Newsfail

Climate Change, Feminism, Gun Control, and Other Fun Stuff We Talk About Because Nobody Else Will

Jamie Kilstein, Allison Kilkenny

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2014
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781476706528
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A “feisty, literate, and uncompromising” (Publishers Weekly) primer on the most urgent issues of our day, from the creators and co-hosts of Citizen Radio, a listener-supported show whose slogan is “independent radio that won’t lead you to war.”

#Newsfail is definitely not your grandmother’s comedic-memoir-slash-political-manifesto. From page one (in a preface titled, “In Which the Authors Interview Ralph Nader in the Bathtub”), comedian Jamie Kilstein and journalist Allison Kilkenny pledge to give you the news like you’ve never gotten it before.

On issues ranging from feminism to gun control, climate change to class war, foreign policy to net neutrality, they tell you how the mainstream media gets it left, right, and utterly, unforgivably, irresponsibly wrong—think Noam Chomsky as channeled by Fred and Carrie from Portlandia. #Newsfail is all this, plus the story of Allison and Jamie’s own DIY foray into independent media via their podcast, Citizen Radio, which has featured guests such as Jeremy Scahill, Sarah Silverman, Glenn Greenwald, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, and been downloaded millions of times by people all over the world.

In #Newsfail, they “make a strong case that a greater range of voices needs to be part of the national media discussion, including theirs” (Kirkus Reviews). Their mission is truth-telling above brainwashing. All you have to do is listen.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Preface: In Which the Authors Interview Ralph Nader in the Bathtub
• Introduction: #NEWSFAIL: None of the News That’s Fit to Print
• Chapter 1: Jon Stewart Shrugged: How a Comedy Program Became the Most Trusted Name in “News”
• Chapter 2: Get Your Flaming Arrows Ready: Class War and the Media That Mocks Protesters Fighting It
• Chapter 3: Al Gore Is Fat and We’re All Going to Die: Or, You Can’t Blame Climate Change on Vegans
• Chapter 4: Just Because You’re Pro-Choice Doesn’t Mean You’re Not a Sexist Douche Bag
• Chapter 5: The Gay Agenda
• Chapter 6: Fuck the NRA: Guns Don’t Kill People; People with Dangerously Underfunded Mental Health Care Programs Do (with Guns)
• Chapter 7: We Know You Smoked Weed in College, Asshole: How the War on Drugs Is Destroying This Country
• Chapter 8: USA! USA! USA! We’re Here to Help . . . with Freedom!
• Epilogue: Save the Tote Bags!: Why Independent Media Is Essential to Saving Democracy and the World
• About Jamie Kilstein and Allison Kilkenny
• Notes
• Copyright