Interview: It’s Not You, It’s the Media | New Podcast from The Polis Project

We ask hosts Suchitra, Bhakti, and Madhuri about the media’s manipulation of narratives, portrayals of violence, and the in’s and out’s of starting a new podcast.

Meet Bhakti Shringarpure, Suchitra Vijayan and Madhuri Sastry—the hosts of the It’s Not You, It’s the Media Podcast. In this interview, we ask all three about how the media manipulates narratives, drums up consent for war and violence, and about what it’s like to start a new podcast. Here’s the rundown:

CF: Hello, Bhakti, Suchitra and Madhuri. Thank you for taking the time for an interview about your new podcast! I’ve been getting the The Radical Books Collective newsletter in my inbox for probably a couple of years at this point and I really admire the types of books, the insights, and the underlying mission of the Collective. So, when I heard that The Polis Project was putting together a podcast, I certainly wanted to give it a listen. Whether it’s talking about Palestine, Sudan, decolonization, feminism, refugee experiences, immigration, or Islamophobia, I feel like The Polis Project is very much at the forefront of bringing attention to these issues. Can you talk about where the idea for a podcast eviscerating the media began?

Bhakti: Thanks so much for this, Jon, and very grateful for your words about the Radical Books Collective and The Polis Project. While we remain committed to all these difficult topics, it is always hard to find large audiences for such counter-cultural engagement since we are constantly going against the grain of commercial logic. The media narrative this past year has shocked me with regards to the consent for genocide in Palestine and the inability to report from Sudan. A big insight that my wonderful co-hosts and dear friends Suchitra and Madhuri, and I, had is that we cannot let the media actively gaslight us all and that finding clarity through this morass requires working together single-mindedly to tackle and amplify this problem.

Suchitra: This podcast was very much Bhakti’s brainchild. As the three of us—Bhakti, Madhuri, and I—were brainstorming ideas during The Polis Project’s re-emergence, we wanted to find new ways to articulate frustrations, ideas, and portrayals of the world. At the same time, we were building the culture vertical, which Madhuri can elaborate on in more detail. These ideas arose from ongoing conversations—often informal and unstructured—but Bhakti’s vision gave it the initial focus, structure, and purpose. What you see now is the result of that process: a podcast born out of these rich discussions and a shared desire to critically and creatively engage with the world.

The podcast also emerged from a moment of deep reflection, as we came to the close of a year marked by the live-streamed genocide in Gaza, Palestine. The three of us, women who have engaged with Palestine in different ways over the years, found our politics sharpening as the genocide unfolded. Every day, we had conversations fueled by rage and frustration, grappling with the ways in which the media was complicit—not only in defining the genocide but in creating an alternate reality around it. We needed a space to articulate this gaslighting, to critique how the media reconstructs reality. This isn’t a critique of right-wing propaganda but a necessary challenge to the liberal elite media, which, under the guise of benevolence, perpetuates harm. This podcast reflects the idea that liberal elite media is genocide media, and we hope it provokes deeper engagement and accountability.

CF: For many of us, our media landscape is fragmented (that might be the understatement of the year). Traditional media feels like it’s under attack, even as a lot of the big conglomerates continue to rake in profits. At the same time, a lot of entrepreneurs and grassroots stuff is happening on platforms like TikTok. For the purposes of your podcast, how do you define “the media”? What types or forms of media do you think we, the consumers, need to be on the lookout for or thinking more critically about?

Madhuri: Well, for the purposes of the podcast, when we say “the media”, we mean the liberal media. We’re focused on publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other liberal media outlets whose words are taken as gospel by their readers, and who have an outsize shaping power—or influence—on especially the opinions of those who identify as liberal on the political spectrum. These publications have managed to maintain what we now know is a facade of journalistic ethics and rigor, which has protected them from any sort of real and meaningful critique. And it is this facade that makes their gaslighting that much more insidious.