DEF005 - Jake Hanrahan Interview Transcription

THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Interview date: Monday 7th October 2019
Interview location: Bedford, UK

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Jake Hanrahan, a journalist and filmmaker focused on irregular warfare and founder of the podcast Popular Front. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email us. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I find out why Jakes believes that increasing subjectivity in mainstream media is leading to the rise of independent journalism.

Interview transcription

Peter McCormack - 00:01:39
Jake, man, good to see you again.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:01:41
Good to see you, mate. Good to see you always.

Peter McCormack - 00:01:42
Yeah, so we recorded before but we're going to do this again. I think a lot's happened for both of us, right?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:01:46
Yeah. What was it a year ago maybe?

Peter McCormack - 00:01:48
Was it that long ago?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:01:50
I think Popular Front was six months old or something.

Peter McCormack - 00:01:51
Wow.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:01:52
Nearly a year.

Peter McCormack - 00:01:53
That's how long it's taken me to get this new podcast up that I've been talking about for ages. Maybe you don't know yourself or other people don't know how much work goes into this stuff.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:02:02
Yeah, it's fucking nonstop, isn't it? It's literally nonstop.

Peter McCormack - 00:02:05
Especially when you're doing it all on your own, no support. Listen, look, we're going to cover some of the old stuff again and then we're going to talk about some new things. I've obviously been following your work for a while now, big fan of "Popular Front," I think it's really cool what you're doing. The podcast is awesome, I recommend it to people, and also the video work you've been doing is great. But also I was never into the early Vice stuff, it was only over the last couple of years I've really gotten into some of their stuff, but you used to work there. So I think for anyone listening to this, Jake, it would be good for people to hear your background, your journalistic career and how you got to where you are now.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:02:38
Yeah, yeah. I'm now currently an independent journalist, got my own platform, "Popular Front," but I started off mainly … I'd say when I first started getting known for my work was when I started with Vice News, when I was 24, so 2014. I was a print journalist before that just trying my best. Then when Vice News started and it got good, I was like, "Right, I want to be at that." And then ended up working there and was one of the original team in the UK.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:03:08
Then, I don't know, three years I think I did there, four years, and then it just got to the point where it was … Yeah, three years. Then when HBO bought it out and changed it and turned it from what I think was groundbreaking war journalism and conflict, turned it into this bit of political propaganda was starting to seep in. I was like, "No, it's not for me."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:03:30
So I left and then I did freelance for two years or so, a year or so, and then I was like, I'm getting … I hate the phrase mainstream media, there's a lot of weirdos who use it, but I was getting sick of what I just kept seeing as these hurdles in mainstream. I was like, "I'm either going to quit or just try this one last idea." So the one last idea was "Popular Front," which was a podcast focused on the niche details of modern warfare we say and underreported conflict. Yeah, it just really took off, man.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:04:01
Because obviously I had a background, I could say, when I was at Vice News I was covering war and conflict. So it was a great start to the career being so young, getting to go to all these places and learn about the world and report on it. Yeah, man, that's where I am now.

Peter McCormack - 00:04:13
I think the independent journalism thing is a really good angle. I think a lot of people are buying into it.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:04:18
Yeah, yeah. I think it's starting to find its feet again as well because for a while independent journalism was … When the internet was early it was good. It was cool blogs and stuff you would never find out. Then mainstream worked how to use the internet, mainstream media got big and it was good for a long time, and I still think there's a lot of good mainstream outlets, but now there was a time where independents were kooks, weirdos or fascist outlets. Now I think it's getting to a point it's finding its feet again.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:04:47
Because a lot of people are getting sick of what they're seeing every day. It's not just kooky people. Normal people now, everybody is just going like, "Hang on, I'm sick of this. I'm sick of being told what to think. I'm sick of having a fucking political spin on everything." So, yeah, I think independent journalism is a very good place right now.

Peter McCormack - 00:05:03
I think whether it's journalism or not, I think Joe Rogan has helped people a lot. I think people have realised that somebody can create an independent platform but get an audience as big as mainstream or even bigger than mainstream TV. I saw this really interesting tweet where somebody said, "Joe Rogan should run the presidential debates." Which I actually thought had a lot of merit to it in some ways because, look, he's not perfect, some people have criticisms of him, I like him, I like the guests he gets on.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:05:29
Yeah, I do.

Peter McCormack - 00:05:29
What he's done is he's taken independent journalism mainstream.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:05:35
Yeah, and I think he'd be the first to say he's not a journalist but he definitely has a very good … The essence of it, questioning people. There's a lot of people that will be like, "He had this person on that I don't like so therefore I don't like Joe Rogan." It's bore off. He has a lot of good people on, a lot of idiots on, but he at least has them on and he talks to them. I'm not into that no platforming thing. I think if something's ugly then you should see how ugly it is. It shouldn't be no platform unless it's some Nazi that's using it to incite violence, but that's different.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:06:07
I've been listening to Joe Rogan since I was 23, and I loved him. I do prefer the old stoner alien stuff. I'm not a huge fan of some of the political stuff he does but I will say I think he has the best interview with Bernie Sanders that anyone else has done, and I think he's good.

Peter McCormack - 00:06:26
Also I absolutely love the interview he did with Jack Dorsey, the second one that had Tim Pool. I know that thing people say, "He's not a journalist." I always say I'm not, but people say, "No, you are." People point the finger. I think whether he is or not, he's doing work which is of journalistic integrity at times. He's getting relevant people on at the right times. He's commenting on current topics. He's covered antifa a lot. I wasn't aware of antifa until I'd heard about it from him. So for me, whether it's entertainment or journalism it's by the by, but I do think he's … It's funny to say it like this but he's taken independent journalism mainstream. He's made anyone realise you can grab a mic, you can record a conversation or you can take out a video camera. You can do something. I think there's a lot more growth now and I think you realise that you can trust this person to have independent free thought.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:07:16
Yeah, definitely. There is a problem though where it gets to the point, for example, he had someone called Abby Martin on. She'll quite happily defend dictators because it fits her thing. So she's defending the dictatorship of Venezuela and she's quite pro-Assad and that stuff. It's good to have them people on but I think you need to challenge them. So I think he obviously doesn't have enough time, but the research is important.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:07:43
I think you're right in it shows that if you do a lot of research, get these people on and are willing to challenge them, that's definitely healthier than, no, don't talk to that person. It's so boring now.

Peter McCormack - 00:07:54
I've had that in my other podcast, my "What Bitcoin Did" one, I've had plenty of people over and over again saying, "Why are you interviewing that person?" Or my favourite term, "Why are you giving a platform to that person?" Whenever it's somebody they don't like, I'm giving a platform. When it's somebody they like, it's an interview. I hate that term, giving a platform, you should be able to talk to anyone.

Peter McCormack - 00:08:11
But I'm also, with the launch of this new show, considering some of the reactions to some of the guests that I've had. Molly Mckew is going to be interview three and for me, as somebody who's new to this, I'm not a trained journalist, Jake, you know that. I fell into this. I was offered the interview, I did some research, she sounded interesting and then after it I found information out that's made me think maybe I should question this. Trying to know how to handle, firstly, the guest but all the information that can exist about a guest. It becomes quite hard.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:08:38
It does get hard. You have to look at ideological counts but there are some things that the facts are there. There is a thing where some people will be like, "Who knows what's right?" It's like, no, there are some things that are right because there is evidence and there is proof. For example, a lot of proof that Assad chemically gassed people and children and has been slaughtering people.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:09:04
And then people say, "Well, maybe that's just some neo-Liberal American invention." No. It's there. Go and do your research, you can find it. There is definitely lines of some things are true, some things aren't.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:09:15
But then there is also the other thing of what you're saying where ideological lines come into play. Where people say … There will be some people that are … I find on the right a lot … I'm not particularly for any state but if I was an American, I've listened to Bernie Sanders, I think he's cool, I like what he's saying. Then there will be some right-wing guys who will be like, "What about this that he says?" So it's not exactly as you want everything to be but the world isn't like that. The world isn't like that. It's on both sides. It's I don't like that so therefore you're not allowed to like him. The left do it, the right do it. It's actually the world is not like that, it's different.

Peter McCormack - 00:09:52
Yeah, and this left/right thing is starting to become a problem.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:09:54
Fucking boring.

Peter McCormack - 00:09:56
It's crushing me because you know I spent a lot of time in the States. I've been there 50, 60 times. I really enjoy going over there. I love meeting people. If you just drive around to a small town, you meet people, everyone's cool, everyone's interesting. The problem starts to come from the media and the political commentators.

Peter McCormack - 00:10:14
So what was really interesting for me recently was watching, "The Loudest Voice." Can't remember. Was it Netflix? No, I don't think it was Netflix but it was a series about Roger Ailes and Fox News. I wasn't really aware of the Fox News bias because I never watch it. I knew it was a conservative channel but I started to realise how sinister it was. I didn't know that.

Peter McCormack - 00:10:34
What I've been doing recently, which is quite interesting, whenever there's a political story, I'll read it on Fox News and then I'll read it on MSNBC and you're seeing two versions of the same story, always with the same bias. I'm totally now starting to reject all forms of political bias because there's things I like from conservatives, there's things I like from liberals, and actually I want to speak to both sides because I think there are interesting points.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:10:56
Yeah, definitely. I think that's a good idea as well because there is this one argument where people say, "You're sitting on the fence." I get it with "Popular Front." "Why won't you say you're political this? You're obviously an anarchist, you're obviously this."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:11:07
Firstly, why the fuck do you care? I do a podcast and a documentary series about modern war and stuff like this. Why do you care what these Western ideas are? That's another thing. I think Westerners are very quick to only see the world through their lens. For example, I've just got back from Hong Kong covering the protests. Now a lot of leftists that I speak to, I'm friends with, will say, "Wow, they were flying the American flag. They're obviously not good guys." Do you think they give a fuck what you think in your very safe little home in the West with your political ideology? They don't care. They're fighting for their freedom.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:11:42
When you talk to them, "Why you got the American flag?"

