"U.S. military tactics falling behind those of adversaries, Pentagon official warns," The Guardian proclaims. "Russian Propaganda Is Pervasive, and America Is Behind the Power Curve in Countering It," reads a report from the RAND Corporation. "

Episode 16: Editorial Boards––Protectors of Establishment Ideology

1 Nov 15th, 2017 1h 12m

Editorial boards are the establishment voice from above, handing out decrees of moral and political import behind an anonymous byline. Major papers like The New York Times and The Washington Post have an Official Position and it's important tha

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

Jan 31st, 2024 1h 11m

"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 N

Beg-A-Thon Announcement Jan 30: The Worst Rise-And-Grind TikTok #Influencers

Jan 24th, 2024 2m 14s

Get shredded! Get a hot trad wife! Close the Baxter Account! Join us Jan 30 at 8:30pm ET for a live show beg-a-thon with guest Hussein Kesvani, as we break down the most ridiculous and toxic rise-and-grind guys on social media, from David Goggi

News Brief: Quantifying the Media's Selective Humanity in Gaza

Jan 19th, 2024 57m 38s

In this News Brief, we are joined by Adam's anonymous co-author of their two recent studies—one of print and one of cable news—detailing US's media's double standards when covering the 'Gaza conflict.'

Ep 189: PragerU, the 'Product Of His Time' Defense and the White Guilt Amelioration Industrial Complex

1 Sep 27th, 2023 1h 21m

"Hitler was a product of his time," historian Kent Gardner told us in 1975, just thirty years after the end of World War II. "Was Frank Rizzo racist, or just a product of his time?" The Philadelphia Inquirer pondered in 2017 about the city's no

Episode 185: Nativism in Media (Part II) - The Artificial Cold War Distinction Between 'Migrants' and 'Refugees'

Jul 19th, 2023 1h 16m

Immigration law should "stop punishing innocent young people brought to the country through no fault of their own by their parents," the Obama White House stated in 2013. "Migrant Caravan Continues North, Defying Mexico and U.S.," The New York

Episode 184: Nativism in Media (Part I) — How Dehumanization and Militarization Manufactured a “Border Crisis”

Jul 12th, 2023 1h 17m

"What one photo from the border tells us about the evolving migrant crisis," The Washington Post reveals. "The U.S. immigration crisis through the eyes of a border town mayor," reports Boston's NPR station. "Everyone can now agree – the US has

News Brief: The Battle Over NYT's Lurid, Tabloid Coverage of 'Trans Issues'

1 Feb 24th, 2023 46m 59s

In this News Brief, we break down the recent controversy over the open letter sent by 1200+ NYT contributors pushing back on The Times' salacious coverage of "trans issues," and how the Paper of Record's response has proved to be thin skinned,

Episode 171: The Vacuity of "Radical Libs Forced Voters Into the Arms of the Right" Discourse

Nov 16th, 2022 1h 14m

"How The Left Created Trump," revealed Rob Hoffman in Politico in November 2016. "Blame liberals for the rise of Donald Trump," insisted S.E. Cupp in The Chicago Tribune the year before. "How the left enabled fascism," explained David Winner in

News Brief: Young Turks' Misleading Anti-Bail Reform Demagoguery

Oct 5th, 2022 36m 55s

In this public News Brief, we discuss the nominally progressive news network's lies and omissions when covering efforts to reduce the US's unprecedented jail and prison population.

Ep. 159: The Anti-Worker Pseudo-psychology of Corporate Personality Testing

1 Apr 27th, 2022 1h 3m

"Is it a higher compliment to be called a) a person of real feeling, or b) a consistently reasonable person?" "Are you more successful at a) following a carefully worked-out plan, or b) dealing with the unexpected and seeing quickly what shoul

News Brief: The Squishy Liberal Euphemisms Big City Dem Mayors Use to Sell Criminalizing Homelessness

Mar 30th, 2022 28m 37s

In this News Brief, we examine the convoluted, vague rhetorical labor involved in making purging unhoused populations with cops seem humane and anodyne.

