Our Rebel Citizens this week are Dan Edelstyn and Leonie Rousham from Power Station: the East London art-activism project turning rooftops into solar stations and neighbours into co-owners of their own energy future.

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00:00 Community Energy & Ownership

01:03 Who are Power Station?

06:38 Bank Job: Creditocracy

08:30 Stop murdering everyone in Gaza

13:52 How to set up your local power station

20:46 Financial sustainability: The Green Back

30:05 An energy commons

36:26 The time Debs saw Angela Davis

38:57 Power Station, coming to a cinema near you…

44:27 NEWS CLUB LIVE: 20 SEP ‘25

50:03 Project 2029

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📩 News Club – newsletter & podcast @newsclubuk_

💪 Power Station – art-activism project turning rooftops into solar stations for the community @power.film.art

✊ The United Families and Friends Campaign – coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody @uffcampaign

🚌 Inter-Action's Fun Art Bus – routemaster bus giving free rides and hosting a variety of entertainments on board @the_lcva

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#podcast #newsclub #rebelcitizens #episode7 #newsclubs #powerstation #energycommons #powerstationfilm #climatejustice #communitypower #solarenergy #coopenergy #energytransition #artactivism #thewarofart #greenback #greennewdeal #sunflowers #vodkanation #bankjob #soildecontamination #autonomy

This week, your dedicated PhD-holding, newsletter-writing, Dr. Tom Chivers finally gets his own episode on how we turn the BBC into a democratic media mutual, and why the time to act is now (...with the BBC Charter review looming and whatnot).

00:00 The Mutualisation of the BBC

01:13 Dr. Thomas Chivers

03:13 The “syphilitic” academic loan system

06:23 What should be headline news but isn’t?

09:00 The BBC’s communicative violence

15:16 What motivates Dr. Chivers?

28:09 What does mutualisation even mean?

35:16 What does that look like in practice?

45:42 Another -tion: The federalisation of the BBC?

55:56 Collective wellbeing

01:03:15 A media commons?

01:08:32 NEWS CLUB LIVE: register here!

01:10:12 What is the one thing everyone should do leading up to 2029?

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📩 News Club – Newsletter here (thank you, Chivers!)

📄 Media Reform Coalition – Our Mutual Friend: The BBC in the Digital Age

✒️ Media Reform Coalition – Who Owns the UK Media?

📻 Media Revolution – campaign to transform the global media landscape.

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#podcast #newsclub #rebelcitizens #episode6 #newsclubs #journalism #independentmedia #mediapower #publicmedia #rebelmedia #movementmedia #mutualisation #bbc #mediacommons #movementmedia #mediaforthepeople #democracy #mediajustice

British-Palestinian journalist and writer Hamza Yusuf joins us to talk fearless reporting on Palestine, the power of our collective conscience, and the need to create infrastructure that sustains real change.

00:00 Fearless and Committed Journalism

05:52 What should be headline news and isn’t?

10:56 Not interested in the Guardian

15:05 Building power, building structures

18:19 How to do an interview 101

25:47 Tokenism and performance

29:42 What should we be doing? Tldr: Building and sustaining alternative ecosystems

37:35 NEWS CLUB LIVE: Start a news club!!!

40:43 Hamza Yusuf: First Minister of Scotland

42:31 Project 2029: Start talking, start doing

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✒️ Hamza Yusuf – British-Palestinian writer and journalist; fearless and committed activist. (X) (IG)

📰 News Club – Newsletter here!

📻 Media Revolution – campaign to transform the global media landscape.

🍉 PSC – people working together for peace, equality, and justice and against racism, occupation, and colonisation.

📝 Declassified UK – media organisation uncovering the UK’s role in the world.

💼 IMA – co-operative dedicated to promoting the work of independent media in the UK.

Remember the phone blocking tactic we mentioned? Full list of phone-ins here.

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#podcast #newsclub #rebelcitizens #episode5 #newsclubs #journalism #independentmedia #independentjournalism #mediapower #rebelmedia #movementmedia #palestine #altmedia #justice #declassifieduk #mediarevolution #ima

From tackling monopoly to defending media freedom, Dr. Courtney Radsch, Director of the Center for Journalism at Open Markets Institute, joins us to unpack the global state of AI, tech regulation, and why democracy depends on it.

00:00 AI: means everything and nothing

02:18 What should be headline news, but isn’t?

07:55 The need for regulation

10:55 Errors, not hallucinations

16:47 What motivates Dr. Courtney Radsch?

24:39 Debs is cool

36:17 Two truths

39:32 The current state of big tech regulation

45:00 Big up Brazil

53:04 Denmark: hopeful resistance

55:15 Liverpool AI charter

58:14 NEWS CLUB LIVE

01:00:50 Organise, resist, live, talk

📝 Open Markets Institute – a policy organisation challenging monopoly power and promoting open markets that strengthen democracy, equity, and innovation.

📰 News Club – Newsletter here

📻 Media Revolution – campaign to transform the global media landscape.

🗞️ Impress – press regulator who set the highest regulatory standards for news providers to publish with integrity.

💼 INMA – provider of best practices for news media companies globally.

00:00 - Who is Irrational Technology?

02:50 - The leftist guide to AI

06:34 - Seemful vs seemless design

10:48 - What about social media?

14:58 - Big tech fascism

18:08 - Artificially engineered serendipity

23:15 - Co-design and the future

28:54 - Autonomy

🤖 Irrational Technology – they make sense of technology so that you don’t have to.

📄 Media Reform Coalition – Our Mutual Friend: The BBC in the Digital Age – full report & briefing via common-wealth.org

📰 News Club Newsletter here!

00:00 - Think Global, Act Local

00:12 - What should be headline news?

