The historic elections in Israel - the first since October 7 and a test of Benjamin Netanyahu’s political survival - saw voters turn out in unprecedented numbers, including a record share of Palestinian citizens of Israel, whose vote was met with demonisation from politicians and media.

The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert and Meenakshi Ravi discuss the bigger story emerging around who turned out to vote - and whose votes are being disregarded.

Contributors:
Maya Rosen – Associate Editor, Jewish Currents
Muhammad Shehada – Visiting Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations

On our radar: The Democratic Republic of Congo is battling the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, as efforts to contain it are complicated by widespread misinformation.

The Listening Post’s Nicholas Muirhead examines a crisis where information can cost lives or save them.

Big Money, AI ads and the US midterms

The US is heading into its most expensive election yet, with a deluge of campaign ads across television and social media. AI-generated videos are opening a new frontier in political messaging, blurring the line between reality and fiction and potentially misleading voters.

Much of this content is coming from Republican campaigns, alongside a growing wave of anti-Muslim messaging. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s disapproval numbers are becoming a deeper problem for Republicans.

Featuring: 
John Fredericks – Host, The John Fredericks Show
Katie Sanders – Editor-in-Chief, Politifact
Matt Duss – Vice President, Centre for International Policy
Wajahat Ali – Cohost, democracy-ish podcast

The narrative war over Israel’s Arab vote | The Listening Post

Three years after the October 7 attacks and the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, there have been a slew of books, podcasts and media appearances revisiting what happened.

Much of this is coming from former Biden officials who are trying to whitewash the administration's support for Israel and rehabilitate their reputations. They are being welcomed across mainstream media, whilst those with more critical accounts continue to struggle with invitations and access.

Presenter: Richard Gizbert

Contributors: 
Connor Echols – Managing editor, Responsible Statecraft
Sarah Leah Whitson – Human rights lawyer
Laura Albast – Fellow, Institute for Palestine Studies
Akbar Shahid Ahmed – Diplomatic correspondent, The Washington Sun

On our radar

Hollywood’s big five studios became the big four this week. Skydance sealed one of the biggest media deals in history, buying Warner Bros Discovery, merging it with Paramount and taking control of a range of other outlets, including CNN.

The Listening Post's Elettra Scrivo looks at how the deal will reshape the news business.

Why is Nigel Farage suddenly receiving so much media scrutiny?

Nigel Farage built his career on hardline anti-immigration rhetoric and has become one of the most recognisable names in British politics. The United Kingdom's Reform leader has been able to capitalise on what critics say has been a disproportionate amount of attention from the mainstream media.

The Listening Post’s Meenakshi Ravi looks at the media that helped make Farage and the right-wing broadcaster that has become a platform for his political ambitions.

Featuring: 
Banseka Kayembe – Founder, Naked Politics
Carol Cadwalladr – Co-founder, The Nerve
Oliver Dean – Assistant editor, Conservative Home

The scramble to rewrite Biden's record on Gaza | The Listening Post

With elections one month away, the media discourse in Israel has narrowed in on one question about one man: What did Benjamin Netanyahu know before October 7?

The prime minister is suing the Israeli newspaper that reported the claim, while the right-wing Channel 14 insists none of it matters. Missing from the coverage is any reckoning with what Israel has done in Gaza.

Contributors:
Dan Perry – Author, Ask Questions Later on Substack
Diana Buttu – Human rights lawyer
Ron Skolnik – Political consultant, Partners for Progressive Israel
Yael Berda – Associate professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

On our radar

Donald Trump gathered some of the biggest names in AI this week and got them to agree to regulate themselves. Meenakshi Ravi examines the “morally binding” pact.

Kidfluencers: The business of broadcasting childhood

One of the most popular genres of online content these days is made by children – or rather, made of them.

Family vlogging has become one of the internet’s most profitable genres. But questions remain over its stars’ labour protections and ability to consent to what is published about them. The Listening Post’s Tariq Nafi looks at the business of broadcasting childhood.

Featuring: 
Caymi Barrett – Former child influencer
Fortesa Latifi – Author, Like, Follow, Subscribe
Sarah Adams – Founder, Mom.Uncharted

Netanyahu's fight to own the election narrative | The Listening Post

As Brazilians head into national elections, there’s a familiar name on the ballot: Bolsonaro. Not former President Jair Bolsonaro. It’s his son Flavio, who is presenting himself to the electorate as a more moderate version of his father.

Election coverage has been dominated by a major corruption scandal - the biggest banking fraud case in the country’s history. Brazilians are accustomed to corruption scandals involving political figures. The coverage tends to be framed as: they’re all equally corrupt.

