to have money to have science class because if every big group or every black person was the become atheist tomorrow and not worshipping god i guarantee you will still wake up in the projects who still wake up with failing schools will still wake up with all the stuff that we deal with people once again to the radical imagination i'm your host jim verraros i was sociologist whose daughter to college here in new york city one of the greatest independent journalists and reporters of the th century i have stone our izzy as he was affectionately known often remarked to journalism students to never forget that all governments lie he spent seven decades exposing deception and official lies by digging deep into government documents and transcripts taking on mccarthyism racism in the military and the vietnam war and sixty three he wrote in the age of corp men i am an independent capitalist the owner of the enterprise will conclude our show today with a short video clip of izzy's work and comments by independent journalists his legacy however and the need for strong grace grassroots independent journalists today is the focus of our show and is needed even more desperately in the face of today's overwhelming corporate control of the mass media here's a short list disney television group owns e s p n and a central sundance the collodion rupert murdoch controls fox television th century fox owns over one hundred and thirty two newspapers and twenty five magazines including t v guide the wall street journal and the new york post c n n owned by turner broadcasting a division of time warner we could go on and on one more quote from to be able to spit in their eye and do what you think is right and report the news and have enough readers to make some impact is such a pleasure that you forget you forget what you were writing about you become you know like a journalistic nero's fiddling while rome burned and having a hell of a good time are like a small boy covering a hell of a big fire it's just wonderful and exciting  reporter and god is giving you a big fire to cover and you forget you forget it is really burning well we're really thrilled to have on the rack imagination show today to courageous young independent journalists and activists who have followed in this tradition their abdus and jackie loeb mon founders of luke mon nation a justice focus social media reporters who want to amplify the voices of grassroots political social racial gender and other justice activists on the issues that matter to them most where they live their involvement spans decades and compass is such diverse issues as anti apartheid marches aids research direct actions anti war protests anti police brutality actions support of community schools and science and many more issues they show the links between issues and becoming a vehicle for progressive activism on behalf of the marginalized so welcome obese and jackie to the radical magic them daily about this basically the same topic and your energy was incredible i am so glad you could make it here today and so tell me about your creation here the loo nation for us is more focused on the things that we're passionate about which really is exactly what you said amplifying the voices of people who we know are struggling in their communities and we got that from living in marginalized communities ourselves and knowing the work that we've been involved in and that we've seen other people be involved in the advisory neighborhood council meetings or whatever the equivalent is in each city and state no nobody comes to the the vigils that that community members have with the marches against violence and as well as police brutality when community members do come out for these things nobody comes to report to nobody comes to report there are people in marginalize there where  right there people in marginalized communities do care about our communities so for us look my nation is filled with the voices of those people that's that's what we want it to  and so we named it was more marching orders to be what you would like to see the entire nation become more attuned to the voiceless and disenfranchised so do i hear some religious roots or prophetic roots well in this i mean just add on to what why should we notice that there was a void and even within black media and i was so glad in your lived around which is the poor black marginalized people the martian just where you grew up well i grew up in new jersey new jersey but but they're all the same you know so so but but but we noticed that even with  black media publications and and other media that they weren't speaking for the poor black or as we like to call the masses the majority of us that got left behind in the civil rights movement from the now it was adam model or was that somebody that you could look up to in a sense as that alternative vehicle with others and what do you think about black agenda report it's for  what you're doing as well as kindred work yeah i do think it's kindred work and and it's kindred work in the sense that it's not focusing entirely on the exact same issues because what i love is something that most americans don't have in regard to policy in general and that especially a lot of black people don't have in this country and regard especially to our connection to africa so i appreciate that for black agenda report a lot of their focus is anti imperialism anti war and foreign policy as as they relate to foreign policy and how that affects us in america  introduction of immediate effects and consequences for people's laws that they can touch and feel and it's real and then starting from there right raising awareness and consciousness but it's again listening to the voices of the voiceless that's where it starts that's so important and so i will say we need to spend much time on why we want to you can that ok it may not be government control but it's corporate control the corporate agenda that's a great is that which is very much part of the creation of the sort of people you're trying to give voice to right there and and do they and getting them to see that connection they probably they feel it but you're there to listen to them and put the dots together yeah because most people don't understand how long we've been fighting this this this beast of now now the new term is well it's not even a new term and this is what it's kind of frustrating for  those of us it's great that you you introduced us as parents were part of that our parents were