Episode 287 – Propaganda, Algorithms & Disinformation with Mischa Geracoulis

[00:00:00] Steve Grumbine: All right, folks, this is Steve with Macro N Cheese. Today’s guest is Misha Geracoulis, and she’s a media professional serving as the Curriculum Development Coordinator at Project Censored. You’ve heard me talk to Mickey Huff in the past. You’ve heard me talk to, uh, Mr. Kevin Gosztola, our guy that hit on Mr. Assange. And today we’re going to talk about something I think is really important. And that is understanding the role of independent media and understanding the massive forces that are out there to silence people as they try to move forward, able to process the information to be informed.

The ability to be informed is probably more at stake today than ever before. I mean, we’ve got information coming from a million directions. A lot of gaslighting. A lot of just straight up lies. And some of it is a matter of perspective, right? Whose class interest is the information you’re hearing coming from? Is it coming from the people that want to oppress, or is it coming from the oppressed?

I’m always going to take the side of those being oppressed. I see no path forward and focusing on the oppressors as good guys here. And so with that in mind, I brought my guest on and I think this is going to be exciting for you all folks. I’m really excited to have Mischa on. And so with that, Mischa, welcome to the show and thank you for joining me.

[00:02:15] Mischa Geracoulis: Steve, it’s my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on and I’m a fan of the podcast. So this is, great. Thank you.

[00:02:21] Steve Grumbine: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. We were talking a little bit offline. Just look currently at the situation we’re dealing with in society. It’s a whole bunch going on, right? We’ve got a sitting president who is being questioned for his cognitive abilities.

We’ve got an ongoing genocide that many are focused on with this president. He’s funding the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians and Palestinian children. Uh, the media apparatus out there won’t even say who’s doing, they’re saying, Oh school bombed in Gaza. Who did the bombing? You’ll see it everywhere else, but they skipped that.

And then when it comes to things like the cognitive abilities. They’ll say well, what about Project 25? They don’t ever stay on the things that need to be spoken about. And so without a strong independent media that’s capable of cutting through the gas lighting and providing really, quite honestly, a working class perspective for the people that have to live in this kind of Truman show world that we’re in; these poly crises. Without having a source of truth, without having information that’s not been tainted by the very, very incestuous relationship between the politicians and the big media companies. We’re being more misinformed than informed. Your thoughts.

[00:03:45] Mischa Geracoulis:   Gosh Steve, where to begin. Spot on with all of that. Let me try to jump in. First and foremost, we, at “Project Censored” and I personally believe that media is a public good and journalism is public service. Being able to access information, being able to join in, participate in the free flow of information, to have an opinion, to formulate a stance —that is actually considered a human right, under Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

As part of that, journalism, public good as I mentioned, it’s part of the commons. And with that, it feeds into a more robust public square, the ability to discuss issues, to exchange information and ideas. And theoretically, if not, actually feed into a more robust democracy.

I couldn’t agree more with what you said about the corporate media versus independent media. Right now, the predominance of the corporate views and interests are coming before that of the public interest and the public good. And we are hard pressed to believe that the corporate media is going to change and suddenly start actually serving the public interest. The public good.

And that’s where independent media is so important. A cornerstone of our human rights. Because the right to know underpins every other human right. And independent journalism is a cornerstone of the American project, of American democracy.

[00:05:32] Steve Grumbine: You know, when I hear about democracy, I think to myself, what democracy, right? There’s been studies out there that show that public opinion and, quite frankly, voters interests are not represented legislatively. They’re not represented in the actual debates with our so called elected officials.

And, ultimately, you can see from recent outpouring of support on the campuses in support of the Palestinian right to survive. To not be erased. To not be genocided. That the corporate media crack down on them. That the police crack down on them. That across the board there was just an irrational push that ignored the voice of the people.

I don’t believe there was any ballot initiative for stopping genocide. So the only thing people could do was voice their opinion through what I consider to be constitutionally protected behavior, which is the right to protest; the right to assemble; the right to free speech; et cetera. And yet, these very tenets that we believe are real, that we believe are core to our ability to function in this society, have been curtailed at such an alarming clip.

And so the ability to get the information to people; to make decisions; to have knowledge as power as regular people; we are deprived of that at so many levels. And you can see it with verifiably false reporting or reporting that is intentionally missing the truth that is skipping the truth that is blotting out the truth.

And so people are getting an incomplete message, if you will. And so, therefore, they’re taking action without having the fullness that would be required to make a quality decision. You guys at Project Censored do an awful lot of work of bringing forward the stories that didn’t get enough airplay. That didn’t really get covered. Mickey [Huff] was great in bringing that stuff out.

I guess my question to you at this point is, when you talk about that kind of freedom of information, that knowledge; the media being a right at the UN, an internationally accepted right. It sounds like it’s a right in theory, but it’s not a right in practice.

