Shows / The Real News Podcast
The Real News Podcast
Daily Reports, specials, and podcasts by The Real News Network (TRNN). TRNN makes media connecting you to the movements, people, and perspectives that are advancing the cause of a more just, equal, and livable planet. TRNN is a nonprofit media organization. We do not accept advertising revenue or corporate sponsorship.
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Episodes
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: The left needs a long-term vision of change
“It took most of us far too long to fully comprehend that Trump’s presidency represented a qualitative uptick in the determination and capacity of the right to…
The Real News PodcastHow Native organizers won voting access and reached record turnout in 2020
Read the transcript of this podcast: https://therealnews.com/how-native-organizers-won-voting-access-and-reached-record-turnout-in-2020 Native Americans…
The Real News PodcastArt for the End Times: Sally Rooney and the socialist novel
The best-selling and (mostly) critically acclaimed Irish novelist Sally Rooney has sometimes come under fire for not—despite her professed personal…
The Real News PodcastWorking People: Starbucks closes unionized store in Ithaca
In this urgent episode of Working People, we get an update on Starbucks' escalating retaliation against pro-union workers and Starbucks Workers United. As Rina…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: The nation’s poor are descending on Washington
In the richest country in the world, poor and low-income people are disproportionately harmed by everything from economic inequality and climate change to…
The Real News PodcastRattling the Bars: Why are so many LGBTQ people incarcerated in the US?
“At least 40% of people incarcerated in American women’s prisons identify somewhere under the broad lesbian-bisexual-trans-queer umbrella—a shocking statistic…
The Real News PodcastPolice Accountability Report: A cop pulled them over for a minor infraction, then the encounter took a bizarre turn
The story of one Minnesota couple's ongoing problems with police provides a pointed example of the systematic overpolicing of rural communities across the…
The Real News PodcastThe drug-resistant bacteria crisis no one’s talking about
COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world for the past two years, but there’s a potentially deadlier threat creeping across the globe right now that hardly…
The Real News PodcastKim Kelly: Workers make history, and so can you
The world is in a bleak state right now, and every day it feels a little more certain that the elite power brokers who control our society are not going to do…
The Real News PodcastRattling the Bars: Cutting incarcerated mothers off from their families hurts everyone
As Wendy Sawyer and Wanda Bertram recently wrote for the Prison Policy Initiative, “Over half (58%) of all women in US prisons are mothers, as are 80% of women…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: Biden is not stopping the privatization of Medicare
Donald Trump claimed to be a supporter of Medicare, yet his administration took numerous steps to cut its budget and introduce schemes to privatize it…
The Real News PodcastWorking People: Unionizing at a religious institution
Adjunct faculty and lecturers at Santa Clara University, a private Jesuit university in Silicon Valley, have been working to organize a non-tenure track (NTT)…
The Real News PodcastPolice Accountability Report: Cops stopped him from filming a traffic stop, but changed their tune when they went to court
Qualified immunity is a legal precedent that has allowed cops to evade accountability for violating civil rights for decades. But recent arguments in front of…
The Real News PodcastRoxanne Dunbar-Ortiz on Uvalde, the 2nd Amendment, and the great American arms race
As updates on the unspeakable mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, continue to come in, the details are as horrifying as they are…
The Real News PodcastWorking People: CA charter schools just unionized with the Industrial Workers of the World
Caliber Public Schools, a group of charter schools in Northern California, states on its website that its mission is "to achieve educational equity by shifting…
The Real News PodcastRattling the Bars: The prison-industrial complex is an environmental catastrophe
“As a result of being on or near wastelands, prisons constantly expose those inside to serious environmental hazards, from tainted water to harmful air…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: The Chicano activist poet running against Gavin Newsom
From gang life and drug addiction in East LA to community organizing, activism, and becoming an internationally acclaimed poet and writer, Luis J. Rodriguez…
The Real News PodcastRattling the Bars: Imprisoned Ferguson activist ‘assaulted by guards, assaulted by Nazis’
Eric King is an antifascist, antiracist, anarchist activist who is currently serving a 10-year federal prison sentence for throwing Molotov cocktails into an…
The Real News PodcastPolice Accountability Report: Cops arrested him for filming in public, but the case took a bizarre turn in court
The arrest of a Texas cop watcher for filming in public is the most recent chilling example of how law enforcement across the country is attempting to roll…
