On the Media

President Trump is preparing to send the National Guard to cities across the country. On this week’s On the Media, what the press is missing about the president’s so-called “crackdown” on crime. Plus, in the aftermath of a Russian attack, a Ukrainian town asks journalists to record the atrocities.

[01:00]  Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Jamison Foser, media critic and author of the newsletter Finding Gravity, about President Trump’s plans to send troops into American cities, and how mainstream outlets are missing the mark in their coverage. 

[14:08] Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Zack Beauchamp, senior correspondent at Vox, about a telling conversation between four leading MAGA tastemakers, and what it reveals about how the right is thinking about authoritarianism in relation to US democracy.

[31:41] Veteran NPR reporter Deb Amos visited Ukraine to report on how Ukrainians are telling the story of the atrocities committed by Russian troops in Bucha – to themselves and the world. 

Support for this reporting was provided by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Women on the Ground: Reporting from Ukraine’s Unseen Frontlines Initiative in partnership with the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Further reading / watching:

• “Trump’s military occupation of American cities is unpopular. The media is trying to manufacture consent for it.” by Jamison Foser
• “The right debates just how weird their authoritarianism should be,” by Zack Beauchamp
• Bucha

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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A beloved squirrel named Peanut was seized in a raid by New York environmental officers last year. A maelstrom of online outrage ensued, upending New York wildlife enforcement in the process. In conversation with NYC Now's Janae Pierre, our colleague, reporter Jon Campbell, unravels the saga -- revealing a story about mistaken identities and the power of online fury. 

You can listen to more episodes from NYC Now here: https://www.wnyc.org/shows/nyc-now

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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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.

[01:00] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Andrew Marantz, a staff writer at The New Yorker, about his recent piece, “Is the U.S. Becoming an Autocracy?” and what we can learn from Hungary’s recent backsliding into authoritarianism. 

[15:44] Micah speaks with Márton Gulyás, founder of Partizán, Hungary’s leading independent news show, about what lessons journalists in the US might take away from his experience.

[37:20] Micah sits down with Maria J. Stephan, political scientist and co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works, to dissect the 3.5% rule, a statistic that’s been making its rounds on social media, which is a measurement of the power of collective action. Stephan and her co-researcher Erica Chenoweth first coined the term in 2010. 

Further reading:

• “Is the U.S. Becoming an Autocracy?” by Andrew Marantz
• “Big Tents and Collective Action Can Defeat Authoritarianism,” by Maria J. Stephan
• Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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For these last couple of weeks of August we’ve been airing a miniseries from our friends at Radio Diaries.The third and final part is about a woman named Dorothy Thompson. In 1939, Time Magazine called her a woman who “thinks, talks and sleeps world problems and scares strange men half to death.” They weren’t wrong. 

Thompson was a foreign correspondent in Germany in the years leading up to World War 2…and she broadcast to millions of listeners around the world. She became known for her bold commentaries on the rise of Hitler — the Nazis even created a “Dorothy Thompson Emergency Squad” to monitor her work. She was an eloquent and opinionated advocate for the principles of democracy. But by the end of the war, those strong opinions put her career in jeopardy. 

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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This month, the director of Voice of America is being forced out in the latest of many moves to dismantle the state broadcasting service. On this week’s On the Media, a history of the Voice of America, and how it’s been politicized. Plus, hear why propagandists in Russia, China, and Iran are celebrating cuts to U.S.-funded foreign reporting.

[01:00]  Episode 1 of The Divided Dial, Season 2: Fishing in the Night. 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. Reporter Katie Thornton on how this instantaneous, global, mass communication tool — a sort of internet-before-the-internet — transformed from a utopian experiment in international connection to a hardened tool of information warfare and propaganda.

[34:14] Host Micah Loewinger sits down with Alsu Kurmasheva, press freedom advocate and veteran journalist of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service, on what the network provides in countries lacking a free press and her own nine month detention in Russia. Plus, Bay Fang, president of Radio Free Asia, or RFA, on why authoritarians are celebrating Trump’s shutdown and how RFA’s closure will further diminish press freedom in Asia. 