What has been your experience at Project Censored with the intent? Is it nefarious? Is it these media companies are just on a deadline and they’re just cranking stuff out? Or is it the editorial rooms that are saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you’re not going to talk about, you know, what Israel has done. You’re not going to talk about what Netanyahu has done. You’re not going to talk about what Joe Biden has done, or the Congress has done. Where is the quote unquote censored part of Project Censored coming from? What is stopping these stories from having that complete message?

[00:08:27] Mischa Geracoulis: Well, that’s loaded. And, first of all, I think the answer is all the above. So I’ll try to break this down if I may.

[00:08:36] Steve Grumbine: Sure.

[00:08:37] Mischa Geracoulis: Let me start this way. Project Censored defines censorship a little more broadly than the traditional definition of censorship as a government’s control over media.

Theoretically, you know, media in the United States is free of government interference. However, Project Censored sees censorship as the suppression of information, whether purposefully or not, by any method. And those methods include bias, omission, underreporting, or even self censorship by the reporter or publisher, that prevents the public from fully understanding or even being aware of what’s happening in society and the world at large.

There are a number of reasons for that. So over the years we’ve noticed, we see, we’ve experienced an increased hostility toward the press and how journalists, publishers, educators, activists, student activists, are being more frequently targeted under the guise of national security and conflicts.

So, there’s that. We also have a problem. I think it’s not just special to the United States, but a problem of news distrust. News disinterest. News avoidance by the public. Then we have news deserts that are a result of concentration of media ownership and a lack of local news. So some of the problem lies in just people not having access. And I should back up and say, maybe it’s not that they don’t have access. But they don’t know where to get alternate or alternative access to news and information.

Many people, as we know, especially younger generations, they’re relying on social media. Social media is going to be dictated by the algorithm. So, if that information is not going to be unbiased, the more people use a particular platform, the more they’re going to be seeing the same sorts of information that they’ve already been subscribing to.

So that’s not necessarily going to broaden one’s ability to see different opinions, to read, or listen to different viewpoints and potentially form a different opinion from the one that they already hold. So we at Project Censored believe in the power of independent media because independent media is not beholden by corporations or by the government.

And the main problem that independent media has is, well, funding is kind of always that issue. And then just having more widespread, bigger audiences. Because the corporate, broadcasters, they dominate.

[00:11:25] Steve Grumbine: Absolutely. You bring up something and I know your work touches on this, as well. These freaking algorithms on social media, which is how we communicate, right? These algorithms box us into little affinity groups and ne’er shall the information pass beyond the bubble. And it suppresses voices that maybe don’t have the right, you know, click strategy. You didn’t have enough of the right hashtags. You didn’t get enough engagement. People didn’t click like, so they’re not going to showcase you, whatever. Help me understand within your work —you know, obviously some of the stuff that you’ve done as part of your journalism and your educational work focuses on these sorts of things—I mean, what has been your experience with the impact of those algorithms? Because the mainstream busts past all the algorithms. Mainstream has free, you know, like here’s the fire hose of information from us, you’re going to get it. When it comes to independent media, it’s a heck of a lot more challenging as yoUStated. What is your experience and your research tell you about that?

[00:12:30] Mischa Geracoulis: Well, again, you nailed it. you definitely nailed the problem. You know, we, Project Censored, just did this collaborative issue with the Progressive Magazine. And it’s the June-July issue, and the theme is Media Literacy in a Political Year. Three of our colleagues from Project Censored, Kate Horrigan, Reagan Haney, and Shaley Voitel, did a piece that addresses exactly what you’re speaking about, about the algorithms.

Their article’s called Navigating the Digital Democracy. And I do have to defer to their greater expertise in the algorithm realm. But one thing that I found extremely interesting that their research brought up was that people who are using social media, they know about the algorithms. Younger people, they all automatically know, you know, people who are digital natives, they know about the algorithms. Much more so than, older generations.

And people are finding workarounds. There’s this new way of messaging and like, on Twitter or, or X, rather, excuse me, and other platforms where they’re using quote unquote algo’s —”al go speak”— finding other ways, using different words that the people who are online realize that this word is actually taking the place for another word that would have been screened out. That would have been shadow banned.

Some of their research, I think, was looking at the Black Lives Matter movement where users on X or Twitter at the time, if they had the word black in their profile, they were automatically being shadow banned. And so they could be sending messages all day long that people needed to see, but that would not show up in the feed.

So it’s definitely an issue. People say that social media platforms are becoming the new public square. I don’t agree with that because number one they’re privately owned by usually billionaires and they’re controlled by the algorithm. So again I think one of the ways of becoming more informed is by learning about other independent media sites. Not going through platforms, social media platforms, to get there, but going directly to, you know, a website, and reading. Or directly to podcasts like yours and tuning in.

[00:14:59] Steve Grumbine: You heard it right here, folks.

[00:15:00] Mischa Geracoulis: Yes. Exactly. So, I don’t know if that answered your question because I’m not sure there is an answer at this stage.

[00:15:06] Steve Grumbine: Well, I don’t there is an answer, but I think that we, can suss out the surrounding issues that come to it, right? And one of the things, I’ll use them as example. It’s real easy to say that women and children – that famous, right? I mean, you go back to the Titanic, “women and children.” It’s always women and children, we’ve got to protect women and children.

