290 episodes

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

Citations Needed Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson

    • News
    • 4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

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

    Episode 198: How The Atlantic Magazine Helps Sell Austerity and War to Middlebrow Liberals

    Episode 198: How The Atlantic Magazine Helps Sell Austerity and War to Middlebrow Liberals

    “Teachers Unions: Still a Huge Obstacle to Reform.” “Countering Iran’s Menacing Persian Gulf Navy.” “Open Everything: The time to end pandemic restrictions is now.” “The Good Republicans’ Last Stand”
    Each of these headlines comes from the same magazine: The Atlantic. For 167 years, the publication has enjoyed elite stature in the American literary and journalistic worlds, publishing such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Barack Obama, and serving as a coveted professional destination for writers throughout the country. Founded by a number of esteemed 19th century authors, the magazine has long prided itself on its cultural and political depth.
    But beneath all of its high-minded rhetoric about democracy, free expression, fearlessness, and American ideals is a vehicle of center-right pablum, designed to launder reactionary opinions for a liberal-leaning audience. As the employer of warmongers like Jeffrey Goldberg, Anne Applebaum, and David Frum, under the ownership of a Silicon Valley-tied investment firm hellbent on destroying teachers’ unions, The Atlantic, time and time again, proves a far cry from the truth-pursuing, consensus-disrupting outlet it claims to be.
    On this episode, we dive into the history and ideology of The Atlantic, examining the currents of middlebrow conservatism, left-punching, and deference to boring business owners that have run through the magazine throughout its nearly 17 decades of operation.
    Our guest is Jon Schwarz.

    • 1 hr 4 min
    News Brief: Media, Billionaires' Attacks on Homeless People May Pay Off Big at Supreme Court

    News Brief: Media, Billionaires' Attacks on Homeless People May Pay Off Big at Supreme Court

    On this News Brief, we are joined by Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center to discuss the upcoming Johnson v. Grants Pass case, which will be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States on April 22nd 2024. This is the most significant case about the rights of homeless people in decades, determining whether cities can make it a crime to be homeless, to sleep outside, even when there is no safe shelter available to them. We discuss the boarder media narratives that got us to this cruel, irrational point.

    • 24 min
    Beg-A-Thon Live Show 1-30-24: The Grim Popularity of Rise-And-Grind TikTok #Influencers

    Beg-A-Thon Live Show 1-30-24: The Grim Popularity of Rise-And-Grind TikTok #Influencers

    In this Live Show Beg-A-Thon recorded Jan 30, we break down the worst Rise-And-Grind social media stars and how they've moved from Silicon Valley-adjacent to subprime motivational content helping middle and working class people get through the daily grind.
    With guest Hussein Kesvani.

    • 59 min
    News Brief: How US Media Obscures the Violence of the Generic, Sterile-Sounding "Border Deal"

    News Brief: How US Media Obscures the Violence of the Generic, Sterile-Sounding "Border Deal"

    In this News Brief we are joined by friend of the show, Maximillian Alvarez of The Real News, to discuss Democrats' pathetic, myopic, and nihilistic attempt to play the Racist Reverse Uno Card on Congressional Republicans.

    • 40 min
    Episode 197: The "Human Shields" Canard as Catch-All Colonial Absolution

    Episode 197: The "Human Shields" Canard as Catch-All Colonial Absolution

    "Viet Cong Use Children as Human Shields," the Associated Press alleged in 1967. "'Civilian casualty?" That's a gray area," Alan Dershowitz argued in The Los Angeles Times in 2006. "We can’t ignore the truth that Hamas uses human shields,”"Jason Willick wrote in The Washington Post in 2023.
    For more than five decades, military forces with overwhelming firepower, including the U.S., Israel, and others have accused enemy combatants of using “human shields.” According to these allegations, militant resistance throughout the world, from the Vietnamese National Liberation Front to Palestinian militants, herd civilians in front of them, or hide in hospitals, religious institutions, and other public places, in order to evade attacks. In turn, they force the enemy to “risk” killing civilians, and they themselves bear responsibility for those who are killed.
    But rarely, if ever, have these accusations been true. Indeed, the term “human shields,” despite having a clear legal definition, has become a catch-all for militias or insurgency groups that merely operate among a civilian population, functioning as a convenient pretext for invading, occupying and colonial forces to kill civilians, and reinforcing racist conceptions about besieged populations. So why, and how, do media provide cover for governments that lie about and instrumentalize supposed “human shielding”?
    On this episode, we dissect the decades-old “human shields” accusation, examining how it dehumanizes and militarizes people living under occupation and invasions, demonizes resistance movements, and sanitizes civilian-killing aggressors as reluctant actors who "simply had no choice."
    Our guests are Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini.

    • 1 hr 19 min
    Episode 196: Benevolent Billionaire Despotism and US Media’s Softball Treatment of ‘Effective Altruism’

    Episode 196: Benevolent Billionaire Despotism and US Media’s Softball Treatment of ‘Effective Altruism’

    "Join Wall Street. Save the world," The Washington Post urged in 2013. "How to Know Your Donations Are Doing the Most Good," The New York Times proclaimed in 2015. "I give 10 percent of my income to charity. You should, too," Vox advised last November.
    Each of these headlines tops a piece that extols the virtues of Effective Altruism, a philanthropic philosophy, for lack of a better term, ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of the best ways to address large-scale, global ills like pandemics and factory farming, informed by “evidence and reason.” The school of thought, popularized by figures like the academic and author Peter Singer and disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has been widely embraced – or at least uncritically boosted – in mainline media for years.
    Superficially, this makes sense. Effective Altruism seems unimpeachably virtuous: It’s great if people want to solve the world’s problems, and so much the better if they’ve done their research. But beneath this surface lies a deeply reactionary movement, predicated on an age-old desire to characterize the wealthy as the solution to, rather than the cause of, the very problems they purport to want to solve.
    On this episode, we parse the rise, motives, and influence of Effective Altruism. We look at how the doctrine gamifies wealth distribution, falsely portrays the rich as uniquely qualified to make decisions about public welfare, often provides cover for eugenics and racism, and masquerades as a groundbreaking ethos of data-driven compassion while it merely regurgitates a 100-year-old rich person ideology of supposedly benevolent control over the masses.
    Our guest is Dr. Linsey McGoey.

    • 1 hr 11 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
3.7K Ratings

3.7K Ratings

Jake B Caldwell ,

Essential Podcast

Most of the bad reviews seem to fail to realize the hosts often are, at the onset of the episode, open and honest about their political persuasion.

Well made and hard hitting podcast with amazing guests and timely topics.

kat8478493 ,

This is what happens

When there’s no class analysis.

artemis179 ,

On Track

This podcast does not mince words or waste time. They are on track and to-the-point. Very illuminating.

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