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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This week, we're airing part two of a documentary series, courtesy of Radio Diaries, about three radio personalities who had huge audiences in their time, but today, are largely forgotten. 

These days, we’re used to media that thrives on conflict, that amplifies the most outrageous voices in the room. It’s something we often trace back to shock jocks like Howard Stern, and in-your-face talk show hosts like Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh. But long before all those guys, there was Joe Pyne. At the height of his career in the 1950s, the New York Times called him the “ranking nuisance of broadcasting.”

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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When Donald Trump returned to office, tech companies donated millions of dollars to his inaugural committee. On this week’s On the Media, the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley. Plus, the CEO of the burgeoning social media platform, Bluesky, on how to billionaire-proof the internet.

[01:00]  Micah Loewinger speaks with Becca Lewis, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, about how Silicon Valley has always had rightwing roots — an influential group of conservative thinkers in the tech world have long seen new technologies as tools for restoring older social orders.

[14:47] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, a competitor to Twitter/X that’s seen massive growth recently, about how Bluesky is structured in a fundamentally different way than other social media platforms, and why that might make it “billionaire-proof.” 

[32:27] OTM producer and new parent Molly Rosen speaks with Amanda Hess, author of the new book Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, on how new technologies have transformed the experience of parenthood and what this signals about the future.

Further reading:

• “‘Headed for technofascism’: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley,” by Becca Lewis
• Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, by Amanda Hess
• “My Son Has a Rare Syndrome. So I Turned to the Internet,” by Amanda Hess

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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For these final weeks of summer we wanted to transport you away from the doom and gloom of the daily news with a trio of stories produced by our friends at the public radio documentary-maker, Radio Diaries. The series is called “Making Waves” and it profiles three people who pushed the boundaries of radio: one to warn, one to rile, one to preach. This week's focus is the preacher. In 1934, the Washington Post called Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux the “best known colored man in America.” His Sunday services were broadcast to over 25 million listeners on CBS radio. Black America saw Michaux as a leader for racial harmony and progress. But during the civil rights movement, his reputation took an unlikely turn.

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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President Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following a weak jobs report. On this week’s On the Media, how the Trump administration is threatening government data. Plus, a viral YouTube channel raises questions about the meaning of political debate. 

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone situates President Trump’s recent firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics within a larger effort to discount facts that aren’t politically convenient. Plus, Amy O’Hara,  a professor at Georgetown's Massive Data Institute, on the importance of government data, and  Andreas Georgiou, a scholar in statistics at Amherst College, on his years-long battle to defend accurate economics data in Greece.

[12:34] Brooke speaks with Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, a liberal watchdog group that follows and fact-checks right-wing outlets like Fox News, NewsMax, and the Tucker Carlson Network, about the group’s fight for survival as it faces a deluge of lawsuits brought by Elon Musk’s X. 

[28:22] Host Micah Loewinger delves into the meteoric rise of the YouTube channel Jubilee with technology and online culture journalist Taylor Lorenz, and the channel’s mission of fostering “radical empathy” by hosting political debates between wildly opposing groups. He speaks with Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief of Zeteo, about his recent Jubilee debate with far right conservatives and how the channel is transforming the meaning of political debate. Plus, Stassia Underwood, a participant of one Jubilee debate, opens up about her experience on set. 

Further reading:

• “Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis,” by By Kenneth P. Vogel, Kate Conger, and Ryan Mac
• “1 Conservative vs 25 LGBTQ+ Activists (feat. Michael Knowles)” (Jubilee)
• “1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives (ft. Mehdi Hasan)” (Jubilee)

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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Here in New York we’re not due to select our next mayor till November but somehow it feels like we’re already embroiled in pre-election chaos. Eric Adams is now running as an independent, and to do so he was required to present the signatures of 7,500 New Yorkers who support him. He actually handed in around 50,000 signatures so he more than made the cut off. But when our colleagues in the WNYC newsroom (and for the podcast NYC Now) began to look into those signatures, they stumbled onto a scandal. 

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, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected].

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