Bob Garfield

Producer Ken Viselman, the marketing guru behind the explosive American success of "The Teletubbies" and "Thomas the Tank Engine" had a vision – a movie for toddlers that encouraged the audience to sing, dance and interact with the on-screen action. The result was"The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure," a movie that debuted in late August and holds the record for the lowest opening weekend box office of all time, earning just $206 per theater. Bob talks to Entertainment Weekly's Grady Smith about what went wrong and Smith's singular fascination with the Oogieloves phenomenon.

Last week, Russia's lower house of parliament unanimously approved an amendment that broadens the definition of treason. If it becomes law, Russian citizens who cooperate with international civil and media organizations could face 20-year prison sentences. Bob talks with the Christian Science Monitor's Fred Weir about the law's potential ramifications.

With the lengths of terms-of-service agreements reaching Shakespearean proportions, it's no wonder that internet users are clicking "I Agree" without actually reading what they agree to. A website launched this summer called Terms of Service; Didn't Read is coming up with new ways to inform consumers and fix what it calls "the biggest lie on the web." Bob talks to Michiel de Jong, one of the site's "hacktivist" co-founders.

This American Life's Ira Glass drops by to issue a challenge to Brooke and Bob to investigate what he sees as the false charge of liberal bias in public radio and NPR.

In an interview from 2008, Bob talks with This American Life host Ira Glass about the inherent worth of online conversations, as at the time, This American Life had recently disabled user comments on his show's website.

Bibio - Saint Christopher

What if your email service could tell you, before you even press send, just how aggressive or angry your email is? Bob talks to Josh Merchant, CTO and co-founder of Lymbix, a Canadian software company whose program ToneCheck promises emotional spell-check for overheated emailers. 

This week, Sun Myung Moon, media tycoon and spiritual leader of the Unification Church, died at the age of 92. In this interview from 2008, Bob talks John Gorenfeld, author of Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right and Built an American Kingdom about Moon's newspaper The Washington Times.

Strange Names - Broken Mirror

Political conventions used to be places where decisions were made and delegates truly participated. Now, they are just a series of scripted speeches covered by the media as though they are breaking news stories. Bob reflects on the last two weeks of this modern convention style.

NPR Congressional Correspondent Andrea Seabrook left NPR recently, citing frustration with the daily grind of covering politicians who "lie" to her face, all day, every day. Seabrook is starting a new project called DecodeDC, where she hopes she can blog and podcast her way to some deeper truths about Washington. Bob does an exit interview with Seabrook to discuss why political reporting is broken, and what might be done to fix it.

Zammuto - Wasn't That Lucky 

In Foreign Policy, political commentator Sultan Al Qassemi made the case that Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are, for political reasons, misrepresenting the reality on the ground in Syria. Bob speaks with Qassemi, who outlines what he sees as the problems with the coverage of the region's most important news sources.

Bob speaks with Mazen Hayek, a spokesman from the Arabic-language news channel Al Arabiya, who responds to Sultan Al-Qassemi's critique. Hayek says the network has a history of covering conflicts without bias, and is doing its best to cover Syria fairly under difficult reporting circumstances.

Tinariwen - Imidiwan Winakalin  

Police car mounted license plate readers collect date, time and location information and are used by law enforcement around the country to help catch criminals. But when Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Eric Roper filed a freedom of information request for information on his own car, he got a lot more than he bargained for. Bob talks to Roper about how Minneapolis police and agencies across the country deal with this potentially sensitive location information.

Four Tet - Pinnacle

This year has seen the Ford Foundation award grants to The Washington Post and The L.A. Times, both for-profit news outlets. Bob talks to The Ford Foundation's Jonathan Barzilay and NPR's Senior Vice President for News Margaret Low Smith about navigating the relationship between grant givers and news makers. 

Wishmountain - Lucozade

Bob and Brooke announce the triumphant return of Media Scrutiny Theater, the webseries where they watch and comment on the latest batch of campaign ads.

JD Samson & Men - Simultaneously

Bob Garfield talks about how the digital revolution is changing our collective experience of the viewing of the Olympics, and how it might give a sense of the future of network broadcasting.

It makes sense to assume an off-key tweet will disappear by itself in the ever-expanding Twitter-verse without consequence.  But some politicians don’t risk it, and delete tweets that might get spun into gaffes.  Enter the Sunlight Foundation’s Politwoops site, which keeps track of politicians’ tweets, lest a cover-up slip through the cracks.  Bob talks with Tom Lee who’s in charge of the project.

Errors - Tusk

Twitter has teamed up with Republican and Democratic polling firms, as well as another company called Topsy, to create a new tool called the Twindex. It offers a new way to gauge the political leanings of likely voters. Bob speaks with Adam Sharp, Twitter's manager for government and politics.

OTM recently reported on a practice in journalism known as "quote approval"-wherein reporters send quotes back to their sources after interviewing them to get the quotes approved. Bob follows up on the quote-approval story with some reaction from newspapers.

Michael Linnen - I Wanna Dance 4 U

Many TV watchers were upset this week with NBC's insistence on showing much of their Olympic coverage on a tape delay. The network didn't help matters by spoiling events they hadn't yet screened. Time Magazine TV Critic James Ponowozik explains why NBC refuses to offer the most anticipated events live.

When news broke last week that Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, had died, the world learned something new about the pioneering astronaut: that Dr. Ride was in fact a lesbian, survived by her partner of 27 years. Bob speaks to The New York Times obituaries editor Bill McDonald about how much obituaries should explore the private lives of public people.

Michael Linnen - Cantus for Bob Hardison