On the Media

Almost as soon as an armed rebellion flared in Russia last week, it fizzled. On this week’s On the Media, how the brief revolt compares to military coups from history, and how it’s different. Plus, how to cover a new kind of conspiracy theory candidate, and what it might mean for the country. 1. Naunihal Singh [@naunihalpublic], author of "Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups," on the brief rebellion in Russia, and how paying attention to the narratives in the aftermath of the mutiny is equally as important as the mutiny itself. Listen. 2. Anna Merlan [@annamerlan], author of "Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power," on the mistake the media have made in covering RFK Jr. Listen. 3. Claire Wardle [@cward1e], co-founder and co-director of the Information Futures Lab at the Brown School of Public Health, on the backlash to content moderation, and the impacts of these changes as candidates like RFK Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, enter the 2024 presidential race. Listen. 4. Paul Offit [@DrPaulOffit], a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases, vaccines, immunology, and virology and the co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, on the science community's response to RFK Jr. over the years, and the dangers of elevating such conspiracies to the White House. Listen. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

On Monday, CNN aired a bombshell recording in the classified documents case against former president Donald Trump. The recording, released to CNN by the special counsel working on the Department of Justice’s indictment of Trump, is reportedly of a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump discussed and seemingly showed secret documents to a group of onlookers. It was just the latest revelation in the government's case against the former president. Classified documents that belonged to former high-level government officials, including but not limited to former President Trump, former Vice President Pence, and President Biden, have been found in unauthorized locations in recent months. These cases vary greatly in volume and severity, but they point to a larger, systemic problem in the American government: the problem of overclassification. The latest data that the government released, in 2017, showed that around 50 million government documents are classified a year by over four million people, including outside government contractors, costing American taxpayers around $18 million, says Oona Hathaway, professor of law at Yale Law School, former special counsel to the Pentagon, and author of the Foreign Affairs article "Keeping the Wrong Secrets." In this conversation with Brooke, Hathaway talks about the incentives driving government employees to classify so many documents, the differences between the Trump and Biden document dramas, and why labeling so many things as "secret" makes these secrets less safe.  This is a segment originally aired on our January 27, 2023 show, Sorry, That’s Classified. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famed whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the Washington Post, has died. On this week’s On the Media, hear about his life, how the Pentagon Papers made it to print, and the impact he had on generations of whistleblowers. Plus, the women who covered the War in Vietnam.   1. Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project, on Daniel Ellsberg's legacy and the ways he changed public perception of whistleblowers in the U.S. Listen. 2. Les Gelb, former columnist and former Defense Department official, on his experience leading the team that wrote the Pentagon Papers, subject of the Hollywood drama, "The Post." Listen. 3. Seymour Hersh, on how he broke the story of My Lai — the massacre now regarded as the single most notorious atrocity of the Vietnam war. Listen. 4. Reporters Kate Webb, Jurate Kazickas [@juratekazickas], and Laura Palmer on how they covered the Vietnam War and why they went. Listen. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Last Monday, Reddit moderators from nearly 9,000 subreddits shut down their forums in what might be the largest moderator-coordinated social media protest in internet history. They're battling against Reddit CEO Steve Huffman's decision to start charging for access to the platform's software framework, or API, in an attempt to spin a profit, woo investors, and eventually IPO in the second half of 2023. Although the blackout began to die down within 48 hours of its inception, over 3,000 subreddits, such as those with over 30 million followers each like r/funny, r/gaming, and r/music are still dark to this day. On this week's podcast extra, OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger speaks with Jason Koebler, the editor-in-chief at Motherboard, Vice’s tech section, to discuss the intricacies of the protest and why he dubbed it "a battle for the soul of the human internet.” 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

On Tuesday, former president Trump was arraigned following his federal indictment. On this week’s On the Media, debunking claims that the former president is being targeted for his politics. Plus, one reporter’s cross-country examination of fascism in the United States. 1. Eric Levitz, [@EricLevitz], features writer covering politics and economics for New York Magazine, on the political narratives around Trump's federal indictment. Listen. 2. Jeff Sharlet [@JeffSharlet], journalist and author of The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, on the rhetoric, aesthetics, and myth-making of Trump and a rising fascist movement in the United States. Listen. 3. Jim Fallows [@JamesFallows], this week's co-host and writer of the “Breaking the News” newsletter on Substack, speaks with OTM host Brooke Gladstone [@OTMBrooke] about the journalistic portrayal of middle America and how not to cover presidential elections. Listen. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

