Brooke Gladstone

We often think of robots as tools to make our lives easier. But what if they could also make our lives funnier?

Google has scooped up more than a half dozen robot companies, but they are keeping mum about why they're acquiring these technologies.

Who needs “Duck Dynasty” or “Real Housewives” when you can watch a log burn for eight hours? A Norwegian network is taking reality TV to the next level by airing really calming stuff ...

With every advance in technology, skeptics lament the loss of a more meaningful and simpler time, arguing that attention spans are shrinking and critical thinking is corroding. But in his book, Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better, journalist Clive Thompson offers a different take. Brooke spoke with Thompson last year about how all of the YouTube videos, blogs, Twitter feeds, and Wikipedia pages have produced a unique human intelligence.

The rampant misreporting that follows mass shootings is so predictable that OTM has looked at how news consumers can avoid getting bad information. 

We asked On the Media's Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone to duke it out in this parody of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? from our American Icons episode on Mad Magazine.

Alongside the usual war for hearts and minds waged through conflicting narratives in the media, there’s a parallel fight happening on the rhetorical battlefield. Brooke talks with Jodi Rudoren, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times, about her recent piece, “In Gaza, Epithets Are Fired and Euphemisms Give Shelter,” in which she explores the issue of semantics.

In the wake of the crash of Malaysia airlines flight MH17, the Russian media has been providing its own theories about the source of the downed plane. Brooke talks with novelist and screenwriter Michael Idov, who lives in Moscow, about what he's seeing there.

For reporters covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, choosing the right words is a daunting task. So the International Press Institute set out to identify those hot-button words and phrases that the media throw around and create a glossary, called "Use With Care", that offers context and more neutral language. Brooke talks with Naomi Hunt, editor of the glossary and senior press freedom adviser at the IPI.

In Gaza, the media that locals have access to is primarily Hamas-controlled. Brooke talks with Sherine Tadros, a middle east correspondent for Sky News who's spent years reporting from the region, about what Gazans are seeing, and what many of them have come to believe.

It’s been a violent, sad week. Sometimes the only way to wring anything positive out of it all is through the transformative power of comedy. Brooke talks with Sharon Taicher, a writer at Eretz Nehederet, a satire show watched by 1 out of 8 Israelis.

Brooke examines how comedians like Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and Stephen Colbert make us laugh by combining silliness and moral indignation.  

It was a New York Times blog that chronicled daily shootings across the country, in an effort to highlight victims of gun violence between highly-covered mass shootings. Co-author Jen...

Spending on negative Obamacare ads eclipsed spending on positive ads by a remarkable 15-1 ratio. Brooke talks with Niam Yaraghi of the Brooking Institution, who says that anti-Obamacare ads actually drove up enrollment.  

Truvada is a drug that, taken daily, has been show to prevent HIV infection by as much as 99 percent. Like the polio vaccine, or like the birth control pill, it's a medical breakthrough worthy of massive coverage. Why hasn't there been? Brooke speaks to Rich Juzwiak, a Gawker staff writer, about the drug and what’s holding it back in the media.

For the past few weeks the media have been reporting on a surge in unaccompanied minors who are crossing the border illegally, bringing attention to the latest immigration crisis. But the reality of the situation is far more complicated. Brooke talks with reporter Bob Ortega about what's really happening on the border.

The latest surge of violence in the Gaza Strip and Israel was fueled by a horrific series of events involving Israeli and Palestinian teenagers. Brooke talks with Philip Weiss, co-editor of Mondoweiss, about coverage of these recent events, and how the view of the conflict is shifting in the media. 

There's an estimated 40,000 unidentified human remains in the United States. When writer Deborah Halber heard this figure, she did some research and discovered a thriving community of internet sleuths who spend hours trying to attach names to these John and Jane Does. Brooke speaks to Halber about her new book, The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America’s Coldest Cases.

An overview of the Hispanic media landscape, including a list of rules for how to discuss Hispanics without sucking (#NoMames). Bob and Brooke speak with Mark Hugo Lopez of the Pew Research Center's Hispanic Trends Project, and Julio Ricardo Varela from the website Latino Rebels. You can find Latino Rebels' collection of #NoMames fails here.

"Metastasis" is an almost scene-by-scene Spanish-language remake of the hit show "Breaking Bad," starring Colombian actor Diego Trujillo — who has also worked on remakes of "Desperate...