On the Media

A few years ago, Brooke spoke with the writer Paul Ford about the remarkable connection between Bing Crosby, magnetic tape, Nazi technology, and the computer hard drive. We're putting it down the podcast feed again this week, just before the Thanksgiving

In the months leading up to the election, some fake news stories generated more engagement on Facebook than real news stories. We consider the landscape of misinformation and how to separate truth from fiction. Plus: Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategis

According to The Washington Post, more than 800 people have been shot and killed by police officers in the United States this year. As videos of many of these shootings-- especially ones depicting confrontations between police officers and black men-- go

The press didn’t see it coming. Or did they? This week, we examine the role of data – and delusion – in this election. Nate Silver reflects on the promise and pitfalls of polling, and Zachary Karabell discusses how financial indicators gloss over the gri

It's the morning after in the offices of On the Media. Usually editorial meetings take place in Brooke's office with Bob dialed in on the conference phone. This week we did it in the studio so you can hear the hosts talk about how they are feeling and ho

The months-long protest against the North Dakota Access Pipeline finally received mainstream attention this week after a misdirection campaign on Facebook, but to what end? Plus, making sense of what you've been told about Russia's role in the election;

One of the most enduring myths of HIV/AIDS history has finally been laid to rest. The so-called "patient zero," a Canadian flight attendant named Gaétan Dugas, was once blamed for igniting the entire AIDS epidemic in America. Media outlets fixated on his

The Trump camp is pointing to "oversampling" in the polls as the latest sign that the election is rigged against him. But the pollsters say that's not how polling works. FiveThirtyEight helps separate the conspiratorial from the commonplace in election p

Ever since his 1992 dark horse candidacy captured nearly 19% of the popular vote, there have been arguments over the real role of Ross Perot. Was he a spoiler candidate, stealing the election from Bush? Did he de-legitimize Clinton's victory by keeping h

By now you know that Donald Trump likes to claim that the media, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and dead voters are among those rigging the election against him. But he's not the only politician during this campaign to claim the system is manipulated to f