Hot Media
Combating our Era of Fake News, Corporate Propaganda and Idiocracy
I’m listing some of the best podcasts, substacks, webzines and videos. In these varied media forms and topics, there’s an education for everyone.
This library will be updated as my journey continues.
Remember the rule of truthseeking - DON’T TRUST ANYONE, including me. Use several sources to birth your mind.
Forward to news, health, economics, sociology, geopolitics, movies, self-improvement, interesting people, and ‘Aha!’
Substack
A Skeptic (Ukraine war news aggregator)
Aaron Mate (award-winning journalist)
Active Measures (empire intrusive reporter Kit Klarenberg)
Alan Flanagan’s 3am Thoughts (society and politics)
Andrew Sullivan (journalist and culture commentator)
Another World is Possible (Val is an activist & screenwriter)
Beyond Highbrow (Robert Lindsay digs into political propaganda)
Black Mountain Analysis (conflict analysis)
Bracing Views (Bill Astore on U.S. imperialism and more)
Caitlin Johnstone & Tim Foley (journalists)
Chris Hedges (award-winning journalist and author)
CIAgate (against CIA and military-industrial deep state)
CJ Hopkins (political satirist & anti-censorship writer)
Complexia’s Substack (war satire & summaries of major writers)
Counterspin (Lies, damn lies, and spin! with Rich Slutzky)
Daily Duopoly (Anti-war, Anti-imperialist, Anti-Establishment)
DeMockracy (the U.S. bipartisan mockery of democracy)
Diana van Eyk (working class activist)
Diaspora Journal (Hebh Jamal, Palestinian Journalist in Germany)
Drop Site News (investigators Ryan Grim & Jeremy Scahill)
Edward Slavsquat (Riley Waggaman, Substack's contrarian)
Events in Ukraine (a personal view backed by facts)
Geopolitical Economy Report (analysis of global news)
George Hazim (standing up for Palestine)
Gilbert Doctorow (historian and analyst)
Iain Davis (The Disillusioned Blogger)
Ioan Grillo (narco crime, drugs and politics)
John Mearsheimer (political analyst and author)
Jonathan Cook (award-winning UK journalist)
Julian MacFarlane (opinions on USA vs Russia)
Karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium (Karl Sanchez)
Karen Gordo (“Just a Patriot in search of impeccable truth”)
Ken Klippenstein (investigative reporter)
Latin America Risk Report (James Bosworth's news analysis)
Matt Taibbi's Racket News (award-winning journalist and author)
Matthew Alford (the relationship between war and the Media)
Matt’s Thoughts on War and Peace (Matthew Oh)
Meaning in History (ex-FBI agent Mark Wauck)
Mythery Loves Company (author Constantine Markides)
Nonzero Newsletter (Robert Wright, podcaster and author)
Piers Robinson (co-director Organisation for Propaganda Studies)
Paul Cudenec (author of The Anarchist Revelation)
Pirate Wire Services (hard news from South America)
Polygraph (Stephen Semler, for the working class)
Propaganda in Focus (analyzing communication and censorship)
Roslyn’s Substack (author & poet with passion for justice)
Seymour Hersh (award-winning journalist and author)
Sharp Focus on Africa (Chima, Nigerian engineer/writer)
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (and ‘social justice')
Stella Assange (brave lawyer, steadfast partner)
Struggles from the Dark (under-qualified jack of all trades)
Tessa Fights Robots (you have to read ‘The Bad Witch’)
The Dennis Kucinich Report (ex-US Congressman)
The Slavland Chronicles (big contrarians should be heard)
The Stark Naked Brief (with JJ Starky)
The System Reboot (the effect of technology on our lives)
The Wayward Rambler (Brad Pearce on international relations)
This Week in Africa (weekly African news bulletin)
Uncaptured Media (investigative journalist Dan Cohen)
Yaw’s Newsletter (insight into Africa)
Webzines
21st Century Wire (challenge the prevailing narrative)
AntiWar.com (providing updates from West & East, North & South)
Consortium News (founded by Robert Parry, a reporter who exposed Iran-Contra)
Democracy at Work (opposing capitalism as a systemic problem)
Electronic Infitada (an independent focus on Palestine)
Jacobin (socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture)
Naked Capitalism (news aggregator with contributions from prestigious writers)
