Context. Is there a less sexy word in the English language? Or a more important one?

The journalist Mehdi Hasan has long been a relentless advocate for context. As a host and commentator for the BBC, Al Jazeera, and MSNBC, Hasan has always challenged assumptions and filled in historical blind spots, with a devotion to doing the extra research and a willingness to speak truth to power. Now he has left his corporate media days behind him and has launched his own, independent media company, Zeteo, which aims to take on some of the most difficult reporting challenges of our time, with a focus on democracy and human rights.

In this conversation, Hasan talks to our host, Anand Giridharadas, about how he views the student protests, what American responses to the Ukraine and Gaza wars tell us about the limits of empathy, the challenges of reporting the news in an age of threats to democracy, how many admire activists only once they’re dead, and why it’s so so difficult to have a debate with opponents who can’t even agree on basic truths.

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