04:51 - Doing, not just talking

11:42 - The ideal refugee

15:15 - Connection in struggle and movements

21:38 - Who is Maxine Betteridge-Moes?

26:48 - What can we do? (News Clubs!)

28:49 - NI News Clubs in practice

37:44 - Project 2029: how we prepare

🗞️ New Internationalist – a multi-stakeholder co-operative owned by its workers and approximately 4,600 co-owners

00:00 - Community Media & Ownership

04:28 - Govanhill, Glasgow

07:39 - Community Interest Companies are cool!

10:41 - Lessons from the USA: Civic media & rethinking journalism

16:32 - Community needs us to listen

20:08 - Building up & building out

26:58 - Launch your own community-centred media project!

Mentions to check out!

📜 A manifesto for Greater Community Media – media as social infrastructure, rooted in trust and relevance

🔊 The Scottish Beacon – a network of local media amplifying community voices across Scotland.

📰 Documented NY – reporting with and for immigrant communities in NYC

🔎 The Ferret – a non-profit, subscriber-owned co-operative for investigative journalism in Scotland

And remember...

1. Start with community needs
2. Break free from tradition
3. Who gets to tell the story matters
4. Collaboration is the future
5. Impact over output
6. Better newsroom cultures are needed
7. Think of journalism as an ecosystem
8. Funding must be sustainable
9. Public funding for journalism is essential
10. Policy change is necessary

🎙️ What connects Welsh independence, a music mogul’s decades-long abuse, and BBC coverage of Gaza? Keep listening to find out.

00:00 - It Was Capitalism All Along

00:28 - An independent Wales?

03:21 - An independent Scotland?

07:57 - Devolved broadcasting & Welsh telly

14:29 - From Cardiff to Combs

21:41 - Exploitation in the arts

27:25 - CfMM Report

31:55 - Media as a mouthpiece for state violence

38:50 - Think Global, Act Local

43:59 - Start a news club!

46:26 - The Master's Tools...

49:21 - Do nothing.

Check out...📄 @cfmmuk Report – BBC On Gaza-Israel: One Story, Double Standards

📩 Catch the full breakdown (and even more links) in this week’s newsletter (on Substack) from the News Club crew (Chivers, it's Chivers).•#podcast #episode15 #newsclub #gotnews #independentmedia #mediacriticism #politics #wales #independence #scotland #devolution #broadcasting #media #bbc #palestine #iran #diddy #exploitation #state #violence #audrelorde #nap

🎙️ Can a socialist magazine survive multi-millionaire ownership? Should planning a protest land you in jail?

This week, we cover two stories: The takeover of Tribune, Britain’s oldest democratic socialist magazine, by the multi-millionaire founder of Islam Channel, and the jailing of four Just Stop Oil activists before they could even glue themselves to the Airport runway. We're talking ownership, repression, agency, and how we keep each other safe in a landscape that increasingly punishes those who dissent and co-opts those who resist.

00:00 - Smaller Carrots & Bigger Sticks

00:18 - Tribune’s New Millionaire Owner

09:53 - Buy In Or Sell Out?

13:30 - The MDF, Referendum & Big Boi 'Stani

16:10 - Collaborative Media

19:32 - Manchester Airport Protesters Jailed

21:11 - White Bodies On The Runway

25:43 - "I very rarely mobilise out of this chair"

32:37 - Navigating Authoritarianism

36:00 - "Sometimes doing random shit is a good idea"

40:26 - Papier Mâché Rhino Head

Check out...

📻 Independent Media Association (IMA) – democratising news & supporting independent media

📰 Independent Community News Network (ICNN) – supporting the development of community news hubs

🖤 Green & Black Cross – providing legal support & training

🪧 Article 11 Trust – defending the right to freedom of assembly

🐽 The Network for Police Monitoring (netpol) – supporting social movements and communities to defend human rights

✊ #freetoprotest – highlighting the range of police surveillance tools to monitor and identify you if you attend a protest

📬 ProtonMail

To read...

🏳️‍⚧️ Trans Femme Futures: Abolitionist Ethics for Transfeminist Worlds – Nat Raha & Mijke van der Drift

📚 Empire's Endgame: Racism and the British State - Bhattacharyya, Elliott-Cooper, Balani, Nişancıoğlu, Koram, Gebrial, El-Enany & de Noronha

📄 Media Reform Coalition Report: Who Owns the UK Media?

📩 Full newsletter breakdown on Substack (thank you, Chivers!)

🎙️ AI isn’t just reshaping what's real, it’s warping how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the world. On this episode, we dig into how AI is being used to extract, deceive, and disempower under the guise of innovation. From scraping private data to fabricating reality at scale, the system isn’t broken, it’s running exactly as intended. But alternatives exist. We're talking mutualisation, public co-ownership, and building an internet, society and media landscape that works for people, not platforms.

00:00 - AI, Reality & the End of Trust

00:53 - Is the world ending?

07:51 - Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At

13:46 - Support Independent Media!

17:17 - Hot Chivers prediction of the year

19:40 - Monopoly & Regulation

27:45 - What do we do?

33:32 - Wikeepeedeea

39:30 - Are you going to be able to believe real things?

43:55 - Who Owns The UK Media?

53:45 - The Media Democracy Festival

55:19 - Say his name (Chivers)

Check out...

✒️ Impress & Ofcom – safeguarding the highest standards of news & regulating communication services

📰 The Independent Media Association (IMA) – democratising news & supporting independent media

💪 We Own It – campaigning against privatisation and for public ownership

📄 Media Reform Coalition Report: Who Owns the UK Media? (credit mrc if you use their stats!)

📩 Catch the full breakdown (and even more links) in this week’s newsletter (on Substack) from the News Club crew (Chivers, it's Chivers).