The Battle For Free Speech – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Battle For Free Speech

Journalist Michael Fox, The Real News Network

Society & Culture

News

Frequency: 1 episode/9d. Total Eps: 10

This year, the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. But there’s a problem. Our most basic freedom — the freedom of speech — is under attack. In this immersive series, hosts Marc Steiner and Michael Fox take you on a journey to look at the threats to free speech, from Trump to Silicon Valley. They look at the history of the fight for free speech and the battle being waged over it today, within the United States and abroad.

Marc Steiner is the host of the Marc Steiner Show and a longtime community organizer and activist.

Michael Fox is the host of the podcasts Under the Shadow and Stories of Resistance.

The Battle for Free Speech is brought to you by The Real News Network.

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Apple Podcasts

🇨🇦 Canada - documentary
22/08/2026
#91
🇨🇦 Canada - documentary
21/08/2026
#90
🇺🇸 USA - documentary
21/08/2026
#91

Spotify

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https://mailchi.mp/therealnews/the-battle-for-free-speech
10 shares
https://foxviolin.com/
7 shares
https://therealnews.com/the-marc-steiner-show
5 shares

https://www.youtube.com/therealnews
20 shares
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb_sqh577Zw
1 share

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RSS feed quality

Good

Score global : 79%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

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Latest published episodes

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Introducing: Scene on Radio

Season 1

Thursday, August 20, 2026 • Duration 51:36

Today, we are pleased to share with you an episode from the podcast Scene on Radio. It’s hosted by longtime journalist John Biewen, with co-host journalism professor Chenjerai Kumanyika. It’s a series from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and distributed by PRX.

This episode is Season 8, Episode 6, of Scene on Radio: What Could Have Been?

Ever thought about whether America's overwhelmingly corporate, for-profit news system is working as it should? It didn't have to be this way. In the 20th century, reformers fought for a more democratic and more accountable news media in the United States. They won victories, including the creation of the nation's public broadcasting system. What happened next?

By John Biewen, with co-host Chenjerai Kumanyika. Interviews with John Lowery, Dan Schiller, Victor Pickard, and Mark Lloyd.

Story editor: Diane Hodson. Assistant Producer, Arlene Arevalo. Fact-checking by Anna Pujol Mazzini. Music by Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, Michelle Osis, Lili Haydn, Alex Weston, James Nathan Jones, and Jason Hill. Music consulting by Joe Augustine of Narrative Music.

Links
Their website - https://sceneonradio.org/
Latest season - https://sceneonradio.org/the-news/

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Marc Steiner: A Life Standing for Free Speech | Ep. 8

Season 1 · Episode 8

Thursday, July 23, 2026 • Duration 01:18:16

“Existence is struggle,” says Marc Steiner. “It always has been, and always will be.”

In this podcast series, we’ve looked at the attacks on free speech rights today in the United States. We looked at the history and how movements and organizations have stood up for and exercised free speech in their work. We looked at how social media, AI, and disinformation are undermining our free speech, and at how people are responding in the United States and abroad.

In the final episode of this series, we’re focusing on what free speech means within the context of the life of one person who has been through it all — co-host Marc Steiner. He turned 80 earlier this year.
In this episode, Michael Fox sits down with Marc to discuss all of these incredible layers of his life, from fighting civil rights and community organizing to underground newspapers, street theater, education, and journalism. What do they all mean for him, how do they all add up to nearly seven decades standing up and fighting for free speech, and how they fit into the battle for free speech today?

“You have to step back and really listen to what people are saying so you can bring out their truth so others can wrestle with it,” says Marc. “And if they need confronting in their process, you confront it and push back. Which is why when I think about what we do, how important it is — We have a critical role to play in bringing understanding to the world. The truth lives in every corner. And you have to listen. No one has a hold on it.”In our conversation, Marc says right now the battle for free speech is more important than ever. “I think we’re politically facing the most dangerous moment in my lifetime,” says Marc, “where the right is seizing power across the country — the racist right is seizing power. And that now the battle for free speech is more critical than ever. We cannot let them take it away. We have to stand up to that.”The Battle for Free Speech Podcast is a production of The Real News Network.Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by , Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara. Research by Ben Schweiger. Guests Resources Many thanks to everyone who has supported this show.Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or . Support Michael Fox's reporting at . Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at . Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

Fighting Disinformation in Europe: Media Education, Regulation, & Organizing | Ep. 7

Season 1 · Episode 7

Thursday, July 16, 2026 • Duration 01:18:12

Disinformation is impacting our lives. Much of it is being pushed by unregulated Silicon Valley tech companies and their billionaire owners. But people in Europe are pushing back.