Jake Hanrahan - 00:11:44
They say, "Look, we see them as democratic or at least we see that they can help us. So we're waving the flag because we hope they help." Of course they fucking would. If America attacks them tomorrow they'll burn the flag the same way. Westerners are very quick to … I'm not very happy that this protest isn't going exactly as I want it to. Well, they don't care, nor should they, because they're not living with you and they're fighting for something. It's not just for Hong Kong, it's all over the world.

Peter McCormack - 00:12:08
I think people asking you, "Are you this? Are you that?" The starting point is always what divides us. They want to find out what divides us so they can have an argument about it. But I'm much more interested in finding what do we align? What are our similar goals? We might have something with regards to healthcare. Do we believe that it should be coerced or do we believe that it should be a human right? Okay, we agree on this. What don't we agree on? How can we work together? Because all this divisiveness, which really is a weaponised tool for media companies to make money, I think it's causing a lot of problems.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:12:41
Yeah, rage for clicks.

Peter McCormack - 00:12:42
Rage for clicks, yeah. Rage clicks.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:12:44
Absolutely.

Peter McCormack - 00:12:45
It's causing … I watch it in the US. When I'm on the ground there and I'm meeting with people, I don't see the problems. What I see are problems perpetuated by the media and it seems a lot bigger than it actually is.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:12:56
Yeah, I think the problems are there in every country as they are, but I think you're right in … What I would say is maybe that people need to realise outside of Twitter, where a lot of this goes down, most people don't care. The "Joker" film non-outrage is a perfect example. Everyone's like, "What's going to happen with the 'Joker' film? Incels are going to shoot up. There's rumours." No, the rumours were started and perpetuated by people on Twitter and then raised bigger by media platforms that realise they can get clicks for it.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:13:24
I was at a boxing gym the other day, I was like, "Did you see the new 'Joker' film?"

Jake Hanrahan - 00:13:28
My mate's like, "Yeah, looks cool." I was like, "Have you heard about this?"

Jake Hanrahan - 00:13:31
They're like, "No." They just don't care.

Peter McCormack - 00:13:35
They want a shooting though. The media... it feels like it sometimes.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:13:40
It does … I don't know, man. The more I get into this, the longer I've been doing this work, I don't want to sound like one of these outsiders and that, but I do start seeing things differently and I do sometimes think what are you on about? I don't think that it's anything deeply insidious. I think that a lot of the journalists are so far removed from normal people. The normal people that make up most of your everyday guy, the guys that are driving the bus, the guys that are making things run on time. So many journalists are from elitist backgrounds or at least have put themselves into an elitist world that they haven't got a fucking clue what they're talking about.

Peter McCormack - 00:14:14
Look, you and I talk to people every day. We talk to people about the shows we make, people email us and DM us.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:14:19
Look where we are. We're not in fucking some nice high rise in London are we? We're just hanging out in the country.

Peter McCormack - 00:14:26
We're in Bedford chilling in my kitchen. But the thing is because we've got no paymaster essentially, we might have sponsors but we can do what the fuck we want. We can make what we want. I don't know. For me it feels like if you really align yourself with something that you create a trap for yourself.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:14:44
Yeah. It depends what it is. I think you're right. I think if you align politically … Personally I feel like if you're a journalist and you want to vote, obviously that's fine, but if you make all your work about that, that's when there's a problem because it's obvious that you … Without realising it people can end up with an agenda. Objectivity, I don't really believe in it in a pure form.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:15:07
I cover a lot of war and I've seen a lot of horrible things and I've said this to other Western journalists who are like, "No, this is nonsense," but it's true. If you're a completely objective journalist in the face of brutal authoritarianism, murder, killings, then you're a psychopath frankly.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:15:25
If you're seeing children get killed and you say, "Well, I'm an objective journalist and therefore I'm not going to let this affect me." No. Don't be neutral, be truthful. Say they're doing this. That doesn't mean pick a side, that means point it out wherever it is.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:15:38
If your favourite rebel group does something bad, point that out too. But don't then just be like, "It's a shame that these kids died but here's some more numbers." No. Humans don't work like that. Humans are based with interaction and feelings and there's no reason that should be removed from journalism so long as it's the truth.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:15:56
You have to be open about your biases, I think. Everyone has biases. Like I said, if you don't you are a psychopath. If you're open about it, that's actually more honest. Being allegedly objective is one of the most dishonest things you can do in such a certain situation I think.

Peter McCormack - 00:16:12
I interviewed Mike Cernovich, I know I'm going to get a load of shit from it, and-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:16:14
From me.

Peter McCormack - 00:16:15
Yeah. But even doing it early on people are going to give me a lot of shit from it. But the reason I wanted to speak to him is that I'd seen his work about Epstein, I thought that was interesting, I wanted to talk to him about that. Look, the conversation went on but I thought that was interesting work. In prep I watched his documentary, "Hoaxed," which it covers a lot of … You would say it's almost certainly got a right-wing bias to it. But what was very interesting in that is that he was saying it's not about … What news now is about narratives? The most important thing is that you should be honest about your bias.

Peter McCormack - 00:16:48
I have a bias. I have a conservative bias with regards to the economy and I have a liberal bias with regards to human rights and liberty. I'm cool with that. But I've also got to a point, Jake, I don't think I'm going to vote anymore. I know that sounds terrible when we want countries around the world to have democracy, but who do you vote for?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:17:10
Anarchy wins, mate. No voting.

Peter McCormack - 00:17:12
I want to be an anarchist in a democratic society because I don't think there are many decent people to vote … Look what's going on in our country, dude, the fucking Brexit.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:17:21
I know. It's a joke, man. I know.

Peter McCormack - 00:17:23
We're in this horrible position where the country voted for Brexit. Okay, let's honour democracy. But people lie so we can't. Let's have a second vote. Well, what about a third vote? We're in this big political mess because there's no one left to really… you can believe in to vote for.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:17:35
In my opinion, there's no solid opposition either. I'm not particularly a fan of Corbin, I find him to be a bourgeois pretend representation of so-called left. I don't see that. Personally, what's left about him other than what he says? I saw the other day he was saying, "The first thing we're going to do is recognise Palestine if we get in." That's fine, but what about all the fucking people that are working for minimum wage and people that are going to food banks and homeless people and drug addiction? What about that? Shouldn't we focus on that? Do you think my mate down the road who has two jobs and goes to the food bank gives a fuck about you representing Palestine?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:18:15
I don't mean to be horrible about that. I definitely feel bad for the Palestinian people. But come on, what he's doing and my point is what he's doing is showboating in my opinion to bourgeois West London leftists. That, for me, is not really going to help the class situation in our country.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:18:31
Then Boris Johnson, I can't even talk about that guy. If he burns, I'll laugh.

Peter McCormack - 00:18:35
Yeah, but also at the same time with him, I've got mixed views. There's a lot I don't like about him. But one thing I do like about him is the fact that he's come with an iron fist on the issue of Brexit. He's standing up for a vote that happened.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:18:48
It's not going to affect him. He's so rich it's not going to affect him. No deal and no deal. Personally I don't give a fuck anymore, I just want to get this sorted. But no deal means people that we know, people that are struggling in society, are probably going to get fucked. He's not going to get fucked.

Peter McCormack - 00:19:05
Of course he's not. No, of course he's not. But then this is where I get lost in the different narratives because I speak to so many people doing this. Right now, you're making a valid point, my brother's made the same point, that this is going to fuck a lot of people, Brexit. I've also spoke to a lot of people who are saying, "Look, there's a lot of problems with socialism that the European Union is essentially a super socialist state which isn't democratic. By having Brexit we're actually going to have the ability to make better decisions on the ground in the UK and ultimately that's going to be better for people."

Peter McCormack - 00:19:36
So you get mixed in these different narratives of stories and sometimes I'm like, "I don't know who the fuck to believe anymore."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:19:40
Life is hard. That's it, man. I think this is why it's good to have these discussions. I know that you're not going to be like, "I think this, I think that." I'm the same.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:19:49
I'm very happy to be called out on my shit. My closest friends will say, "Jake, shut the fuck up."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:19:55
And then I'll go, "Yeah, you're right actually." Often I will say things I don't particularly mean just to get a rise out of someone because I'm like, "Let's have the debate. Let's talk. Let me learn from you and you learn from me."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:20:05
Unfortunately, everybody is so offended now that you have to be careful the way you word things, but it is good to have this, man. You should be able to say, "Hang on."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:20:13
I'm from a very political family. I remember growing up, my family are Irish on one side and Welsh on the other. I remember my dad's very, very class conscious, working class, socialist. My grandad's the same. We grew up constantly talking about politics. As a kid I didn't even realise, it was just normal. And then as you get older and I was trying to talk about this and people are like, "No, don't do this."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:20:34
I'm like, "Isn't that normal? Shouldn't you be allowed to just have that in your life?" I talk to my child about stuff that happens and it should be normal because it's everywhere. You can't escape it. Why not talk about it instead of just fence yourself off into your group? What does that even mean?

Peter McCormack - 00:20:51
That's what I've been doing on Twitter. I've been using Twitter as a research tool and I tend to throw myself into debates. What I'll do sometimes is I'll take one side so I can see the other side. So I've done this with gun rights in the US. My personal opinion is nuanced in that, and I've got to this position where I think I wouldn't want to change … Not that my opinion matters and I could but just for the sake of this conversation, I wouldn't want to drastically change the gun laws in the US because I understand it culturally. I spent time with people out in a place like Wyoming recently. I understand what guns mean. I've shot guns now. I understand why they want them. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to introduce them into the UK.

Peter McCormack - 00:21:35
But what I did is I threw myself in at one point saying I was very anti-gun and I was seeing all the objections coming back, which helped me prepare for my interview with Ragnar. Following that, I've thrown myself the other way, become pro-gun and seen all the reactions that come back, just because I want to see both sides of the debate. But sometimes you get there and you're like, "Fuck, none of this is solvable because everybody is very much binary about their decision and they will argue it to the death."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:21:57
That's it. I think you're right. You hit the nail on the head. It's not solvable. Certain things in life just aren't. The gun debate is interesting to me. I come from a leftist perspective of I think everyone should be allowed to own a rifle in theory just in case the government turns against you, which has been … Ironically the right have a real monopoly on gun talk at the minute, but actually it's always, always been a leftist perspective of we should all be armed because if our government kicks off we need to be able to fight back in some way.

