Citations Needed

Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson
Podcast Citations Needed

Citations Needed is a podcast about the intersection of media, PR, and power, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson.

  1. 14/08

    Ep 207: US-Backed Killing of Journalists in Gaza and the Limits of "Freedom of the Press" Sloganeering

    "Western World Observes Press Freedom Day," gloated the United Press International newswire back in 1961. "Trump v. CNN: lawsuit becomes test case on press freedom," declared The Guardian in November 2018. "The 10 Best and Worst Countries for Press Freedom," says US News and World report in 2022. For decades, elite US media and government institutions have touted the sacred notion of freedom of the press. Our media, so we’re told, have the legally enshrined latitude and responsibility to criticize, to interrogate, to expose. According to this same high-minded rhetoric, freedom of the press preserves our media’s integrity and serves as a pillar of US democracy. This all sounds well and good. After all, media’s ability to keep the public informed without constraints or compromise is intrinsically good and essential to any society - that’s kinda the whole point of this show. But there are far more limitations to US-based frameworks of freedom of the press than our media, and our government, let on. Far too often, the concept of press freedom is limited by liberal formulations of negative rights, and even those, selectively applied depending on short term US interests. As the US-backed wholesale destruction of Gaza by Israel enters its 10 month and more than 140 journalists have been killed in the assault –– many deliberately targeted by the Israeli military –– Western elite sanctimony over their alleged commitment to press freedom has been revealed as hollow, its ideological cracks and contradictions apparent for all to see. On this episode, our Season 7 Finale, we examine lofty American conceptions of freedom of the press, especially as it emerged in the middle of the 20th century, looking at how US media organizations are more willing to award rights, sympathy, and security to those journalists and institutions who help prop up the usual State Department line. Our guests are documentarian Kavitha Chekuru and journalist Hoda Osman.

    1 h 32 min
  2. 31/07

    Episode 206: How the Gambling Industry Swallowed Sports Media Whole

    "Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wrote in The New York Times in 2014. "NFL Betting Promos & Bonuses | Top NFL Betting Sites & Offers for Week 9 NFL Odds & More," USA Today offered readers in 2023. "Bookmakers break down NBA, NHL playoffs, big bets," reads a June 2024 Fox Sports headline. It's not an exaggeration to state that, since its legalization in 2018, sports betting and other forms of sports gambling have all but taken over American sports media. Increasingly, over the last six years, leading sources on sports news, including ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, and NBC, have signed multi-million and billion-dollar agreements with major players in the sports betting industry, and launched suites of gambling-themed verticals, podcasts, and series designed to urge viewers and listeners to keep placing their bets, no matter the social costs. These media platforms claim to reason that, amid a shifting media landscape where cable channels struggle to adapt to the streaming era and legacy newspapers hemorrhage advertising revenue, partnerships with sports gambling companies help keep them afloat. But what does it mean when sports media are beholden to betting companies? Given the predatory nature of the industry, and the clear conflict of interest of sports media also being gambling pushers, what are the social and political costs to shifting sports from an admittedly already very flawed entertainment business, to a widespread peddler of increasingly unsustainable and gimmicky gambling opportunities? On this episode, we examine how sports media in the U.S. have increasingly embedded themselves in the exploding online sports betting industry. We look at the corrosive effect this has on sports coverage, the glaring conflict of interest this generates, and the moral hazards of a media climate (and state and local governments) that welcomes with open arms a regressive tax pushed by a notoriously rapacious and exploitative industry. Our guest is, friend of the show, The Nation's Dave Zirin.

    1 h 4 min
  3. 10/07

    The Great Neoliberal Burden Shift (Part II)- How Corporate America Offset Liability Onto Its Workers

    "How Railroaders Are Killed; Train Crews Grow Careless," read a 1906 syndicated article. "There is a kind of personality who is accident-prone," reported the Kansas City Star in 1944. Amazon's safety programs are "designed to keep its nearly one million warehouse workers worldwide fit and limber," The Seattle Times claimed in 2021.  For well over a century, it’s been standard practice for corporations, and the media more generally– echoing these "information campaigns" – to skirt, defy, or prevent regulations by shifting the burdens of protection and wellness onto relatively powerless workers. Just as corporations have historically shifted blame onto "consumers," as we discussed last week, so too have they shifted blame, and punishment, onto their own workers, at great social cost and much private profit. Of course, workers anywhere must bear some level of personal responsibility in matters of health and safety. But, as regulations have threatened their bottom lines, industries from railroads to retail, bolstered by US media, have seized upon this notion in order to render their workers the ones who bear ultimate responsibility for whether they’re healthy or sick, safe or injured, and in the most extreme cases, whether they live or die. This is the second episode in a two-part series on what we're calling "The Great Neoliberal Burden Shift." Part I discussed how this burden shift harms consumers. On this episode, Part II, we examine this anti-regulatory PR strategy, looking at the past and present of corporate deflection of responsibility, how media enable this subtle – but effective – practice, and discuss how media campaigns and media coverage have let us internalize the pro-corporate effort to off-load responsibility for workplace health and safety from the bosses on to the workers.  This episode was produced in collaboration with Workday Magazine. Our guest is the National Employment Law Project's Anastaia Christman.

    56 min

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Citations Needed is a podcast about the intersection of media, PR, and power, hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson.

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