Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Citations Needed, Episode 01: The Charter School Scam

I'm happy to announce the launch of a new media criticism podcast, Citations Needed, hosted by prolific media analyst Adam H. Johnson and... me!

The show, quite simply, will identify, demystify, deconstruct, and generally call bullshit on the media’s ubiquitous reliance on and regurgitation of false and destructive narratives, tropes, and stereotypes.

For those who might not know, Adam is a contributing writer for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. His writing has been also featured in The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Alternet, and elsewhere. He also crushes on Twitter.

We'll cover issues both foreign and domestic and will often, though not always, feature interviews with knowledgeable and experienced journalists and analysts. I'm confident that it's only a matter of time before the gentlemen of Chapo Trap House will hand over their Patreon account to us on bended knee.

Actually, this is a brand new thing and it's certainly a work in progress. Thankfully, Adam and I are able to rely on the spectacular talents of our producers, Josh Kross and Florence Barrau-Adams, who are not only media veterans and miracle workers, but also quite lovely, generous people.

Citations Needed is available on iTunes, Soundcloud and LibSyn (here's the RSS feed). You can also check us out on Twitter, Facebook, and Medium, which is where we post a bunch of show notes to accompany each episode.

So, without further adieu, here's the pilot episode of Citations Needed. Enjoy!


Episode 1 features a discussion about charter schools and, basically, why they’re awful. We look into the agenda behind the pro-charter film Waiting for Superman, the ongoing demonization of teachers and their unions, the fudging, inflation and wholesale manufacturing of test scores that demonstrate “success”, and also try to find some silver linings among the dark clouds. For instance, the fact that everyone hates Betsy DeVos is helping. 
We are joined by the incomparable Jennifer Berkshire, journalist, podcaster, and education editor at Alternet.



Jennifer Berkshire’s writing and interviews regularly gain national attention and have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Baffler, Salon, Alternet, Jacobin, The Progressive, Huffington Post and plenty of other places. 
Check out her own podcast, Have You Heard.

*****

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