Are You Reading Propaganda Right Now?
Jacobin is politically committed. We’re not ashamed of that, and that’s why we need the support of our politically committed readership.
“Festivities in Honor of the Second World Congress of the Communist International,” Boris Kustodiev, 1921
On the brink of war, just after President Trump’s horrifically stupid decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, the headline on a CNBC op-ed read, “America just took out a man many consider the world’s No. 1 bad guy.” At a slightly higher reading level, over at the Atlantic, we were assured that the Iranian general’s death was “greeted with elation” in Iran. It often feels as if we’re in North Korea (or Iran!), with the media working hard to make even the government’s worst policies look good.
Despite this almost constant onslaught of brayingly ill-informed and bellicose opinion disguised as news, we at Jacobin are the ones more often dismissed as “propagandists.”
As accusations go, it’s a fun one, in a retro sort of way. But it’s also an interesting question: Is Jacobin propaganda, and if so, is that a bad thing?
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