It's Not You, It's The Media

Featuring journalists Ism’ail Kushkush and Raghdan Orsud. Even as Sudan enters the 4th year of devastating war, media coverage remains abysmal. Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure speak to two Sudanese journalists about why the deadliest conflict in the world has become the the casualty of today’s media attention economy. Isma’il Kushkush is a journalist who has contributed to the New York Time...

Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure speaking with guest Robin Andersen, author of T he Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. ( OR Books, 2025). They discuss why the media framing of October 7th narrative became pivotal to manufacture consent for the genocide in Gaza. Andersen explains that the New York Times, in particular, played an outsize role in framing this Octobe...

Whether its adoration or demonization, why is the media obsessed with the wives? Madhuri Sastry and Bhakti Shringarpure unpack the ways in which first wives, first ladies or duchesses are always under scrutiny and what this says about our media ecosystem but also about us! Listen to previous podcast episodes here: https://www.radicalbookscollective.com/s/its-not-you-its-the-media Watch the previou...

Bhakti Shringarpure & Madhuri Sastry unpack the ways in which the "No Kings" protests were anchored in mainstream, white and liberal feminist ideas. They ask why there was no popular interest in protesting genocide in Palestine and analyze the rampant American patriotism on display, the obsession with aesthetics as posters about royalty, crowns and the statue of liberty proliferated. The No Ki...

Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry discuss the acute escalation in US-Israeli wars in Lebanon and Iran. The mainstream media barely reports on the shocking death toll and numbers of displaced in Lebanon. Not only is Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon expanding, the Gaza playbook seems to be in full effect with the targeting of civilian infrastructure, hospitals, women and children. In Iran, t...

Palestinian American activist Nerdeen Kiswani joins Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry to discuss the recent concerns about NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani backtracking on Palestine. In light of Mayor Mamdani’s harsh words about writer Susan Abulhawa and her powerful video response, the fear of betrayal around Palestine looms large, a core issue for the base of supporters that brought him to power. R...

Bhakti Shringarpure and Madhuri Sastry host a pre-Oscars film club. They admit that there have been lots of surprises in the mainstream blockbuster film industry this year. The discussion focused on films about revolution ( One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent and Bugonia ), the hyper-emphasis on masculinity and paternity despite some women-centered films ( Hamnet and Sentimental Value ), wh...

Suchitra, Madhuri and Bhakti unpack Western media propaganda about Iran as the war escalates and the death toll mounts in Iran and Lebanon.

Madhuri, Suchitra and Bhakti unpack an apocalyptic week of events and how the media (did not) cover them in an analytical or critical way. Trumps’s State of the Union, BAFTA debacles, Andrew arrested amid more US cover up of Epstein files + Modi’s Islamophobic agenda bolstered with visit to Israel.

Bhakti, Suchitra and Madhuri tackle celebrity activism and activist celebrities: who gets heard, who gets shut down, whether it works, what are its limits and what we need to demand from our celebrities. Can they move the needle on important causes? Or are they too deeply entrenched in the capitalist ruling class?

Madhuri Sastry, Suchitra Vijayan and Bhakti Shringarpure dissect the coverage of big spectacles like Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl and the protests against Winter Olympics, both of which have been deemed resistant and political. Uprisings in Minneapolis continue. Is the US at a tipping point and if so, what are the limits of American revolt? Will the media rise to this unprecedented moment as the an...

The podcast It’s Not You, It’s The Media returns after a hiatus. Hosts Bhakti Shringarpure, Suchitra Vijayan and Madhuri Sastry unpack the current saturated media moment as ICE violence reaches new levels, the Epstein files rock the boat everywhere, and Palestine is deliberately forgotten by the media.

The hosts take a critical look at the algorithms ruling our lives on social media and beyond, with a warning to divest from celebrity content and culture that permeates the news cycle, politics, and more. Whereas the early Facebook and Instagram eras were known for curated and bespoke feeds that were personally made for you, social media has largely become a commercialized landscape with scarily t...