People’s Dispatch (voices from people’s movements across the globe)
Popular Resistance (growing a culture of Public democratic resistance)
The GrayZone (big journalism under pressure from big enemies)
Tom Dispatch (top notch writing as antidote to mainstream media)
UK Column (independent of foundations and political parties)
Unlimited Hangout with Whitney Webb (untangling the cobwebs of power)
World Socialist Website (anti-imperialism section)
News
Al Jazeera (funded by Qatar Government but excellent globally)
Democracy Now (US-based indie focused on peace activism & social justice)
Middle East Eye (covering North Africa and the Middle East)
News.am (Armenia and other Caucus news)
Novara Media (excellent independent media organisation)
OffGuardian ("Because facts really should be sacred")
South China Morning Post (because we must hear Asia)
Destinations That Wonderfully Don’t Fit Under One Topic
Open to Debate (addressing big issues)
Radiolab (the podcast that made the world make podcasts)
Bloggers, Vloggers & Podcasters (News & Geopolitics)
Abby Martin’s Empire Files (documentarian and activist)
Al Jazeera Investigations (breaking some of the biggest global scandals)
Alastair Crooke (ex-British diplomat)
Blocked & Reported (Katie Herzog & Jesse Singal, internet’s best duet)
Chinese Whispers (news)
Clearing the Fog (with Margaret Flowers & Kevin Zeese)
Corbett Report (start with ‘How BlackRock Conquered the World’)
CounterPunch Radio (anti-imperialist analysis and interviews)
Declassified UK (boxer against UK military industrial complex)
Democracy Now (world news)
Eyes Left (anti-war military podcast hosted by veterans)
Geopolitical Economy Report (analysis of global news)
George Galloway (UK anti-imperialist)
Gold, Goats 'n Guns (a.k.a. Tom Luongo)
Hard Talk (BBC’s confrontational interviews with global leaders)
Irrussianality (the relationship between Russia and the West)
Ishgal (Lindsey Snell reporting from Armenia & Donbas)
Jimmy Dore Show (comedian & political commentator)
On With Kara Swisher (digging into gadgets and technocracy)
Ray McGovern (the most likeable ex-CIA analyst)
Reminiscence of the Future... (home of Andrei Martyanov)
Robert Wright (journalist)
Russell Brand (sane commentary through outrageous comedy)
Scheer Intelligence (political conversations)
Scott Horton Show (anti-war activist)
Tom Nicholas (providing context and clarity to trending topics)
Useful Idiots (with Matt Taibbi & Katie Halper)
Voltaire Network (French intellectual, Thierry Meyssan)
Unlimited Hangout with Whitney Webb (untangling power)
WTF is Going on in Latin America & The Caribbean (with Teri Mattson)
Analysts
BNE IntelliNews (news/forecasting on Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa & Middle East)
Gordon Hahn (Senior Researcher at Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies
John Mearsheimer (Professor of Political Science)
Lt-Colonel Daniel Davis (analysing politics and the military)
Responsible Statecraft (online magazine of the Quincy Institute)
Economics
Dr Jason Hickel (economic anthropologist)
Freakonomics Radio (Stephen Dubner uncovers everything)
Lena Petrova (making financial events easy to understand)
Macro 'n Cheese (irreverent treatment of macroeconomics)
Professor Michael Hudson (ex-Wall Street analyst)
Professor Richard D. Wolff (economist)
Sean Foo (daily insight into major economic events)
Military Strategy
Alexander Mercouris (Ukraine War commentator/The Duran)
History Legends (entertaining Ukraine War analysis)
Military Summary Channel (Dima guides us through Ukraine)
Moon of Alabama (cutting through political propaganda)
Weeb Union (daily updates on military moves in Ukraine)
Willy OAM (impartial war analyst raising money against cancer)
South Africa
Sadly, I cannot list any current news media here that doesn’t have agenda. However, there are destinations of interest:
Cape Independent (secessionists analysing political events)
Carte Blanche (weekly television series exposing crime and social issues)
Germ Warfare (unafraid cartoons)
SMWX Podcast (with Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh)
Brain Travel (Because Escape is Necessary)
Anton Somewhere (Ukrainian in Azores, Namibia, Norway etc.)
