On the Media

We return to Bob’s Grill this week with a 2011 interview with “sting operation” videographer James O’Keefe, best known for his efforts to discredit institutions such as Planned Parenthood, NPR, the Open Society Foundations, and the community organizing group ACORN. O'Keefe says he's using the tools of investigative journalism, but his videos are full of distorted quotes, manipulated footage, and i...

Political commentators have repeatedly, reliably, been wrong this election season. There was the improbable Bernie Sanders. The inevitable Jeb Bush. The passing-fad Donald Trump. Now that we've landed so far from where we began, we examine why pundits make such bad predictions, and why they probably won't stop. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today ( https:...

Welcome to Bob’s grill! Each week this August, you’re invited to join Bob in his backyard to fire up the barbecue and turn up the heat. But, on occasion, a burger and a cold one just won’t suffice. So this week we’re roasting a whole pig. Hunter Moore is the creator of the now-defunct website IsAnyoneUp.com, an amateur "revenge porn" site with an insidious social networking component. The site fea...

The Democratic Party and the media are fretting about whether the Green Party will splinter Democratic votes in November. This week, we look at the myths and realities surrounding third parties and consider how "strategic voting" could figure into the coming election. Also, a deep look at the oft-cited narrative that Ralph Nader spoiled the 2000 election for Al Gore. Plus, Donald Trump's latest sk...

Ahhh, summer and grilling. They’re made for each other, right? That’s why all this August you're invited to Bob’s grill: a collection of interviews from over the years when one person takes the role of the chef -- that’s Bob, in the apron -- and the other person….well, you know. We launch the series with an interview Bob did in 2005 with former  New York Times  journalist Judith Miller, who became...

In the wake of the DNC email scandal, reports are surfacing that Russian hackers are behind the hack. But as the media runs with a narrative about Donald Trump's connections to Vladimir Putin, we ask: is it misleading? Plus: a Breaking News Consumer's Handbook on reporting about migration, both across US borders and around the world -- and what myths persist about the large-scale movement of peopl...

Eating like a regular person when you’re on the campaign trail is hard. The cameras are in your face and they really, really want to see you drip grease on your shirt or eat a slice of pizza with a knife and fork or take a big ol’ bite out of a (let's face it) totally phallic corn-dog. In the coming months, as we watch the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump bandwagons go from town to town --from din...

The divide between the Black Lives Matter movement and the police is often portrayed as unbridgeable. This week: finding common ground and working on addressing the real problems of policing in America. Plus, reviewing the Republican National Convention as well as conventions past. And, after Turkey’s failed coup, a Breaking News Consumer's Handbook for how to successfully cover, and carry out, a...

Brazil's crises have been very good for  Sensacionalista , a site that's based on The Onion  and now one of the most popular "news" sites in the country. Two years ago, the group had 30,000 likes on Facebook.  Today, it has 2.8 million .  At times, real Brazilian headlines can seem absurd. For example, military police killed a jaguar, the national animal, at an Olympic-torch lighting ceremony; the...

OTM is in Brazil this week. We delve into the web of challenges ensnaring the country: a recession, crime waves, corruption scandals, the Zika virus... all in the run-up to the Olympic Games. Plus, the complex crises facing the media industry at a time when rigorous reporting is more essential than ever.  And, when 30,000 journalists descend on the country from around the world in just a couple of...

The deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, were both captured on video. So were the deaths of Walter Scott, Eric Garner, and so many others. That’s not new. But technology has become more and more sophisticated, and so have the bystanders using it, primed by grim history to turn the camera on, and, increasingly, involve an audience. W...

This election season has been rife with misinformation, half-truths, and pure deceit... but lying in politics dates back centuries. This week we devote a whole hour to LIES: the ones our leaders tell us, and the ones we tell ourselves and each other.  On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today ( https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm ). Follow our show on Instagram...

