The Rebel Citizens

From pubs and football clubs to housing and music venues, community shares are a way for ordinary people to pool their resources and take ownership of the places and services that matter most. Dave Boyle has spent years helping groups do just that, proving that another way of running our economy is not only possible, but already happening.

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00:00 Co-ops & Community Shares

05:53 The power of co-ops

08:28 What are community shares?

14:09 Bad landlords

20:28 Non-private ownership models

24:17 Invisible inequalities

28:13 Co-operative movements are the political form for the neurodivergent

36:39 How-to: Community Shares

40:36 Get an irish passport; get a flag

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📩 News Club – newsletter , podcast @newsclubuk_

🔥 Dave Boyle – co-operative advisor; community shares expert

📖 Ian Adderley – Co-operatives: Linking practice and theory

🤝 Co-ops UK – empower and support co-operative enterprise with specialised knowledge and expertise

#podcast #newsclub #rebelcitizens #episode10 #newsclubs #communityshares #daveboyle #coops #coopmovement #communityownership #cooperativeeconomy #solidarity

This week we’re joined by Manasa Narayanan, a journalist and researcher looking into issues at the intersection of politics and technology, including Big Tech/AI, misinformation, online hate and misogyny, surveillance and data rights. In this episode, we unpack the stories we’re told about Big Tech and AI, and why so many of them are misleading by design.

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00:00 Big Tech Narratives

02:00 Tech complicity in violence

05:54 Palantir is evil

11:07 Mainstream misrepresentation

17:26 AI: an ethical consumer choice

25:35 Technological determinism

27:12 Missing context – check out Migrants Organise

32:33 Independent media consortium

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📅 NEWS CLUB LIVE – 20 September, register here

📩 News Club – newsletter & podcast @newsclubuk_

✒️ The Citizens – nonprofit journalism and campaigning organisation with a focus on technology and politics.

🏘️ Migrants Organise – provides a platform for refugees and migrants to organise for power, dignity and justice.

💼 Independent Media Association (IMA) – co-operative dedicated to promoting the work of independent media in the UK.

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

📻Independent Publishers Alliance (IPA) – championing, advocating for, and interconnecting independent publishers.

This week we’re joined by Johnbosco Nwogbo from We Own It to ask: what can 21st century public ownership look like? From buses to rivers, health to food, we get into why privatisation sucks, and how we can build services that put people (and planet) first.

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00:00 21st Century Public Ownership

04:51 Goodbye to PFI

08:18 Why privatisation sucks

13:31 What can public ownership look like?

18:24 Wins wins wins

22:31 Check out Signalise Co-op

26:13 Better buses!! Better everything

31:00 Reform want to steal all your money

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📅 NEWS CLUB LIVE – 20 September, register here

📩 News Club – newsletter & podcast @newsclubuk_

✊ We Own It – campaigns against privatisation and for 21st century public ownership @weownit_campaign

📖 Radical Abundance – Kai Heron, Keir Milburn and Bertie Russell

💧 Windrush Against Sewage Pollution – making the River Windrush safe for all

🌊 River Action – rescuing Britain’s rivers

👍 Compass – building a Good Society

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#podcast #newsclub #rebelcitizens #episode8 #newsclubs #weownit #publicownership #commons #coopsnotcorps #privatisation #betterbuses #climatejustice #movementmedia #waterjustice #nhs

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