Contributors:
Andrew Fishman – President & co-founder, Intercept Brasil
David Nemer – Professor, University of Virginia
Andre Pagliarini – Professor, Louisiana State University
Natalia Portinari – Reporter, O Globo

Presenter: Richard Gizbert
Producers: Iraklis Taxiarchis, Monazza Farooqi and Kritika Jindal
Editor: Sidney Sonnerberg

On our radar: 

Donald Trump’s decision to bar three news outlets from the White House appears to have backfired after journalists organised a media boycott and a judge overturned the ban. Tariq Nafi has been tracking the latest duel between the US president and the media.

Reporter: Tariq Nafi

Producer: Elettra Scrivo
Editor: Haim Litani

Spain's neo-Nazis: spectacle vs reality

A fringe neo-Nazi movement in Spain, Nucleo Nacional, has attracted a growing online following by packaging incendiary and slickly produced content. The mainstream media attention the group has received has made a marginal organisation appear far larger and more influential than it is. The Listening Post’s Elettra Scrivo travels to Madrid - where she comes face-to-face with Nucleo Nacional’s members - to look at the reality that lies behind the spectacle.

Featuring:
Miquel Ramos – Author, 'Antifascistas'
Urszula Mrozowska – Digital researcher in hate speech and extremism

Producer / Reporter: Elettra Scrivo
Editor: Sidney Sonnerberg

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The media battle behind Brazil’s election | The Listening Post

As Brazilians head into national elections, there’s a familiar name on the ballot: Bolsonaro. Not former President Jair Bolsonaro. It’s his son Flavio, who is presenting himself to the electorate as a more moderate version of his father.

Election coverage has been dominated by a major corruption scandal - the biggest banking fraud case in the country’s history. Brazilians are accustomed to corruption scandals involving political figures. The coverage tends to be framed as: they’re all equally corrupt.

Contributors:
Andrew Fishman – President & co-founder, Intercept Brasil
David Nemer – Professor, University of Virginia
Andre Pagliarini – Professor, Louisiana State University
Natalia Portinari – Reporter, O Globo

Presenter: Richard Gizbert
Producers: Iraklis Taxiarchis, Monazza Farooqi and Kritika Jindal
Editor: Sidney Sonnerberg

On our radar: 

Donald Trump’s decision to bar three news outlets from the White House appears to have backfired after journalists organised a media boycott and a judge overturned the ban. Tariq Nafi has been tracking the latest duel between the US president and the media.

Reporter: Tariq Nafi

Producer: Elettra Scrivo
Editor: Haim Litani

Spain's neo-Nazis: spectacle vs reality

A fringe neo-Nazi movement in Spain, Nucleo Nacional, has attracted a growing online following by packaging incendiary and slickly produced content. The mainstream media attention the group has received has made a marginal organisation appear far larger and more influential than it is. The Listening Post’s Elettra Scrivo travels to Madrid - where she comes face-to-face with Nucleo Nacional’s members - to look at the reality that lies behind the spectacle.

Featuring:
Miquel Ramos – Author, 'Antifascistas'
Urszula Mrozowska – Digital researcher in hate speech and extremism

Producer / Reporter: Elettra Scrivo
Editor: Sidney Sonnerberg

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https://bsky.app/profile/ajlisteningp... 
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The media battle behind Brazil's election | The Listening Post

As Brazilians head into national elections, there’s a familiar name on the ballot: Bolsonaro. Not former President Jair Bolsonaro. It’s his son Flavio, who is presenting himself to the electorate as a more moderate version of his father.

Election coverage has been dominated by a major corruption scandal - the biggest banking fraud case in the country’s history. Brazilians are accustomed to corruption scandals involving political figures. The coverage tends to be framed as: they’re all equally corrupt.

Contributors:
Andrew Fishman – President & co-founder, Intercept Brasil
David Nemer – Professor, University of Virginia
Andre Pagliarini – Professor, Louisiana State University
Natalia Portinari – Reporter, O Globo

On our radar: Donald Trump’s decision to bar three news outlets from the White House appears to have backfired after journalists organised a media boycott and a judge overturned the ban. Tariq Nafi has been tracking the latest duel between the US president and the media.

Spain's neo-Nazis: spectacle vs reality

A fringe neo-Nazi movement in Spain, Nucleo Nacional, has attracted a growing online following by packaging incendiary and slickly produced content. The mainstream media attention the group has received has made a marginal organisation appear far larger and more influential than it is. The Listening Post’s Elettra Scrivo travels to Madrid - where she comes face-to-face with Nucleo Nacional’s members - to look at the reality that lies behind the spectacle.

Featuring:
Miquel Ramos – Author, 'Antifascistas'
Urszula Mrozowska – Digital researcher in hate speech and extremism

AI’s existential threat to humanity is dominating headlines across the globe. But with so much attention on the fear of a future AI apocalypse, is the media ignoring the damage AI is already causing?

And as AI CEOs join forces to call for regulations, is their motivation about public safety or to secure their grip on the technology’s future?