involved in that and in in a lot of instances or family members were involved in that so there are terms now being used by  new aware progressives that were mobilized or inspired by the sanders revolution burning what we call them the bernie pups you know that they they they learn these words like ol that this is not a new fight that this isn't something that just became a thing in the past election that this isn't something that bernie sanders or any other recent politician has just discovered an exposed this  been a a fight for most poor people in this country for a long time and certainly for most people of color especially black people and native americans since this country since before this country actually formally existed so it's it's very difficult to to get people to see the connection between that history and why they're struggling the way they are now in the communities in the end little communities yes it is it and that is that partly because they haven't been given the history as much as they needed to you have to carry on the struggle and how do you see black lives matter fitting into all of this are they trying to carry on of course they were heavily influenced by the princes and so they have an understanding and i think the resonated right a lot of young and i think it was a game we can't forget that what we're talking about is just a microcosm of really what's happening in the larger society and what that is is that media has failed to inform us that was media's job media's job was to inform us we were talking about jack and i were talking about not too long ago about how we've been in this perpetual war in iraq and afghanistan seventeen years and yet you don't see a mass in to war movement as you did in the sixt and they were talking about resources of steel that were built this nation but the symbol they had was a tank and so you know jack you know we looked at that and we said you know we don't even realize how we are being manipulated fit in this military industrial complex and media was there to basically put a check and balance on all of us to give us the opposing views but never here's or even met mention of that right there in the smashing nation and why this tank would be there of there is nothing right why not a bridge why not you know you know something else by the tank right and these are the kinds of issues that that independent print media was largely responsible for informing marginalized communities on before the you know the social media explosion you know you're talking about print media from organizations like the nation of islam you know how however people might feel about you know  most majority black cities we we work with a group now our friends down in richmond the virginia defenders they they still publish a newspaper that focuses on issues that affect the poor black community in the richmond area and they're in their struggles with not just not just crime and how they're trying to fight crime but how they're also trying to save their public schools and in and  equitably fund their public schools and say the african burial ground that shockoe bottom from developers encroaching on the land and trying to make the connection or help people understand the connection between all of those issues and taking down the monuments so i mean these are our weighty heavy enormous issues that a very small group of people have always felt tasked with to to try to get the masses to understand to connect to connect the dots and before social media it was really difficult yeah that's part of  with trying to get it to the corporate it's not going to going to play there so now you open up this whole issue of social media now how do you get your message out we use the tools that are there right now we use facebook you issues that that especially black people have been grappling with and trying to stem the tide against for four decades and  from corporate media that's always been the reality for black people in this country so we have now this new young progressive political movement that open to yet that they're open to it but the press and if they were the only ones voting saying that would have been right right right would be present right but but the problem that we encounter in trying to push this revolution forward like we've been doing like it or don't like our grandparents were trying is that this new generation of political revolutionaries don't really want to listen to the people who've been in revolution the longest so the old school think that's the point to get to in the beginning democratize information so it kind of diminish the gatekeepers you know you know now you know you have people being able to do these things but as you said jim that the powers that be they so jackie and i had said on one of our recent shows that we really feel that the window is closing on us being able to use social media that platform we talk about again talking about how we used to criticize other countries for controlling their media and we even control criticize places like china and north korea for for how they monitor the internet and cut off information to their people but then we're moving in the same direction you know so and so i don't think that we're i think that we're not aware because it's presented to us differently that we're not aware that we're going to be suffering the same fate you know  you know these oligarchies or whatever you want to call them the powers that be as i like to stick with they know that information is power they also know that when people start to know how screwed we're being how they're screwing us then then things happen and so we have to and i think that's the reason why it's been this push of the government working with corporations to control our access to information because if we don't have the information then you know how can we mobilize how can we be informed enough to make informed decisions even in our politics there is no way that inform population should have chose donald trump  absolutely and he got such incredible amounts of free advertising oh my god so the media had a lot to do with from i mean if you bernie what a guy and i don't know a quarter of it yeah and a serious debate and you know on the show so here is someone that who has met with bernie too by the way i mean the two of them together wow you know the energy that that that gets the media more of the mass media to it is our being isn't it is it is it it is very therapeutic talking in the open