Bob Garfield

As a manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects unfolded in the wee hours of Friday morning, Twitter was the place to be for coverage. Brooke speaks with OTM producer Alex Goldman, who captained the late (really late) night Twitter coverage for On the Media.

 

Implode - Bottom Of A Well

As the Senate debates gun control for the first time in decades, we’re awash in stories we might never have heard but for Newtown. Brooke speaks with New York Times op-ed writer Joe Nocera, who's tracking gun violence daily on his blog The Gun Report. And Bob speaks with reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg about why we're stuck with anecdotes instead of data in the gun discussion.

 

Lúnasa - Killarney Boys Of Pleasure

In China, a new form of avian flu, called H7N9, has killed 10 people and infected an additional 28.  China’s gotten plaudits from the global health community for its transparency and responsiveness to this outbreak. But that's partly because many remember how China lied about SARS in 2002, a decision that killed hundreds. Public health reporter Maryn McKenna talks to Bob about what the standards are for reporting health epidemics in a wired world. 

 

Bonobo - Cirrus

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner says he’s interested in running for New York City mayor, two years after a Twitter sex scandal derailed his career. Weiner and his wife, Huma Abedin, granted an extensive interview to The New York Times Magazine, and swam right back into the political waters this week.

Bitcoin is an online currency backed by no government, central authority or bank. Invented in 2009 as a response to the global financial crisis it's now worth over a billion dollars. Reuters financial blogger Felix Salmon talks to Bob about Bitcoin's impact on the real world and how every conversation about Bitcoin is making it a little bit stronger.

 

In Somalia the relative calm and stability of the last few years has resulted in a burgeoning journalism scene. But the practice is a deadly one, journalists are targeted for offending powerful interests, and most experienced journalists have fled. NPR's East Africa correspondent, Gregory Warner, talks to Bob about who's stepped in to do the incredibly risky reporting in Somalia - children.

 

Kronos Quartet - Mai Nozipo

On Tuesday the Associated Press eliminated the phrases "illegal immigrant" and "undocumented" from its stylebook. Previous OTM guest Jose Antonio Vargas has been campaigning for this change for months on the grounds that “actions are illegal – not people.” The AP has conceded this point of view, but it’s not because of political correctness. Bob talks to AP editor Tom Kent, who explains that the change is part of a broader overhaul of the AP stylebook.

 

William Tyler - We Can't Go Home Again

Anthony Lewis passed away this week at 85 after a long and storied career covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times. In a segment originally aired in 2008, Brooke spoke with Lewis about his book Freedom for the Thought We Hate, an examination of the First Amendment. He explained that the amendment that governs free speech and the press might not be as familiar as we think.

 

Oddisee - Frostbite

In early March, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul used a 13-hour filibuster to draw attention to the Obama Administration's drone programs. This week, Slate's David Weigel noticed that public opinion about drones has changed significantly since that filibuster. Bob spoke with Weigel about the connection.

Errors - Tusk

The question of same-sex marriage landed in the Supreme Court this past week, and marriage equality supporters are hoping for a landmark ruling that will legalize same-sex marriage. If it happens, it’ll be one in a series of history-making Supreme Court rulings. But how does it work? Does the Supreme Court have the power to change the culture, or does our culture influence the decisions of the justices? NYU law professor Barry Friedman has written a book on that very question. He tells Bob that for the most part, the Supreme Court tries to shape their decisions according to what the public wants. 

For over 20 years a voracious personal finance industry has tried to help us make smarter investments and sound financial choices. And it's created a number of stars in the process, t...

Last Sunday saw a guilty verdict in the case of two high-school football stars, Ma’lik Richmond and Trent Mays, who were accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio. For six hours, the severely intoxicated victim was dragged from party to party by a number of her peers, a humiliating journey photographed and joked about by the accused and others on sites such as Instagram and Twitter. The ensuing coverage of the verdict revealed a culture still deeply conflicted about rape. Bob talks to Slate's Amanda Marcotte about rape culture and the media. 

Infamous internet troll Andrew “weev” Auernheimer was sentenced to three and a half years in prison this week. He was prosecuted under the controversial Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which critics call too stringent and punitive. Bob talks to Gawker writer Adrian Chen about whether Weev's prosecution will undermine attempts to reform the CFAA. 

 

Plan B - Ill Manors

China's surveillance of Skype is not particularly surprising. What is surprising is that Skype owner Microsoft is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative, an anti-internet censorship and pro-privacy organization. Bob speaks to Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT's Center for Civic Media, about the Global Network Initiative and its apparent shortcomings.

 

Four Tet - Pinnacles

We have known for years that certain words and phrases can get Chinese internet users flagged for surveillance by the Chinese government. Now a computer science graduate student at the University of New Mexico has compiled an extensive list of the sometimes surprising words and phrases that put Chinese internet censors on alert. Bob talks to Jeffrey Knockel about how he cracked the code of the Chinese version of Skype to compile the list.

In the next couple of months the Supreme Court will issue a decision in the case of Fisher vs. University of Texas at Austin. The case may determine the future of Affirmative Action, but news coverage that centers on the sympathetic plaintiff in the case misses a fascinating back story. Bob talks with ProPublica reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones about the case.

This week, the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism released its annual “State of the News Media” report, detailing the health, or in this case the frailty, of mainstream US media online and off. The report contained a litany of grim statistics about the consumption and economics of news. Bob talks to Pew Associate Director Mark Jurkowitz, who says the situation isn’t is bleak as it could be.

Beastie Boys - Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament

Even as the media and public fitfully reckoned with the Steubenville verdict, a similar case is playing out in Torrington, Connecticut. Like Steubenville case, a lot of bullying and ridicule of the victims has taken place on social media. Unlike the Steubenville case, the local paper, the Connecticut Register Citizen, chose to publish the bullying tweets from high school students, with their twitter handles and images unredacted. The editor of the newspaper, Matt DeRienzo talks to Bob about his decision to print that information. 

 

Four Tet - 0181-01

Bob Garfield, co-host of On The Media and Doug Levy, founder and CEO of MEplusYOU, talk about their new book Can't Buy Me Like: How Authentic Customer Connections Drive Superior Results, on how companies need to respond to customers.

 

The internet has supercharged the world of fan fiction - stories written by fans based on their favorite works. Bob talks to Rebecca Tushnet, head of the legal committee at the Organization for Transformative Works, about the collision of fan fiction and fair use.