Peter McCormack - 00:22:28
If you look now in Hong Kong, I point this out recently, they're in a position now where the Chinese police, Hong Kong police, are essentially now moving to using guns.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:22:41
Two kids have been shot.

Peter McCormack - 00:22:42
Two kids have been shot.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:22:43
A few shots have been fired. It only takes an amount of time before someone's killed.

Peter McCormack - 00:22:47
Yeah, that's going to happen. What would happen if they had weapons? Is that a good thing? If they were shooting back, I don't know.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:22:52
This is what I was talking about recently to a friend of mine who's very anti-gun, a leftist that's anti-gun and blah blah blah. He made a really good point I never thought of, again having discussions is good. He's American and I was ragging on him as I do a lot about the left in America. I'm like, "They're weak. Antifa in America are pathetic." I know what Americans are like. They're terrorists. I'm like, "No, they're no militant enough." But that's my stance. I said, "In Europe, our activists will fight the police when they think it's right to do so."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:23:26
He made a really good point. He said, "Yeah, because of the gun laws."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:23:29
I said, " Yeah, but we don't have guns."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:23:31
He said, "Yeah, your police don't. So then you can actually fight back against police in a certain manner. We can't because we just get fucking shot straightaway."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:23:39
I was like, "I never thought about that." In that case, maybe that actually restricts certain protests. If a policeman hits you, you can't even hit him back in America, you'll get shot. I thought, I don't know now.

Peter McCormack - 00:23:54
Why should the state have weapons and people not? Because then it just becomes coercion. And actually there's a story-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:24:03
You're basically saying the state is above you always.

Peter McCormack - 00:24:06
Yeah, when they historically have usually proven to not act in the best interest of the people. Usually with absolute power corrupting and I don't think any of us are fans of what our government, the US government, the number of wars they've started. Look, it's all fucking bullshit. One of the stories that I find most interesting is, I've talked about this a couple of times, out in the US, it was based in Nevada, it was to do with grazing rights, it's when the militia defending the farm. I thought that was great. I thought that was really interesting.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:24:33
Yeah, protect your farm is a good saying.

Peter McCormack - 00:24:36
They won. They wouldn't have been able to do that without standing there with AR-15s because the government weren't going to go in and just have a shoot out and I think everybody … A lot of people were on the side of the militias. So I do find that really interesting and certainly friends of the UK might listen to this for the first time and think, "What the fuck's happened to Pete?" I'm starting to understand that side of things. I was only able to do that by going out to the US, spending time with people, talking to people. Actually the problem with guns isn't the guns, it's the problem of mental health.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:25:08
It is, yeah. There's a really good thing I was reading that put things in perspective for me. I could be wrong on some of this, it was a while ago, but I think Iraq is the country with the most unlicensed firearms on Earth and they have had one school shooting and that wasn't even really a school shooting, it was a lad came in a shot his teacher because he hated him. So the most unlicensed firearms, no school shootings. Yes, they have war and other issues but a school shooting is something that's very specific.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:25:33
America, so many school shootings. It's not the guns, it's the society that is sick. Why does someone feel the need to go and shoot up a school? It's not because there's a gun, I might as well shoot up a school. That's not how it works. There's a problem there in the society. It's certain societies don't need guns.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:25:48
As much as I'm chatting shit now I'm going to contradict myself. I do fear that if we suddenly had the gun rights of America, I know where I live, my area, every lad would have a gun and they'd be killing each other within 24 hours.

Peter McCormack - 00:25:59
But it's already happening in London. They're killing each other with knives and we are having shootings.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:26:07
I know that lads that are not even criminals that I just know if they could get a gun they'd go, "Fuck it, I'll shoot someone instead of punching them."

Peter McCormack - 00:26:15
Which might lead you or I to think we would need to have one in the house just in case.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:26:19
Then before you know it, it escalates.

Peter McCormack - 00:26:22
But see that's my point, it goes straight back to that. I don't want to change the laws here and I see how you can't really change the laws in the US.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:26:30
It's far too late, there would be war.

Peter McCormack - 00:26:31
But it's only by getting out there and having these conversations. The interview I did with Ragnar is an independent discussion that goes up on the internet and it's been heard by 15,000, 20,000 people. Very small compared to other people but I think this is the importance of independent journalism, independent conversations like this that allow people to just have a broader discussion. Because if you rely on mainstream media there's pretty much always going to be a bias.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:26:56
Yeah, as there is with anything I think. I think it's good to have an alternative. I read the New York Times, I think their foreign coverage is great. But then there's other things I'll be like, "Well I'm not going to fucking read about this for them." You know what I mean? And I'm not going to read Bloomberg to hear about the news at the banks, because I know that they're not going to report on that accurately. They're going to lick their ass. But you know, you just have to pick and choose. But again, people haven't got time. People are work... you and me are very lucky actually because we do this, we can do what we like and whatever. People are working 40, 50 hours a week more, breaking their necks and then they come home, they look after their kids and they've got to cook dinner. They haven't got fucking time to do this.

Peter McCormack - 00:27:34
And also I think sometimes they put on the TV and they don't realise the bias of what they're watching.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:27:38
Exactly. And who can blame them? There is quite a snobbish thing in journalism where people are like, "Oh yeah, he's reading that. He's reading something..." Man, you don't know how hard people's lives are. You're lucky if you can get them to go to something alternative, and you're lucky if you could just make sure it's not some bullshit Fox News or right wing, whatever. Like, do you know what I mean? Life is hard, man, and people are struggling and you can't expect them to be suddenly so enlightened all the time, you know?

Peter McCormack - 00:28:03
Where do you feel this is all going? Because right now everything seems to be getting more extreme. I was trying to, I was thinking about the other day and trying to understand where it's coming from and I've been watching... I watched this documentary called The Red Pill and there was a group protesting outside a discussion, which I thought was very interesting. And then what I've noticed is there's lots of protests happening now.

Peter McCormack - 00:28:24
So we've got the... I can't remember. It was on the radio this morning, the environmental-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:28:29
Extinction Rebellion.

Peter McCormack - 00:28:32
Yeah, we've got that. We've got the vegans who are standing outside McDonald's blocking people to go in. So there's a lot, and I was trying to think is this because of the internet, has the internet brought the world closer together, that we've been able to find groups of people who have similar interests and then build these groups. And then why is it everyone suddenly protesting about every issue there possibly is?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:28:49
Yeah. I have a different take on it. I think that there's more protests now, but they're less meaningful.

Peter McCormack - 00:28:56
That's a great point.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:28:57
So you know, the Poll Tax Riots. My dad would always talk about that. And only when I got older did I realise what it was all about and did some research on it. People came from all over the country on buses, on trains, to meet and go like, "This is out of order. We don't even know each other and we're not having it that way." I think it was incredible what they did. And these are always violent. Well, sometimes it has to be violent. I'm sorry that peaceful meetings don't always work, but you have to have a legitimate threat to the state or whatever the power is for them to actually go, "Okay, we better do something."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:29:27
Now, like extinction rebellion. Like what a joke, I find them a... I'm very, very interested in deep green ecology, looking after the environment. I'm very big on that and not in the sense of let's stop plastic straws. Like, good luck. Like you think that's going to make any dent on the absolute hell that we've done already? Now I'm big on like radical change because I think actually culturally less urbanisation helps people in their heart and everything. I think it's a lot better to be in nature and whatever.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:29:57
Extinction Rebellion, it's just a pow wow for me. I think it's just like... Fair play to them, but it's controlled opposition. The government knows they're not really going to do anything, you know? And it's the same with Greta... And I feel terrible that so many people go after her. Like she's this young 16 year old autistic girl, really believes in what she's doing, and I actually admire her.

Peter McCormack - 00:30:15
Yeah, I do.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:30:16
I think it's amazing, but it's like, "Oh, you went to the UN and you asked them to stop?" Like, Oh, they're going to stop now. Like that's not doing anything.

Peter McCormack - 00:30:24
I really... I don't know. I don't a 100% agree with everything I've heard her say, but I really... Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:30:29
Yeah. For what she's doing, like good for you.

Peter McCormack - 00:30:31
She's 16.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:30:32
When I was 16 I was a moron. I was a moron. I was like, "Oh, let's go and steal a car." Like, Oh no, let's not. Those are decisions I used to think about it. She's going to the UN and then she'll have an iPhone and some fucking right-wingers like, "What? She's got an iPhone!" Yeah, that's how the world works.

Peter McCormack - 00:30:48
Yeah. Although she wouldn't travel on a plane. She went on the boat. They're like, "Well, do you know what the cost went into the production of the boat?" And it's just kind of like-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:30:55
Surprise. We don't live in the 1800s.

Peter McCormack - 00:30:57
Yeah, I find the environment stuff really interesting because you know in my Bitcoin world, there's a lot of people that are climate change deniers or deniers of that the fact that it's human caused. And then I always have to try and provide some evidence to prove it is. I fundamentally believe that humans are causing climate change. I fundamentally believe it. I've watched a lot of documentaries, I've read a lot about it. I can't sit there and just spiel off the stats, but I fundamentally believe it. And I think, you know what, she's 16 and she's got into the global consciousness.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:31:27
Yeah, yeah.

