Bob Garfield

The Frederick, Maryland warehouse of Wonder Book is where unwanted used books go to find a second life--as decorative objects sold by the foot to fill empty bookshelves.

Kim Barker, author of the memoir that inspired Tina Fey's new film, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, reflects on covering war in Afghanistan. 

What if the will of the electorate could be divined without polling and pundit guesswork? There may be a way.

Yes, this election year has been particularly unpredictable, but that alone doesn't let the media off the hook. After all, they're always wrong! Why? That's a bit more complicated.

If political prognostication is usually so wrong, why do we keep listening? And what makes a good forecaster, anyway?

One of the major arguments for closing Guantanamo prison has been that it is serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists. Fourteen years after it opened, how do jihadis see the prison?

Is the fight between Apple and the FBI about lofty principles of privacy vs. national security, or more about respective self-interests? 

The Oscar-nominated 'Cartel Land' began as a portrait of vigilantes fighting Mexican cartels on the US-Mexican border, but it became a study in the blurred lines of good and evil.

President Obama has made another pitch to close the Guantanamo detention facility. Congress balked. But what does the public really understand about the prison?

Marco Rubio is the perfect Republican front-runner: he has the record, the endorsements, the fawning media support. Only hitch: he's not running in front. At all.

Does the liberal intellectual press really influence the Supreme Court? 

The death of a justice has launched the Supreme Court back into the spotlight, revealing all that we do and don't know about the institution. A special look into our highest court.

Supreme Court justices refuse to allow filming in the court during oral arguments and on decision days. We consider the arguments for and against -- and the justices sing a song. 

A report linking the uptick in microcephaly cases in Brazil to a pesticide -- not Zika -- goes viral. Turns out, it's scientifically baseless. Ignore it.

As our climate changes, so spread the breeding conditions for mosquitoes carrying diseases like Zika, bringing threats to regions that were previously immune.

A Brazilian journalist says her country was slow to respond to the potential seriousness of Zika until it had a human face attached to it. But should those images be published at all?

The WHO declared Zika virus and its potential link to birth defects a "global health emergency" to raise international attention. But when does awareness shift to panic?

A "Dean Scream" is shorthand for a campaign disaster. But did Howard Dean's 2004 shriek even happen the way it's remembered? And did it really doom him? FiveThirtyEight investigates.

The new documentary Jim: The James Foley Story sets out to reclaim the legacy of a freelance journalist who many last remember on his knees in an orange jumpsuit.

Isn't it incredible how political dirt tends to materialize at exactly the worst possible time for a candidate? Actually, not at all. A look into the dark art of opposition research.