Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals

G&R Episode 56: Alternative Radio's David Barsamian on the New Media Landscape, ReTargeting Iran and Noam Chomsky

Dec 9, 2020

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Before the internet was a thing, before social media ruled our lives and before there were a million podcasts talking about about left politics, David Barsamian brought the voices of radical thinkers like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Arundhati Roy into our lives through Alternative Radio.

In this episode, we're over-the-moon excited to talk to Alternative Radio's (@AltRadio) founder David Barsamian (@BarsamianDavid) about his new book ReTargeting Iran, building Alternative Radio over the past 30+ years and working with Noam Chomsky. We discuss the importance of independent media and he tells us that Green and Red is "welcome intervention into the media landscape." We also talk about the politics around Iran, the middle east and his new book. And since it is the week of Noam Chomsky's 92nd birthday, we ask David to share some of his favorite recollections of the world's top public intellectual.

David Barsamian is one of America’s most tireless and wide-ranging investigative journalists. David has altered the independent media landscape, both with his weekly radio show Alternative Radio—now in its 33rd year—and his books with Noam Chomsky, Eqbal Ahmad, Howard Zinn, Tariq Ali, Richard Wolff, Arundhati Roy and Edward Said. David Barsamian is the winner of the Media Education Award, the ACLU’s Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism, and the Cultural Freedom Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation.

His latest book is ReTargeting Iran. The book in a Q&A format about the continued demonization of Iran by the U.S., Barsamian enlists the expertise of five longtime observers: Noam Chomsky, Azadeh Moaveni, Trita Parsi, Ervand Abrahamian, and Nader Hashemi.