News Brief: The Transactional Dog-Whistle Politics of the Term "Taxpayer"
On this News Brief, we discuss the ubiquitous weaponization of the term "taxpayer" in media and politics and how it deliberately smuggles right-wing, transactional and deeply racialized notions of peo...
3 Mar 202152min
Episode 131: The "Essential Worker" Racket - How 'COVID Hero' Discourse Is Used To Discipline Labor
"Elon Musk sent a thank-you note to Tesla's workers returning to work," Business Insider squeals. Walmart teams up with UPS to air an ad "thanking essential workers." "Jeff Bezos Just Posted an Open L...
17 Feb 20211h 2min
News Brief - Covid in Prisons: No One Cares Until Things Start to Burn
In this public News Brief we discuss how American media's general indifference to the Covid pandemic ravaging prisons and jails makes "riots" inevitable. Our guest, Patrice Daniels, is an activist cur...
10 Feb 202153min
Episode 130: 'Heartland,' 'Middle America,' and US Media's Vaguely Nostalgic, Racialized Code for White Grievance
"We need a president whose vision was shaped by the American Heartland rather than the ineffective Washington politics," declares presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. "AOC Kills Jobs Middle America ...
3 Feb 20211h 18min
News Brief: Finance Media's GameStop Meltdown and the Thin Moral Pretexts of Wall Street's Game Rigging
In this News Brief we break down L'Affaire GameStop and what lessons can be gleaned from about psychological gamesmanship of the stock market and finance media's goofy, reverse-engineered moral pretex...
28 Jan 202133min
Episode 129 - Vaccine Apartheid: US Media's Uncritical Adoption of Racist "Intellectual Property" Dogma
"The COVID-19 vaccine is ripe for the blackmarket," warns an NBC News opinion piece. "Iran-linked hackers recently targeted coronavirus drugmaker Gilead," reports Reuters. "Hackers 'try to steal COVID...
27 Jan 20211h 11min
Episode 128 - The "Healing" Con: How Warm and Fuzzy Appeals for "Unity" Are Used to Protect Power
"Biden Calls For Hope And Healing In Speech," NPR reports. "Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot calls for return to Sept. 11 unity," writes The Chicago Tribune. Following the 2014 Ferguson protests, a CNN he...
20 Jan 20211h 5min
News Brief: US Media Pathologically Incapable of Criticizing MAGA Mobs Without Evoking Racist Cliches About "Third World"
Following today's mob violence at the U.S. capitol building, we break down how, once again, American media would rather ignore homegrown currents of white supremacist vigilantism and their buddy buddy...
7 Jan 202132min