But here we are for those that are actually paying attention, we’re watching a genocide occur right in front of our face. And yet every time we share one of the visually disturbing videos, not for shock value, but more to inform.

Folks, this is happening right now.

You wonder what would happen if you were living in Nazi Germany, and you’re standing outside of Auschwitz, and you’re wondering what you would be doing? Well, you’re doing it right now because it’s happening right now.

And the United States government, not the taxpayer — I wish we could blame it on us taxpayers — United States government is creating money, spending it into existence, buying weapons for Israel.

Bibi Netanyahu, who has been called a war criminal by the UN and has got plenty of people looking to arrest him with the ICC, you name it. And they get a covered picture that says this may be good for you to see.

[00:16:30] Mischa Geracoulis: Yeah. Trigger warning.

[00:16:31] Steve Grumbine: So yeah, trigger warning — don’t look at this by the way — but the whole point of seeing it is so that randoms, so that strays see that this is not some just, just another wall. The Middle East has always been at war. What are you talking about? No, it’s time to inform yourself. But you can’t be informed because, not only are they blocking this stuff, but quite frankly, nobody said that uncovering a genocide was going to be pleasant.

It wasn’t going to be something fun for you to do. There, there is no, Oh my goodness. Where’s the popcorn. Let’s sit down and look at some beheaded children. Right? But this to me is the story of our lives. I’m 55 years old and nothing I have ever experienced in my life comes close to what I’m seeing there.

And I assure you that I see people, when you post about a genocide, they have no concept of it because it’s been so blocked from them. Mind you, I think a lot of it is willful ignorance, literally not looking because they want to keep their own, whatever narrative in their head going. But if yoUSee it, you can’t unsee it.

I think that because the kids were sharp using Tik Tok. And because the kids were sharp leveraging Twitter; Facebook to a lesser degree, cause Facebook really does slap you with warnings and, covering your stuff, and so forth. But I think people were starting to see, Oh My God! And this is what gave rise to the campus protests and the campus encampments.

Right.

[00:18:05] Mischa Geracoulis: Hmm-mm.

[00:18:06] Steve Grumbine: But, it’s not just an algorithm. It is the terms and conditions of having a platform there that will suspend you. If you say the word Zionism, they will suspend you. So there’s word censorship. There is visual censorship. There is algorithmic censorship. Ultimately every possible pathway forward is either covered by a freemium service where they’re expecting you to pay to play or they’re literally blocking you off. It’s kind of like putting a pillow over your face and say, go ahead and tell everybody, scream into the pillow.

This to me seems like, where someone like a Project Censored really could add value here — and I know you guys do, cause I talked to several of you, so I know — but the idea here of not being able to get the information out. And not just not six months later, right? Like right now, while you can save somebody’s life while it’s still relevant. The ability to delay your access to information. I mean, Microsoft just blocked people from calling into Gaza. Using Skype, they just blocked people from doing that. When you think about that?

[00:19:16] Mischa Geracoulis: It is horrendous.

[00:19:17] Steve Grumbine: The level of control the private sector has over the public commons. If ever there was a case for a public media, we see that the weird, blurring of lines between the government and the media has gotten to a point now where I think Leni Riefenstahl would blush. I mean, we are talking about hardcore misdirection. Hardcore efforts to block and suppress and literally punish people. And one of the things that you brought up to me offline was a case out there in California of a teacher, a Jewish teacher, a religiously Jewish teacher, that was isolated in this way as well.

Can you talk a little bit about that and tie it into this larger media suppression?

[00:20:03] Mischa Geracoulis: Yes. So this was a case from 2022, someone who I knew, confided in me of a situation that was going on. So she’s an artist, and she was teaching art as an adjunct instructor at a college in Southern California. And so, this instructor as you said, she’s, Jewish. She’s culturally Jewish, religiously Jewish. She has a Jewish surname. But the course that she was teaching at this campus was art. And it was an undergrad course. So, you know, pretty basic course. There was nothing political about it. It wasn’t even art history, it was a studio class. It wasn’t a theory class. It was a studio class.

So she had a student one semester in the class who had dual citizenship. Dual American and Israeli citizenship. The student went to the Title IX department at that college and made these wildly false claims against the instructor saying that she’s anti Semitic. And it was just like these, just extreme fabrications that never, ever happened.

But, the way the Title IX department handled it was, they approached the instructor as if she was guilty from the get go. They made this horrendous report against her and would not let her see it. She had to get legal representation and the lawyer told her, you know, I’m going to do whatever I can to help you. And the labor union is going to do what we can to help you. But you really need to go to a reporter.

And so that’s when she came to me and Project Censored published the story. We, she, and the lawyer who was working with her, figured out that the person who made these terrible reports against her was working for [American Israeli Political Action Committee] AIPAC. She was getting paid. This Israeli citizen, the young student with dual citizenship. She was paid to do this.

