TWO REPORTERS

The freight railroad industry is crucial, but companies have slashed tens of thousands of workers in recent years while trains have become less reliable and derailments have threatened entire towns. Meanwhile, railroad companies have reported record and near-record profits. Historian Peter Rachleff and train engineer Ron Kaminkow, who’s also a labor leader, guide us through the colorful, brutal hi...

Boris Bondarev says he wanted to quit his job as a Russian diplomat long ago, to protest Putin's policies, but it took years to gather courage to take that life-changing step. Putin's war in Ukraine pushed him to act - and now he and his wife are living under protection in Switzerland (with their cat; more about that in our episode). In Part 2 of this introspective conversation, Boris ex...

Boris Bondarev represented Russia as a diplomat for more than 20 years. But after Russia invaded Ukraine, he took a rare and potentially dangerous step: he resigned, to protest the horrors of Vladimir Putin's "fascist state." In Part 1 of this candid chat, Boris explains why he overlooked Putin's crimes for years - and why the invasion of Ukraine propelled him to act. His actio...

Darrin Bell won the Pulitzer Prize for doing exactly that - depicting Trump as a shrieking infant, a naked tyrant, and as a god giving life to racists instead of to Adam. Darrin explains how his own encounters with racism pushed him to draw, as an emotional escape. And he tells why his cartoons attack not only Trump but sometimes leaders he likes. HINT: young people should hear this interview to l...

Darrin Bell's white, wealthy classmates bullied him because he had big lips, and store clerks automatically assumed he was shoplifting. Today, Darrin has transformed his struggles into a brilliant and acclaimed graphic memoir, "The Talk" - named for the conversation that parents of color often have with their children to explain why the world likely won't treat them the same as...

Republicans and their allies are banning books, courses and even brief classroom chats about "divisive topics" - and passing laws to punish teachers who disobey. They're also spending big money to elect school boards that embrace their extremist visions. Jonathan Friedman of PEN America describes some of the most threatening developments across the country.

You've heard that it's happening  - and now two librarians tell us in this moving episode how they became targets of extremists. When Suzette Baker refused to ban books on racial and LGBTQ issues, right-wing parents and local officials in Texas got her fired. Meanwhile, librarian Martha Hickson was fighting her own battle against censorship, 2000 miles away in New Jersey - but she manage...

None of us can listen to Geoffrey Stone, the First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago, tell about his encounter with African American students without asking ourselves some tough questions: what kinds of speech do we really want to allow, or prevent, on college campuses? And how do we keep universities faithful to their mission of teaching young people to think?  Stone walks us through...

They're speaking African American English, according to linguist Lisa Green at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lisa grew up speaking AAE in Louisiana, and since then, her ground-breaking research has found that AAE is based on a system of consistent grammatical rules, pronunciations and definitions - in other words, Lisa's studies show, "it's not mainstream English wit...

You'll dazzle friends with the grammar smarts you'll get from our second chat with Bryan Garner, one of America's language gurus. Finally , you're about to learn if you can - or can't -  end a sentence with a preposition; if you can use "like" instead of "as"; and if you can banish "whom" and "whomever" from your brain. Just wait unt...

Bryan Garner, one of America's grammar gurus, tells us where we're going wrong - and what we're getting right. You're sure to find (you'll surely find?) answers to some of your own burning questions, like (or is it "such as"?): should you feel bad about using adverbs? Or should you feel badly ? How will this episode impact your own language? (Actually, is "i...

Ebonee Rice is a senior vice president of a national group that’s doing exactly that: the News Literacy Project. They’ve  created programs for students across the country - adults can use them too – to teach them how to dissect and evaluate everything from tweets and catchy ads and TikTok posts to news stories on national TV. You might be stunned when you hear statistics showing just how gullible...

None of us can listen to Geoffrey Stone, the famous law professor at the University of Chicago, tell about his own encounter with upset students without asking ourselves some tough questions: what kind of speech do we really want to allow, or prevent, on college campuses? And how do we keep universities faithful to their mission of teaching young people to think?

Lewis Simon's Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting, in collaboration with colleagues, helped spark an international scandal and topple a corrupt dictator; he tells us in this episode how they did it. Lew also gives us remarkable insight into how he could do his work - taking notes as people got beaten to death and blown up in front of him - and survive emotionally. And finally, a roving correspon...

Lewis Simons won the Pulitzer Prize during decades of reporting across Asia. He lived by a motto: "Whatever the threat or danger, I had to be there." When you hear him describe his harrowing adventures covering the Vietnam war, it brings that tragic conflict alive better than history books.

When you see students across the nation struggling with learning and behavioral problems, it might be partly because their families can’t afford enough good food. Dr. Megan Sandel has a bold idea, which Congress tried briefly - and successfully - but then scuttled: give low income parents more money.

Dr. Megan Sandel takes us into the GROW clinic in Boston, where kids look like malnourished children in poor countries. Some 2 year olds look half their age. The Biden administration eased the crisis by expanding child tax credits, but Congress has let those credits expire. So, it's back to crisis.

Officer Shanette Hall and Lt. Ray Rice joined St. Louis County's police department because they were passionate about making things better, by exposing racial injustice and bringing the police and community closer together. They told us in this moving interview that instead, department officials punished them for speaking out. (PS Since our interview, Hall quit the force.)

Boris Bondarev says he wanted to quit his job as a Russian diplomat long ago, to protest Putin's policies, but it took years to gather courage to take that life-changing step. Putin's war in Ukraine pushed him to act - and now he and his wife are living under protection in Switzerland (with their cat; more about that in our episode). In Part 2 of this introspective conversation, Boris ex...

Boris Bondarev represented Russia as a diplomat for more than 20 years. But after Russia invaded Ukraine, he took a rare and potentially dangerous step: he resigned, to protest the horrors of Vladimir Putin's "fascist state." In Part 1 of this candid chat, Boris explains why he overlooked Putin's crimes for years - and why the invasion of Ukraine propelled him to act.

Republicans and their allies are banning books, courses and even brief lessons about "divisive topics" - and passing laws to punish teachers who disobey. They're also spending big money to elect school boards that embrace their extremist visions. Jonathan Friedman of PEN America describes some of the most threatening developments across the country.

Librarian Suzette Baker refused to ban books on racial and LGBTQ issues. So, as she recounts in this moving episode, right-wing parents and local officials in Texas got her fired. Meanwhile, librarian Martha Hickson was fighting her own battle against censorship 2000 miles away in New Jersey - but she describes how she organized supporters to rally against censorship, and won.  

Attacking the Capitol, trying to overturn the presidential election, sabotaging voting rights: extremists have gone mainstream, with support from the Republican Party. While TWO REPORTERS are on vacation, hear chilling details about the extremists’ game plan - in this compelling episode with Cynthia Miller-Idriss, from our archive.

TWO REPORTERS are on vacation - meanwhile, we hope you'll find this repeat episode from our archive more compelling than ever. Hear what Bob Inglis - a former  conservative Republican  congressman - has to say about his former party and politics. It's especially important against the backdrop of Trump's and fellow Republicans' continuing efforts to sabotage America's democ...

Specialists in “behavioral threat assessment” have been quietly trying to spot potential killers for decades, in places from schools and companies to government agencies. Our guests, practitioners Monique Boudreaux and Matt Talbot, say everybody in America  needs to help them - and could.