This week’s show is preempted by special fund drive programming.   The post Special Fund Drive Programming appeared first on KPFA.

On this KPFA fundraising special, filmmaker and media-studies professor Roger Stahl describes the surprising breadth and depth of Pentagon and CIA control over Hollywood movies and television shows. His 2022 documentary, “Theaters of War,” examined how the military demands script changes as the price of its cooperation with producers, with the aim of favorably portraying US military forces, both in recent and historical conflicts. Stahl also explains “showstoppers,” plot or character elements that induce the military to withhold its cooperation, which sometimes prevents a show from being produced at all. In this Project Censored special, we hear excerpts from a recent interview Mickey Huff conducted with Roger Stahl, as well as sound clips from “Theaters of War.” The film is also a premium for today’s program, and is offered for a pledge of $120.   The post Special Fund Drive Programming – Theaters of War appeared first on KPFA.

In this special fund drive episode, Kevin Gosztola delivers the latest news about the Julian Assange case, including Assange’s final judicial appeal in the UK against US efforts to extradite him and the consequences an Espionage Act trial of Assange could hold for journalists worldwide.   The post Is Assange’s Extradition Imminent? appeared first on KPFA.

Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week. In the first segment, a French farmer explains the complex politics behind the recent wave of mass protests by farmers, as well as the economic squeeze that government policies impose on them. Next, in a brief “intermission,” Eleanor and Mickey discuss recent failures of corporate media and consider whether old media has abandoned any hope of building a substantial audience among the generation now coming of age. We conclude by discussing legislation to expose vast tracts of southeast Alaskan forest to logging, under a pretense of returning the land to Native Alaskan authority. David Lorant is a farmer based in Rennes, northwest France. Joshua Wright is a filmmaker and forest-defense activist.   The post Why are farmers protesting in France? / Huge logging scheme disguised as land-back bill appeared first on KPFA.

In the opening segment, we learn about a case study in “regulatory capture.” Mickey’s guests explain how the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) declined to enforce its own concentration-of-ownership rules and thereby permitted Sinclair Broadcasting to control more TV stations than the rules allow. These guests also recount the years they spent in litigation to force the FCC to release its Sinclair documents. Then, in light of the recent Western air attacks on Yemen, Eleanor presents material gathered from online research and from her conversation with a Yemeni journalist. (Because of technical problems, the interview itself could not be aired.) Ahmed Abdulkareem explains that the Yemeni government actions that provoked the US/UK “response” were Yemen’s efforts to halt the Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip. He also predicts that further violent intervention by the US will only strengthen the resistance. GUESTS: Sue Wilson is an award-winning journalist and the producer of the documentary Broadcast Blues. She also leads the Media Action Center, at www.mediaactioncenter.net. Her recent in-depth article about the Sinclair scandal can be seen at www.ProjectCensored.org. Art Belendiuk is a communications-law attorney with decades of experience. Ahmed Abdulkareem is a freelance Yemeni journalist.   The post Who regulates whom? / What’s behind the U.S. attacks on Yemen? appeared first on KPFA.

Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s Project Censored Show. Her first guest, Alan MacLeod, explains how some of the largest media institutions slant their Gaza coverage to favor Israel and even dismiss journalists who don’t comply. He also warns of a neocon effort to push the U.S. into attacking Iran. The second half of the show looks at how hazardous uranium mining on and near Native territory in the Southwest is likely to persist and increase, even near the Grand Canyon, owing to various legal loopholes. Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer at Mint Press News, and a frequent guest on the Project Censored Show. He’s also the author of the 2018 book “Bad News From Venezuela.” Leona Morgan is a Diné (“Navajo”) anti-nuclear organizer. Information related to the campaign to halt nuclear colonialism in the American Southwest can be found at haulno.com.   The post Big Media’s pro-Israel bias / Native people resist uranium mining appeared first on KPFA.

Mickey’s guests for the hour are Leonard Grob and John K. Roth, coauthors of the 2023 book, Warnings: The Holocaust, Ukraine, and Endangered American Democracy. Fearful of what a second Trump administration might bring, Grob and Roth point to the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s as a case study in how rapidly a society can lose its democratic political system, and they offer suggestions on what ordinary citizens can do to preserve democratic institutions. Leonard Grob is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. John K. Roth is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College in southern California. Both are widely-published scholars of the Holocaust.   The post The Fragility of Democracy, and How to Preserve It appeared first on KPFA.

For one of their first programs of 2024, Mickey and Eleanor again focus on the legal case of Julian Assange and the implication for press freedom in the U.S. and abroad. In a recently recorded interview, independent journalist Kevin Gosztola tells Mickey about the latest legal developments, including the lawsuit against the CIA. Then we hear a discussion he had with Eleanor about his book Guilty of Journalism; they spoke last August at the Red Emma’s bookstore/cafe in Baltimore. Kevin Gosztola has covered the Julian Assange legal proceedings in the UK from their beginning, as well as other press-freedom and whistleblower cases. His book on the  Assange case, Guilty of Journalism, was published last year. Gosztola also writes at thedissenter.org.   The post Freedom of the Press Means Freedom for Julian Assange appeared first on KPFA.

This week: the legal criminality of genocide — of perpetrating it, supporting it and, in the US, of decrying it. In the first half of the show, Hassan Ben Imran from Law For Palestine joins Eleanor Goldfield to discuss the recent case of genocide brought by South Africa to the ICJ against Israel: the potential, the pitfalls and the precedent. Ben Imran also debunks Israel’s claim to self-defense and shines a light on the West Bank, a primary target for Israel beyond obliterating Gaza. Next up, Professors Anthony O’Rourke and Wadie Said join the show to discuss their recent article in Dissent covering the oppressively Orwellian push to criminalize support for Palestine as material support for a terrorist organization, particularly on college campuses — going farther than the already ludicrous assertion that antizionism  is antisemitism.   The post The Legality of Genocide: On International Law & Thoughtcrimes on US Campuses appeared first on KPFA.

Project Censored has released “Censored 2024,” the latest in the Project’s series of annual volumes detailing the shortcomings of media giants and the accomplishments of independent media. The best-known feature of each year’s book is the “Top 25” list of most significant stories overlooked or underreported by the corporate media. On this week’s radio show, Mickey is joined by two contributors to the annual volumes; they discuss what kinds of stories are most-likely to be censored by corporate media and why. We also hear an alert about the ever-increasing number of conservative attempts to ban or restrict disfavored books at school and public libraries. Andy Lee Roth is Associate Director of Project Censored, coordinator of its Campus Affiliates Program, and a widely-published media analyst. Media scholar Steve Macek teaches at North Central College in suburban Chicago, and has contributed to multiple Project Censored yearbooks.   The post Censored 2024 appeared first on KPFA.