And then the instructor finally pieced it together. Like, why on earth would the student be coming after me? What interest would AIPAC have in me? She realized it was because she’s pro-Palestinian, even though she never spoke about it on campus.

She, some years ago, she had been in Gaza. I think 2018. And had participated in a collective public art event. It was, like, people from the United States, people from other countries, and then Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens, all together worked on this public art project. And then once this instructor got back to the United States, she did some artwork on her own. She had some shows. She realized that the reason she had been targeted is because she had pro-Palestinian views. And so guess what? She’s no longer teaching.

[00:23:05] Steve Grumbine: Wow.

[00:23:06] Mischa Geracoulis: And she played hell just to see her own records, even though that is definitely was her right.

[00:23:13] Steve Grumbine: It just seems like, no matter how far down the rabbit hole you go, you end up seeing clearly that there’s something going on to stop you from violating the narrative that they want done. And it’s not just the narrative. Because, if we had that information, maybe we could stop that narrative from happening.

I mean, we don’t have agency through, the electoral process, I don’t believe. I’ve said it many times, you don’t have to subscribe to that, but I believe it. And I believe that studies from Princeton have shown us that we don’t have agency within this system. And I believe that if you go back further to the founding of this colonial project, we call the United States, that it was always a system, including the founding documents, that was based on wealthy white landowners maintaining their control of society.

We’ve had various periods where they’ve been able to loosen the reins and allow people to feel like, yeah, I’ve got agency. But in reality, when the situation is maybe not working out for the oligarchy, it seems like things tighten up pretty badly. Whether it be the economy collapses. Whether it be the media tightens its grips on things, or whether it be the social media companies start isolating people and eliminating them from the, private public square that they’ve created.

I’m curious. Have you seen any kind of organizational effort to create a public commons that would allow the free flow of information? Or is it completely so far down the runway, so far gone that that is a pipe dream that we have to aspire to at some later time?

[00:25:18] Mischa Geracoulis: There are some interesting efforts underway and there’s one person in particular whose work comes to mind. His name is Victor Picard. And he’s at UPenn in the communication department there, and he talks and writes a lot about reimagining a true public media.

Not PBS, not NPR. But a true public media. And he posits different ways of doing it that are not reliant on the structure that, you know, the ad structure and that kind of thing, the corporate donations. I don’t know all the ins and outs of it, I need to read his work more closely. But he is one among many others who are talking about creating new radio stations, creating new newspapers. Trying to overcome the news deserts that we mentioned earlier.

[00:26:12] Steve Grumbine: What is a news desert? Can we talk about that real quick?

[00:26:14] Mischa Geracoulis: Sure. it’s these swaths of areas in the United States, because we’re just talking about the United States right now, where, there is no local news. Where the local newspapers and local radio stations, local TV stations have been bought up by the big corporations.

And so the “news” quote, unquote, news is syndicated. Whatever news stations are available in some county in the Midwest or wherever in the South, their news deserts are more concentrated in the American Southwest and in the Midwest, but they’re everywhere.

So the local news is no longer there locally. And so what people listen to, if they, turn on a radio or flip on a TV to their quote unquote, “local” station, they’re actually getting syndicated news. They’re just getting like national headlines that just run again and again.

They’re not really getting what’s going on in their own community. So that’s a news desert. It’s the absence of local news.

[00:27:23] Steve Grumbine: Are there fact deserts? It seems like there’s fact deserts as well. entire spectrum; it’s like, Hey man, I’m absent of facts. Where are the facts? Just the facts, right?

[00:27:33] Mischa Geracoulis: Just the facts, ma’am.

[00:27:34] Steve Grumbine: Do me a favor. You also focus on curriculum. And curriculum is really important to being able to plan out how to educate people, and so forth. But I’m curious, tell me a little bit about, you know, information literacy and the ability to teach people how to discern. Help me understand what that entails.

That’s a great question, thanks. So that’s, a cornerstone of Project Censored’s work, Critical Media Literacy, which is a little different from Basic Media Literacy. Basic Media Literacy is quite necessary. It’s, you know, how to use a device. How to access information. How to do basic fact checking.

Those are all need to know skills. But critical media literacy is bringing in more of the critical educational pedagogies. One of the main proponents was

[00:28:28] Mischa Geracoulis: Paulo Freire from Brazil,

wrote the Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and used a critical lens to observe and critique society and education. And so applying that to media education, media literacy, basically it’s a tool of interventions which are useful for developing a thought process. A way of engaging with the news, with media messaging; with political messaging; with public health messaging, community messaging that asks questions that are more related to power structures.

[00:29:07] Steve Grumbine: That also look at frames of reference and potential agendas of the message that they’re seeing. So, it’s a skill set, I would say, that is very useful in discerning facts. If that makes sense.

[00:29:23] Mischa Geracoulis: It absolutely makes sense.

