Brooke Gladstone

This year has seen big crowd-funding successes, as films by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas and actor Zach Braff were put into production based on pledges from fans. Brooke talks crowdfunding past and future with Roman Mars, host of the show 99% Invisible, who used Kickstarter to fund his third season.

Citizen King - Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)

As eyeballs continue to shift from TV to streaming online video, it remains doubtful that digital ad dollars will ever rival their analog predecessors. Meanwhile, companies like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube continue to experiment with subscription and advertising models. Brooke sits down with Peter Kafka of All Things Digital, to ask him what the future holds for shows like Mad Men, and for YouTube stars like Ryan Higa.

After its release in 2006, a browser plug-in called AdBlock Plus gained hero status as an open-source effort to save consumers from obnoxious ads. But in 2011, AdBlock Plus began poking holes in its filter, adding a whitelist of "acceptable ads" that it lets through--some of them for a fee. Brooke talks with Till Faida, AdBlock Plus’ managing director, about his company's policy.

5ive Style -- Outta Space Canoe Race

Niero Gonzalez is the founder of a video gaming site called Destructoid. As the site's readers increased, advertising revenue leveled off and Gonzalez soon realized that almost half of his tech-savvy readers were using ad-blocker software. So he asked his readers "what now?" Brooke talks to Gonzalez about his search for new revenue streams.

Mexico has an image problem around the world, exacerbated by stories of violence and corruption —not to mention lingering stereotypes from the era of the Frito Bandito. Brooke talks to a number of people grappling with Mexico's image problem.

Paco de Lucia & Rámon Algeciras - Cielito Lindo

Veracruz, home of the bloody Zeta cartel, is now the most dangerous place in Mexico to be a journalist. Nine journalists have been killed in the last 12 months alone. Brooke travels to Veracruz to talk to journalists about reporting under a constant threat of violence.

Elizabeth - Soy Loca Por Ti

News outlets are cutting back more and more on foreign coverage, even though international events obviously have profound effects domestically. Brooke talks to MIT's Ethan Zuckerman, author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection about the past and future of foreign reporting, and how he would like to do away with the term "foreign news" altogether.

Brooke talks to Mike O’Connor of the Committee to Protect Journalists about the risks that reporters face in a country beset by drug-violence, often targeted at the media.

The way Edward Snowden communicated with the Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, the journalists who eventually wrote stories based on his NSA leaks, was by using encryption software. One of the most popular forms of encryption is called PGP, or "Pretty Good Privacy." Brooke talks to Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen about trying to set up PGP on his computer and how it should be the baseline for national security reporters.

Modest Mouse - Here It Comes

The first time Edward Snowden wanted to leak information to Glenn Greenwald it didn't go so well -- Greenwald was stymied by the security requirements Snowden demanded before communicating sensitive information online. Brooke talks with journalist Peter Maass about the documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras and how Snowden ended up securely communicating with her.

Patch, AOL's hyper-local reporting site, has announced it is cutting its staff of 1,100 nearly in half. Brooke talks with the Wall Street Journal's Keach Hagey about what this means for local reporting and about AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's snap firing of an employee during a Patch-wide conference call.

Reporter Paul Salopek has filed stories from all over the world, but never like he is right now. Since January, Salopek has been on what he calls the “Out of Eden Walk,” a 21,000 mile trek, on foot, which began in East Africa’s Great Rift Valley, will end seven years from now in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. Brooke talks to Salopek about why he's chosen to report this way, and his milestones so far.

Jenny Scheinman - A Ride With Polly Jean

Breaking Bad returns this weekend for its final 8-episode run this weekend. You can find an answer to why the show has joined the pantheon of greats including The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men and more in TV’s current Golden Age, in Brett Martin’ s new book, Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution. Brooke talks to Martin about how we ended up in this TV renaissance. 

It's often been observed that technological innovations are the primary force driving the evolution of the mass media. But make your way through the 402 pages Paul Starr's book The Creation of the Media, and that notion will be left in dust - along with many other common assumptions. In the book, Starr argues that the government has played a much more fundamental role in the growth of the American media than is commonly thought. He discusses his research with Brooke.

For years, unpaid internships have been a media industry standard. But over the past couple of months, there have been a rash of lawsuits against media companies for not paying interns. Brooke investigates the state of the unpaid internship.

Mark Mothersbaugh - Let me tell you about my boat

Brooke talks to former On the Media intern (and current producer) Alex Goldman, and current On the Media intern Molly Buckley about their experiences as interns for the show.

Zissou Society Blue Star Cadets - Ned's Theme

Back in the pre-digital 1940's, telegrams were the basis of the first large scale domestice surveillance program, launched by an agency that would become the NSA. Brooke speaks to "Daily Dot" writer Joe Kloc about the history of US surveillance, from the telegram to email.

Journalist Brian Krebs has been writing about computer security for years, much to the chagrin of the online fraudsters and identity thieves he reports upon. He often finds himself on the receiving end of online attacks from these criminals, but last month, they hatched a much more elaborate plan. Brooke speaks to Krebs about being harassed by Russian cyber criminals.

Shigeto - Ringleader

France's infamous anti-piracy law, known as Hadopi, was supposed to kick copyright infringers off the internet after giving them three warnings, or "strikes." But this month, after spending almost four years and millions of Euros to disconnect just one lowly pirate, France finally dropped the Hadopi law. Brooke asks Techdirt writer Glyn Moody what went wrong with Hadopi and what's next in the war against piracy.

This week, the gossip website The Dirty posted screenshots of explicit chats between an anonymous woman and New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner. Even though the legitimacy of the screenshots could not be confirmed, other news outlets ran the information, and within hours Buzzfeed had identified and named the woman in the chats. Brooke talks to McKay Coppins, Buzzfeed's political editor, about reporting, transparency, and veracity.