Peter McCormack - 00:31:28
And I admire it. I think it's brilliant. And I mean she's even, there's a little bit of hers that's part of the intro speech for my new podcast. I've got like a medley of different bits of speech and there's one bit, I just thought that, you know, that's pretty cool. I don't understand why people are actually attacking her. It's like, come on, she's 16.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:31:49
It's unbelievable, man. She's 16 years old. Like, and she's got autism. The very first thing you should be thinking is why we need to protect people like that from attack because they're more vulnerable. And secondly, look what she's doing, you know? It's incredible. But again, I don't think it's going to make a difference. And I do think it enables specifically like neoliberal types to feel like they're making a difference.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:32:13
I support Greta. I went to the march. And now what? Now what? We went to the March so you can talk about it around your nice little dinner party and your nice little West London house and do fuck all else. But I support Greta. You're not actually doing anything. It's fine. I get it. But that controlled opposition is very dangerous because it gives people the illusion that they're changing things while the government just carries on, literally laughing behind. Whatever.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:32:38
You know I feel like the threat of protest in the West are very minimal now. You know, in the rest of the world, people are getting really aware, like we have to cause real ruckus. Hong Kong, perfect example as we've spoken about. A lot of Western people saying, "Well, they attacked a police officer." First of all, don't be a bootlicker. Secondly, I'm sorry that the protest hasn't gone exactly as you want it to. I'm sorry that you in England didn't see the protest exactly pan out as you wanted it to. Again, it's nothing to do with you. They started off peacefully. Police attack them. They realise, they said to me, I've just been out of that, they said, "Look, every time they escalate violence, we will escalate violence."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:33:14
And it's like violence is bad. But sometimes it's a tool and it's... Not that all protest needs to be violent, but I just feel like this controlled opposition is very dangerous because it makes, again, makes people think that the effects is bigger than it is, and really it's not. Extinction Rebellion in a year... And maybe I'm wrong actually, maybe it would be good to open people's eyes to a lot of stuff they perhaps wouldn't have. It's good that people are hearing about them, but then I hope... Read Desert. There's a good book called Desert and people like this, you know, read into really how bad things are and then I think maybe then work out another way, you know?

Peter McCormack - 00:33:49
Well, I think the climate stuff, I think we're fucked.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:33:51
I think we're fucked too. If you look at... You've done a lot of research on this. If you look at it, there is no real way to turn it back. You know, one of my sisters I spoke to about this and she studies geography and stuff like this and she's not radical at all, but she made me laugh one day. I said, "What do you think needs to be done to actually save the earth?" Because she's geography in terms of the environment. I don't know what it is called, but whatever. And she said, "Destroy every car." And I laughed. She said, "No, no. If you want to make a difference, we literally have to destroy every car now." And I laugh and she was like, "I'm serious."

Peter McCormack - 00:34:21
Well dude, there's like three options, right? You go zero carbon, which is virtually impossible because there's no real will from the Western governments to do this.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:34:34
Absolutely.

Peter McCormack - 00:34:35
And certainly not even from developing countries because they're rightly saying, "Well, this is unfair. You're developed countries, we're not, we don't have the technology."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:34:41
Yeah, exactly. We don't have that privilege to do that, you know.

Peter McCormack - 00:34:46
Option two is what will be, will be. And I think things will gradually get weirder and weirder and more fucked up. Or thirdly, there'll be some weird scientific experiments to try and put stuff up in the atmosphere, which I've read about, or put stuff in the ocean to reflect sunlight, and that we've got no idea of the consequences. But I think we're too late. There is no will from the Western governments who lead this essentially to make a change. I've come to that reality. I just don't know when in mine on my kids' lifetime it starts to get out of control, where there are climate wars. Because there almost certainly will be climate migration.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:35:18
Definitely.

Peter McCormack - 00:35:18
Which will lead to climate wars. And I think that's concerning. And I don't know if that's in five years or 35 years.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:35:23
I think that's exactly right, man. And I think there's this thing I see a lot of like right wingers will talk about and be like, "Oh well, they said this was going to happen in the '90s and it still hasn't happened." It's like, do you know how small amount of time that is? Do you know what I mean? Do you know how long it took the dinosaurs to go out of extinction. No one is saying it's going to happen right this second. But man, look at the summer we had this year. You're telling me that oh, it's just the weather's changing. Well, maybe it is but, I'm telling you now, I haven't experienced... When I was in Syria this year, it was as hot in Syria as it was in England. I talk to my friends, "Hey, what's the weather like, boys? I'm chilling and it's hot here." And they're like, "Yeah, it's hot as fuck here too."

Peter McCormack - 00:35:55
Well, people are moving from the coast. Certainly parts of the Eastern coast in the US. I mean downtown New York has flooded. Was it Hurricane Sandy? I think it flooded. And you've got parts of Miami that are flooding.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:36:07
They're moving already, right?

Peter McCormack - 00:36:08
Yeah, there's minimal amounts of climate migration already happening. We are seeing the melting of the polar ice caps. It's happening.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:36:18
It's happening. Of course it-

Peter McCormack - 00:36:19
The scientists have proven it's there. What we don't know is the full impact is kind of scary.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:36:24
For me, the biggest issue though, and it sounds selfish, but the biggest issue... Well, not the biggest issue. One of the big problems is the way that living outside of nature in a big urbanised kind of skyscraper, what I see as a hell hole, to be honest. That is very bad for the human interaction. There's a reason that people in the countryside feel better off than a guy living in a tiny little flat in a city. That for me is the biggest issue. And it changes your culture.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:36:50
I'm not saying we all got to go back to primitive times or anything like that, but if there was just a little bit more of like, "Okay, I can't just go to Sainsbury's, I've got to go to the butcher and support the independent butcher and then maybe if I chop this log and get this guy to help me..." You'll make friends, you'll make neighbours, your community will be better together. Right? Well, I don't even know my neighbours, man. I know one of my neighbours. And it's like that's fucked up. That's just not for me. That's just not right. It shouldn't be like that. Because then you have no reason really to look after your community. You know?

Peter McCormack - 00:37:21
Well, I can give you a very obvious and easy example of what you're talking about. Look, if me and the kids stay in on the weekend, if we just kind of hang around the house and kind of watch TV and just don't really go out and do anything, everyone's at each other's throat. The two of them are fighting. We're fighting. If we go out and spend the weekend out, say we just go out to the park, go for a walk around the woods or something, we're all happier. We just are.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:37:40
You feel it, right?

Peter McCormack - 00:37:41
You feel it.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:37:42
There's energy. You can't deny the energy. And I sound like some hippie, but when you're in nature, I really feel that... I don't know about you, but I feel like there's an energy here. I don't know what it is. I'm not saying it's religion, God, anything, but there's something. Just humans, you're meant to be there. No, maybe not all the time. But if I'm stressed, go for a walk. See the grass, see the trees and I feel I'm all right. I feel better now.

Peter McCormack - 00:38:01
Do you know what else we were also doing? When we go out now we leave our phones at home.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:38:04
Yeah. The best thing. Same. When I walk my dog like three times a day, every time I leave my phone in my car. It's just like you have to do that, man.

Peter McCormack - 00:38:10
I've even bought a new phone. I'm waiting for it to be delivered. This thing called the Light Phone where all it does is text, call, and alarm.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:38:16
Not a Mudita, is it?

Peter McCormack - 00:38:17
No, It's called the Light Phone. It's up on one of the fundraising sites. They did the first one. But yeah, all you can do is phone, text, and alarm, right?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:38:25
It's all white, no?

Peter McCormack - 00:38:26
Yeah, it's all white or all black.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:38:27
I looked at it and I was like, "That's great." And then they launched a Kickstarter. I was like, "Nah." I'll just get a burner.

Peter McCormack - 00:38:34
But for me, that's an example of my phone... When you've got a phone, it's handy, it's great. I can call and text anyone wherever I am. And then it just became this thing that you've become addicted to. If I go and look at Screen Time and the stuff I'd been doing, it's kind of scary. Especially like Twitter as well. But when we go out, we don't have a phone, we just sit at the table and talk. So, having that phone's going to ultimately change my relationship with a phone in that it just becomes a device. It's useful at the point I need it. Not this addiction thing with all those little buzz triggers.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:39:03
Right. And they get you hooked on it. They're like the drug pushers of the modern age. It's like Silicon Valley is the fucking Al Capone. Well, did he sell drugs? No, but you know what I mean. It's disgusting. I am a hypocrite because I'm online a lot. But for me it's almost become... Because of the business, Popular Front, and I'm running my business. Basic business, you're in media, but whatever. And it's like, I have to do this, I have to do that. Otherwise no one will know we're about, and I'm getting tired, man. I'm getting tired of my... Fuck. Every night, 11:00 PM I put the phone down and there's something come in my head, "Oh, I need to do that. I need to do that." And, you're going to do it. I'm like, "I'll just check that. I'll just check that." And I'm on for 30 minutes staring at fucking phone.

Peter McCormack - 00:39:43
And if you can't get to sleep straight away-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:39:44
Exactly. It's very bad for you. No, my favourite period of time for technology was when we had phones, but it was just for texting, just for ringing and when you know, like PS1 days. That was perfect for me.

Peter McCormack - 00:39:57
I'll give you that. I'll give you the PS1, early days of the internet, we had Napster.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:40:01
Yeah. MSN, things were a bit wild.

Peter McCormack - 00:40:03
And now it's just like it's too much, you know? And I see the impact on all children. I see like Snapchat. I remember I was in this airport and I was at the conveyor belt waiting for my luggage and this kid just opened his phone, had just got off the plane and he stood there on his Snap... And I don't really know how to use Snapchat. I have one friend, which is my son, is the only way it applies. But, and he just sat there taking the same photo over and over again, send it to like people over and over.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:40:27
Of himself.

Peter McCormack - 00:40:28
So yeah, all the way down, all the way down. And then I've watched like my... My son is utterly addicted. I cannot get him off Snapchat and it's just relentless hour after hour of conversations. Conversation with his friends and it's got too much.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:40:40
Yeah. Who needs to talk that much? I'm a bit of a loner too. I like being alone. I very much like being on my own. I do my work and I talk to people, but there will be times where phone's in the drawer, sit down and watch a film and I just think, how can you be constantly on that? What is there to talk about then when you meet up? And I guess there's always something, but it is a struggle of mine. I feel I'm a bit of an old guy in that sense. You know, I'm old before my time, but I definitely notice other friends have been like, "Yeah, that's good, actually. I'm going to do that as well." And like our generation I feel like are the last to understand that it's not good to be on your phone that much. I feel like the younger generation, maybe the next one after that, don't even get that. It's just normal. Just be on your phone all the time. At least we're like, "Right, this is fucked up. Let's put this down."