outside of doing our own studio you know outside because see this is the kind of conversation for my husband and i have all the time i mean literally well wake up on sunday we'll watch our middle favorite political show you know over coffee while we're getting ready to go to church and we will d you know have these great conversations about what we just watched and what that means to us what really live around how many lives these people told and you know what the truth really is and then we are fortunate that we go to a church we attend a church with a pastor who understands the prophetic is the correct word because we have to look for him and we actually found him by accident because b for then we attended a church that was very much typical you know predominantly black pretty conservative the southern baptists  baptist church the large influential baptist church in the area troublemakers right because they were non denominational and they were very casual and very you know not sticking to traditions but neither one of those churches neither one of those church models was active at all and in social or racial justice this is true not at all for that yeah that's why i brought this up too because this is so much of a moral issue the integrity of the courage and the prophetic tradition where it you're representing that right the least of us you are trying to amongst us turn represent the dispossessed the disenfranchised the voices and that was the prophetic i'm secular but i'm i'm from the prophetic jewish tradition and so when we get to that where as cornell and david can point out we're talking a palestinian jew and crisis a rabbi  that prophetic tradition calling his own people that's right out right so any way that you have the in the links that we all to be low yeah that you're also trying to do well and the thing of it is that our view specifically our view on the role of the black church is that you know we feel that many of the black black pastors that we've been seeing are really out for themselves liberation theology has been pushed aside for prosperity gospel and so what we saw is that the black church and i hate to be so broad but no but but that that that the black church for the most part have become a wing all the denominations and all the universities and but you don't see it anywhere including of course the media that you have i mean wallach wrong you know he was the most trusted man in america yes tells that he had something to do a lot to do with being preached to about you know getting into heaven these kids want help with how do i get the police officers who don't live in our neighborhoods to see us and treat us like human how do we get our school board to to to believe that educating us is as important as as they clearly believe educating wealthier kids and wider  concerted effort by conservative politicians to co opt the christian faith for political purposes and a lot of black churches not not most but far too many signed on to the conservative i like to call it the conservative white republican jesus message of christianity that brand of christianity that focuses only on stopping gay marriage  yeah yeah ending engine education sex education you know public schools you know transgender bathrooms in the abortion that kind of thing those were not even issues that were discussed in most churches as an enormous voting bloc that they didn't know how to mobilize they wanted to win the white house and they wanted to control the government they wanted to control the state houses and every office in the country and they didn't know how to do it until jerry falwell and others got involved with defending bob jones university and they were defending bob jones university against losing its tax exempt status blind as of its college and their racist policy so that they could keep their tax exempt status the people who became the moral majority turned that discussion into the government is attacking our religious freedom the government is attacking the lives of bob jones university and by extension they're attacking the religious freedom of christians in america and we need an argument before and that's where that argument came from basically and that is how the religious right political focus on christianity or their co opting of christianity started most christians in this country do not know that history they white and black and when you try to explain this well let me take that when i have tried to explain this to my my black fellow believers they they don't they don't want to hear it because they really do believe that they there they are voting they're being told to vote for politicians who have christian values but they they don't want to hear that was in my opinion the prospective king received is different from the pushback we receive in the day i think the pushback that we receive in the day is basically again tied to the way how our culture has been structured but corporate values so what i'm saying is that we're dealing with a population who has been discoveries to critically think have been discouraged to see outside information besides what's been spoon fed to them and so now you come and this is why independent media is so important because now you come with a different narrative you come with different information and because from grade one all the way up sometimes into college it's been right so it's on a on the challenge for those of us who see past state sponsored information you know if there is the fact that now it's viewed as a threat because it's been this as you said this corporate culture of preparing the society to be basically be fodder for the corporate machine you know either which seems like we we need to start organizing and biggest the biggest danger or maybe this might not be the right word but one of the biggest problems we have in the back to it is economics and i just want to make this clear because that's another thing the corporate media doesn't talk about is the read there was an article that was printed that said that in thirty six years there would be zero well built building for black americans in this country in just thirty six years so i mean that's that's a grave that's that's i mean this is something serious and exists and yet right and and yet you don't hear about it on the news and then when we tried to talk about it and we we do talk about it the black church is still the richest institution in the black community cannot have a spiritual faith if you are not using that