Bob Garfield

To start his journey, Bob goes to the iconic Palm Restaurant, where DC A-listers go to see and be seen. There he meets with his guide Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and author of "This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America's Gilded Capital." Over one very expensive lobster, Mark prepares Bob for the ways of Washington.

Media, politicians and celebrities mingled at the White House Correspondents Dinner — but Bob Garfield of On the Media stayed outside looking in. He says the WHCD is odd and ethically questionable.

During the White House Correspondents Dinner, On The Media host Bob Garfield and New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich held a "Media Ethics Colloquy" in the same hotel. No one showed...

There is a scientific consensus that the oft-claimed link between vaccines and Autism simply doesn't exist. And yet, after a decade of no convincing evidence of a link many in the public are still scared and vaccination rates are down. In an interview that originally aired in 2011, Bob speaks to Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus, about why it's so hard to dislodge misinformation and fear.

Some academic journals have embraced a “gold open access model” of publishing, wherein the scholars whose work appears in the journal pay for the privilege. Bob speaks with Jeffrey Beall, an academic librarian at the University of Colorado Denver who has assembled a list of "predatory journals" - journals that may be more interested in profit than academic contributions

After 7 weeks CNN remains the go-to channel for an exhaustive amount of Malaysian Flight 370 coverage. Bob talks with Andrew Tyndall of The Tyndall Report who says the network's fixation on the flight is eroding its reputation as a news network. 

This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Susan B. Anthony List vs. Driehaus, a case that could help decide whether it’s illegal to lie during a political campaign. Bob speaks with Adam Liptak, The New York Times Supreme Court correspondent about the case and whether banning lying impinges on free speech.

"Brevity is the soul of wit" is an adage lost on many an opinionator, but not on Felicia Nimue Ackerman, who's among the most published letters-to-the-editor writers in the country. Since 1987, more than 200 of her letters have been printed in the New York Times alone. Bob talks to Ackerman as well as Tom Feyer, letters editor for the Times, about the art of the epistolary retort.

How the new Oscar Pistorius Trial Channel - a pop up satellite-TV channel that covers the court proceedings 24/7 - has irrevocably altered the South African media landscape.

David Letterman, who boasts the longest tenure of a late night host on broadcast TV, announced his retirement. The news was quickly followed by the announcement of his replacement – Stephen Colbert. Brooke and Bob discuss the problems of bringing a comedian so associated with the political left onto network television, and the loss of a national satire icon.

Every year on or around April 13th, Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, has celebrated by issuing Jefferson Muzzles. These are booby prizes, awarded to individuals and institutions who act against Mr. Jefferson's admonition that freedom of speech  “cannot be limited without being lost.” Bob speaks with Josh Wheeler, director of the Center, about this year's chief offenders.

The deadline for signing up for Obamacare was this week, and the White House says it has reached its projected number of 7 million new enrollees. But how accurate is that claim? Bob talks with Glenn Kessler, who writes for the Washington Post's Fact Checker blog, about what we know and don't know about the ACA's numbers.

Dmitry Kiselyov is a Russian television host and head of Russia's state news agency, a role he was appointed to by Vladimir Putin himself in December. That role has prompted the EU to issue sanctions against Kiselyov for being a "central figure of the government propaganda supporting the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine." Bob speaks with the Committee to Protect Journalists' Joel Simon about the dangerous precedent set by punishing propagandists.

This week the UK Parliament released a report that recommended ways to improve communicating climate change to the public, criticizing the media in particular for promoting false balance. Bob talks with Bob Ward of the London School of Economics about the report and the chief offender.

With the official enrollment deadline for the Affordable Care Act approaching, the Obama Administration is trying every which way to get the message out.  This effort ranges from ordinary TV ads, to quirkier celeb-filled spoofs, to testimonials from YouTube celebrities. Bob speaks to Joe Rospars, CEO and Co-Founder of Blue State Digital, who served as the principal digital strategist for both of Obama’s campaigns, about capturing the attention of the ever-elusive “young invincibles.”

Brooke and Bob read a few of your letters and comments.

Brooke and Bob share their results from a number of quizzes - including Which Public Radio Host Are You? - and discuss what (if anything) they've learned about themselves and this viral sensation. 

By the way, we have our own quiz, too! Find out which 19th century media baron you are here. 

While Russia annexed Crimea with scarcely a shot fired, the crisis has grown heated between cartographers. An editing war broke out on Wikipedia's map of Russia, and National Geographic sparked outrage by suggesting it would map Crimea as Russian territory once the Kremlin made it official. Bob talks with Michael Blanding, author of the forthcoming book The Map Thief, about how map-making by nature is a risky geopolitical game.

What happened in Kiev was a Nazi coup, says the Russian Foreign Ministry, and it’s high time they liberate the Crimeans from the Ukrainian fascists. Why are the Russian people buying this story?

The NSA has defended its controversial surveillance program by arguing that it just collects metadata, and therefore doesn't violate the privacy of individual Americans. But computer scientists at Stanford Security Lab have conducted their own simulation of the NSA's program, and found the metadata to be inherently revealing. Bob speaks with Jonathan Mayer, one of the researchers on the project, about how much can be learned just from the numbers.