How Did the Media Lay the Groundwork for the California Genocide?

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There's not just a total silence, but also. Sure. But then again, you could ask yourself in the question of the California Genocide, the extent to which the media really did help lay the groundwork for genocide. What that genocide had happened anyway, or were they just providing the moral lubricant for the masses and for those back East? Because like you said, some of the coverage was relatively decent, but some was just outright, like, hey, these people are savages to come and do what you want.

In this extended interview, we speak with UCLA Associate Professor Benjamin Madley about his book, "An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe," and discuss how newspapers, tracts, and paperbacks were an essential element in assisting and priming the public for the genocide of California's native population.

Prof. Madley's work was instrumental in our research for previous Citations Needed episodes - namely, "Episode 158: How Notions of 'Blight' and 'Barrenness' Were Created to Erase Indigenous Peoples" and "Episode 172: The Foundational Myth Machine - Indigenous Peoples of North America and Hollywood" - so we were thrilled to dig even deeper into his work on this special News Brief.