In this episode, Michael Fox goes to Spain, to look at how members of the Spanish far right have been inspired by Charlie Kirk. Then we look at grassroots organizing against Big Tech in Ireland, media education initiatives in Finland, and European measures regulating Big Tech.

“This has now been a topic of discussion very much in Europe,” says Finnish educator Saara Salomaa. “Should we actually trust any US tech companies, or should we try to get rid of US tech companies as soon as possible?”

Michael is joined in the episode by Laura Flanders. She is the host of Laura Flanders and Friends on public television — formerly known as the Laura Flanders show.

The Battle for Free Speech Podcast is a production of The Real News Network.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara. Research by Ben Schweiger.

Guests:

Many thanks, also, to Ilona Taimelafor taking the time to speak with me about media education in Finland.Resources: Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Support Michael Fox's reporting at . Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at .The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

Brazil’s Battle Against Fake News & the US War to Undermine it | Ep. 6

Season 1 · Episode 6

Thursday, July 9, 2026 • Duration 01:18:31

This is really a tale of two countries: the United States and Brazil. In both countries, far-right presidents come to power — Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. In both those countries, the presidents spent several years unraveling democratic institutions and public policy. Both presidents then ran for reelection. Both presidents lied about their country's voting systems in order to undermine the elections and whip up their base.

Both those presidents lost their reelections — Trump in 2020. Bolsonaro in 2022. They both claimed fraud and tried to carry out a coup to stay in power.

But that is where these two paths diverged. In the United States, President Donald Trump continued to peddle his lies about the elections. He created his own social media platform and he used it to push his agenda. He was reelected in 2024 and returned to power. In Brazil, however, the country’s Supreme Electoral Court blocked former President Jair Bolsonaro from running for office for eight years, because of the lies he told about the country’s electoral system.

It wasn't censorship. it was a different interpretation of free speech. One that said the right to free expression must be balanced with the other rights in the country and the country’s democratic system. The United States doesn’t agree. And the Trump administration has been pushing to bend Brazil toward its definition of "free speech."

In this episode, Michael Fox journeys to Brazil to understand the lengths that the country has gone to fight disinformation.

Michael is joined in the episode by Maximillian Alvarez, editor-in-chief and co-executive director of The Real News Network and the host of the Working People Podcast.

The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara. Research by Ben Schweiger.Guests: Resources: Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

What Is Free Speech? America at 250 | Ep. 5

Season 1 · Episode 5

Thursday, July 2, 2026 • Duration 01:09:43

On the eve of the United States' 250th birthday, Michael Fox sits down with Mansa Musa — longtime activist, former Black Panther, host of TRNN’s Rattling the Bars, and a man who spent nearly 49 years in prison — to ask a deceptively simple question: what does free speech actually mean?

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to Quito, Ecuador, to Frederick Douglass's 1852 address "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July," this episode unravels the gap between the promise of the First Amendment and the reality of who gets to speak in America — and who pays a price for it.

"There's a kind of narcotic effect of those words — free speech," says legal scholar Mary Anne Franks (Fearless Speech). "It's because we think we know it so well that we don't know anything about it."

Historian Fara Dabhoiwala traces how the US broke from the rest of the world's balanced approach to free expression during the Cold War, and a forgotten 1986 Ursula K. Le Guin speech offers a radically different vision: speech as dialogue, not domination.

Follow The Battle For Free Speech on Spotify or Apple Podcasts

Support Michael Fox's reporting at patreon.com/mfox. Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at therealnews.com.

The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network. Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner.Theme music by , Jordan Klein, and Daniel Nuñez. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.Production and sound design: Michael Fox and Stephen Frank.Editorial support: Kayla Rivara. Research: .Many thanks to for providing her incredible voice acting skills in this episode.Photo Credit: Rosa FoxGuestsResourcesFollow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

Attacks on Press Freedom: Lawsuits, Intimidation, and the War on Journalists | Ep. 4

Season 1 · Episode 4

Thursday, June 25, 2026 • Duration 01:12:21

Photojournalist Nick Stern still has nightmares from the night an officer fired a flashbang into his leg as he covered the LA immigration protests. He's one of dozens of journalists assaulted, arrested, or deported in Trump's second term — a year that pushed the US to 64th on the World Press Freedom Index, its lowest ranking ever.

