Citations Needed

Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson
  • 4.8 (3.8K)
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Citations Needed

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

  1. FEB 12

    News Brief: Silicon Valley Patronage, How To Subtly Drift Right, and the New Conservative Media Ecosystem

    In this News Brief, we interview journalist and author Eoin Higgins about his new book, "Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left," discuss the new model of tech billionaire funding, and detail how some of the biggest names in Left media became MAGA-aligned, Tucker-boosting petty, score-settlers.

    35 min

  2. FEB 5

    News Brief: Media Continues Painting Musk's Far Right Coup as Good Faith "Cost-Cutting Effort"

    In this News Brief we detail how The New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN took a pathological liar with a clear ideological agenda at his word he's worried about "waste" for the sole reason he’s rich and powerful.

    25 min

  3. JAN 29

    News Brief: Trump's Anti-Migrant Terror PR Strategy, Dr Phil's ICE Reality Show & NYT's MAGA Assist

    In this News Brief, we detail the Trump's administration's strategy of trying to terrorize migrant communities, why it's not working as planned, how The New York Times is manufacturing a pro-mass deportation consensus and how migrant communities and their allies are fighting back. We are joined by Chris from the humanitarian aid organization No More Deaths.

    36 min

  4. JAN 22

    News Brief: Media Won't Say a Nazi Salute is a Nazi Salute and How MAGA Became Too Big To Fail

    In this inauguration coverage recap we detail how elite #resistance to Trump is MIA, how grassroots liberals and leftists are working behind the scenes anyway to fight back and why Trump and the billionaires who back him are now, more than ever, simply Too Big To Fail.

    36 min

  5. JAN 15

    Episode 215: "Bipartisanship" as High-Minded Rhetorical Cover for Pushing Rightwing Policies

    "Clinton seeks common ground with Republicans," reported the Associated Press in 1994. "Obama hosts dinner, urges bipartisanship," announced the AP again, in 2009. "Resist Trump? On Immigration, Top Democrats See Room for Compromise," stated The New York Times in late 2024. For decades, we’ve heard Democratic policymakers extol the virtues of working with Republicans. Through a series of stock terms, e.g. bipartisanship, finding common ground, reaching across the aisle, compromising, they tout their willingness to set aside their political differences with Republicans in order to stop quibbling, quit stalling, work pragmatically, and––the holiest of the holies––Get Things Done. This all might sound well and good; surely an active government is better than an idle, incapacitated one. But which things, exactly, are getting done? Why is it that the act of making decisions or passing legislation is deemed more important to elected officials than the actual content of those decisions and legislation? And how does an incurious, largely compliant media contribute to the harms of a Democratic party that, in its embrace of Republican ideology under the seeming noble banner of "bipartisanship" continues to move further to the right on key issues? On this episode, we dissect the popular appeal for bipartisanship, examine how folksy calls for “Washington” to “work together” more often than not serve to promote war, austerity, anti-LBGTQ policies and crackdown on vulnerable migrants, and show how this seemingly high minded formulation serves to push Republicans further right and launder the Democrats’ increasingly conservative political agenda. Our guest is journalist and author Malaika Jabali.

    1h 12m

  6. JAN 8

    News Brief: NYT Bars Quakers From Using "Genocide" in Ad and Liberal Squeamishness Over the "G" Word

    In this News Brief, we talk to Joyce Ajlouny of the American Friends Service Committee, discuss a recent episode where the New York Times refused to run an AFSC pro-ceasefire ad with the word "genocide" in it, and detail the broader battle within liberalism over labeling the US and Israel's "war" as genocide––and what it would entail if our media did.

    31 min

  7. 12/11/2024

    Episode 214: Fake Ceasefire Talks and Feigned 'Concern' - How US Media Helped Distance Biden From the Gaza Genocide

    "White House frustrated by Israel's onslaught but sees few options," reports the Washington Post. "White House cancels meeting, scolds Netanyahu in protest over video," announces Axios. "Biden Works Against the Clock as Violence Escalates in the Middle East," asserts The New York Times. Since Oct. 7, 2023, we've heard seemingly endlessly that the Biden White House disagrees with the violence in Gaza, but can't do anything to stop it. A number of hindrances frustrate the administration, we're told. There are limits to the United States’ influence and power. President Biden is furious and anguished at Israeli leadership. The administration is working around the clock toward a ceasefire, which — we are repeatedly told — will come any day now.  But, as everyone from the Brookings Institution to the Financial Times to Israeli officials and generals themselves make clear: Biden has been able to, and still can, end Israel's genocidal onslaught whenever he wants. The US has dispositive leverage over Israel, leverage Biden has repeatedly––and openly––ruled out using.  The stark reality is that Biden simply doesn't want to stop Israel and, while he may have complaints about the excesses and PR around the margins, he largely agrees with the outlines of Israel’s destruction of Gaza. To obscure this central fact, US media has now spent over a year pushing out three White House and Israeli-curated media genres of hand-wringing deflection: (1) Helpless Biden, (2) Fuming/Deeply Concerned Biden, and (3) Third Partying.  On this episode, as Biden is set to step down next month, we will go over the media's legacy of covering for the President for 15 months, examine these fictitious reporting genres designed to distance him from the carnage in Gaza, and look at how they worked tirelessly to minimize responsibility and absolve US officials from their involvement in a genocide being live-streamed for over a year. Our guest is journalist Dalia Hatuqa.

    1h 13m

  8. 12/04/2024

    Episode 213: The Shallow, Power-Flattering Appeal of High Status #Resistance Historians

    "The Bad Guys Are Winning," wrote Anne Applebaum for The Atlantic in 2021. "The War on History Is a War on Democracy," warned Timothy Snyder in The New York Times, also in 2021. "The GOP has found a Putin-lite to fawn over. That's bad news for democracy," argued Ruth Ben-Ghiat on MSNBC the following year, 2022. Within the last 10 years or so, and especially since the 2016 election of Trump, these authors — Anne Applebaum, Timothy Snyder, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, in addition to several others — have become liberal-friendly experts on authoritarianism. On a regular basis, they make appearances on cable news and in the pages of legacy newspapers and magazines–in some cases, as staff members–in order to warn of how individual, one-off “strongmen” like Trump, Putin, Orban, and Xi, made up a vague “authoritarian” axis hellbent on destroying Democracy for its own sake. But what good does this framing do and who does it absolve? Instead of meaningfully contending with US's sprawling imperial power and internal systems of oppression — namely being the largest carceral state in the world — these MSNBC historians reheat decades-old Axis of Evil or Cold War good vs evil rhetoric, pinning the horrors of centuries of political violence on individual "mad men." Meanwhile, they selectively invoke the "authoritarian" label, fretting about the need to save some abstract notion of democracy from geopolitical Bad Guys while remaining silent as the US funds, arms and backs the most authoritarian process imaginable — the immiseration and destruction of an entire people — specifically in Gaza. On this episode, we look at the advent and influence of MSNBC-approved historians, dissecting their selective anti-authoritarian posture and discussing how their work does little more than polish their careers and provide cover for US and US-allied militarism. Our guest is historian and author Greg Grandin.

    1h 20m
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Hosts & Guests

4.8
out of 5
3,820 Ratings

About

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

Information

  • Creator
    Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2025
  • Episodes
    323
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Citations Needed
  • Show Website
    Citations Needed

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