Contributors: 
Leo Schwartz – Reporter, The Information
Sarah Myers West – Co-executive director, AI Now
Aaron Mak – Technology reporter, Politico
Cori Crider – Executive director, Future of Tech Institute

On our radar

NAZA, a documentary that lifts the lid on Israel’s calculated killing of Palestinians, has sparked outrage in Israel and accusations of treason against its Israeli filmmakers. They’ve faced threats from senior government and military officials, as well as journalists and online activists.

Elettra Scrivo reports.

Who gets to publish Africa? Cassava Republic Press and the politics of storytelling

Literature can shape how people see themselves - and how they’re seen by the rest of the world. But before a story reaches a reader, someone - an editor - has to decide if it is worth publishing. For decades, much of African literature was published outside the continent. Twenty years ago, Cassava Republic Press set out to change that, by building a publishing house rooted in Africa.

Tariq Nafi examines how the publisher has helped reshape the industry and whether control over African stories has really come home.

Featuring:
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf – Co-founder and publishing director, Cassava Republic Press
Chika Unigwe – Author and professor of creative writing
Tinashe Mushakavanhu – Assistant professor, Harvard University

Doomsday AI: panic, regulation and the China fear | The Listening Post

With the US midterm elections just weeks away, Donald Trump’s administration is trying to put a positive spin on a war with Iran that shows no sign of letting up.

Climbing fuel and grocery prices, the president’s provocative social media posts and the Pentagon’s combative relationship with the media are making that story harder to sell.

Contributors: 
Laicie Heeley – Editor-in-chief, Inkstick
Mark Kimmitt – Former US Assistant Secretary of State
Negar Mortazavi – Host, The Iran Podcast
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On The Line Media

On our radar

Revelations from Israeli newspaper Haaretz about what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew before the October 7 attacks have ignited a firestorm in the country. Netanyahu calls the reporting fabricated and is threatening to sue.

Ryan Kohls reports.

How COVID coverage broke trust in the US

Six years on from the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 is back in the headlines - and so are questions about how newsrooms covered it.

The Listening Post's Nicholas Muirhead on how the pandemic broke trust in the US.

Featuring: 
Amesh Adalja – Infectious Disease Physician, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Frances E Lee – Co-author, In COVID’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us
Jeanne Lenzer – Investigative Medical Journalist

Selling the war: Purges, polygraphs and propaganda | The Listening Post

Assal Rad built a reputation on social media as the “headline fixer” for her work correcting journalistic sins at major news outlets. The historian joins presenter Richard Gizbert to discuss her new book, ‘Don’t Say Palestine - How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide.’ In it, Rad traces the role mainstream media played in normalising the dehumanisation of Palestinians and whitewashing Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Contributor:
Assal Rad – Author ‘Don’t say Palestine: How the media manufactured consent for genocide.’

Journalist Ameed Shehade: “I escaped death four times.”

Over the past few weeks, Israel has intensified its efforts to make life unbearable in the Occupied West Bank, where settlers - protected by the army - have been besieging, attacking and killing Palestinians. Journalist Ameed Shehade, correspondent for Al Araby TV, speaks with us about what it is like to live - and work - with a target on his back.

Featuring:
Ameed Shehade – West Bank Correspondent, Al Araby TV

How the media manufactured consent for genocide | The Listening Post

For decades, much of the United States media adopted Washington’s framing of US conflicts in the Middle East. But the US-Israel war against Iran is defying that trend. US news outlets are increasingly challenging President Donald Trump on his declarations of victory and absence of a clear strategy.

Meanwhile, Iran’s military remains operational, Tehran retains control of the Strait of Hormuz and fears are mounting that the disruption to global energy supplies will drag on.

Contributors: 
Mohamad Elmasry - professor of media studies, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies
Negar Mortazavi - host, Iran Podcast
Maral Karimi - lecturer, Toronto Metropolitan University
Sultan Barakat - senior professor in public policy, Hamad Bin Khalifa University

On our radar

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign trips are usually tightly choreographed affairs. But his trip to Norway did not go according to plan when a journalist named Helle Lyng asked him an unscripted question.

Lyng was later criticised by Indian news outlets for that exchange. Norway’s news media also came under fire after the country’s largest newspaper published an orientalist caricature of Modi.

Tariq Nafi has been following the story.

The dark side of Kenya’s digital age

Kenya is the tech hub of East Africa and has built a thriving digital economy. But alongside that growth has come an expanding surveillance apparatus. After antigovernment protests in 2024, President William Ruto’s administration is accused of intensifying its monitoring of civilians. Critics say the government is trying to quell online dissent before it reaches the streets. Nicholas Muirhead reports on how surveillance tools designed to combat "terrorism" are being turned on Kenya's citizens.

Featuring:
Victor Ndede - Amnesty International
Nanjala Nyabola - author, Digital Democracy
Thomas Mukhwana - investigative journalist, Africa Uncensored

Trump’s war loop: Escalate, retreat, repeat | The Listening Post

A weekly programme that examines and dissects the world's media, how they operate and the stories they cover.

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