Peter McCormack - 00:41:24
Dude, we're doing the... How old are you?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:41:26
29.

Peter McCormack - 00:41:27
10 years younger than me, but we're doing the, "In my day..."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:41:34
Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 00:41:34
We're doing that.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:41:34
Get the wireless out.

Peter McCormack - 00:41:34
In my day we didn't have a phone.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:41:36
How fucking weird is that?

Peter McCormack - 00:41:37
We didn't. Well listen, we should talk about your work because your work is super cool. You've travelled the world, man. You've seen conflicts, you've seen the best and worst of humans. What's your kind of overall feeling of... How do you take it all in? Everything you've done, everything you've seen, how do you reflect on the world with all?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:41:55
That's a good question. I've never really thought of it like that, that broad, how do you take it in?

Peter McCormack - 00:41:59
Have you become desensitised to the worst of humans?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:42:02
I've been desensitised to certain acts of violence. Thing is the idea of desensitisation is not necessarily always as insidious as it sounds. I don't think so. If I see a beheading video, which I have watched for research purposes, which unfortunately you have to, you know? It's not the beheading you're watching, it's the other things. But now if I saw that, it's like it's bad, but I'm not going to flinch. I won't even... That sounds bad, but it doesn't mean that you think it's okay. You know what I mean? There's desensitisation and then there's something else. I've always been in favour of you have to see the ugly things. You have to see the...

Jake Hanrahan - 00:42:37
For example, the other day there was some like fucking commenting on something on Popular Front, on the Instagram. And a few Anarcho guys even, which was ironic, were like, "Stop this guy from commenting." I said, "Look man, these guys are scum. You got to see the scum out there as well. Unfortunately, you do." You know, and it's the same with the world. You have to see the bad things. So I think by understanding how people are living, there's a very, I don't know... I feel very blessed to have seen a lot of things I've seen. The people I've met in these wars are just some of the most incredible people ever. To be honest, I think way more about the good people that I've met and the struggles that they're in rather than like, Oh, I can't believe that. I can't believe that bastard."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:43:12
Like, which maybe people would be surprised by, because I seem always angry online, but I'm actually not, I'm very happy to have met so many people and I really care about as well. Like I know some people are like, "Why do you care about that so much? It's just a job." And it is just a job. And I'm not one of these guys that thinks I'm going to change the world, but obviously I care about the people I've met, like the people that are fighting for their freedom is like a big important thing. And I feel like that should be uncompromising, you know? And I've met people that also agree with that and to the point where they're doing things that are just selfless. You know, I'm fighting for this, I'm fighting for that. And I don't mean like necessarily like with a gun, just people that are trying to keep their family afloat, having a laugh in the worst place possible.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:43:57
Like people in the Middle East have the best sense of humour I've ever seen in my life. I love it. So dark and evil and funny, you know? Because how else are they going to deal with this? You know? So I think like honestly I just feel really blessed to seen it all and it does make me like, I get very frustrated with being back home sometimes because I think I'm not one of these whatabouters. I don't think, "Well, do you know how lucky we are?" It's not that. But sometimes I do think like, man, I've met people with nothing who were still nice and polite and just good people. And then sometimes you meet someone who's got fucking everything and just like, "You're still an asshole." You know? I mean, I'm an asshole, but you know what I mean?

Peter McCormack - 00:44:37
I know what you mean.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:44:38
And it's just that is... Sometimes I feel conflicted. I feel like never quite at home.

Peter McCormack - 00:44:42
Well, one of the things about the work you do is that without you haven't done that work, I wouldn't have realised the amount of conflicts ongoing.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:44:51
Yeah. That's something I've focused on a lot. Underreported conflicts.

Peter McCormack - 00:44:54
Yeah. Because look, the mainstream news seems to cover just the main conflicts. I mean even to the point of the only way I was finding out information about what was going on with say the Yellow Jacket Campaign was via Twitter. It just wasn't covered really on the news-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:45:10
It was for like a week. There is also I know the perception, I've done this myself and this is how I know, there is a thing where people go, "Well the mainstream aren't covering it." And then you Google it and you're like, "Oh they are. I'm just maybe not watching it." You know, I have a TV, but I don't have any channels tuned in so I... You know what I mean? But no, there is definitely, you are right in the sense that like it will come and just vanish.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:45:28
And I know that we at Popular Front what we did when we covered the Yellow Jackets, we did a bit of the conflict on the ground, the clashes, but we got all the archive of the police beating people up like relentlessly. And we put that in there and a lot of people are like, "Fuck, I didn't see that on Sky or I didn't see that on the BBC." And maybe they did put it up. But I think sometimes it's just like you have to really lay that out there. And I think the news now is a bit scared to put something a bit like nasty out there. In the '90s, it's not. If you watch coverage from the 90s of the BBC and all of them doing amazing war coverage. Now, I don't know, it's different.

Peter McCormack - 00:46:02
Yeah. The only person I tend to follow now for war coverage is Sky News, Crawford.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:46:08
Alex Crawford.

Peter McCormack - 00:46:09
Yeah, she seems to-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:46:10
She did something quite bad recently in my opinion.

Peter McCormack - 00:46:12
Did she?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:46:12
She's ticked off at me about it for even questioning her but she worked with like like a known Jihadist in Idlib. Like, I don't actually, I think like to show the horror that the regime, you know, Assad regime is doing to people in Idlib, you sometimes have to work with bad people, but you should always be up front about it I think. And she was like, "This is a guy we just happened to meet." And it's like really? The only English speaking... But no, I don't want to take away from... She's done excellent work.

Peter McCormack - 00:46:37
Yeah. But there seemed to be a thing. Like I remember from my childhood, the war reporter...

Jake Hanrahan - 00:46:42
Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 00:46:44
It was a big thing. You know, was it Kate Adie? Was it Kate Adie was always out there? I'm trying to remember.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:46:48
I don't remember. I was too young.

Peter McCormack - 00:46:49
Yeah. But it was the thing, the war report, it seems to be, I don't know, I seem to feel there's less of it.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:46:55
I think with technology, a lot of people can report their own stuff, you know? So there's massacres happening right now in Iraq and there are lads on the ground just filming it with their smart phone and going like, "Look what's happening." Which is a gift and a curse because it means that you can rely... Like this citizen journalists idea is nice until you realise that some people will lie or they'll misunderstand the situation. So sometimes you do need a trained, or at least an experienced... I'm not trained but like an experienced journalist to be like, "This is what it is."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:47:25
You know there is an art in actually bringing out nuance of a situation as opposed to here's a raw clip where you've no idea what's going on, but that looks bad. You know? Of course there were things like... I saw a video this morning where like fucking security forces in Iraq just shoot unarmed protesters. That's obviously you can see that. But like you also do need someone out there, I think, to message it back to you because in the West or whatever, we don't understand certain things because we don't live out there.

Peter McCormack - 00:47:51
So what's going on in Iraq right now? Because you said it's like there's a lot of protest. It's hugely underreported. What's going on?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:47:57
What it is is basically people have got sick of the corruption and there's a real problem with unemployment. There is a problem with Iran has as a lot of influence now. Shia militias or the Hashd al-Shabbi, all these weird groups and basically people have just gone, "This is getting ridiculous." They started kicking off a bit in Baghdad, main city in Iraq and then straightaway security forces just came out and shot a few people.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:48:21
There's a horrible video of a guy just standing there, gunshots, and then literally his intestines just fall out. This guy has got no weapons. He's not a Jihadi. He's just saying, " I'm sick of being poor, I'm sick of this." Boom, shot with a live round. As people are in the Middle East, they don't have that. They're not going to be pacified. So you know, they were like, "Right. We're taking to the streets." I think over a hundred unarmed protestors have been shot in the last two weeks now. Dead, killed.

Peter McCormack - 00:48:44
But that's not been reported. I've not seen it.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:48:46
It is out there. It is out there. But you are actually right in this situation. For some reason, it's not big, I don't know why.

Peter McCormack - 00:48:53
Is it an embarrassment to the Western nations because it's a situation we caused?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:48:57
Maybe. Well, definitely, we caused a lot of the problems in Iraq, without a doubt. But I think what it is is honestly it's not that insidious. Often it's budgets. Journalism is in a real crisis right now. It's not me saying it. Everyone will tell you there's not enough budgets to go around. There's not enough experienced people to send out to certain places. But I don't know, mate, sometimes I do think like, I'll be honest with you, I know The Guardian, they do some terrible stuff but they do do some good stuff and they will be like always asking on their website, well we need this money. And it's like, "Yeah, fair play, donate to The Guardian."

Jake Hanrahan - 00:49:28
But I've been to their office and they're wasting a lot of money on shit. You know, let me tell you now, journalists have got used to a certain kind of lifestyle, like to the point where I've been, and this sounds really fickle, but I'd be like, "Those desks, you don't need them. You don't need this desk. Get one that's half the price." And you'd be surprised how much money you can save. I remember once reading this report where an airline had to save $1 million a year and this guy came in and took the olives out of the martinis and because the amount of olives they were ordering, they saved a million. I don't know if it's true, but you know what I mean? You need to have that mindset if you want to save money, man.

Peter McCormack - 00:50:00
Well you know, we were talking about this beforehand. If you want to go and make a film, you know you can do it on a budget.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:50:05
Right. I was about to say at Popular Front, we call it shoestring lifestyle. It is real.

Peter McCormack - 00:50:10
I travel a lot with this but I'm on Momondo and I find the cheapest flight. Doesn't matter whether it's United, American, BA, I just get the cheapest flight I'll fly economy and I'm out there. I will stay, not the cheapest hotel always, but I have a budget and-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:50:23
You mean within your means.

Peter McCormack - 00:50:25
Yeah. But I can produce this show, I can produce this show for relatively low cost and get it out there. Now I don't expect someone like The Guardian to go to this level and be this raw-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:50:32
Of course. You mean a bit like... Yeah, yeah.

