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This week: the 44th annual Banned Books Week. This week celebrates the right to read and protecting your right to know. This past year the American Library Association, a co-sponsor of Banned Books Week, tracked 4,235 unique titles challenged - in 2025 alone. That's the second highest ever documented, the highest ever was in 2023. In a special one hour episode this week, Mickey speaks with President of the American Library Association Dr. Maria McCauley, and one of the youth honorary chairs, Marshall Romero.    Notes:  Dr. Maria McCauley is the 2026-2027 American Libraries Association President. Maria is Director of Libraries for the City of Cambridge, where she leads 167 dedicated professionals in delivering an inclusive, futurefocused vision of library service for all. Maria previously served as Director of Libraries in Santa Monica, CA and in Somerville and held key leadership roles at Northeastern University.  Marshall Romero is a youth advocate based in Houston, Texas. Their advocacy journey has taken them from local neighborhoods to the Texas Legislature, where they spoke out against harmful policies targeting LGBTQ+ and marginalized students. As someone who sees themself within banned literature, Marshall believes it is critical we are all engaged to abolish book banning in our country.

Eleanor Goldfield and Mickey Huff host this week’s program.   First up, Trumps dictators toolkit and how we got here. Eleanor sits down with journalist, researcher and policy director of Defending Rights & Dissent Chip Gibbons to talk about the NSPM-7, the latest in a long line of attacks on our basic constitutional rights. Chip warns that we should neither look at this as a new phenomenon in US history nor should we be flippant about the severity of Trumps escalation. By looking at history we can contextualize our current moment and understand more of what the government is thinking with regards to our rights, our movements, and our future.  Next up, cohosts Mickey Huff and Eleanor Goldfield sit down to dig into some news that didnt make the news, focusing on attacks on journalists and academic freedom. They outline how Congress is blackmailing universities to swear loyalty to Israel, the myriad attacks on journalists abroad and at home, and how DHS is using a customs law to obtain the private data and correspondence of journalists, non-profits and unions. They also dig into some recently released documents that show how the powers that be were well aware of the toxicity of ground zero after 9/11, but hid it so that Wall Street could re-open.  Notes:  Chip Gibbons is a journalist, researcher and policy director of Defending Rights and Dissent, and he is currently working on a book on the history of FBI political surveillance for Verso books, coming out in February 2027.     the Project Censored Show:

This week: combating and reframing big tech. First up, I sit down with Ed from DeFlock to talk about ALPRs - Automatic License Plate Readers, and their handy way of circumventing the 4th amendment meant to protect against unlawful search. Ed also talks about the massive network of data sharing across law enforcement and private corporations, the use of the data for more than stated purposes - from assisting ICE to stalking ex-girlfriends. Ed reminds us that a functioning democracy does not surveil their population, and lists ways that communities across the country are fighting back.  Next up, I sit down with Heidi Lim from AI Resist List to talk about reframing AI, and the possible futures that both buck the current iteration of AI and avoid the binary of anti-tech vs. pro-tech. Heidi points out that the purpose is not just to give people hope but to give them ideas, to become literate in not only what AI is but how to combat it creatively - because if AI is where creativity goes to die, perhaps combating it is where creativity can be reborn.   Notes:  Ed is a member of DeFlock and has been organizing and researching police use of surveillance technologies for nearly a decade. Heidi Lim is a climate communicator focused on increasing climate literacy and rooted in environmental justice. Her work puts a climate lens on topics like technology, justice, and culture, which is ultimately how she came more recently to working on AI ethics.

Mickey Huff hosts this week’s program.   The First Casualty is Truth: Censorship and Propaganda in the US/Isreali Wars in the Middle East, with media scholar Bill Yousman, editor of the special issue of the journal Democratic Communiqu on Freedom of Expression, Campus Politics, Academic Freedom, and the War in Gaza; and Robin Andersen, author most recently of The Complicit Lens: US Media's Coverage of Israels Genocide in Gaza; both interviewed by Mickey Huff.    Notes:  Dr. Bill Yousman is a Professor Communication, Media & The Arts & Director of MLDC Graduate Program at Sacred Heart University Robin Andersen is a professor emerita of Communications at Fordham University, and author of the recent book "The Complicit Lens: U.S. Media Coverage of Israels Genocide in Gaza."   the Project Censored Show:

Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s program.   First up, I sit down Kels Menchaca, an organizer with the DFW Support Committee to talk about the Prairieland case. With combined sentences of 562 years, the defendants represent the latest intensification in the US governments violent assault on free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to have zines, freedom to think, and more. We discuss the egregious and absurd case - from the prosecution outright lying in court to the judge fining lawyers for defending their clients. Taken all together, it is a terrifying reminder that in these times, you could face decades in jail for not liking your government.  Next up, Leonardo Flores joins the show again to talk about the fallout from the double earthquake in Venezuela. Leo outlines some of the recent US media propaganda attempting to smear Venezuela when in fact it is the US paralyzing Venezuelas disaster response through unilateral economic warfare. Leo and I discuss the US and Israel vying for shock doctrine access, how grassroots coordination post-disaster builds revolutionary solidarity, and more.     Notes:  Kels Menchaca is part of the Dallas Fort-Worth (DFW) Support Committee and a friend of some of the Prairieland defendants. Leonardo Flores is a co-founder of the Venezuela Solidarity Network. He previously worked as an organizer with CODEPINK and as an analyst with the Venezuelan Embassy in the U.S. Leonardo was born in Venezuela and maintains close ties to social movements that have transformed the country over the past twenty-six years.      the Project Censored Show: ...

This week on the program, a special full show with Palestinian author, historian and academic Dr. Ramzy Baroud about his latest book Before the Flood: A Gaza Family Memoir Across Three Generations of Colonial Invasion, Occupation, and War in Palestine. Dr. Baroud takes us through longue duree, a history that has not been amputated and distorted by colonial narrative. He explains the failings of corporate media, of political discourse, and the need for oppressed peoples to tell their own stories, without countering, without arguing the points of the oppressor. Because dignity cannot be divided. Freedom cannot be sectionalized.   Notes:  Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a Palestinian author, historian, and academic whose work centers on Palestinian history, liberation, and peoples history. He is the editor of The Palestine Chronicle, a position he has held since 1999, where he has helped shape an alternative narrative grounded in lived Palestinian experience. He holds a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and has taught mass communication at Curtin University. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Zaim University in Istanbul. Dr. Baroud is the author of eight books, including Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, The Last Earth, and These Chains Will Be Broken. He is also the co-editor, with Ilan Papp, of Our Vision for Liberation, and the forthcoming volume Gaza Rising. His latest book, Before the Flood, reconstructs Gazas modern history through family memory and intergenerational testimony. His work brings together history, journalism, and political analysis, contributing to global conversations on Palestine, decolonization, and resistance. He has lectured widely at universities and institutions around the world, engaging audiences on Palestine, media, and popular resistance.

First up, Mickey Huff sits down with public health researcher and journalist Lily Minh Wass to talk about the sycophancy machine. Lily outlines the subtle and disturbing quirks of AIs large language models, amplifying our human desire to be agreed with, which supersedes the desire to be factual. Lily highlights our cognitive offloading onto AI, breaks down how these systems operate, and more.  Next up, Mickey and Eleanor dig into some of the news that did make the news but was wrong. We highlight the need for critical media literacy, especially when were confronted with something that pings our confirmation bias. We also dive into some history, the US at 250, the framing of our nationalistic ideals, the society of the spectacle, Idiocracy, and finding our way to solidarity.      Notes:  Lily Minh Wass is a public health researcher, independent journalist, and creative writer. She has held positions at Cornell University, CUNY School of Public Health, and The Vaccine Confidence Project. Her work explores the psychology of disinformation and the algorithmic spread of ideas, which she writes about for Repro Uncensored.

Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s program.   First up, I sit down with professor Abboud Hamayel to discuss the misuse of history, in particular archaeology as a tool of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Abboud also deconstructs the performative solidarity of pity, the entangled histories that make Palestine a lens through which to frame our own struggles, the jealousy of the settler, and stepping outside of colonial time.  Next up, Meta's censorship of LGBTQ voices brings together digital activists, legal experts and LGBTQ communities to combat invisibilization. We discuss the problematic dependency on social media platforms, how this can spur the creation of alternative comms and organizing methods, digital legal frameworks in the EU vs the US, and more.      Notes:  Abboud Hamayel is a Palestinian intellectual, lecturer, and political analyst. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University, near Ramallah.    Caspar Pisters is the head of communication for Amsterdam’s wonderful & notorious Club Church. With a background in journalism, currently Caspar does communications for the Dutch HIV organization.   Martha Dimitratou is the founder and Executive Director of Repro Uncensored, a global nonprofit documenting and challenging systemic online censorship, AI-driven harms, and the influence of Big Tech on access to information, freedom of expression, and democratic participation. Repro Uncensored’s research and investigations have been featured by hundreds of media outlets worldwide. Through Repro Uncensored, she also develops cultural initiatives and movement-building projects that bring together art, technology, digital rights, and social justice.   Lotje Beek is a policy advisor at the Dutch digital rights oranization Bits of Freedom, focusing on Big Tech and online platforms. She mainly works on digital rights within European platform regulation. In that context, she advocates for the effective enforcement of the Digital Services Act. Successfully so: Bits of Freedom recently won a court case against Meta Platforms based on that law.

