Last month I had the awesome chance to go to Berlin and present at the annual Zeitgeist festival. I spoke about our dying planet and why I believe TZM is a powerful force for consciousness and sustainability.

There I met a huge contingent of change agents taking it upon themselves to create new mediums of sharing and access.

One of the battle fronts is new media. acTVism Munich is a group that’s building a network of information ignored by the corporate media. I sat down with them to discuss the global renaissance of citizen journalism and what it means to be an activist journalist.

Good News with Abby Martin

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Watch the interview dubbed in German here. acTVism Munich has already interviewed the likes of Glenn Greenwald, Annie Machon and Noam Chomsky and has great future events in the works.

Here’s Chomsky’s insights on NATO, ISIS and free trade:

 Noam Chomsky on the Media and Humanity

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Follow and support acTVism Munich and other grassroots independent media groups.

Abby Martin | @AbbyMartin

Comedian Joe Rogan’s unfiltered podcast The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) features a variety of awesome guests whose topics range from ancient civilizations to the police state.

I always love joining Joe while in LA, and recently got to discuss with him everything from Islam to the need for a new economic model.

Many fucks are said, so if you’re offended by swearing please skip the broadcast.

The Joe Rogan Experience with Abby Martin

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To download this podcast go here. Check out the last podcast I did with Joe focusing on Israel’s war on Gaza and the Drug War.

Some of my favorite topics to hear Joe and his guests wax philosophy about are space and consciousness, so I invited him on Breaking the Set to talk string theory, invisible aliens and collective DMT dreams.

 Joe Rogan on Breaking the Set

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While in Cali I also stopped by Bonoboville to speak to Dr. Susan Block, a sex therapist specializing in the philosophy of ethical hedonism. On her weekly radio show, we discussed everything from US hegemony to ecosexuality.

For a sweet write-up about the interview and an audio file to download it, go here.

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Abby Martin | @AbbyMartin

Lawmakers pushing through the next bloated war budget have received millions in campaign contributions from defense contractors, according to Open Secrets.

While the military industrial complex churns unabated and bombs drop across the Middle East in our names, citizens in America continue to be victimized by economic warfare and terrorized by militarized police forces.

On this episode of Media Roots Radio, Eugene Puryear, organizer with the ANSWER coalition and author of Shackled and Chained, connects the war at home and abroad on a systems level while deconstructing the toxic neoliberal ideology that dominates global policy in the 21st century.

If you want to directly download the podcast, click the down arrow icon on the right of the soundcloud display.

To hide the comments to enable easier rewind and fast forward, click on the icon on the very bottom right.

This Media Roots podcast is the product of many long hours of hard work and love. If you want to encourage our voice, please consider supporting us as we continue to speak from outside party lines. Even the smallest donations help us with operating costs.

Listen to all previous episodes of Media Roots Radio here.

Follow @AbbyMartin and @EugenePuryear

Photo by flickr user Moyan Brent

Journalist, filmmaker, and activist, Danny Schechter, “The News Dissector,” died on March 19, 2015 at 72 years old.

Schechter was a true pioneer of progressive independent journalism. He had a long career with ABC and CNN before unplugging from the mainstream to produce judicious films and write hard hitting books. He was a free press champion and fierce anti-apartheid activist who will be missed dearly by the millions of lives he touched.

Unplug the Signal Campaign’s Roeland Eider chose to release this never-before-published 2011 interview with Schechter for Media Roots.

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MR: There is a sentiment among Americans, and older generations in particular, that the only news that can be trusted comes from major media sources on television and in print. As an independent journalist, how do you fight this battle for legitimacy?

Danny Schechter: I began fighting it by infiltrating it, becoming a producer at CNN, ABC and CNBC. I wanted to learn the techniques and understand the culture inside big media. I tried to bring the strengths of the system into my work as an impendent producer. There is a reason that folks tend to watch TV. It has to do with its mastery of production techniques, story telling and ways to appeal to the audience coupled with extensive marketing and promotion. As other entertainment choices become more expensive–live sports, theater, movies, TV appears a more affordable option. I know you are mostly interested in news and the fact is that there are now so many more choices, on line and off. I have been involved on line since l986, producing the Media channel since l999 as part of an effort of offering other narratives and critical ideas. I am also an author and independent documentary producer so use those formats too often within the context of journalism.