Peter McCormack - 00:50:35
But you know, there is this thing whereby almost by the fact that you are producing this raw content on a budget, you end up trusting it more.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:50:44
Yeah. I think so. I found that people really... We're very honest at Popular Front. Some people say, "Why aren't you here?" I'm broke. I can't afford to fly out there. And people have gone like, "Okay." And that was never really a plan of mine. It's just as I am. I'm very like, fuck it. It is what it is. Some people will hate me for it. Some people like it. But I think what you can is know that they're not lying. They might be a bit rude or we don't like their point, but they're not lying. It's just like it is what it is. This is how it is.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:51:10
And I think in an age where everybody's worried about agendas, ours is very clear. I say there's only one stance politically that I make sure is within Popular Front and that's anti-authoritarianism. If that's a problem for you, fuck you. You know, I hate authoritarianism, whether that's from left, right government, anyone. Don't like it.

Peter McCormack - 00:51:27
Half the planet live under authoritarian-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:51:29
Exactly.

Peter McCormack - 00:51:30
So let me ask you something on that, right? So Iraq an authoritarian regime.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:51:35
Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 00:51:36
Ruled by Saddam and now it's essentially a democracy. But is it better? Because I'm not saying that the goal of democracy is not a valid goal, but like my dad said it to me once, he said, "Look, every criticism you have of Saddam Hussein, he managed to control the country. And it's certainly in a worse state on a number of measures than it was under his rule." Was there a better way to democracy with that country and how do you even... It's like another one. There's unsolvable problems because you want to go, "Yeah, but it's a democracy now. It's great." Yeah. But so many people are killing each other and there's a lot of terrorism, a lot of groups there. How do you kind of balance that?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:52:16
That is a good question, but the way I see it is I personally, I'm not saying I'm right, I think it's better to live in chaos but free than live under anything like that. Because who was it better for? It wasn't better for the Kurds to live under Saddam because he gassed millions with mustard gas in Halabja. There were pictures of babies dying. He let his son literally kill any woman that he wanted to. Oh, but he let the buses run! So fucking what, you know? That's what I would argue. So what? And I don't know, I feel like a free country, even if there are more problems with it, there's something in the head that will affect you forever to be free.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:52:51
Now we were talking about Rojava earlier, Northeast Syria where the Kurds control. Today, Turkey's invaded. US has just betrayed the Kurds, let them do it. It's going to be a bloodbath. Now when I was out there, I was talking to this woman that we were working with, our fixer, one of the most amazing people to meet. She's from Syria, Rojava. She lives out there and she says looking to me and she said, "Look, even if all this is destroyed, the fact we did it..." Like they live under a very democratic, very free society which is unheard of in the Middle East where they are specifically, the women are completely free. It's incredible.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:53:22
And she said, "At least we did it." And what she meant was, this will be remembered. There may be in 20 years they'll be another uprising and they'll go, " Hey, remember those guys? They did it. We can do it." And maybe that will spur on the freedom. Maybe right now Iraq is a mess, but maybe the fact that they've had democracy for a bit, will allow the future, when we're dead and gone, for people to go, "Hey, we can do it. We did it then. Like, let's do it now. You know?" But the idea is that what democracy is. I believe in direct democracy. I believe in small government and autonomous. I don't think that anyone in Westminster that has never been to my town should be allowed to decide what really happens there, because they have no idea. But when you get like America's democracy in a box. We all know how that works. Is that really democracy? So you know what I mean? It's like, "Well, democracy didn't work there. I've seen this hard line, right wing, "Arab people need dictators." Shut up, "No, they don't." Maybe the democracy you're giving them isn't right. Maybe it's actually not proper democracy.

Peter McCormack - 00:54:18
Yeah, and you know what? Certainly the U.S. government and to extent the UK government, we cherry pick and we selectively approve authoritarian regimes.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:54:27
Absolutely. We're selling weapons to the Saudi's-

Peter McCormack - 00:54:31
To Saudi Arabia right now.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:54:31
... who killing kids in school buses in Yemen. We're selling weapons to Turkey. It's madness. We're allied with some of the worst tyrants on earth, and then we decided suddenly like, "Oh, this is democratically..." Who are you to say that?

Peter McCormack - 00:54:42
Yeah. There's so much hypocrisy in that, and that's why it's just... I don't know, I become frustrated about it.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:54:47
It is, I find it very... That to me, I've never been able to shake it even since I was a kid, that frustration of... Just infuriates me, of that hypocritical... There's nothing you can do about it. There's literally nothing, I feel like.

Peter McCormack - 00:55:00
State-sponsored murders of journalists.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:55:00
State-sponsored murders, journalists, Yeah, but it's fine because we've got an arms deal with them.

Peter McCormack - 00:55:07
This is where I don't understand why somebody doesn't stand up and just say, "No, sorry, we're not having this." I wonder how somebody changes, you and I would be very reasonable people. We would say, "We would never ever support an arms deal with Saudi Arabia, blah, blah blah." And I think a lot of people grew up idealistic, but how does somebody then become a politician, go, "I'm okay with this?" What changes for them?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:55:30
Power I think. I think that's what it is. Also, I think people are... Well, the way the system is set up now... I sound like some kind of like edgy teen.

Peter McCormack - 00:55:40
No, you don't.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:55:41
But the system as you know, the way it's set up is you can't really flourish unless you fall in line, I think. I mean, people think Corbyn's a radical, if you think Corbyn's a radical, do some reading on real radical politics. He's just fallen in line, he's been a very easy kind of opposition to kind of "Oh he's moaning about this now,' but he's not that particularly radical. Again, even when that, if that's considered radical then... In my opinion we're fucked, you know what I mean? But I don't know, it's a problem, we're living in a country where we haven't had an elected leader, the last two leaders weren't elected. Now I get it. We can't constantly have elections, but no one seems to be that bothered. I think everyone's become tired of it.

Peter McCormack - 00:56:26
Also, I don't think true radicals can become politicians-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:56:28
No, I agree yeah.

Peter McCormack - 00:56:28
... these days because they've probably got some kind of checkered past that would be exposed and they're-

Jake Hanrahan - 00:56:32
Exactly. Also, I believe in a lot of, most of what I read is about radical kind of politics and there is no cover-all for everyone. Not everyone can be happy. You know what I mean? I don't know how to do it. I don't have the answers, so I'm not a politician, I'd be a terrible one.

Peter McCormack - 00:56:49
But also traveling the world, you've seen all this stuff, do you ever question why there is so much conflict?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:56:54
I think it's human nature.

Peter McCormack - 00:56:56
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:56:57
I remember my dad said to me once, he was like, "The idea of"-

Peter McCormack - 00:56:59
We're still animals.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:57:00
Yeah. Well, yeah, kind of. I remember my dad said like, "The idea of getting rid of religion to stop wars is nonsense because we'll fight over grass." And it's very true and there's a lot of... The BBC in the past very incorrectly labelled the Northern Ireland struggle as a sectarian war, and it actually wasn't about religion. It was about freedom of a country and it was about turf and about sovereignty and stuff like that. So therefore, are we ever going to stop? Do you know what I mean? I don't think so.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:57:27
I think they would have to be a massive cultural shift all over the world, which is never going to happen. Every Friday night outside my house there's fist fights and stuff, there's another form of conflict, it's just in us, I think.

Peter McCormack - 00:57:41
Also, doing this work, traveling the world, what are the things that you see going on that people aren't aware of that they should be aware of?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:57:47
How many good people there are fighting and fighting in different ways. Like I said, not with a gun always, just so many good people fighting. So many good people standing up for what they believe in, and they don't often get the headlines they deserve, or they get killed before anyone can take notice. And life just goes on. I've just been in Syria, and we were in Raqqa in the former ISIS capital and there are guys opening up shops and the upper floor in ruins, literally ruins. It's smashed still from the airstrikes, and they're like, "Well, fuck it. I've got to carry it on." You know what I mean?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:58:19
People in war zones are some of the most resilient you can ever meet, and that to me is really inspiring. When you meet people, they're like, "Well, we've got to carry on." I think that's really important to remember. There's always normal people, and also when you see a fighter or even an armed guy with a gun, he often could have been a butcher last week, or he could have been a woodworker. He could have worked in an office, but the necessary thing for him to do to fight, changed that, you know what I'm saying? He maybe didn't ask for the war, it came to his country. He had to fight, or run away or whatever, not even run away, you know what I'm saying? He had to leave or whatever. Not everybody that looks like an insurgent or whatever is a bad guy.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:58:56
You'd be amazed at how much you have in common with people out there like that. Man, I've had such a good laugh with so-called rebels because you realise, "Oh they're just like fucking me man." It's weird-

Peter McCormack - 00:59:08
They still like football.

Jake Hanrahan - 00:59:09
They still like football, they talk about women, nonsense, they smoke cigarettes, it's just the normal. A lot of them are just completely normal, and you only see a very small snapshot of them when they're... firing on the front. But we have to remember the reason they're fighting is because often they're like, "Well, we want to preserve this normal life that we have. We don't want to be killed and have our heads cut off." You know what I mean?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:59:29
It's hard to even capture that really, you have to just be there and it's hard to do. I've never worked out how to properly do it with my films either. Often we'll leave bits in that maybe other people would take out because I'm like, "No, there's something about that, that tells you about their human side." But it's tricky. No, it's tricky.

Peter McCormack - 00:59:46
Is the filmmaking your favourite side of it?

Jake Hanrahan - 00:59:48
Yeah, definitely. My making documentaries. I love it. I started off as a print journalist. I love writing and I feel like I'm better at writing than anything else within journalism. But I love doing the documentaries. There's something about just going out there, documenting it, and then you get back and you watch it and you're like, "Yes, that looks great. That's really going to make people get it." When you get a good interview, when you get good bit of action or whatever and you look at it back and you're like, "Yeah, that's now captured forever and that's going to go out and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people are going to see it and they might... Look, I'm not trying to like win awards or anything, I just want someone to go, "Oh, I didn't know about that." That's it. And if I can do that, I'm really happy. Just to go like, "Look, this is happening. You should be aware. No one should be allowed to just chill out in ignorance." I really think that

Peter McCormack - 01:00:29
It's back to that independent journalist thing again, you're documenting the real stories, what's really happening on the ground, right?