The Real News PodcastPolice Accountability Report: He called cops for help; they broke down his door and arrested him instead
When a Minnesota couple called the police to intervene in a dispute with a neighbor they said was harassing them, they didn’t expect that they would be the…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: The abortion underground: Pre-Roe lessons for a post-Roe world
While the country waits with bated breath for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, it is becoming clearer by the day that this impending decision is part…
The Real News PodcastArt for the End Times: ‘The Wire,’ Dr. Oz, and other petty things we despise
If you enjoyed our sweet, charming let’s-recommend-art-we-love episode of Art for the End Times, then you’ll love this hatin’-ass episode where we swing wildly…
The Real News PodcastWorking People: The Tongan-American unionist on a pilgrimage to support striking workers around the US
If you were following the strikes and labor actions that happened last year, then you may have noticed that a certain face kept popping up in photos and…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: The abortion underground: Pre-Roe lessons for a post-Roe world
While the country waits with bated breath for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, it is becoming clearer by the day that this impending decision is part…
The Real News Podcast‘Twerking-class heroes’: LA strippers are fighting for a union
On March 18, dancers working at the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar in North Hollywood, California, presented a petition to the owners of the club “demanding an…
The Real News PodcastRattling the Bars: Prison food is much worse than you think
“Prison food in the United States is a public health and human rights crisis,” the Maryland Food & Prison Abolition Project states on their website. “By…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: ‘The residential school era did not end’ for Indigenous people
Indigenous people have long stressed the unspeakable horrors of residential (boarding) schools in North America. Last year, those horrors were made inescapably…
The Real News PodcastHow 50 years of class war changed the state of Wisconsin
This is the final podcast installment of our special series of conversations with teachers, organizers, scholars, and activists in Wisconsin that TRNN…
The Real News PodcastArt for the End Times: These are a few of my favorite things
From relentless war, militarism, and apartheid around the globe to climate catastrophe and reactionary attacks on civil rights and basic freedoms, the world is…
The Real News Podcast‘They f*cked us’: Illinois Ironworkers laid off after unionizing
On Sept. 7, 2021, after a majority of employees had formally expressed interest in unionizing, workers at G&D Integrated LLC—a transportation, logistics…
The Real News PodcastPolice Accountability Report: How a small-town police department in WV is fleecing its citizens
In this special investigative livestream, Police Accountability Report hosts Stephen Janis and Taya Graham discuss some of their findings from their ongoing…
The Real News PodcastMarc Steiner Show: Rage is the most natural emotion to be feeling right now
“There are times when I want to scream out: “F*** this entire indifferent, hypocritical and violent world!’” So writes philosopher George Yancy in a recent…
The Real News PodcastRailroad workers are being ground to dust. Who will help them?
TRNN viewers may remember a recent interview we published at the beginning of February in which Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez spoke with retired railway…
The Real News PodcastThe historic, youthful, rank-and-file movement to unionize Starbucks
The rank-and-file effort to unionize Starbucks stores around the United States is one of the most head-spinningly historic worker-led movements in our…
The Real News PodcastWorkers at Maryland’s first unionized Starbucks describe their fight for workplace democracy
On Monday, April 25, the N. Charles cafe in Baltimore’s Mt. Vernon neighborhood became the first Starbucks location in Maryland to unionize. The final election…
The Real News PodcastThe Amazon Labor Union is just getting started
After the independent and worker-led Amazon Labor Union made history by unionizing the JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island—the first Amazon facility in…
The Real News PodcastArt for the End Times: Station Eleven: ‘One of the most optimistic renditions of the apocalypse’
If you didn’t enjoy Emily St. John Mandel’s post-apocalyptic book Station Eleven, you’re not alone—Lyta didn’t like it either. However, the HBO Max…
The Real News Podcast‘Jeff Bezos, your time is coming!’: Amazon workers on Staten Island bring the noise ahead of second union vote
On Sunday, April 24, the independent Amazon Labor Union held a rally outside the JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, New York, where, just one month ago…
The Real News PodcastHow Big Tech used COVID to pull off one of the biggest grifts in history
After two-plus years of pandemic hell, it is beyond understandable that so many desperately want to forget the horror and havoc of COVID-19 and move on with…
The Real News PodcastPolice Accountability Report: Cops arrested him for filming an accident scene, but did the police break the law?