Bald & Bankrupt (unfiltered travel amongst real people)
From Sochi to Yerevan (Russia, Azerbaijan & Armenia)
Harmen Hoek (ultimate hiking videos - start with Drakensberg)
Itchy Boots (Noraly bike rides Earth’s back roads)
Little Chinese Everywhere (the most humble travel vlogger)
Truthseeking in Our Sheepish World
I refuse to eat the grass that the wolf wants to feed me so that it can eat me later. I want to know who is making my life difficult and stop our world’s decline into idiocracy. I need to know why store prices jump, crime increases, politicians lie, wars are waged, and voting changes nothing.
Truthseeking (or wolfseeking) is a painful journey. Not everyone has years to crawl through this muddy field but they’re capable of lessening their intake of TV and newspaper news, and instead subscribing to a handful of writers who get themselves dirty so that they don’t have to. Journalists wanting to share with us are being killed, tarred, and imprisoned.
Everyone has the potential to be, at the least, a runaway sheep. You can improve the world by not gossiping important events into triviality, or by being manipulated into spreading hate and fake news. Don’t become a topic on Joey B Toonz. Be mindful when you speak - saying “I don’t know” can be as wise as communicating reality.
Finding my opinion was difficult. I will only become wiser if I keep learning forever. Contrary sources gave me direction to where I am now. I have suggestions that have educated me into reducing my bias (which we all inherit from our upbringing/culture). Some wells revere facts above all else, others are controversial in opinion or history. Not agreeing with them all the time makes them invaluable to the debate in my head.
A few alternate figures may have questionable history but that's irrelevant to their knowledge of the topic at hand e.g., Roman Polanski's crime doesn’t magically turn his movies into trash. We can disagree with someone about covid or global warming without dismissing everything they say.
The caveat is that I couldn't stop my reverence for Glenn Greenwald, famous for reporting on Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing, devolving into my unsubscribing when he 'hosted' Alex Jones' comeback show. Self-serving conspiracy theorists damage truthseekers, ultimately becoming tools of the corrupt establishment which pretends that real conspiracies are fake too.
It's tragic that award-winning journalists have been sidelined by the mainstream but that's not absolute because the Fourth Estate is emboldened.
Substack has become more important than the iconic publications I grew up with e.g., Chris Hedges, Matt Taiibi, Caitlin Johnstone and their brethren are indispensable.
The Military Summary Channel and Moon of Alabama provide more insight into that war than corporate-funded think tanks. Via an email conversation, I realised that a Naked Capitalism founder is Russo-biased but her writing is excellent, and her esteemed guest writers and aggregation service are invaluable. Scott Horton, an anti-war activist, may be my favourite political podcaster.
Then there are the servants of oligarchy…
I haven't listed gross misleaders such as CNN and MSNBC which are more propaganda than helpful. Fox News is better regarding Ukraine but little else. It remains partisan, its only ambition to sell advertising by striking at the Democrats on behalf of the screaming faction of the Republican Party. The New York Times and the Washington Post, once among my liberal favourites, are ultimately servant to the sins of the Democratic Party - truth dies in their disloyal darkness.
The major outlets of the UK (BBC) and Germany (DW) may lean towards the military industrial complex but are sharper destinations, particularly for documentaries.
Al Jazeera and Democracy Now deserve exclamation. They're the best international television news.
Armed with alternative media wanting a less cruel world, I’m better able to navigate and question Mainstream Media.
Considering that the war in Ukraine and the plight of Palestine is affecting everyone, it’s natural that many great writers have focused on that. They’ll likely inform us of the next crisis before it happens, as they did for this war, the Iraq War and the 2008 global economic depression.
What’s needed is more about places such as Somalia and the Congo where suffering is immense but overlooked because it less affects the global economy (and probably because attention is racist).
Nevertheless, I’ve listed great targets for you. Happy hunting!