Episode 157: How the "Culture War" Label Is Used to Trivialize Life-and-Death Economic Issues

Mar 9th, 2022 1h 26m

"Let the Culture Wars Begin. Again," The New York Times announces. "How the ‘Culture War’ Could Break Democracy," warns Politico. "As The Culture Wars Shift, President Trump Struggles To Adapt," NPR tells us. "Will Democrats Go on the Offensive

Episode 156: How the "Investigative Journalism" Aesthetic Can Be Used to Launder Power-Serving Narratives

Mar 2nd, 2022 1h 6m

"Investigative journalism." It’s a term that conjures imagery of committed, industrious newsrooms like those in the Oscar-winning films All the President’s Men or Spotlight, filled with intrepid reporters dutifully scouring documents, scrutiniz

Episode 120: 30 Under 30 Lists and the Problem with Our Youth-Obsessed 'Success' Narratives

Sep 30th, 2020 1h 14m

Every year, a series of highly anticipated listicles of "successful" and "influential" people hailed for their accomplishments surface in corporate media. Forbes reveals the most successful 30 people under the age of 30, and Fortune hails the m

Episode 119: How the Right Shaped Pop Country Music

Sep 23rd, 2020 1h 39m

By now, it's largely taken for granted that country music is a racialized signifier, interchangeable with right-wing politics. And it’s not such an unreasonable generalization: the political currents of twanged and drawled patriotic paeans lik

Episode 118: The Snitch Economy: How Rating Apps and Tipping Pit Working People Against Each Other

Sep 16th, 2020 1h 6m

Waiting tables. Bartending. Hospitality, food delivery, beauty salons, rideshare driving. The service industry, as anyone who has worked in it knows all too well, is notorious for relying on tipping to undercut employee wages and deputize indiv

Episode 115: Hollywood & Anti-Muslim Racism (Part III) - How the Pentagon & CIA Sponsor American Mythmaking

Jul 22nd, 2020 1h 12m

For over a hundred years, the American film industry has been promoting and glorifying U.S. foreign policy, initially working with the military and Department of Defense, and eventually, the CIA as well. From its origins as a producer of wartim

Episode 114: Anti-Muslim Racism in Hollywood (Part II) - Oscar-Bait Imperialism

Jul 15th, 2020 1h 31m

Our cultural context for understanding what we see on the news and hear in our politics, is often informed by the films and TV shows we’ve grown up watching. Pop culture is powerful and persuasive, and — for a century

News Brief: The Harper's Letter and Our Extremely Narrow, Self-Serving Definition of Cancel Culture

Jul 8th, 2020 26m 7s

A bizarrely vague, cliquish letter demanding everyone be open-minded has no interest in explaining what, precisely, it wants.

Episode 113: Hollywood & Anti-Muslim Racism (Part 1) - Action and Adventure Schlock

Jul 8th, 2020 1h 7m

The United States and its close allies Saudi Arabia and Israel have been bombing and occupying large sections of the so-called “Muslim world” for decades – drastically ramping up after the 9/11 attacks and seemingly with no end in sight. The U

Episode 103: The Glib Left-Punching of “Purity Politics” Discourse

Mar 4th, 2020 1h

"Obama Warns Against ‘Purity Tests’ In Democratic Primary," Spectrum News reports. "Spare Me the Purity Racket," Maureen Dowd opines in The New York Times. "'Purity Tests' Divide Democrats," US News & World Report announces. "Political purity

Episode 102: The Conservative Sanctimony of Journalistic Impartiality

Feb 26th, 2020 1h 16m

One of the most prized professional norms for journalists, particularly the United States, is the preservation of neutrality in reporting. While the concept of “objectivity” has fallen out of fashion among mainstream reportage in recent years,