The continued arrests of a group of Texas cop watchers is raising serious questions about how the law is applied to citizen journalists. In this episode of the…
The Real News PodcastSide gigs and selling plasma: Undergraduate and graduate workers have had enough
Right now, a majority of residential advisers at Kenyon College, organized with the Kenyon Student Worker Organizing Committee, are on an indefinite strike…
The Real News PodcastJailed her for a crime she didn't commit, Dreama Caldwell is now taking on the system
Alamance County, North Carolina, is probably best known for its defense of Confederate monuments and backing Republicans in every presidential campaign since…
The Real News PodcastHow the war in Ukraine is being fought in the media
As is the case with any war, the war in Ukraine is being fought on many fronts: in the streets, in the financial realm, and in the media. The battle over…
The Real News PodcastPolice and the policy of exceptionalism: A guide to debunking anti-defund rhetoric
The debate over defunding police has become part of a broad ideological battle over how and when law enforcement should face public accountability. Police…
The Real News PodcastRise of the right: Don’t let them win
Throughout our special special series of The Marc Steiner Show, co-hosted by Marc Steiner and Bill Fletcher Jr., we have examined the rise of the right in the…
The Real News PodcastFrom Mexico to Milwaukee, this teacher is fighting for her community
Just over ten years ago, the landscape for workers’ rights and organized labor in the state of Wisconsin changed dramatically. The passage of Act 10 under…
The Real News PodcastCorporate debts get canceled while millions of student debtors sink
As of this year, the total outstanding federal student loan debt is over $1.7 trillion, which is collectively held by around 46 million borrowers. Even with…
The Real News PodcastPrisoners allege abuse at ‘shock’ camps
On March 10, the Moriah Shock Incarceration Correctional Facility in upstate New York closed its doors. Opponents to the closure said that the Moriah Shock…
The Real News PodcastRise of the Right: How do we defeat the far right?
Over the course of our special podcast series on the “Rise of the Right,” we have sought to understand the scope of the far right’s growth and influence in the…
The Real News PodcastFrom Amazon to Starbucks, workers are rising up—and progressives need to support them at all costs
Last Friday, Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island shocked the world by pulling off one of the great labor victories in US history, becoming…
The Real News PodcastJoy James on the rise of the Black bourgeoisie
In the 1970s and ‘80s, the image of the Black “welfare queen” was used as a racist scare tactic and a propaganda tool to justify gutting the postwar welfare…
The Real News PodcastThis radical artist has been pissing off the powerful for over 50 years
We talk with radical artist, registered nurse, and feminist barrier-breaker Susan Simensky Bietila about her life making art and ‘making good trouble.’ To…
The Real News PodcastRise of the Right: The Right International
The election of Donald Trump and the siege of the US Capitol on Jan. 6 made clear the rising political power of the right in America, but this is not an…
The Real News PodcastArt for the End Times: JK Rowling and the curse of the zombie author
JK Rowling, the now-infamous author of the Harry Potter series, has been rightfully condemned for her stances on trans people and gender identity. But what are…
The Real News PodcastHow the media turns war into a spectator sport
From the moment Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, people in the West have been glued to their TV, computer, and phone screens, furiously consuming…
The Real News PodcastNo, Russia isn’t ‘reviving the Soviet empire’
Even before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on Feb. 24, pundits and politicians in the West have uncritically made bizarre claims that we are witnessing…
The Real News PodcastWNBA star Brittney Griner is a political prisoner in Russia
As the Russian military invasion of Ukraine enters its second month and diplomatic relations between the US and Russia are at their most strained point in…
The Real News PodcastWorkers at Southern Poverty Law Center protest discriminatory working conditions
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a historic civil rights organization that, for 50 years, has been advancing social justice through legal, educational, and…
The Real News PodcastThe for-profit companies charging prisoners to read their own mail
According to The Sentencing Project, “Private prisons in the United States incarcerated 115,428 people in 2019, representing 8% of the total state and federal…
The Real News PodcastRise of the Right: Gender rules
Whenever women have raised their voices and demanded equity in our society, or whenever oppressive gender relations have been threatened, a vicious backlash or…