Jake Hanrahan - 01:00:36
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even at VICE News, I struggled to kind of toe the line. Luckily when I was first there we had an amazing boss, Kevin Sutcliffe, and he very much kind of let us get on with it and guided us, but was never too hard. I don't know, I find a lot of problems with mainstream journalism and I got to a point where I felt like, "I don't have to listen to this shit anymore. I don't have to have a fucking commissioner tell me. 'No one's interested in that.' How do you know you've been earning 300 grand for the last five years and you live in Primrose Hill. How do you know? How do you know what people want?" That just got me down, I was like, "You know what, I have to do it myself?" I was going to quit and be a carpenter, my granddad's a carpenter. So I was like, "I'm going to quit and do carpentry," which was my plan from school. Then I was like, "Let's just try this," and I'm fucking glad I did because I would have hated being a carpenter, I think.

Peter McCormack - 01:01:22
Dude, it's working.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:01:22
It is working, I mean, it is.

Peter McCormack - 01:01:24
I see people talking about your work. Your YouTube stuff's great.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:01:28
It's very cool.

Peter McCormack - 01:01:28
The podcast is amazing. Some of the people you've had on are really interesting.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:01:32
Yeah, man, thanks. I'm so happy with that, man, we have got... I feel like there's a certain thing we're doing, it feels semi-original and I've always wanted to create something original. I don't think it's completely original because there's clearly a lot of my influence from VICE and other places are in there, but I feel like it's kind of new, and there's a buzz around it, which I really... I work so hard at it, I'm working every minute.

Peter McCormack - 01:01:51
Man, I know, you know what I'm going to say-

Jake Hanrahan - 01:01:52
Yeah, you're right, yeah, exactly. You know how it is, you have to do this constantly, but because it's my own and people are like, "Yes, this is cool man. We like this." I'm like "Fuck, I have to do it, I have to keep going." It's great.

Peter McCormack - 01:02:01
You're going to have to let go some business at some point in, if you want to scale it.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:02:04
I know, this lad once, literally in my town, he hit me up and was like, "Hey, I see what you're doing. I do video editing.," And I was like, Here, put these subtitles on this for me, please," and he put some subtitles on it. And even that was I like, "Oh..." He's just subtitling a video, and I'm like, "Oh no. Is it going to be okay?" It was perfect.

Peter McCormack - 01:02:20
You know what? You've got to find the right ones.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:02:21
Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 01:02:21
I had this engineer get in touch with me, so I used to do everything, book the interviews, fly, do the interviews, edit the interviews, engineer, arrange it, publish it. I get this engineer out in Australia get in touch. He's an English guy. Said, "Look, do you want some help with this? I'll do one for free." And I was like, "Look, no, I'll pay you, but do it," and he did it and it wasn't perfect the first time, and we've gone back and forth, and we're now at the point with him where I've done an interview, and I upload it, and he sends me my scripts, I record it, he arranges it, he publishes it on my website. I don't even review it now, which was...

Jake Hanrahan - 01:02:52
Jeez.

Peter McCormack - 01:02:52
I know and it was a big step to not really listen to my interviews, a really big step. What I realised is that when I listened to my interviews, I'll maybe remove 30 seconds of an hour interview. And it's usually for my own ego because I'm like, "I don't like the way I said something." But by letting go, I've basically given myself 50% more capacity so I can make another show.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:03:13
Yeah, that's what I need to do.

Peter McCormack - 01:03:15
You've got to find the right people, and you've got to let go of that.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:03:17
Yeah, exactly. I am starting to, but even with graphics stuff, the graphics side of it, is very big with Popular Front, because I know what gets young people interested, and then it gets them to learn stuff. And even that, I'm like a dictator. "It's got to be like this. That's not right. It's got to be like this, it's got to be this." But luckily there's good people around me. You just bam, they do it. And I'm like, "Mate, we've got the same vision. It's cool." So I do need to, yeah, you're right. I need to let go a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

Peter McCormack - 01:03:44
How does this play out then? Because obviously you've got an interest in independent media, I have, I've got a hope. One of my hopes is that people become more apathetic to mainstream media, or just starting to ignore it. I want people to spend more time on independent media. But how does this play out, how do you see the future of this?

Jake Hanrahan - 01:04:01
I think we're going to, I might be wrong on this, but I think we're going back to like I said earlier, how the early stage of the internet was. I notice people are posting more on media, and blogs get more attention than they did maybe three years ago when I first started looking at independent stuff. And I think it's never going to be big, I don't think it's going to be big, big, but I think there's definitely an industry that's being built right now. I think what we need to do though with independent media is really call each other out. Not in a vicious way but be like, " That's bullshit, that's bullshit." Hold each other to a standard that we would hold the other media to. Because you can't suddenly go, "Mainstream media's shit, and independent media is good." It doesn't mean anything. Is it good? If it's good, it's good, that's it.

Peter McCormack - 01:04:42
Right, okay.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:04:43
You know what I mean? I think we need to help each other. Definitely. When I was at VICE News, when I first started there, the best thing for me was working in a team with all these people, or meeting all these weird people, people teaching me things. My best friend I met through VICE News, and it's like that is the best thing ever. We all need to just work with each other and not be offended by each other, and if someone says, "You've done bullshit here," not be such a baby and cry about it. Because if we get annoyed with something in the mainstream, and then just do that ourselves, and then get annoyed with it within an independent, we're no different. You know what I mean? You've got to learn from the problems that you see elsewhere. Not just repeat them, but on your own. You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack - 01:05:19
No, I know exactly where... Look, I'm learning on the job here, Jake. I've done...

Jake Hanrahan - 01:05:23
Me as well, man, me as well. I've learned so much shit man. Jesus.

Peter McCormack - 01:05:25
I did the original podcast now for nearly two years and I've got called out a lot, and I've been very defensive at times, but other times I've kind of taken a step back and said, "Well what is it you're actually having a pop at me for? Are you right?" Sometimes they are right. I think I'm throwing myself into a bigger cauldron with Defiance because there's certainly... I talked to you about the Molly Mckew interview. I was offered an interview. Yep. Okay. It's an information war. It's about what I want to do it, got prepped, went out, did my research and now I'm reflecting on it. I'm thinking I'm going to get called out on this, I'm definitely going to get caught out on Cernovich. I totally agree with you. I think people should call you out, but it's a very, very hard... It's a very difficult line to walk.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:06:04
You're quite good at it though, I think.

Peter McCormack - 01:06:04
I don't know, man.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:06:04
I think you're quite good at taking criticism.

Peter McCormack - 01:06:08
Maybe because I'm shit, I just get a lot of criticism.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:06:13
Yeah, maybe. I get a lot as well, and I know there's a lot of journalists who really don't like how I'm doing things, but then there is, you have to have a certain confidence in yourself as well.

Peter McCormack - 01:06:19
What do you get called out for?

Jake Hanrahan - 01:06:20
They'll say like, "Oh you're making war look like whatever."

Peter McCormack - 01:06:23
Cool?

Jake Hanrahan - 01:06:24
"You're making it look cool," and I'm like "Look, what I'm doing is getting young people to interact with what we're doing," and also, there are very fun parts of war. Now, sorry that I'm not making all of that look awful and terrible, but it's not all awful and terrible. Do you know what I mean? There are good parts of it and there are parts of it that are worth making look like, "I want to watch that." I'm sorry, it's not all, "We're here on the front line..." I know we make it look very visually attractive because that makes people fucking watch it.

Peter McCormack - 01:06:51
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:06:52
If you're going to cry so much that you think that, "Oh, you're making it look like this," fine, don't do it, but then don't cry when you don't have the audience that Popular Front has. We have so many young people contact me as well and say like, "I am trying to get involved in conflict journalism," and they have like edgy personalities, or they're a bit abrasive, and they wouldn't fit in, in a newsroom, and it's good for them to feel empowered because they will create good work. Maybe save people's lives, you don't even know. Maybe change people's lives in the future, and if you want to cry about the way Popular Front framed a certain thing, well that's up to you. But I don't care if that's your problem.

Peter McCormack - 01:07:26
Well look, going back to VICE, most of what I understand about what's happened in North Korea, what is happening in North Korea is from the work they did, but they made reporting on North Korea fun.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:07:36
Right? But there's also people that are doing a lot better work on North Korea than VICE could dream of doing that you haven't seen.

Peter McCormack - 01:07:42
You haven't seen it.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:07:42
Because they haven't made it good enough to be accessible. It's not their fault, but I'm just saying there are certain people that if you really want to... If you want to make journalism for everyone rather than a circle jerk of other journalists, you have to look outside the box. Right? It's very cliche, but you do, you have to do things a little bit differently.

Peter McCormack - 01:07:58
All right, man.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:07:59
I don't really feel that bothered when people kick off on me. I'm like, "Whatever, man."

Peter McCormack - 01:08:00
A couple of things I want to finish on. Firstly, you know what, you know I respect you, I love your work.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:08:08
Oh thanks, man.

Peter McCormack - 01:08:08
You know this is new to me. What advice would you give me going into this?

Jake Hanrahan - 01:08:12
I would say if you're going to get an abrasive person like Cernovich, who I think is frankly an absolute dickhead, get someone else. Maybe even do it, maybe to make podcasts along and be like, "Here's Cernovich, here's someone who thinks he's wrong." I just think as long as you get the other angle or at least you challenge, you're good at challenging people, all right. You do your research. Just challenge people and be like, "Well what about this?" But also don't let it become occupied in your mind that like, "Oh I better do this because everyone else will hate this." It's actually like you said, he's an asshole, but his work on Epstein, which I would argue a lot of, he stole from other journalists, but his work on Epstein is worth looking at.

Peter McCormack - 01:08:49
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:08:50
The Epstein situation is mind-boggling.

Peter McCormack - 01:08:52
Dude, it blows my mind.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:08:53
So many Liberals were like, "Huh, conspiracy theories”. "Well done. You've just basically blanketed so many people that are interested in a paedophile elitist sex ring." That's one of the worst things that you could ever even imagine. It's almost not real it's so disgusting.

