The Listening Post

For decades, much of the United States media adopted Washington’s framing of US conflicts in the Middle East. But the US-Israel war against Iran is defying that trend. US news outlets are increasingly challenging President Donald Trump on his declarations of victory and absence of a clear strategy. Meanwhile, Iran’s military remains operational, Tehran retains control of the Strait of Hormuz and f...

As criticism of Israel mounts over its wars on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, along with the escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank, the country is ramping up its PR offensive. From a carefully managed appearance of Benjamin Netanyahu on CBS’s 60 Minutes to a major expansion of Israel’s Hasbara operation, the push includes pouring money into digital campaigns and media messaging. The goal...

The information front has been central to the Iranian government’s war effort. For an external audience, there is an innovative online strategy that has consisted of AI Lego, memes and hip hop diss tracks directed at Donald Trump and the MAGA base. But this coexists with more brutal domestic tactics: crackdowns, arrests and internet blackouts. The result has been the Iranian authorities making use...

A fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran holds - but the information war intensifies. At the centre: the Strait of Hormuz, where competing US and Iranian narratives have collided. During any truce, even when the bombs stop falling, the information war goes on.  Moments like this test journalism. Because the job is not just to report on the messaging coming from all sides - but to decode and deb...

The war on Iran has entered a much more damaging phase with more assassinations of the leadership in Tehran, the continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and major strikes on energy infrastructure across the region. As the war has escalated, pressure on news organisations in the United States, Israel and Iran is increasing. Contributors:  Branko Marcetic – Writer, Jacobin Arta Moeini – Institute...

One week into the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, and the messaging coming from the White House is consistently chaotic and contradictory. From regime change and nuclear threat to preemptive attack - the Trump administration is struggling to juggle its narrative. And while the mainstream media is working overtime to legitimise the Trump-Netanyahu war at home, Americans remain unconvinced....

As Washington escalates threats of military action against Iran, negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme continue behind the scenes. But while the Trump administration insists that the standoff is about security, Iran’s state media are pushing a very different narrative: that the crisis is a deliberate distraction from the Epstein scandal that continues to implicate the US president. Contribu...

A series of warnings from artificial intelligence (AI) industry insiders shows how the debate around AI drives extreme news cycles, swinging between hype and alarm. The result is media coverage that overlooks the intricacies of this technology and its impact on everyday life. We examine the real risks, what’s being overstated, and what major tech companies stand to gain from all the fearmongering....

The latest tranche of the Epstein files contains more than three million documents - the largest release of its kind. In what appears to be a clumsy attempt at a cover-up by the US Department of Justice, the sloppily redacted names of high-profile perpetrators have failed to conceal the intricate web of global elites spanning politics, royalty, Hollywood and tech. The fallout in Europe has resulte...

The Epstein files dump has led to days of intense media coverage, revealing how powerful elites around the world engaged in either illegal or morally reprehensible behaviour. But even as journalists sift through millions of documents, one of the most significant stories remains largely missing from the mainstream narrative. Contributor: Murtaza Hussain - National security and foreign affairs repor...

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the fatal shooting of a protester by border control agents triggered mass demonstrations and presented the Trump administration with an unexpected test of its immigration strategy. Footage captured by onlookers has undercut official statements and intensified questions about the level of force and use of high-tech tools being used to crack down on dissent. Contributors:...

Donald Trump’s latest attempt to seize Greenland shows that the president is willing to use US force to determine international borders, even at the expense of sovereignty. Western allies - NATO countries included -  publicly formed a united front, but private messages have revealed a more deferential approach to dealing with Trump. This latest crisis may have been averted, but the question remain...

This past week, Iranian protesters were labelled “terrorists” and “saboteurs” by the state. That rhetoric was accompanied by an internet blackout and a surge in violence, with the death toll still unclear. Simultaneously, tensions between the United States and Iran escalated, raising the stakes in what has become one of the most serious political upheavals in the country in years. Contributors: To...

The horrific Bondi Beach attack in Australia was pulled into Israel’s global information war this past week. As blame was directed towards pro-Palestine politics, media narratives blurred Jewish identity and Israeli state policy - raising urgent questions about who is put at risk when Israel’s anti-Palestinian messaging travels beyond its borders. Contributors: Naama Blatman – Executive member, Je...

For more than a century, Warner Bros has been one of Hollywood’s biggest players, a legacy studio that helped define the Golden Age of cinema with iconic blockbuster movies. Now, it’s at the centre of a contentious, billion-dollar bidding war between Netflix, the world's leading streaming platform, and Paramount Skydance, owned by the powerful Ellison family, which has close ties to President Trum...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is asking for a pardon over a range of corruption charges laid against him after repeatedly telling Israeli journalists that he would clear his name in court. The prime minister has long described the case against him as a witch-hunt led by the media and the judiciary. If he succeeds in sidestepping the courts, Israeli journalists and judges will wonder wh...

The United States’ deadly “counter-narcotics mission” off Venezuela’s coast hinges on an unproven drug-smuggling narrative - a familiar pretext for regime change, and one the mainstream media have been quick to echo. Meanwhile, Venezuelans face escalating repression at home. Contributors: Spencer Ackerman - Author, Reign of Terror and Waller vs Wildstorm Abby Martin - Journalist, The Empire Files...

In the West Bank, record levels of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians are unfolding with little mainstream coverage. The few journalists who try to report on it often face attacks themselves. When the violence is covered, the settlers are often framed as fringe actors, despite clear backing from the Israeli state. A de facto annexation is under way in the West Bank, and yet much of the...

The BBC is in turmoil. A leaked dossier exposing a misedited speech of United States President Donald Trump and other editorial concerns has triggered resignations at the top - and a $1bn lawsuit threat from the US leader. Why the leak surfaced now, and who steps in next, are still open questions. Most importantly, will the BBC be able to recover from this moment? Contributors: Ben de Pear – Forme...

The Israeli government is facing what it calls a “public relations disaster” after a video surfaced showing soldiers torturing and sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner - a clear war crime under any legal system. Public outrage in Israel has focused less on the abuse itself and more on the leak. And the military’s chief prosecutor, who admitted leaking the footage, has been arrested and brand...

In this special episode of The Listening Post, we examine the rise of New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. A democratic socialist and outspoken critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Mamdani has faced a barrage of hostility from US mainstream media, the political donor class and the democratic establishment alike. The press has been particularly relentless, questioning not only Mamdani’s...

El-Fasher, Sudan: a city besieged, starving and largely unseen. As journalists come under fire in Sudan, a lack of international media interest is helping to conceal one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Contributors: Hassan Berkia – Journalist Kholood Khair – Director, Confluence Advisory Khalid Medani – Associate Professor, McGill Institute of Islamic Studies On our radar: In the occupie...

As Donald Trump tries to take credit for a ceasefire in Gaza, Israel continues to kill Palestinians. And as both Israeli and Palestinian captives are released, the glaring double standards in coverage lay bare how this genocide was allowed to go on for so long. Contributors:  Tahani Mustafa – Visiting Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations Mouin Rabbani – Co-editor, Jadaliyya Kenneth Roth –...

For the past couple of months, the billionaire father-son duo of Larry and David Ellison have been making deals involving major media brands. Having acquired Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, they appointed Bari Weiss - an outspoken supporter of Israel - as the network’s editor-in-chief. The moves by the Ellisons are not just about growing their media empire, but about shaping the narrati...

In this special episode, we examine the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists in Gaza during two years of Israeli genocide. With international media barred from freely reporting in the Strip, local journalists have risked their lives to document the unprecedented killing, destruction and displacement around them. Since October 7, 2023, more media workers have been killed in Gaza than in...