Radio Reversal

We find a throughline between these topics in Dr. Amy McQuire's work, and her understanding of how colonial media functions both to spread colonial copaganda, AND to erase and obscure stories of Indigenous resistance, colonial violence, and state repression. We'll begin by reflecting a little on the result of the Northern Territory election, and the announcement by the CLP that they will reintroduce the use of spithoods (recognised in multiple jurisdictions as tools of torture) as well as lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old. These shocking, if unsurprising, "tough-on-crime" measures come on the heels of months of media-driven moral panic-inducing reporting on "out-of-control youth crime," and they're a worrying portent for the Queensland state election later this year.

Between colonial copaganda and "tough on crime" narratives on this continent, and the erasure of reporting on freedom struggles in West Papua and Kanaky, we'll be thinking this week about what the media does and doesn't report: what gets considered "newsworthy" and urgent, whose lives matter, and what gets left out of the story. We'll wrap up the show with recordings from the Free West Papua movement, and last Friday's mass day of action for West Papua. And we'll reflect on the relationship between the OVER-reporting on settler hysteria about "youth crime" versus to complete failure of the colonial media to report on genocide in Palestine or West Papua, or complex civil war in Sudan, or imperialist-capitalist ecological and political crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or Indigenous resistance in Kanaky and across Turtle Island.

All in all - another huge show! Tune in or listen back, and don't forget to send us your thoughts, suggestions, critiques, and proposals for future shows!