faith to uplift the least among you and that is the great awakening that we that we need to enact in the black church with and i think we're turning it around i think with concrete movements like barbers poor people move in which is really trying to connect in a races in the racial in a religious and so on and start with the poor and we all are getting screwed by the system over us and so are the great majority and so i think there's hope there's great hope and i think there's enormous hope with voices that student never to forget that all governments lie he could speak with authority having spent seven decades exposing deception and official lies but they get deep into government documents and transcripts i often think of i fame and impact publishing the newsletter stone's weekly taking on mccarthyism racism in the military and the vietnam war you welcome this marvelous journalist mr i have stone men on the other side feel they're fighting for freedom they're fighting for freedom from from domination by the white man and by the westerner there are few people that i can think of in american history that better represented the best journalism in a democratic society than i have stone somebody had recommended highly that i begin reading what i have studied journalism was about and sent me a couple of weeks and i read the st two and i was so blown away by that i just instantly became almost an addict of the newsletters and found online a repository of all of his newsletters and just began reading one after the next and didn't stop until later when i had read i don't know not dozens probably hundreds i can draw a line from i have stone directly to what i'm doing now because i played so i didn't know him at the time he played such an important role in inspiring me to think different several dozen ways to cover this capsule set up the press club and cover it off the press release table you can play ball with the with the administration of the cabinet members and get it that way you can be a heretic the way i am and get it that way in the public interest and what is vital to national security i'm not the arbiter of that i work with a huge number of guardian editors and some of the most experienced national security journalist in the world i consider glen three weeks after we had the so called attack north which i mean this is we read all the after reports and he said where where is the debris if we had been hit why isn't there more being talked about and instead there were all kinds of excuses why this little tiny country would go against the largest fleet in the world except the fact that it might have been  being the fictions coming out of government issued as they came out he did it week after week around the vietnam war so the beauty of busy i think the lesson that independent journalist learn from is he today is not to be complicit in the official fiction to start fighting through the cover stories on day one what the weekly his weekly taught me was that it didn't need to be fancy it didn't need to have a lot of production values it just needed to tell the truth and to tell me things that i'm not going anyplace else father really believed in the importance of a free press he wants told me if something goes wrong with the government a free press will ferret it out and it will get fixed but if something goes wrong with the free press the country will go straight to hel of nation is a tremendous honor and i want to pledge to use this opportunity to educate a new generation of young journalists about the incredibly important work i have stone this isn't a career  this isn't a profession journalism is a way of life i got to meet i have stone in the mid eighty's in washington d c i wanted to put up my own weekly morris weekly and i just wanted to go and talk to about it and it was it was just an amazing afternoon that i got to have with him to really kind of pick his brain and tell him you know what i want to do and  gave me you know good advice his great motto of all governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed and he said he said to me but but i've fixed i would expand that now to governments corporations it's not just the the government it's i anybody in power a lot of times some of the worst truths are hidden in plain sight and that and that the point of a journalist is to try to dig through what is intentionally an overwhelming amount what that's what is he told was just a master at this is the typewriter which my father typed with two fingers so how long was he using the typewriter for well it's longer than i can remember really it's it's amazing that he would type with two fingers he never he never learned how to type with he wasn't very mechanical in fact our cars kept breaking down because he never changed the oil now if you're a journalist doing that kind of work your computer could be hacked be very difficult to hack subscription that lets you gotta let me but not really build a meaningful news organization but one of the things i've learned over the last ten months in doing the snowden reporting is that if you really want to do sustain investigative reporting against the largest political and corporate factions you actually do need funding it is a necessary evil you need to protect you and technologist to unable to work and researchers an editor's and other journalist who you are going to work with you you know it's one of those insane stories in life and in  the context of media culture where we're all struggling to figure out how to pay for journalism something extraordinary happened and that is that glen gets this email from a mutual friend of his and pierre omidyar and i'd never heard of pierre omidyar and it turns out the a documents from ed snowden and published some of them in the guardian now he's launching a media company backed by wealthy even a founder pierre omidyar we really wanted to create a model that took the virtues of both worlds and to build a news organization that a its core was designed to empower journalists to pursue their journalistic passion the way that they wanted to that led them into journalism in the st place and to me that might even be the spirit of i f stone more than anything else which was that the essence of his journalism was that he was beholden to nobody we see this work that we're doing and that other people are doing as part of the tradition of stone wall i mean if you had to come up with a slogan for what our new media venture is the one that jeremy sca