Program Summary: New co-host Eleanor Goldfield speaks first with Benjamin Norton, to learn how President Biden is “out-Trumping Trump” on immigration.Norton also offers an update on political conditions in Latin America. In the second half of the show, Eugene Puryear explains racism’sdeep roots in US history, and how it cannot be defeated by superficial actions. He also looks at the significance of Black …

Prof. Aviva Chomsky joined Mickey for a Zoom lecture in April 2021, an event presented by Project Censored and KPFA radio. The occasion was the release of her new book, which revisits Central American history, especially the wars of the 1980s and their ongoing consequences.This week’s program presents excerpts from that event. Notes:   This is a rebroadcast of a …

Program Summary:   Project Censored’s new annual volume will soon be available. “State of the Free Press 2022” includes the well-known ‘Top 25’ censored stories of the preceding year, as well as many more chapters of media analysis. Andy Lee Roth and Steve Macek of Project Censored spend the hour with Mickey to discuss the new book, and also explain Project …

Program Summary:   Author Chris Hedges also teaches college-level courses for New Jersey state prison inmates. His new book, “Our Class,” explains what happened when Hedges taught a dramatic-literature course to inmates, then helped them write a play of their own – “Caged” – based on their personal life events. As well, the inmates’ stories illustrate the many cruelties of …

This week we present a rebroadcast of a speech delivered one year ago by journalist Chris Hedges. In a Zoom speech shortly after the 2020 election, Hedges spoke about the deeper forces of political and economic decay afflicting the US. This episode contains Hedges’ complete speech, titled “The Culture of Despair.”   Notes:   Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist with a long career …

Online journalist Kevin Gosztola returns to the program to deliver an update about the Julian Assange extradition case in the UK, and its disturbing impacts for press freedom. Then in the second half, Eleanor Goldfield tells about the remarkable range of issues in which Wikileaks has obtained and published secret documents. Kevin Gosztola is the managing editor of the news …

Mickey’s guest for the full hour is media scholar Victor Pickard of the University of Pennsylvania. They discuss Pickard’s 2019 book, “Democracy Without Journalism?”  Pickard describes the dimensions of recent years’ precipitous drop in the employment of reporters, and its likely consequences for society. He explains the historical roots of this new crisis, and offers remedies that center on building publicly-supported  …

Program Summary: With British courts nearing a possible decision on whether to extradite Julian Assange to the U.S., Jeff Mackler speaks to Mickey about the campaign to free Assange (the founder of the Wikileaks web site). Then we hear a conversation with online journalist Kevin Gosztola about the Assange case, as well as cases of several U.S. whistleblowers. Jeff Mackler …

Program Summary: September 17, 2021 was the tenth anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street. Journalist Michael Levitin was there at its beginning, and, among other roles, edited the Occupy Wall Street Journal. His new book Generation Occupy, chronicles the history of the Occupy movement and its ongoing influence. He and Mickey Huff spoke in a Zoom event presented by Diablo Valley …

Program Summary: In the aftermath of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony to Congress, Mickey and his guests look at the ongoing issues of social media’s social responsibility, or lack of responsibility. Were most of Haugen’s disclosures already known? And what actions should be taken to reduce the harm caused by the behavior of Facebook and the other digital media giants? …