First up, Dr. Gerald Horne joins the show to ring in 250 years of the US project - how is that going? Dr. Horne sets the record straight not only about what’s missing in our ever censored history books but how that affects our understanding of issues and struggles today. As James Baldwin noted, history is not past, after all. We discuss the selective teaching and pedestaling of state-sanctioned violence, the moving target of whiteness, and more.    Next up, José Luis Granados Ceja comes back on the show, this time to dig into HondurasGate, the ongoing plot to oust leftist governments in Latin America, using narcoterrorism as an excuse to covertly attack sovereignty across the region, and what these escalations mean for people across the Americas, including right here at home.      Notes:    Dr. Gerald Horne holds the Moores Professorship of History and African American Studies at University of Houston. His research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of relations involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. Dr. Horne is the author of more than thirty books and one hundred scholarly articles and reviews including the paradigm shifting book, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: slave resistance and the origins of the United States.         José Luis Granados Ceja is an experienced journalist based in Mexico City, co-host of the Canal Once public affairs television program Sin Muros, as well as Soberanía: The Mexican Politics Podcast. He covers Latin America for DropSite News, and has worked as a writer, editor, photographer, correspondent, radio host, TV producer, and as on-camera analyst, with a particular focus on social movements and labor unions throughout Latin America.

Eleanor Goldfield hosts this week’s program. First up Wanda Bertram from the Prison Policy Initiative joins the show to talk about what we don’t know and what we think we know about mass incarceration. Wanda shares some stats and facts that you’ll never hear on corporate media, and debunks myths that betray our propagandized thinking.  Next up, MiDian Shofner sits down to unpack antiracism, abolition, and reframing what an expert is when it comes to building alternatives to our cruel system. MiDian calls on us to linger in the reality of what this country really is, who we are, and where to look for solutions that benefit the people.  Notes:  Wanda Bertram is the communications strategist at the Prison Policy Initiative. The Prison Policy Initiative uses data to highlight the harms of mass incarceration and to spark campaigns for reform of the criminal legal system. MiDian Shofner is the CEO of the Epitome of Black Excellence & Partnership and the Owner/Founder of 8PM Consulting for Humanity. MiDian's work is founded upon three core pillars designed to catalyze learning, reflection, growth, and societal transformation aimed at educating and empowering individuals to confront and dismantle the insidious forces of racism and injustice that plague our society.

Eleanor Goldfield & Mickey Huff host this week’s program.   First up, researcher and editor Michelle Eid joins the show to talk about literal framing when it comes to photojournalism, and how extractive dehumanizing journalism turns people’s pain and suffering into career-boosting material, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and bolstering the dangerous disconnect that allows atrocities to continue. Michelle highlights the importance of relationship building and archival work, but that how this work is done is critical.    Next up, cohost Mickey Huff and I sit down to dissect some recent news that didn’t make the news, contextualize what press freedom looks like from the US to Sweden, and why AI should never be in charge of telling us what news is.      Notes:    Michelle Eid is a Lebanese researcher and editor, and the Editor-in-Chief of Al Rawiya, a publication and platform centered on the Levant. Her work explores socio-economic justice, agricultural politics, and the relationship between people and the land.     the Project Censored Show:

Eleanor Goldfield & Mickey Huff host this week’s program.First up, I sit down with investigative reporter Logan M. Davis to talk about his exclusive reporting on ICE hold rooms, these unofficial black sites that serve as torturous liminal spaces in the larger network of kidnappings, forced disappearances and deportations. Logan explains how these bus stops with cell doors are acquired, used and hidden from public view, that the cruelty and terror are the point, and how folks can organize in their local communities to stop them.  Next up, my cohost Mickey Huff sits down with the Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders US Clayton Weimers to talk about the press freedom index and the US slipping position on it. Clayton outlines the myriad attacks on press freedom, and how these attacks are also necessarily attacks on democracy, and what we can do about it.  Notes:  Logan M. Davis is a progressive researcher, writer, and consultant based in Denver, Colorado, specializing in right-wing extremist movements. In his writing and public speaking, he has focused on Christian nationalism, information ecosystems, and dark money in politics. Logan has won awards for both investigative journalism and opinion writing. He is a proud member of Denver NewsGuild and co-founder of the Political Workers Guild of Colorado. Clayton Weimers is the Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) USA

In the first segment I sit down with author Nicola Griffith to talk about her recent book release She is Here. Nicola digs into her work in understanding history as stories not hard, immovable fact, and that history depends on who tells it. She discusses writing history as an embodied experience, extracting ourselves from binaries and embracing nuance, how the lack of disabled perspectives in literature shapes our ableism, and more.  Next up, I sit down with journalist Liam Syed and organizer Nikki Morse to talk about how Israels latest quasi-visa program targets foreign activists, more than a handful of whom are Jews, saying theyre either a security threat or immigrating illegally funny concept for an ethno-state built on illegal immigration, ethnic cleansing and genocide.     Notes:  Nicola Griffith is the author of nine novels, including Hild, Spear, and Menewood. In addition to her fiction and nonfiction (New York Times, Guardian, Nature, New Scientist) she is known for her data-driven 2015 work on bias in the literary ecosystem and as founder and co-host, with Alice Wong, of #CripLit. Awards include the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Society of Authors ADCI Literary Prize, two Washington State Book Awards, the Premio Italia, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Otherwise awards, and six Lambda Literary Awards. She holds a PhD from Anglia Ruskin University, is married to writer Kelley Eskridge, and lives in Seattle"where in 2024 she was inducted into the SFF Hall of Fame. In 2025 she was named as SFWAs 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master. Liam Syed is an independent journalist and photographer. His work focuses on issues of conflict, human rights and activism. Nikki Morse is an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement and a member of the Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Eleanor Goldfield & Mickey Huff host this week’s program.This week, the violation and capitulation of higher education.  First up, I sit down with Zachary Levenson to talk about the war on sociology and what happens when the academic governing body deems all existing sociology textbooks illegal to teach in the state of Florida. Zach highlights the purposefully vague verbiage of new policies, the anti-intellectualism fueling them, and why educators must never self-censor or comply in advance.  Next up, cohost Mickey Huff sits down with Nolan Higdon to talk about his latest book MAGAcademy on how corporatism paved the way for the hostile takeover of Higher Ed. Nolan discusses the neoliberalization of academia, the purposeful devaluing of professors and treatment of students as customers that all predate the current attacks on higher ed. Nolan also warns of the dangers of compliance in advance and the smooth rhetoric of corporate takeovers wrapped in social justice ideologies. Notes:  Zachary Levenson is associate professor of sociology at Florida International University. He is the author of the award-winning book Delivery as Dispossession (Oxford University Press, 2022). Nolan Higdon is a political analyst, author, host of The Disinfo Detox Podcast, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Project Censored National Judge. Higdon’s areas of concentration include critical AI literacy, podcasting, digital culture, news media history & propaganda, and critical media literacy.

Mickey Huff hosts this week’s program.This week on the program, we celebrate Independent Media and press freedom with Izzy Fest 2026 and the 18th annual Izzy Award named after the legendary muckraker, I.F. Stone. First up, we have documentary filmmaker Abby Martin of Empire Files who is sharing the Izzy Award this year for her documentary “Earth’s Greatest Enemy” about how the Pentagon is the world’s greatest polluter and why we must all act to reverse the global damage caused by US military. Next up Izzy judge and professor Victor Pickard discusses the state of our free press, the challenges journalists face from the current administration, and how independent media can light the way to a more informed and just world.  Notes:  Abby Martin is an independent journalist, filmmaker, and host of The Empire Files. She is the director of the 2019 documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom and the 2026 documentary Earths Greatest Enemy.Victor Pickard is the C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the Annenberg School for Communication, where he co-directs the Media, Inequality & Change (MIC) Center.