The Brexit fallout continues. Before he was mayor of London, Boris Johnson covered the EU... badly. We hear how his reporting created a caricature of Europe, and why that story about Brits Googling the EU is too good to be true. Plus: two stories of transparency -- good news on FOIA, and bad news on dark money.  And speaking of transparency: do we know enough about the gene editing program CRISPR?...

This week, the Supreme Court upheld constitutional protections for abortion rights.  To mark the occasion we have a story about the history of abortion in the US that first aired last winter, when the spread of Zika and the resulting deformities in newborns was causing panic across South and Central America. Abortion is illegal in those traditionally Catholic countries, but so many women were givi...

Democrats in the House of Representatives staged a dramatic sit-in this week to protest inaction on gun legislation, but are they just preaching to the choir? This week, we look at bridging the gap over guns in America and how the media can better understand both sides. Plus, new algorithms claim to provide more accurate models for policing and sentencing, but they actually might be making things...

As the media have watched the ascent of Donald Trump with disbelief-going-on-horror, pundits have returned frequently to the question of who exactly his supporters are. Terms like "angry" and "white working class" are mentioned frequently, but the  National Review  several months ago put it the most pointedly and viciously. In an article lambasting Trump supporters, Kevin Williamson characterized...

The aftermath of the Orlando shootings has been marked by grief...and also politics, with LGBT rights, gun control, and terrorism all vying for center stage. We talk with a gay Muslim writer who found himself in "double jeopardy" this week, delve into the semantic tousle over the words "radical Islam," and consider whether forgetting is an appropriate response to violent extremism. Plus, as the de...

The attack on Pulse nightclub in Orlando has renewed calls for anti-terrorist action from politicians across the board. For presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, this has meant a revival of her call for a government/Silicon Valley alliance that would analyze social networks in order to thwart terrorist plots and impede potential radicalization. It's an attractive solution but one, as we'...

The Associated Press declared Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee the night before voters went to polls. We hear from the AP and consider the ethics behind their decision. Plus: How should journalists be treating Donald Trump? The presumptive GOP nominee has had a year-long codependent relationship with the media, but we may be at a turning point. Paul Waldman of The American Prospe...

This week we want to share with you a piece that we really liked from our friends at  Radio Diaries . It’s a personal, revealing, surprising story told by a teen from a region that usually gets discussed only in terms of oil and conflict. For two years, Majd Abdulghani recorded an audio diary of her life in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- where women cannot drive, and where they only make up 16 percent of...

This week, a baby girl was born in New Jersey with microcephaly, a reminder that the Zika virus is not a distant threat. What is known and still unknown about Zika has fueled pseudoscience and paranoia. We look at a study about Zika-related conspiracy theories online, and how to debunk them.  Plus: The Obama administration may soon release 28 remaining pages of the Congressional 9/11 report -- and...

Last week’s show, “ Kidnapped ,” featured an interview with  Debra and Marc Tice , parents of Austin Tice, the freelance American journalist who disappeared in Syria nearly four years ago. We received many comments from people who were deeply moved by that conversation, so we thought we’d offer you a longer version.   At age thirty, Austin Tice went to Syria with the purest of intentions: to repor...

The threat of kidnapping in Syria has made it one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. A special hour on how we get our news from a country that's nearly impossible to visit, and why the world's tangled policy on hostages means that some live to tell the tale, and others don't.  On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today ( https://pledge.wn...

This week, President Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima. To mark the occasion, we're revisiting two segments we produced in 2005 relating to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. First, author and journalist  Greg Mitchell  discusses the case of George Weller, the first reporter on the scene after the bombings, whose first-hand accounts of the aftermath, and t...

Seventy-one years after the bombing, President Obama is set to be first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima, raising questions that many are keen to avoid. Plus, revisiting a notorious murder that the press got wrong; the long reach of a WWII slogan; and attempts in Ukraine to whitewash the nation's history. A special hour on memory, both historical and personal, and how what we remember shape...