The hosts take a sharp, playful, and unflinching look at Bollywood’s obsession with sports films and the not-so-subtle nationalism embedded within them. From Lagaan to Chak De! India to 83 , they explore why India’s sports biopic industry has exploded in the past 15 years, and how these films turn real-life athletic struggles into patriotic spectacles. What makes a sports movie so irresistible? Wh...

The hosts are joined by award-winning film critic and journalist Anna M.M. Vetticad for a conversation on the state of Indian cinema under Modi-era censorship. A veteran of over 30 years in journalism, Anna brings her incisive political analysis and deep knowledge of film culture to this episode — exposing how India’s cinematic landscape has become a battleground for ideology, identity, and power....

As the crackdown on immigration and violent deportations explode across the US,  Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri are joined by journalist Tanvi Misra to peel back the bureaucratic spectacle of American border regimes. The conversation takes a deeper look at how legal status — once seen as a form of protection — is increasingly weaponised by the state to police dissent, particularly among immigr...

The hosts turn their lens on the insidious, galvanizing power of the opinion column. The hosts dissect how elite liberal media platforms like The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Atlantic , and The Wall Street Journal have weaponized their op-ed pages to manufacture consent, launder imperialist narratives, and maintain the myth of expert credibility. The episode charts how op-ed writers...

The hosts invite writer, editor, and translator Yousef Aljamal for a moving and intimate conversation that honours the life, work, and enduring legacy of the late Refaat Alareer — Palestinian writer, poet, professor, and beloved mentor assassinated by Israel in December 2023. Yousef was Refaat’s student, collaborator, and close friend. Yousef assembled and edited the book If I Must Die: Poetry and...

The podcasts takes on the alarming escalation of state repression against pro-Palestinian student protesters in the U.S. The episode unpacks how legal frameworks, university complicity, and media narratives have converged to criminalize dissent on campus. From ICE raids to administrative gag orders, they break down how universities have transformed into enforcement arms of the state, silencing stu...

The hosts take a sharp, witty, and incisive look at the identity crisis of Indian American women in the public eye. From Kamala Harris to Mindy Kaling to Usha Vance, the hosts ask: why is the dominant representation of the Indian American woman so adjacent to whiteness? Why does she either perform hyper-assimilation or lean into fetishised exoticism? In an era where South Asian identity is being f...

The hosts take on the media’s failure to accurately depict incarceration, tracing how language, imagery, and selective storytelling reinforce carceral logic. From Gaza to Guantanamo, they examine how imprisonment narratives are shaped by what is shown — and, more crucially, what is omitted. The hosts dissect how terms like prisoner , detainee , and hostage are selectively deployed to justify syste...

Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri dissect the persistent failures of media coverage on migration, exposing how mainstream outlets reinforce state narratives rather than challenging them. From the selective sympathy extended to Ukrainian refugees to the criminalization of Black and Brown migrants, the hosts examine how race, class, and geopolitical interests shape reporting. They trace the media’s hist...

Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri look at how India’s cultural landscape has become deeply intertwined with right-wing ideology. From Bollywood’s hyper-masculine action heroes to the aggressive iconography of Hindu gods, from the spectacle of nationalist weddings to the militarization of everyday imagery, the episode unpacks how aesthetics shape political obedience. The hosts trace how authoritarian r...

Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri take a step back from the incessant noise of social media to dissect what all that posting really leads to. Is your social media activism actually making a difference? From the early days of Twitter-fueled revolutions to the performative hashtag activism that followed, the hosts trace the history of online organizing and examine its transformation in the wake of Pales...

Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri look into the crystal ball to offer up some forecasts about how the media will respond to a second Trump presidency. Reflecting on his first term, the hosts remember liberal media’s relentless obsession with his persona, his life, his tweets and his gaffes, all of which overshadowed policy critique and normalized him and his politics through repetition and over-exposu...