[00:29:25] Steve Grumbine: You know, I’m asking myself a host of questions, right? Because, nobody can be an expert in everything. I mean, for real, like, I focus a lot of my talk on Modern Monetary Theory. This stuff that I’ve been dealing with lately, quite frankly, spawned from my lack of satisfaction with the means of which economic literacy was making it to the general public. The lack of buy-in for basic facts. Things that are readily identifiable, easily provable, etc.

But the signal to noise ratio is so loud. And here’s the thing, right? You have this person — let’s just say, create a straw man so we knock it down — you have person that’s over here, basically preventing people from understanding economics. They’re saying, Oh my God, the national debt, it’s unsustainable! And yet there we are sending billions to Israel and Ukraine. To facilitate wars and to create a cold war against China. And to create a hot war, possibly, with Russia and, you know, definitely a hot war through proxy with Ukraine and Russia and on and on and on, right?

You got Thailand; Taiwan. You’ve got all sorts of stuff going on with the Global South. You’ve got the rise of the BRICS. How could anyone know all this stuff at a level at which they could have a coherent, class-based analysis on how these things impact their lives, what’s important, what’s not important?

I mean, silly things like the petrodollar. And people not understanding that it’s a numeraire. And understanding what it really means for the US to have these things. Ultimately the US is an empire. And where it is in the arc of its empire, whether it be end stage collapse, or whether it be still large and in charge with 900 military bases around the world, people don’t understand the impact of that.

They don’t understand it macroeconomically. So they’re easily swept away with fear of national debt. Fear of deficits. Fear of spending. Fear of inflation, which we just experienced. And they don’t understand enough about it to question why. And so you got a lot of conservatives running around out there saying, well, it’s because Biden printed money. Horse hockey, lie, wrong, not true.

[00:31:44] Mischa Geracoulis: Uh huh.

[00:31:45] Steve Grumbine: But [that’s] what is said. But they don’t know that because the propaganda; the lies. The unchecked lies I consider to be a lack of legitimate reporting. And a lack of knowledge about how federal finance or a fiat system or any of this stuff works, is so obscuring to people.

But I think to myself, wouldn’t it make sense that if we were in a debt and deficit crisis, that sending just a never ending amount of publicly funded weapon transfers to Israel or to Ukraine would be bankrupting the nation? But it’s not. It’s only bankrupting the nation when a poor person says, Oh my goodness, I want healthcare. And oh my goodness, I need housing. And oh my goodness, I would like to have, you know, mass transit to get around because I don’t want to own a car; I can’t afford a car or whatever.

Or, Hey, we’re going to provide a federal job guarantee to ensure nobody is homeless or without work. We’re going to ensure everyone has access to a job. Oh, well, where are you going to find the money for that? How are you going to pay for it? Blah, blah, blah.

These are lies. These are misdirections. These are fake because our government creates money when it spends. But you would never know that by listening to the news. You would never know that, quite frankly, you’d never know that by going to university. I have two master’s degrees and I learned everything wrong about economics.

I had to unlearn $120,000 of education. I want my refund, right? You got to unlearn this stuff. But the media is complicit in this narrative and the people act on that faulty information. That fake news information. And yet every news-checker . . . look at Facebook. Facebook has fact-checkers that say, well, this was seen as wrong.

We had a book. Let me tell you, this is — Pavlina if you’re listening, and I hope you are. So Pavlina Tcherneva, who is a wonderful, wonderful economist, just recently made the president of Levy Institute, Bard College, I believe it is. She just got promoted and she’s been working with EDI, the Employment Democracy Initiative.

And she’s just a great economist that focuses on full employment and price stability. and she’s a champion of the federal job guarantee. She wrote a book called The Case for the Job Guarantee. And every post that all of us make, cause we are devoted activists for Modern Monetary Theory, everyone of the posts got taken down as [if] we were seeking sensitive information.

And she’s like , how do I get my book out there? They’re saying my book is fake news. They’re saying my book is seeking sensitive information. Even she was getting blocked. So it wasn’t bad enough for us activists to get blocked, but she was even getting blocked. So, the idea of being able to get truth to people – it’s not even the information deserts. It’s not even the algorithms. It’s literally them judging; some random backdoor group judging whether what you’re saying is true or not. And what are their class interests in saying what you’re saying is true or not?

And then you go on Twitter and now they’ve got community notes out there. Oh, a community notice has been slapped on your tweet. You’re spreading false information. This isn’t real. And then all of a sudden you look in your followers and you realize 5,000 of them are suspended accounts because Twitter had a case of the ass about somebody something they didn’t like.

I mean, this is ridiculous. This is not communication. This is not free flow. This is not media. This is something altogether different. Help me understand the veracity of the information that we’re being fed. The information we are privy to, oftentimes, is not real. It’s fake news. And yet, because they got the power, they own the means of production, they owns the means of delivery. They’re able to control what information gets to you and what information doesn’t. What agency do we have in that space?

[00:35:39] Mischa Geracoulis: wow, yes. You bring up so much. I mean, I’m just thinking of what’s been called the Fake Content Industry. And just literally jeopardizes access to facts; to accessing accurate information.

