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🎙️ Citations Needed | Newsletter 🗞️
🕑 Added 2025-09-04 13:00:15 +0000 UTCDear patrons,
Yes, Citations Needed is currently on a short break between seasons — we'll be back later this month — but that doesn't mean we're staying silent.
In case you missed it, we released a News Brief last week on how major Western media outlets like the BBC and New York Times are readily caving to pressure from genocide apologists, such as The Free Press' Olivia Reingold and Tanya Lukyanova ,to append, "correct," "clarify" or update their coverage of the Gaza famine with tortured caveats about prior health conditions of the children Israel is deliberate starving to death.
"These so-called 'updates' don’t correct the story, right? They correct the reader," explains our guest Beatrice Adler-Bolton, co-host of the Death Panel podcast, adding,
They discipline the reader to accept preventable death as inevitable, to see systemic violence as merely misfortune by biological destiny, and it really also highlights the vulnerabilities without context in order to create propaganda. It shifts responsibility away from the perpetrators, which of course, is the genocidal Zionist state, and onto those that they are harming. Every comorbidity is presented without a structural framing, and that offers us a lesson in sort of how complicity is manufactured.
If you haven't heard it yet, here's the link.
Below are some articles we've been reading recently and three of them were written by previous Citations Needed guests. Do you know which ones? (See the end of this message for the incredibly exciting answer.)
Thanks again for your ongoing support. We really wouldn't be able to do this without you.
Stay tuned for our Season 9 premiere, coming your way soon!
— The Citations Needed Team
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We Deserve Way, Way More Time Off - Liza Featherstone, Jacobin (September 1, 2025)
Americans do not usually get a good amount of time off every year. There should be more time for people to get away from work and get to experience the fullness of life.
Why the Canadian Flight Attendants’ Strike Was “A Perfect Storm” for Labor - Emma Arkell, In These Times (September 1, 2025)
The flight attendants’ strike in Canada was a rare strike in a country that has used government power to crush others. The woman-dominated union also held strong after they felt slighted compared to male pilots.
Trump to Coal Miners: Drop Dead - Kim Kelly, In These Times (September 1, 2025)
The Trump Administration loves to say that it loves coal and coal miners. However, the administration has delayed regulations to protect them from black lung disease.
CVS Strangled, Then Swallowed, Rite Aid - Veronica Riccobene, Jacobin (August 31, 2025)
CVS used millions in retroactive fees to bury Rite Aid, and then bought the competitor and consolidated it. The whole program has led to higher drug prices for the consumer.
New Orleans’ History Is America’s History, and Katrina Is America’s Possible Future - Andy Horowitz, In These Times (August 29, 2025)
20 years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and left an impact that is still felt two decades later. The failures of Katrina and the neoliberal failures afterward should be seen as part of America’s long racial and economic history.
Proving the German Media Bias Against Palestinians - Fabian Goldmann, Jacobin (August 29, 2025)
Analysis reveals that long-held beliefs that German reporting on Gaza was one-sided have validity. In fact, a major publication’s headlines are even worse than expected.
The DC Night Patrols Are Showing Cities How to Fight Trump’s Occupation - Dave Zirin and Chuck Modiano, The Nation (August 29, 2025)
Volunteer night patrols in DC have kept watch of armed troops released on the city. They are a model for how regular citizens can fight back in the era of Trump’s blowtorch to civil liberties.
More Coverage of Gaza Starvation Did Not Necessarily Mean Deeper Coverage - Shirlynn Chan, FAIR (August 29, 2025)
There has been more coverage of the famine in Gaza in the past few months as it has become undeniable. However, this coverage has failed to make Israel’s role in the starvation as explicit as it should be.
For Betar or Worse - Hannah Gais, The Baffler (August 26, 2025)
Betar is the extremist face of a widespread doxxing campaign against pro-Palestinian activism. Betar envisions an odious use of government power to silent dissent.
Trump Administration Wants to Banish Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda - Nick Turse, The Intercept (August 25, 2025)
Trump is now trying to banish US citizen Kilmar Abrego Garcia largely in an effort to cover up his administration’s mistake. The attempted deportation shows the widening of Trump’s global detention apparatus.
Trump’s D.C. Takeover Is Scaring Immigrant Parents Out of Taking Kids Back to School - Jessica Washington, The Intercept (August 24, 2025)
Immigrant parents fear for their safety during pickup and drop off in the midst of the DC takeover. They say the school district has been of little help.
How America Got Hooked on Shady Gas Station Drugs - Emily Topping, Current Affairs (August 13, 2025)
The FDA is cracking down on kratom, a herbal stimulant derived from a tropical Southeast Asian evergreen tree, over its health risks. The action is overdue as a deregulated landscape has led to a surge of easily accessible drugs with little oversight.
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Happy Belated Labor Day
Also, whitewashing labor history is bad.
Now's a good time to revisit Adam and Sarah's commentary about how the history of Labor Day and labor rights are all too often sanitized in the press.
And let's also not forget that President Grover Cleveland made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894, largely in order to dull the popularity of May Day, the more radical, international, and way more socialist worker solidarity holiday.
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Of the authors and journalists featured above, Liza Featherstone, Kim Kelly, and Dave Zirin have previously appeared on Citations Needed. Revisit their appearances here:
The Anti-Worker Pseudo-psychology of Corporate Personality Testing
Citations Needed, Ep. 159 | April 27, 2022 | Guest: Liza Featherstone | [Transcript]
Consumer Society and the Curation of Culture
Citations Needed, News Brief | November 21, 2018 | Guest: Liza Featherstone
How Media’s Use of ‘The Economy’ Flattens Class Conflict
Citations Needed, Ep. 191 | November 1, 2023 | Guest: Kim Kelly | [Transcript]
How the Gambling Industry Swallowed Sports Media Whole
Citations Needed, Ep. 206 | July 31, 2024 | Guest: Dave Zirin | [Transcript]
How 'The Kaepernick Effect' Revealed Reactionary Forces in Youth Sports
Citations Needed, Live Interview | October 6, 2021 | Guest: Dave Zirin | [Transcript]
Trump, the NFL, and the Upcoming Mother of All 'Culture Wars'
Citations Needed, News Brief | May 27, 2020 | Guest: Dave Zirin
Lotteryism, Part II -- A Most Dangerous Game: How Sports Are Used to Fleece Public Trusts
Citations Needed, Ep. 20 | December 20, 2017 | Guest: Dave Zirin
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