The Brian Lehrer Show

For this pledge drive, listeners try their hand at a quiz. Today's theme is broadcast media history.

Photo: Edward R. Murrow lived here (blue plaque), Westminster (Matt Brown, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Historian Anne Applebaum, staff writer at The Atlantic,  host of their podcast "Autocracy in America" and author of Autocracy Inc. (Penguin, 2024) and offers her analysis of how President Trump and his administration are seeking to control elections, as well as science and culture, and why.

photo: "I Voted" sticker worn on lapel of fuzzy winter coat, shot during the November 2025 election in St. Paul, Minnesota.  (Funknendai, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

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Avery Trufelman, host of the podcast Articles of Interest, talks about her work digging into the interesting historical and cultural questions about what we wear. Part of a short series about personal style.

Photo: Well-dressed in a camouflage jacket and a cream v-neck sweater, Milan Fashion Week Menswear Spring/Summer 2025, June 15, 2024 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images)

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WNYC's Public Song Project invites musicians to incorporate works of art that have entered the public domain into new compositions. All of It producer Simon Close shares more about the project and how they are hoping musicians will participate.

For more information, click here.

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After a Columbia student was detained by agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Mayor Mamdani said he spoke about it to President Trump, and she was released. Arya Sundaram, WNYC and Gothamist reporter covering race and immigration, reports the latest on the news. Plus, Brigid Bergin, senior political correspondent for WNYC and Gothamist, talks about the mayor's surprise trip to the White House to meet with the president.

Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images: Protestors take part in anti-ICE rally outside Columbia University after federal agents detained a student inside a residential campus building in New York City, New York, U.S., February 26, 2026.

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For this pledge drive, listeners try their hand at a quiz. Today's theme is Black History Month.

Photo: Carter G. Woodson memorial on RI Ave at 7th NW in Washington, D.C. by David from Washington, DC, CC BY 2.0.

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Again, this year, we hear from the makers of the five films nominated for the Academy Award for best feature documentary. Today, directors Sara Khaki, and Mohammadreza Eyni talk about their film "Cutting Through Rocks."

Photo: Still from "Cutting Through Rocks" courtesy of the guests.

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As part of a short series about finding your personal style, Emilia Petrarca, author of the fashion and style newsletter Shop Rat, talks about how getting offline and going outside changed the way she thinks about fashion and style. 

Photo: Evi Wave is seen wearing an oversized puffer jacket in soft pink and taupe-grey clogs in soft suede from Birkenstock, December 3, 2025 in Duesseldorf, Germany. (Photo by Moritz Scholz/Getty Images)

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Jessica Gould, education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, talks about why a funding threat from the Trump administration means some immigrants won't be able to get commercial driver licenses, and how this will affect school bus drivers in New York City.

(Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

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Ruth Marcus, contributor to The New Yorker, former columnist for the Washington Post and the author of Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover (Simon & Schuster, 2019), comments on the Supreme Court's tariff's decision and other political news—and the state of journalism in the aftermath of mass layoffs at Jeff Bezos' Washington Post.

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