In this episode of The Battle for Free Speech, Michael Fox is joined by Real News investigative journalist and Capitol Hill correspondent Taya Graham to map the assault on the American press: the rubber bullets and broken bones, the billion-dollar lawsuits, the FBI raids on reporters' homes, the jailing of journalists like Georgia Fort and Don Lemon, and the deportation of immigrant reporters Mario Guevara and Estephanie Rodriguez. Featuring voices from the Committee to Protect Journalists and the National Press Photographers Association, they trace how violence, intimidation, media consolidation, and the gutting of access all serve a single goal: self-censorship — the silencing of the press in the name of free speech.

The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.

Guests:

Resources: Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

How Trump & Big Tech Are Gutting Free Speech: AI, Censorship, & Media Mergers | Ep. 3

Season 1 · Episode 3

Thursday, June 18, 2026 • Duration 01:10:40

On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration—January 20, 2025—the heads of many of Silicon Valley’s most powerful tech firms sat in the rows just behind Trump. It was a sign of Trump’s deep ties to the industry and to these powerful individuals who are transforming how we communicate, and not for the better.

In this episode, Michael Fox visits Silicon Valley to try to understand the stranglehold that tech has over our media and our airwaves. Hosts Michael Fox and Marc Steiner dig into the ways media consolidation, social media, and AI are strangling our free speech, even as they claim to be liberating it—and us—with incredible insight from professors Todd Wolfson, Mary Anne Franks, Fara Dabhoiwala, Ramesh Srinivasan, and Jeff Cohen, the founder of the organization Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR.

The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.

Guests:

Resources:

Mary Anne Franks’ book, Fearless Speech: Breaking Free from the First Amendment

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A History of Free Speech from Abolitionists to Berkeley | Ep. 2

Season 1 · Episode 2

Thursday, June 11, 2026 • Duration 01:12:07

Free speech in America was never given — it was fought for, bled for, and died for. In this episode, hosts Marc Steiner and Michael Fox dive into the history of the movements that built and defended the right to speak out: the abolitionists who continued to speak — even as mobs attacked the building where they gathered — Ida B. Wells, who exposed the truth about lynching in Jim Crow Memphis, and the students at UC Berkeley who launched the Free Speech Movement of 1964.

Michael takes us to Sproul Plaza, ground zero of the Berkeley free speech movement, and Marc shares his own story of carrying that fight from the civil rights movement to campuses on the East Coast. Together they trace a brutal pattern that runs from Elijah Lovejoy — the abolitionist editor murdered by a mob in 1837 — to the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, to today's crackdowns on student protest and the firing of professors for their political views.

Featuring law professor Mary Anne Franks, author of Fearless Speech, on the crucial difference between fearless speech and reckless speech — and why America has so often protected the wrong one. Plus UC Berkeley historian David Hollinger on why universities are "the hill to die on," and Princeton historian Fara Dabhoiwala on why free speech has always been a battle over power.

This is the second episode of The Battle for Free Speech. In this podcast series, in the lead-up to the country’s 250th anniversary, journalists Michael Fox and Marc Steiner look at the battle for our free speech rights today, and the attacks on people speaking out in the United States.
The Battle for Free Speech is a production of The Real News Network.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein and Daniel Nuñez. Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound. Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank. Editorial support by Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies. Research by Ben Schweiger.

Guests:

David Hollinger

Resources: Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

Fired & Jailed: Attacks on Free Speech Under Trump | Ep. 1

Season 1 · Episode 1

Thursday, June 4, 2026 • Duration 01:08:46

Mahmoud Khalil was detained and arrested at his Manhattan apartment. The video is chilling. Plainclothes agents are there. They refuse to give their names. He’s handcuffed and shoved into the back of a car. His wife — eight months pregnant — watches and tries to understand what’s happening.

This is not a scene from some dark chapter of a distant past filled with black-and-white photos of bygone dictatorships. This happened here, in the United States of America, in 2025.

In this podcast series, in the lead-up to the country’s 250th anniversary, journalists Michael Fox and Marc Steiner look at the battle for our free speech rights today, and attacks on people speaking out in the United States.

Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner.
Theme music by Michael Fox, Jordan Klein, and Daniel Nuñez.
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
Production and Sound Design by Michael Fox and Stephen Frank.
Editorial support by: Kayla Rivara and Heather Gies.
Research by Ben Schweiger.

Guests:

Lisa Femia, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Corinna Mullin, CUNY professor
David Rubin, Staff Attorney, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Allen Chaney, Legal Director, ACLU - South Carolina

Resources:

Follow The Battle For Free Speech on or Follow us on:

Trailer: The Battle For Free Speech

Season 1

Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 03:21

The Battle For Free Speech – Details, episodes & analysis

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The Battle For Free Speech – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other55

Youtube2

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

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