MR: What are your thoughts on today’s television journalists and news anchors? Can you comment on the trend of these individuals filling news segments with their personal opinions rather than objectively reporting significant news?

Danny Schechter: The notion of total objectivity has been discredited but remains the fiction that an industry uses to suggest its neutrality even when it makes clear choices in what stories to report and which to ignore, omission being as important as commission here. News anchors become the personalities they use to sell their wares–it is more about selling than telling—but other networks which are popular like Al Jazeera are not as wedded to the celebrity anchor, preferring to let what is news, drive the discourse.

MR: Many people, if they have not heard about it on the nightly news, don’t care to learn other information. Do you find it hard to communicate information that is never addressed on television?

Danny Schechter: First, nightly newscast has a smaller and smaller audience and skews older–just look at all the ads for certain pharmaceutical products. But that does not mean people are necessarily being exposed to more in-depth treatments. With Tweets and face book, we are as much as a headline hit parade country as we always was.

Yes, It is more difficult to be ahead of the news pack because what you do often lack for reinforcement and validation from other sources and outlets. We live in a media environment. Can it be done–yes–but with great difficulty.

MR: Should we be concerned that on many occasions’ public relations firms are providing the nightly news instead of journalists?

Danny Schechter: 70% of media school grads go into PR because those firms have jobs and pay better than news outlets. Of course, we should be concerned when sources are not transparent and spin substitute for journalism. Its not just the pr firms—because governments and corporations –and advocacy groups–play a big role.

MR: What do you feel has been the most significant change within the field of journalism over the past 10 years?

Danny Schechter: Rise of digital journalism, citizen journalism, and even public information advocates like WikiLeaks.

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Interview conducted by Roeland Eider 

US government officials are calling to overhaul the state funded media apparatus and focus on counter-propaganda against hostile nations, according to a report seen by Reuters.

The study was written by two former Western state funded news employees, Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) governor and Radio France Europe/Radio Liberty vice president, who declared the US is losing the information war to its adversaries. Despite its annual $730 million budget, the BBG is asking Congress for an additional $15 million to combat Russian media specifically.

It’s not just BBG media outlets pumping up anti-Russian rhetoric – the entire Western establishment has resurrected the Cold War hysteria. Corporate media has become a disaster porn factory, terrorizing people with constant fearmongering about ISIS and Russia.

RT was created to put out the Russian perspective to the world, one of many viewpoints necessary to form opinions about global affairs. People watch foreign backed stations because they know the value in another side to the story, and they’re smart enough to navigate around obvious state biases.

What US officials don’t seem to grasp is that Russian media’s success is only due to the abysmal failure of American media to provide citizens with real news.

I joined RT because it gave me the space to critique empire, corporatism and militarism while providing a crucial platform to whistleblowers and activists. People want unfettered, raw truth about issues that most impact their lives, and Breaking the Set helped fill that void.

I never produced a pro-Russian story and stayed true to my moral compass by speaking out against Putin’s policies several times. Yet people still diminish my three years of paradigm challenging content on the network as mere “Russian propaganda”.

When in Berlin, I joined Jasmin Kosubek on RT Deutsch’s Der Fehlende Part to talk about RT vs. MSM media wars.

Abby Martin on RT vs MSM Propaganda Wars

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Watch the interview in German here. Check out all full episodes and segment breakdowns of Breaking the Set here.

The media propaganda double standard is being reinforced everywhere. At Colombia Journalism School, there’s a student program called “RT Watch” that’s “keeping an eye” on the Russian backed station. And while the project clearly exists to mock and undermine the network, I was happy that one of the students interviewed me and published it in full on their website.

It’s easy to ride the wave of ridicule, but until the establishment turns a critical eye at its own media cesspool, it will never be able to comprehend why Russia is winning the information war.

Abby Martin | @AbbyMartin

Photo by Wikimedia Commons