I’m thinking, also, about Maria Ressa, the Nobel prize winning journalist from the Philippines. Well, she’s actually a citizen of the United States and the Philippines. So she wrote a book, I think it’s called How to [Stand Up To] Take On a Dictator. So she is a Princeton-trained journalist. She worked for CNN for many, many years; moved back to the Philippines and started her own, you know, CNN.

It’s called the Rappler or just Rappler, R-A-P-P-L-E-R, a pretty big, media organization. They did TV, digital news, and I’m not sure about print. As soon as [former Philipine President Rodrigo] Duterte, if I’m saying his name correctly, came into power, he was just hell bent on bringing her down and all the rest of the free media in the Philippines.

So the Philippines, you know, was colonialized for so, so, so many years. And when they became, you know, quote unquote “democracy,” they modeled their constitution on the US constitution. And so a free and unfettered press was supposed to be part of that. And when Maria Ressa went back to the Philippines to start her, media company, it was with that idea. This is a democracy. I’m supporting democracy. We’re going to do this thing. We’re going to provide this amazing new source to the people. And, um, she went through personal hell. The organization went through hell. They were lucky to come out alive because so many people were killed during that [Duterte] administration.

She wrote her book.  And then there’ve been different documentaries that tell the story for the purpose of it being a cautionary tale to the West. And she talks about how social media went to work on dividing the population. People became fearful of one another, people started hating on one another.

Whereas before, the social media messaging, that later became controlled by the government, was the one doing the, the separation. And that was creating this fear and mistrust of citizen to citizen. Dividing the country. And it eventually, finally, stopped when the people came together, realized what was going on, you know, it didn’t happen overnight by any stretch. But things finally changed when Duterte’s army finally refused to stop shooting its own people.

They just finally refused. And they all did it together so that, you know, they actually had power.

Mm.

And that’s how their government changed. And now they’re, you know, trying to build back to a democracy. And Maria Ressa’s work – she’s able to go forward with her work now.

But, I feel like, it’s what you were alluding to. Like, as long as the general public is just embracing fake information, sticking with their own little confirmation bias and not willing to explore different ideas or to challenge themselves and learn, learn something different, then, you know, the fear and distrust will continue to grow.

And it’s not until people, you know, just use some common sense and realize that, where is it really leading, if everybody is just automatically suspicious and distrustful of everybody else and so caught up in fear, like what kind of way is that to live? I mean, what kind of life satisfaction is that?

I’m jumping for just a moment, but I remember reading probably five years ago, a book that was addressing happiness, global happiness. And Denmark is consistently one of the happiest, reportedly, one of the happiest nations on the planet.

And I remember what struck me about that was the top reason given in this particular book, which I don’t remember the name anymore, said it’s because citizens trust one another. People do not walk around suspicious of one another, generally speaking. They trust one another. And that hit me hard. Because, if people are just going about their day to day life with a basic sense that my neighbor’s doing their best. They’re a decent person. That’s a whole different society than what we’re living through right now.

[00:40:31] Steve Grumbine: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you think about this. The historical reference of the term “woke,” and understanding that when you’re quote unquote “woke,” it means you’re hip to the system. You’re hip what’s going on. You know who the bad guys are and you know the game they’re playing. And you know the people around you aren’t up to speed. And you’re talking to people who are up to speed. And you’re talking about people that have a shared experience.

And so this attack, is a lash out. It’s an overreaction, if you will, to the weaponization of identity politics that has occurred as a result of neoliberalism. The rise of the neoliberal era has created a balkanized, atomized citizenry that is about me, myself and I. A libertarian construct that has just completely destroyed, if you will, the sense of collective well-being. The sense of my neighbor is good.

And the idea is, you know, I don’t know if you got to see the movie, Civil War? I had mixed emotions about it. But, ultimately, I felt like it was a really, really interesting piece that I think everybody should watch.

[00:41:38] Mischa Geracoulis: hmm. I didn’t see it.

[00:41:40] Steve Grumbine: There’s this one scene and it’s, thank God, it’s part of the trailer. So I’m not spoiling anything you. But the dude that played in Breaking Bad, the the one guy that kind of became the loose cannon in the end, uh, that worked with Jesse and Walt, he plays in it. And I can’t remember his name right off hand, but he’s sitting there; and a bunch of dead bodies in a hole; and throwing lye on it. And, you know, a couple other militia guys standing around with them. And they’re talking to this group of reporters that pulled up, and they’re all different ethnicities, one is Chinese, one is Hispanic, one is black and white, you know, all sorts of young, old, and they said, we’re Americans.

He says, yeah, yeah, you’re Americans. But what kind of Americans? And it of a sudden it was like, you know, if you’re the wrong kind of guy goes, “Ch-ch-ch-Chinese… And he got shot right on the spot, killed him right there, boom, dead.

And, obviously this is a movie, But it’s not that far afield from what you could envision. And that was, I think what was so uncomfortable about this movie was there was a component of, I’ve seen that. I’ve seen these scenes in real life; just through TikTok and through live footage that we’ve seen from people that are streaming from a battlefield. Or, from their window as they’re watching a bomb kill a neighbor, you know, on and on and on.