Peter McCormack - 01:09:10
They got away with it as well.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:09:11
And they got away with it, and you want to laugh it off because this bloke talked about it. Fuck off.

Peter McCormack - 01:09:15
Well, I wanted to talk to Cernovich. I wanted you to talk to him about a couple of things. I wanted to talk to him a bit about fake news because that fake news is a problem. It is a genuine problem. I wanted to understand a bit more about conservative reporting, because I feel like there's this... We're in the situation where you're shamed for being conservative. You should be liberal because if you're liberal, you care about people. But I don't think it's that cut and dry. I think there's a lot of nuances to it, but most of all, I mean, I wasn't aware of, up until now, to this point where you've talked about him perhaps stealing some of his work from other people.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:09:50
Well, look it basically-

Peter McCormack - 01:09:50
Or there are other people who didn't get the credit.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:09:50
... there's a lot more than him. Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 01:09:52
But at the same time, when the interview came up and the opportunity, I was like, well, I do, I do admire some of the work on Epstein, I was aware of it because of him. I was aware of his reporting, I was aware of him going for the unsealing of the files. I thought this was important work. I want to talk to him. I was in this dilemma. I'm like, "But I'm going to get a lot of people go, "Oh well he's the Pizzagate guy and he's a fucking alt-right, and blah, why are you giving him..." Back to why you're giving him a platform? You know what? He actually gave me a bit of advice, he said, "Don't care what people think," which is hard. Right?

Jake Hanrahan - 01:10:22
Yeah. Also I think you do have to care what some people think.

Peter McCormack - 01:10:25
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:10:25
Do you know what I mean? I don't know who would I... I know, my grandma, I care about every single thing she thinks about me.

Peter McCormack - 01:10:32
No, he was more...

Jake Hanrahan - 01:10:32
I trust her, but you know what I mean?

Peter McCormack - 01:10:32
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:10:33
There should be some people that you really care about, but don't care about people that are going to have to go at you all the time.

Peter McCormack - 01:10:39
On the internet.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:10:40
On the fucking internet. Everyone's got problem with the internet all the time. But again, like you said earlier, sometimes you do have to step back and go, "Okay," I've definitely made mistakes with Popular Front and I've thought, "Yeah, there's a few mistakes there, that's fair," and I'll engage them, go like, "Maybe," and then other people would be like, "You shouldn't do this!" I was like, "Fuck off." Them people, ignore that. I call it not allowed culture. You're not allowed to do that. Says fucking who?

Peter McCormack - 01:11:01
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:11:02
Says who? I do what I want man.

Peter McCormack - 01:11:04
Back to censoring.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:11:05
Yeah, censoring, right? Yeah. I'm not very anti-censorship, but then at the same time, I don't want, for example, my child shouldn't be able to turn on the TV at six o'clock, and see a Nazi shouting some racist stuff. Obviously you don't want that.

Peter McCormack - 01:11:19
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:11:20
But then an example of this, I've done a lot of work researching and trying to crack down on Neo-Nazis in America, and one of the liberals came out, and when I say liberals, I'm not a conservative, I hate them equally. There's a big mistake, Americans call liberal leftist, leftists hate liberals. Do you know what I mean? Real leftists hate liberals.

Peter McCormack - 01:11:36
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:11:37
But anyway, a lot of the American liberal media were like, "Get them banned, get them banned!" You know what it did? It made it very fucking hard for me and a lot of other reporters to track what they were doing because now they're on Gab, where it's a lot harder to follow what they're doing, it's a lot harder to find out where they are. They've gone on to different apps. It's like, "Thanks for that. Because of your liberal outrage, you've actually made what was very good work, harder."

Peter McCormack - 01:11:57
Yeah. Well look, I stand by this let information be free. Expose people to it. The sunlight disinfected thing.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:12:03
Well, maybe we should be exposed to this shit.

Peter McCormack - 01:12:06
Do you know what? I was reading this story the other day about this blues musician, and he goes and works with KKK people. He takes them to the African museums and, and he's turned a bunch of people, but he was actually the guy who shot the gun at Charlottesville, I think it was Charlottesville, who's gone to prison. He actually defended him in court. He took him on a tour... Again, I've kind of got the details, but I'll share it on the show notes. But it was something like the African Museum, and he was just explaining to him what was going on with African culture, et cetera, et cetera. And then ended up defending him in court.

Peter McCormack - 01:12:35
And I was thinking, well, this is the kind of stuff we do what, we want information out there, but try and get people to work together. Try to find common ground. I almost imagine you can get two people from two... I reckon you could get a fascist and someone from antifa and you could take them out for the day and you can get them to be friends by the end of the day. You could get them to sit down and hang out, if you've got the right mediation in there. But by making everything banned or divisive, it's just going to create more. Hey, like if you're going to go out on gab, they're just going to sit in their circle and just be offensive to each other.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:13:05
They become more extreme and radicalised. Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 01:13:08
But if it's on Twitter, you can have people just blocking them saying, "Look, why are you talking like that?" I don't know. I don't know the exact answer.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:13:12
You're right, the discussion is important and I would have agreed maybe five years ago, but now I feel like things are gone, I think it's beyond that now. I have a very radical line personally of like, "If you are a militant Nazi, I don't care if you get killed, I'm quite happy for you to be killed." That's my opinion. But I will agree that your... I would rather what you say happens first, don't get me wrong, that should be better. That was like, well, I'm saying actually does create more divided, it'd be way better if you can de-radicalise people. That's amazing. And you're right. The only way to de-radicalise people is through stuff like that going like, "Let's have a talk." In fact, it's funny, I'm just contradicting myself, there's a lad that helped me with this big item off on the investigation I did in America, exposed this whole Neo-Nazi network, the lad that helped me was a Nazi when I got chatting to him and is now an anarchist.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:13:59
I didn't even really try and I just spoke to him. He's like, "Oh, I'm surprised you're talking to me." And I was like, "Look, I fucking hate..." I said straight out, "I hate you, I hate Nazis, but let's talk, whatever you got this information," and over the years we've ended up talking and he's a really nice guy. He turns out he was very young and he didn't have a girlfriend. I know it's very cliche, but he was in a bad period and now he's out of it. It's like, "Well great." He's a lovely guy and we talk and he really helped me expose these Nazis. Imagine if what I said happened and someone just shot him dead. Well probably not, because he's basically probably stopped other people getting killed because of this one group. So yeah, I think you're right. I think discussion's the best way.

Peter McCormack - 01:14:34
Well, It's called the Defiance podcast, but actually, I want to talk to somebody from antifa. I want to sit down and have a conversation.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:14:41
I'll go and chat with my mates. I'll give you a shout.

Peter McCormack - 01:14:43
But I just want to find out what's going on. I want to find out, I want to have the conversation with them. I don't want to go to Oregon and just watch two groups of people just fight endlessly over nothing. I want to sit down and have the conversation and just say, "Is there another way?"

Jake Hanrahan - 01:14:55
Yeah. But also the antifa name has been kind of ruined.

Peter McCormack - 01:15:00
It's been hijacked.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:15:00
If you look at the history, it started in Germany, literally killing Nazi, actual Nazis, not Neo-Nazis, actual members of the Nazis, but if you've got a problem with a resistance group killing Nazis, maybe you are one. That was in my opinion, an incredibly noble thing to do. Now it's coming out into Oregon to fight the Proud Boys, the Proud Boys is so embarrassing. Can you believe antifa is fighting Proud Boys, even in Europe, I know antifa in Europe who are like, "Oh God, don't talk about the American ones." Do you know what I mean? Because it's like, "We would never do that. We would never do that. We would never fight them, we would never..."

Peter McCormack - 01:15:33
Also, they're amazing people for holding their conservative opinions

Jake Hanrahan - 01:15:36
Right, exactly. The idea that like you vote Trump, therefore your need to be maced. What the fuck are you, man? That's a distraction. Fighting Proud Boys is a distraction from actually doing real work on Nazis. Now there are actually some very good antifa networks in America who do things like find out where they work, find out where, which some are, "Oh they shouldn't be arrested," or whatever. But it's if they want to kill, literally are saying, "I want to kill someone because of their skin colour." I don't think they are part of a good society. I don't think they should be allowed to be in our society. But they do a lot of things in Europe.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:16:06
I'm not pro antifa or whatever. I couldn't give a fuck what people want to do. But it's like, they're kids that do outreach programs, you know in Greece they do food programs for the elderly. The anarchists there, they grow eggs for elderly people that don't have money. They raise chickens and help them, they do the gardening. They do a thing called guerrilla gardening where they stop the government building car parks everywhere and make green stuff. You never hear about that.

Peter McCormack - 01:16:30
No, of course you don't.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:16:30
You just hear about the molotovs. Man, we should got to Exarchia in Greece. You'd love it.

Peter McCormack - 01:16:34
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:16:35
It's cool man. Yeah.

Peter McCormack - 01:16:36
All right, well listen just to finish up, tell us what's coming up. Tell people how to follow your work because it really is good work.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:16:41
Thanks man. Yeah, so coming up, we've got the Hong Kong documentary is going to come out soon, by the end of the month hopefully. We just raised 10 grand on Indiegogo, so there's a lot more new stuff coming up. Again, I'm going to have to start getting people to help me now, I've got no excuse. You know what I mean? Yeah, if you want to follow us, go to popularfront.co, not dot com, dot co, you'll see everything there. And the way we make money is basically selling bonus content subscriptions on Patreon. That's patrion.com/popularfront. And I have been told we put more content out on Patreon than most people, we have so much stuff on there that you don't get anywhere else. I think for, I always say this, $5 a month, right? That's one coffee, if you can afford one coffee a month to get all this data and you want to be knowing about stuff, then go for it. Support us.

Peter McCormack - 01:17:28
All right man. Well listen, I love your work. It's getting to know your man. I wish you all the best.

Jake Hanrahan - 01:17:30
Yeah mate. Thanks very much, man. Let's air shake hands.

Peter McCormack - 01:17:34
Let's air shake it. All right man.