On the Media

Today's country music industry is deeply associated with a certain jingoistic ‘rally around the flag,' ‘support the troops’ spirit. In this week’s podcast, we're re-airing a conversation with Joseph M. Thompson, author of Cold War Country: How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism.

Micah and Joseph discuss how hillbilly music transformed into the powerful country music industry, starting wit...

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s revamped CDC vaccine advisory board stopped recommending certain flu vaccines this week. On this week’s On the Media, a scientist debunks the claims that RFK, Jr.’s appointees are making. Plus, how the media covered the U.S. bombing of Iran.

[02:01] Host Micah Loewinger unspools the Trump administration’s attempts to control the narrative around the war in Iran, including the president’s insisten...

This week, On the Media shares the final episode of Dead End: The Rise and Fall of Gold Bar Bob Menendez. For WNYC, reporter and host Nancy Solomon describes how the FBI watched Menendez have a dinner with Egyptian spies, the moment they found gold bars in a closet, and more. As Menendez faces the trial of his life, Nancy asks: why would a man at the top of the political world risk everything? And is our political system partly to ...

President Donald Trump says he’ll decide whether or not to attack Iran within the next two weeks. On this week’s On the Media, hear why the right is split on what the president should do. Plus, scrutiny on student journalists has intensified.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone on the recent narratives forming around the ‘No Kings’ protest and President Trump’s military parade. Plus, a look at the lie that the left is more politically vio...

In this week's midweek podcast, we share the next installment of WNYC's Dead End: The Rise and Fall of 'Gold Bar' Bob Menendez. Yesterday, the former senator began an 11-year prison sentence. In this episode, Nancy Solomon takes a look at a relationship that spanned a key chapter in Bob Menendez's political downfall. Nadine Arslanian was a stay at home mom in Englewood cliffs, New Jersey. Within weeks of meeting the Senator, she wa...

A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s deployment of troops in Los Angeles was illegal before an appeals court quickly overturned it. A legal battle is now underway. On this week’s On the Media, how President Trump has exaggerated crises to expand his presidential powers. Plus, a new documentary investigates who killed a Palestinian-American journalist.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone shares how to navigate the deluge of ...

Bob Menendez will become the first Senator to go to prison in more than 40 years when he reports to federal penitentiary next week.  Most of you will,  no doubt,  be aware of the broad strokes of his corruption and bribery case. You know, the gold bars and cash found in his suburban ranch house. But our home station, WNYC, has produced a podcast that tries to go deeper than much of the media coverage. So we’re bringing you the firs...

President Donald Trump’s countless executive orders and mounting deportations are testing America’s democratic institutions. On this week’s On the Media, what we can learn from Hungary’s recent backslide into autocracy. Plus, why resistance movements throughout history have succeeded with 3.5 percent of the population, or less, behind them.

[01:36] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Andrew Marantz, a staff writer at The New Yorker, ab...

This past weekend, OTM co-host Micah Loewinger went to Seattle to sit down with an all-time favourite guest of the show: tech activist and writer Cory Doctorow. We recorded the following conversation in front of a live audience at the Cascade PBS Ideas festival. The topic was “Enshittification” – Cory’s theory of how everything on the internet got worse. 

We first discussed this idea on the show a couple years ago – and this was an ...

On Tuesday, NPR and three Colorado public radio stations sued the Trump administration for violating the First Amendment. On this week’s On the Media, the soon-to-be lone Democratic commissioner at the FCC speaks out against what she calls the weaponization of her agency. Plus, the final episode of The Divided Dial introduces the unlikely group trying to take over shortwave radio.

[01:37] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Anna Gomez,...

EPISODE 4

In recent years, creative, often music-focused pirate broadcasting has been thriving on shortwave. But these surreptitious broadcasters are up against a surprising ideological foe: Not the FCC, but a deep-pocketed group of finance bros that is trying to wrestle the airwaves away from the public, and use them for a money-making scheme completely antithetical to broadcasting. What do we lose when we give up our public airwav...

Before they were appointed, the leaders of the F.B.I. boosted misinformation about a ‘deep state.’ Now they’re in power, they’ve become the focus of conspiracy theories. On this week’s On the Media, how MAGA infighting about Jeffrey Epstein reveals a greater problem for the Republican Party. Plus, the story of one of the world's farthest-reaching radio stations: a haven for extremists based in small-town Maine.

[01:00] Host Micah Lo...

EPISODE 3

Today, in the internet era, much of the shortwaves have been left to the most extreme voices — including a conspiratorial flat earth ministry, and an ultra-conservative cult complete with everything from sexual abuse to dead infants and illegal burials. In the 737-person northern Maine town of Monticello, one of the world's farthest-reaching radio stations has given them a home, pumping out extremism and conspiracy theorie...

On Monday, dozens of Afrikaners arrived in the US as refugees. On this week’s On the Media, how a fringe group of white South Africans have been lobbying for Donald Trump’s attention for almost a decade — but refugee status was never on their wish list. Plus, the second episode of The Divided Dial, all about how rightwing extremists took over shortwave radio.

[01:00] Host Micah Loewinger talks with Carolyn Holmes, a professor of pol...

EPISODE 2

Many governments eased off the shortwaves after the Cold War, and homegrown US-based rightwing extremists edged out shortwave peaceniks to fill the void. In the 1990s, US shortwave radio stations became a key organizing and recruiting ground for white supremacists and the burgeoning anti-government militia movement. On this instantaneous, international medium, they honed a strategy and a rhetoric that they would take to th...

President Trump’s many executive orders, detentions, and deportations have triggered a host of lawsuits. On this week’s On the Media, how to understand the dozens of legal actions facing Trump. Plus, it’s the first episode of The Divided Dial, all about the battle for shortwave radio.

[01:00] Host Micah Loewinger talks with Chris Geidner, who has covered the Supreme Court for most of his career and writes for Law Dork, about how he ...

EPISODE 1:

You know AM and FM radio. But did you know that there is a whole other world of radio surrounding us at all times? It’s called shortwave — and, thanks to a quirk of science that lets broadcasters bounce radio waves off of the ionosphere, it can reach thousands of miles, penetrating rough terrain and geopolitical boundaries. How did this instantaneous, global, mass communication tool — a sort of internet-before-the-interne...

To mark his first hundred days in office, President Trump signed three executive orders related to immigration. On this week’s On the Media, the powerful database that can help I.C.E. track down and deport people. Plus, the dramatic fight for power over Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone talks with Jason Koebler, co-founder of 404 Media, about how a surveillance company is supplying ICE with a powerful data...

The Redstone family is a controlling shareholder of Paramount Global — one of the biggest entertainment companies out there. (Think CBS Entertainment, MTV, Nickelodeon.) The family is also one of the inspirations for HBO's Succession, which makes sense the more you get to know them. 

Shari Redstone currently has the controlling stake in Paramount Global. Company leadership was carefully criticized in a recent on-air "rebuke" by 60 M...