Mickey’s first guest is long-time media activist, author, and “culture jammer” Kalle Lasn, the founder of Adbusters magazine. He summarizes the history of Adbusters, and explains some recent developments, including the decision by Canada’s dominant drug-store chain to cancel selling the magazine in its 1,300 stores due to what it deemed objectionable content- material critical of corporate practices from factory farming to fossil fuels. In the second half, Chase Palmieri returns to the program for an update on Credder, the website that gives news readers a place to evaluate the quality of news articles like Rotten Tomatoes for films. They discuss the growing need for critical media literacy education.
Notes:
Kalle Lasn lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he founded Adbusters magazine in 1989; he remains its editor-in-chief. He is also the author of three books, Culture Jam, Design Anarchy, and Meme Wars. Chase Palmieri’s work in the restaurant business inspired his idea that news consumers should have a review site for journalism analogous to Yelp’s role for restaurants; to provide this opportunity, and create an incentive for news outlets to improve their product, he created Credder.