I mean, just a horrific nature of the society that we’re living in right now. And I think to myself, you know, about whether art is copying real life or life is copying art and so forth. It’s impossible to know because we don’t have a real meaningful way of exchanging those ideas. But if you think about what’s happening right now, the idea of anyone standing up for the oppressed. Anyone standing up for those who are in imminent danger is now being targeted as quote unquote “woke.” And they’re attacking anti-woke behavior because woke represents this perversion of the concept of weaponized identity politics.

So this cultural norm that is sweeping across that started as, I think, a result of MAGA, and further inflamed as a result of the horrific, neoliberal stuff that you get from the establishment Democrats, has created this perfect storm of us versus them. And a complete lack of rational conversation. Everything is Donnie tiny hands or, you know, dark Brandon or, you know, there’s all this tropism, all this sort of crazy mean level knowledge.

And it feels a bit like an idiocracy. It feels a little bit like people have just been dumbed down to the point where the most visceral, guttural, the worst craven instincts are rewarded; while the things that we traditionally would have thought of as good characteristic, good behavior, good traits are largely shit upon.

Um, this is kind of broad, I admit, but I think that it’s important. This is, I believe, a direct result of what the media covers, what it doesn’t cover, and the political body that puts it out there with the radio talk shows and all the other podcasters.

So there’s like a culture, an ecosystem of propaganda that’s coming as well. And I don’t believe it’s grassroots. I believe it’s largely AstroTurf based on these things like AIPAC and others. What are your thoughts on the role of alt media that has been co opted?

Like I look at TYT [formerly The Young Turks] and I see them put out a lot of stuff that back in the day, I would have said, Oh man, these guys are on our side. But now I, listened to a lot of what they say, I’m like, Oh my goodness, how do they get swept up in that lie? How do they get swept up in that propaganda? Why are they putting that out there? I don’t understand.

And so it’s like wherever there’s funding, you’ve got to look where the funding is coming from. Help me understand how you guys look at the interest. How do you know someone’s tainted? How do you know that the information may have a taint on it? How would somebody review that? How would they look at it?

[00:45:57] Mischa Geracoulis: Gosh,  well. I think that’s where critical media literacy skills come in handy because It’s reading with questions in mind. Looking for, number one, whose voice is narrating the story? What perspective are they coming from? What is their thesis? Is it something that’s repeated again and again and again? Is it something that’s taking up, you know, bandwidth, and becoming part of the agenda? Becoming not just media agenda, but public agenda?

To me, that’s a starting point. Because then it’s a way of saying, okay, I’ve seen this before, I’ve heard this before. In fact, I’ve heard it a lot. Is this going to be like new public policy? What’s going on?

Well, what’s an alternative here? I I think it comes down to people using a different way of thinking, instead of simply accepting, Oh, well it’s in the news, so it must be important. Well, why is it important? What’s behind that? And now, there are websites where people can go to to look at where organizations are getting their funding. That’s one way of kind of pulling back the curtain and seeing, is this coming from a political organization? How is this being funded? How is this, idea or this piece of news being put forth?

I think something you were also alluding to is, you said earlier, there’s no way that one person can possibly know everything and, and know how to think critically and, and make sense of, all the information that’s coming at us. So, in the best case scenario, independent investigative public interest journalism would be helping to explain what’s going on. Sort of interpret information you know, traditionally, that’s how people would learn about things that their government are doing. Now, as you said, it’s so guided by corporate and political interests, it requires much greater, much deeper due diligence from the individual.

I don’t think there’s an easy answer to any of this. I just have to believe that if enough of us keep doing it; doing what we believe is the right thing. And then by doing the right thing, what I mean is serving the public interest, that maybe it’ll make a difference? Maybe we’ll hit a tipping point, like in the Philippines where the military says, I’m not going to kill any more of my fellow citizens.

[00:48:30] Steve Grumbine: That is powerful. I was thinking about this, you know, I like to sometimes look at the Bolshevik revolution because it was bloodless in the beginning, know what I mean? Everybody had come back from World War I exhausted. The military was like, I’m not killing my fellow Russians, you know, cause they had just come from peasantry. They were serfs. They were part of a feudal, czarist system. those folks, they took power. They came together through guilds and unions and talking to one another, writing pamphlets and building on a common class analysis.

And you think about that and it’s like, what would happen in the United States? I mean, we have got so many not only military, but police officers who have been radicalized in the opposite way. More of a fascist jack -booted kind of authoritarian. Not a member of the community. Not looking to do good so much, but as, be a tool of capital in private property and a tool of control. And so the people are seen as an enemy. The people of the country are seen as an enemy!

