook, lead outpatient chemotherapy scheduler at her hospital and a chief steward in UVMMC Support Staff United.

Additional links/info:

• UVMMC Support Staff United website, Facebook page, and Instagram
• AFT-Vermont website, Facebook page, and Instagram
• Matt Moore, The Rake Vermont, “UVM Health’s unions fight hospital cuts to protect their patients’ healthcare and their working conditions”
• Town Meeting TV, “Put workers and patients first! - Solidarity town hall meeting with UVM Medical Center unions”
• Olivia Gieger, VT Digger, “UVM Health cuts 142 jobs — an estimated $9.5 million in staff positions”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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For the last five months, oil giant British Petroleum (BP) has locked 800 workers out of their jobs at a crude oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana. The facility, located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, is BP’s last unionized oil refinery in the United States. BP says it is pursuing “modernized job structures, training, and upskilling,” but workers and their union—United Steelworkers Local 7-1—say that the company has not bargained in good faith, that its contract proposals pose blatant existential threats to workers’ jobs, pay, and collective bargaining rights, and that the company is illegally trying to crush the union out of existence with the lockout. In this episode of Working People, we speak with three locked out workers at the BP oil refinery in Whiting: Eric Schultz, president of USW Local 7-1; Leno Miller, assistant griever for USW Local 7-1; Tim Powell, a 19-year member of USW Local 7-1, and a volunteer for the lockout assistance committee.

Additional links/info:

• USW Local 7-1 Official Lockout Update/Support Page
• USW Local 7-1 Facebook page and Instagram
• Sarah Lazare, Workday Magazine / The American Prospect, “Locked out refinery workers say BP is trying to ‘starve us,’ crush union”
• Maximillian Alvarez, Working People / TRNN, “I survived the rig explosion that caused the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This is what I saw”

Featured Music:

• Jules Taylor, Working People Theme Song

Credits:

• Audio Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.

Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.

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