Brooke Gladstone

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

Brooke Gladstone of WNYC’s On The Media discusses how the American press corps handled the lead up to the Iraq War and the subsequent turns and scandals in the conflict.

Before sending hundreds of thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning says he tried to give those same documents to the New York Times. The Times, he says, never returned his call. Brooke speaks with Bill Keller, New York Times Op-Ed columnist and former Executive Editor, who wondered this week how the Manning story would be different if the Times had worked with him directly.

In a story that originally ran in 2006, Brooke talks with three Iraqis who worked as fixers for American journalists during the war. 

 

Rahim Alhaj - Taqsim Maqam Ajam

In the wake of WikiLeaks' meteoric rise to the world stage in 2010, dozens of copycat leaking sites popped up all over the globe. Today, only a handful remain active. Brooke talks to Ars Technica Senior Business Editor Cyrus Farivar, about what happened to these sites and which leaking sites are still active and impactful.

 

Kronos Quartet - Tilliboyo (Sunset)

Late last month, Bradley Manning pled guilty to 10 of the 22 charges against him for leaking a trove of information to WikiLeaks. He did not plead guilty to 'aiding the enemy,' a capital offense. Brooke talks to University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone about the validity of the 'aiding the enemy' charge.

Bradley Manning still faces the charge of 'aiding the enemy.' Though that charge can carry the death penalty, the government has said it won't seek it. Brooke spoke with Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler who says that a conviction on that charge would still set a chilling precedent for future whistleblowers. 

 

Modest Mouse - Gravity Rides Everything

What happened to the Iraqi fixers who spoke to On the Media almost seven years ago? Brooke speaks to Ayub Nuri, Zeyad Kasim and Ali Fadhil about where their lives have taken them s...

Artists often draw inspiration from other sources - from musicians sampling songs to painters recreating existing masterpieces. Kenneth Goldsmith believes writers should catch-up with...

David Lowery of bands Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven thought the internet would become a vibrant new marketplace for creators. Instead, he says, the internet era is worse for artists than the infamously unfair record company system. Brooke talks to Lowery about what's wrong and how to fix it.

Brooke examines the current arguments over ownership and intellectual property with the help of a chair that collapses after just eight uses.

Sending a petition to your government is as old as politics, but what the Obama Administration is doing with its We the People site is novel. Brooke talks with Time Magazine White House Correspondent Michael Scherer about how the site is allowing the administration to communicate with some of its most fierce opponents.

 

Los Lobos - Las Amarillas 

Aasif Mandvi is a stage and film actor, a writer and teller of stories, and Senior Muslim Correspondent on The Daily Show. A purveyor of "fake news" and an advocate of real issues, Mandvi sat down with Brooke for a live event to discuss being "the brown guy" in theater, movies, and of course, The Daily Show.

 

Ina Mina Dika

Since Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle over a century ago, going undercover has been one of the only ways to expose malpractice in agricultural and meat processing facilities. But legislation, so-called ‘ag-gag’ bills, has either passed or is being considered in about a dozen states and would explicitly outlaw undercover reporting as well as the publication of material gathered by undercover reporting.  Brooke speaks with environmental journalist Will Potter about how these bills jeopardize the public’s health and right-to-know how their food is processed.

 

 

Wishmountain - Luzocade

This month, the conservative site Breitbart.com suggested that Senator Chuck Hagel, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense, had secret financial ties to a group called “Friends of Hamas.” It did not look good: a U.S. politician had allegedly received money from a terrorist organization that's called for Israel’s destruction. Turns out though, it  wasn’t true. New York Daily News reporter Dan Friedman tells Brooke about his theory that he was the source of the rumor.

 

Tanlines - Rain Delay

Some of the coverage of the sequestration has been characterized as a "pox on both their houses" attitude towards the Democrats and Republicans who are, once again, inching us closer to the edge. Brooke speaks with New York magazine writer Jonathan Chait who says that sticking to that approach despite the facts can lead reporters and Op-Ed writers to mislead readers about what's really going on. 

Fed up with his unsatisfying job at a call center, game designer David S. Gallant channeled his frustration into a video game called I Get This Call Every Day, a game where you play a guy working an unsatisfying job at a call center. Brooke talks to Gallant about what it's like to make a game that's not necessarily fun to play.

For years, photographer Ernest Withers captured many of the most important moments of the Civil Rights movement. But, unbeknownst to everyone in the movement, he was also ME338-R,an FBI informant. Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Marc Perrusquia talks with Brooke about breaking the story and the life of Ernest Withers. 

 

Sabazz Palaces - Endeavors for Never

This election season, fact checking has become a story in itself. But what do we really know about how different media outlets fact-check their stories, and what could they be doing better? In a piece that ran in September of 2012, Brooke speaks with "This American Life" host Ira Glass, The New Yorker's Peter Canby,"All Things Considered" producer Chris Turpin and Poynter's Craig Silverman about the process of trying to get things right.