Brooke Gladstone

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.

After hearing the rest of this special hour, Latino Rebels co-founder Julio Ricardo Varela returns to tell Brooke if we accomplished our goal to "not suck" in our exploration of Hispanic media. He tells Brooke why we didn't do as well as we'd hoped, despite our best intentions.

Since the violent extremist group ISIS began taking control of large parts of Iraq, a common media narrative has emerged: in the absence of a tyrant or occupying force, sectarian hatred is once again tearing the country apart. Brooke talks with history professor Ibrahim al-Marashi about whether that narrative is actually the best way to look at what's going on in Iraq.

Mosi Secret is the new "sin and vice" reporter at The New York Times. He explains how his new beat came to be, and the challenges of reporting stories about people on the fringe.

The Pew Research Center recently published a study titled “Political Polarization in the American Public,” which prompted a wave of alarmist reporting about how Americans are more ideologically divided than ever before. But, as Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina explains, that's not what Pew's data actually shows.

The End of Tell Me More

As ISIS storms through Iraq, its allies and enemies wage an information war on television. Elliott Colla, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown and author of the crime novel, Baghdad Central, has been watching the events unfold onscreen alongside his wife's Iraqi family, who recently resettled from Baghdad to Amman. Colla reads part of his essay, “Watching ISIS on TV,” published in the online magazine Jadaliyya, and talks with Brooke about the origins of Iraq's frenzied media landscape.

If you've ever heard someone say "I heard it on NPR" - there's a pretty good chance they're wrong. What NPR actually is, what it isn't, and how it all got so complicated. 

ISIS and its brutal offensive in Iraq has left the media reeling. But social media has become another battleground. Intelwire.com editor J.M. Berger has been tracking ISIS on social media for the last year, and he talks with Brooke about how the group's online strategy is better honed than its extremist competitors.

Would you sacrifice one person to save the lives of five others? Your answer may depend on whether you consider the problem in your native tongue or a secondary one.

The Supreme Court will hear a case involving Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man serving jail time for posting death threats against his wife on Facebook. Elonis says he didn’t mean it literally, and it’s up to the High Court to decide if that distinction matters. Brooke talks with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick about the impact this case could have on how violent speech online is viewed in the eyes of the law.

The exchange of American POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo has set off a political firestorm whose flames have been fanned by wild speculation in the absence of clear facts. Brooke wades through the breathless conjecture to ponder what's really behind this controversy.

For years the Sudanese government has been waging a bombing campaign against civilians in Nuba, a region in the country's South. The conflict has gone unreported by most media outlets, except one: Nuba Reports. Brooke talks with the site's founder, Ryan Boyette, about his efforts to bring global attention to the crisis. 

It was widely reported this week that for the first time ever, a computer program had passed the "Turing Test." The trouble is, the story was a sham. Brooke talks with Tech Dirt's Mike Masnick about how the media should have known better. 

On May 23^rd, 2005, Tom Cruise was on Oprah to talk about his new movie. But Oprah wanted to hear about his new relationship, with Katie Holmes. The freeze frame from that interview, of Cruise apparently jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch, is now enshrined in pop culture history, and has tarnished the mega-star’s reputation. Trouble is, it never actually happened. Brooke talks to Amy Nicholson, head film critic for the LA Weekly, about the incident.

On the one-year anniversary of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, Brooke reflects on the man who set off a global debate about surveillance and the right to privacy, and whose personal saga ...

After a loved one passes away, accessing his or her Facebook profile, emails, and other “digital assets” often puts family members in a legal bind. But there’s a robust array of online services tailor-made for people who want to control the future of their own digital content, pre-mortem. Brooke talks with Evan Carroll, co-author of the book, Your Digital Afterlife, about the potential for these services to change the way we think about death.

Is discussing a persistent global horror, violence against women, appropriate in the wake of one angry lunatic’s rampage? Absolutely, argues actor, writer and former Jeopardy champion...

Amid revelations of Elliot Rodger's deep-seated anger and resentment toward women, Internet activists crafted a counter-narrative with the hashtag #YesAllWomen. It has created a catalog of stories about what not all men do, but what most women fear: male violence. Brooke talks with Deanna Zandt, co-creator of the Tumblr "When Women Refuse", about the potency of the hashtag to shed light on everyday misogyny. 

Following last week’s massacre, residents of Isla Vista were confronted with misery of another kind: the constant presence of television news cameras, reporters, and broadcast vans in the midst of the grieving community. But in the aftermath of such tragedy, the media can play a crucial role in helping those affected make something meaningful out of their devastating loss. As Karen Duffin reported last fall, the template for that kind of PR savvy was established back in 1999, after the massacre at Columbine High School.