On the Media

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...

The Federal Communications Commission is currently investigating CBS for “intentional news distortion” for its editing of an interview with Kamala Harris. On this week’s On the Media, what the new chairman of the FCC has been up to, and what led a top CBS producer to quit. Plus, what a growing effort to rewrite the history of Watergate tells us about the American right.

[01:00] The Federal Communications Commission is currently inve...

Conservative influencers have captured a massive audience on the internet, boasting nearly five times more followers than their progressive competitors. On this week’s On the Media, the hosts spend twelve hours immersed in right wing media and report back on what they saw. Plus, why Democrats are struggling to compete for audiences online. 

[00:00] According to a new study from Media Matters for America, right-leaning shows dominate...

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has been edged out of the headlines this past week, or so, by the administration’s current flirtation with a constitutional crisis. But the DOGE team is still busy. One project on the office's agenda, originally reported by WIRED late last month, is to rewrite the Social Security Administration's code base—in other words, the agency's computer programs, which handle millions...

The president’s on-again, off-again tariffs are wreaking havoc on the economy. On this week’s On the Media, how the press is struggling to keep up with covering the chaos. Plus, the CEO of Bluesky, an alternative to Twitter, shares her vision for a better internet.

[00:00] Host Micah Loewinger breaks down a wild week in the economy–why the press can’t keep up, and what we can learn from the rollercoaster of tariffs the Trump adminis...

This week we’re bringing you an interview from our friends at the New Yorker Radio Hour. It's a conversation between host David Remnick and Democratic congressman Chris Murphy. Murphy is the junior senator from Connecticut and a vehement critic of leaders in his party who’ve taken a “business as usual” approach in dealing with the Trump administration. He opposed Chuck Schumer’s negotiation to pass the Republican budget and keep th...