In late 2021, Isabella Weber, an economist at University of Massachusetts, Amherst published a paper with a new idea. The theory, what she called "seller's inflation," sought to address the confounding fact that the economy was seeing rising high prices and skyrocketing corporate profits. The idea quickly moved from the halls of academia to the political arena. And quicker still, it was dismissed—at one point called a "conspiracy theory." But now, in 2023, "greedflation" is popping up across headlines. This week, OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger sits down with Lydia DePillis, a reporter on the business desk at The New York Times, to talk about her 2022 article dissecting the arguments for and against greedflation’s impact on the economy, and everything that's happened since.  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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

CNN recently ousted CEO Chris Licht after a bombshell profile brought up questions about CNN’s editorial direction. On this week’s On the Media, what the turmoil at CNN can teach us about how to cover politicians who continually lie on air. Plus, a deep dive into newspaper archives reveals that we’ve been having the same debates for over a century.  1. Brian Stelter [@brianstelter], former anchor of CNN's now-discontinued Reliable Sources, on the origins of CNN's tumultuous year and the ongoing fallout inside the network. Listen. 2. Jay Rosen [@jayrosen_nyu], a press critic and professor of journalism at New York University, on CNN's dilemma of trying to both interview GOP candidates and pursue accuracy, and how networks should learn how to cover Trump in 2024. Listen. 3. OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger [@MicahLoewinger] speaks with political scientist Paul Fairie [@paulisci] about the big media narratives that still animate online debates and press coverage, and how little has changed in our political discourse from decade to decade. Listen. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

On January 24, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Ticketmaster. The hearing followed in the aftermath Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" tickets going on sale last November, a debacle during which Ticketmaster broke down during the presale, leaving millions of fans without tickets. Senators convened to hear testimony from a top Live Nation executive (Ticketmaster’s parent company), competitors in ticketing and concert promotion, antitrust experts, and a musician. The hearing represented a step toward a potential antitrust case against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which merged in 2010.  Moe Tkacik and Krista Brown are researchers at the American Economic Liberties Project, a left-leaning think tank which is part of a consortium that is pushing for the DOJ to break up the Live Nation monopoly. In February Micah Loewinger spoke to them about an article they co-wrote for The American Prospect about Ticketmaster’s forty-plus-year-history, and how the company came to dominate, and in some ways reshape, the live music landscape. This is a segment from our February 3, 2023 show, Too Big to Fail?. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

This week, the White House agreed to restart student loan payments to broker the debt ceiling deal. On the latest On the Media, hear how a prominent lawsuit against Biden’s student debt relief plan falls apart under scrutiny. Plus, a look at ways journalists have faltered in covering the Supreme Court.  1. Eleni Schirmer [@EleniSchirmer], writer and research associate with the Future of Finance Initiative at UCLA's Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, on the legal battle being waged against relieving student debt. Listen. 2. Dahlia Lithwick [@Dahlialithwick], lawyer and writer at Slate, on how we cover the Supreme Court when it doesn't act like one. Listen. 3. Dan Charnas [@dancharnas], associate arts professor at NYU, on how music copyright law suppresses the artistic voices of hip hop producers. Listen.   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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Last week, Tasha Adams watched her ex-husband, Stewart Rhodes, get sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Rhodes both founded and led the Oath Keepers, a far-right anti-government militia group that marched on the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection. Earlier the same week, Adams also finalized her divorce proceedings against Rhodes — ending over twenty years of a marriage that culminated in abuse and isolation. In our last episode, OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger and Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex & Money, traveled to Montana to speak to Adams about her marriage with Rhodes. Now we're giving you an extended look at that conversation through a segment that originally aired on Death, Sex & Money.  Anna and Micah talk to Tasha about her decades-long marriage with Stewart, from their courtship in a ballroom dance class in Las Vegas, to abuse and isolation as Stewart became transfixed on politics and apocalyptic ideas. Plus, Tasha sits down with Kelly Jones, ex-wife of far-right radio host Alex Jones, and they compare notes on their marriages, and reflect on their secret text exchanges from 2018, when Tasha was plotting her escape from Stewart with her six kids. 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, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.