And that very thing, you walk out your door and you’re like, Oh my God, it’s one thing to worry about my turn signal being out a taillight being out, a license plate, you know, a registration sticker, whatever. But it’s gotten to the point now where, I mean, it’s been this way for a long time, where black and brown people are fearful of being pulled over by a police officer because the narrative is, you know, Hey, these are bad guys. We got to protect ourselves. The blue line And that narrative is carried through the media as well. You got this vision. I mean, they’ve criminalized homelessness. They have criminalized basic things, like people trying to feed people. You’ve got, groups coming out there cracking whips, get these people out of here, we don’t want to see these homeless people.

Society has been balkanized into the haves and have nots. And that extends into the media. So when you’re hearing the media narratives, you’re hearing a narrative directed toward the haves. I listened to what happened to the Washington DC area where they were looking to move the basketball team out of the nation’s capital, where it really fits the urban lifestyle of D.C., into northern Virginia where the mean income is like 143,000 per.

And you talk about the economic impact? And you know what the rationale was? The rationale was the crime is too high in the district, we need to move it elsewhere. What? You want to move it to where the rich people are? Okay. So now you’re going to bring austerity into that place. And instead of talking about, spending cuts have created a dire situation amongst the poor,

it’s oh my god, the crime rate is so high, you don’t want to bring your family to Ninth and F [Streets in Washington, DC] because if you do that, you know, they could get carjacked, or they could get killed. You know, instead of realizing that these prescriptions, these cost-cutting things, hurt somebody. Austerity is murder and these people are in the bullseye if you will, the crosshairs. And it’s just a very very bizarre way of viewing information.

And like you s aid, who’s profiting from that? Who is telling the story? What voice is saying it? I’m sorry for getting on my soapbox, but I really feel strongly about this. That if you’re reading news, you must ask from whose vantage point you’re hearing it from, folks. And, and when I think about the rich talking about how good of an economy we have, and I think about guys that are missing teeth and having all kinds of other problems, and that’s not the focal point.

I know they’re not talking about it from a working class struggle. Anyway, with that, Mischa, I would like to give you a chance to close us out. Give your parting words to the audience about media literacy and basically independent media’s role.

[00:52:18] Mischa Geracoulis: Amazing. Thank you. I really appreciate everything you just said. I am thinking so much about the economist Yanis Varoufakis who’s Greek and who was the finance minister when the austerity measures hit Greece. Those austerity measures, you know, they came from the World Bank and the IMF and the wealthy Germans, who dictated the austerity measures that were forced upon the Greek people. And it didn’t affect the people at the top; it hurt all the Greek citizens. The average citizen.

So I totally hear you. I feel like it goes back to neoliberalism, as you were mentioning. And the monetary policies that have been ineffective. And if we just take it to a super personal individual level, one thing that each one of us can do is be more savvy when we’re approaching the news.

We can ask questions. We don’t have to accept that just because it’s loud and repetitive, that doesn’t always mean that it’s important. Why? Why are the powers that be making me think that this is important? So, the work of Project Censored, I’m going to just circle back to that, is promoting Critical Media Literacy and independent journalism as public service.

And using media literacy skills is something that we can all do to help ourselves and help our communities.

[00:53:44] Steve Grumbine: That is a great way to take us out. Folks, I want to thank my guest, Mischa Geracoulis. Fantastic conversation. And this is my first time getting to meet Mischa and I hope I can have her back on and we can build a rapport and, really truly work more closely with Project Censored.

Because I feel like the work you all are doing is so vital. And I’m hoping that I can add a little flavor there with the economic side of this. Because, you know, we’ve got people out there fighting tooth and nail to try and bring about economic literacy so that you can’t be snowed by the lies they tell about debt and deficits and what is possible and what is not possible.

And simultaneously It’s just such a wonderful thing to meet someone who’s actively striving to bring about awareness, and be a fellow traveler. And so with that, I really want to thank you for taking the time to be on the show with me today. Tell everybody where we can find more of your work.

Mischa Geracoulis: Steve, thank you so much. I have so enjoyed speaking with you. It is my honor to have been invited on. I so appreciate the conversation that we’ve had. Thank you for your graciousness and for your hard questions. Our work can be found at ProjectCensored.org. My work is linked there. I also have a Muckrack page, and I’m on LinkedIn.

Steve Grumbine: Well, fantastic. Folks, we’ll put all of that in our show notes and extras. And that’s one thing, Macro N Cheese podcast is done by an entire team of people. Folks that work really, really hard. They don’t get paid. We’re all volunteers. The idea here is that they will take all the key tidbits of information from this podcast and they will provide you with links and extras.

There’ll be show notes, there’ll be a curated, edited transcript of this podcast. I want you all to know the level of effort that we put into making this work for you. It’s not insignificant and folks are really doing cause they believe in what we’re doing and I hope you do too.

If you’d consider becoming a monthly donor, we are a 501c3 nonprofit, Real Progressives. Please feel free to donate any amount, small or large. We are truly at your mercy for funding. And believe me, all these systems that we upload and edit, it costs money folks, and we need your help. Don’t just assume someone else is doing it. Believe me, they’re not. They’re not! And so with that, with my guest, Mischa Geracoulis, from the podcast Macro N Cheese, we are out of here.