Bob Garfield

Every year at this time, the media report on the phenomenon of "Blue Monday," the day researchers have determined is purportedly the most depressing of the year. This year, the sad day fell on January 6th. Bob speaks with Dr. Ben Goldacre, who writes the Bad Science blog, about how "Blue Monday" is just a pseudoscientific media myth started by a public relations company.

As the New York Times launches its first website redesign in years, On The Media co-host Bob Garfield says the paper risks losing the trust of its readers with its "native advertising" platform.

In 2013, news-item virality advanced from art to science. Business models are constructed on the sharing of stories irresistible for the hilarity, or inspiration, or shock, or outrage...

Recently, Columbia Journalism School sent an invitation to prospective students saying "this is a great time to enter journalism." But the decline of the old media business model means finding a steady job in journalism is getting harder and harder. Bob talks to Columbia Journalism School dean Steve Coll about his responsibility to students to manage expectations about the journalism job market.

William Tyler - Missionary Ridge

Every year at this time, we invite Craig Silverman of Poynter's Regret the Error blog to fill us in on the media's biggest mistakes of the past 12 months. He tells Bob about some of the year's funniest corrections, and the big story that won "Error of the Year."

In a more than 7000-word piece last week, New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick reviewed the September 11, 2012 attack at a US consulate building in Benghazi, Libya, to determine, once and for all, whether it was a local affair triggered by an anti-Muslim YouTube video, or al Qaeda elements participating in a planned assault on the anniversary of 9/11. Bob talks to Politico Magazine Deputy Editor Blake Hounshell who says that, despite the definitive nature of the article, Kirkpatrick’s report won’t put an end to Benghazi anytime soon.

Young Marble Giants - Final Day

Following up on his conversation with Chris Anderson, Bob speaks with Michael Weinberg, Vice President at Public Knowledge, who's working to explain the benefits of 3D printing to legislators before regulation takes hold.

The internet has supercharged the world of fan fiction - stories written by fans based on their favorite works. Bob talks to Rebecca Tushnet, head of the legal committee at the Organization for Transformative Works, about the collision of fan fiction and fair use.

Desktop 3D printing has the potential to change our understanding of the 'ownership' of objects. Rather than buying many of the things we get at stores, 3D printing will allow you to make them at home. Bob talks with Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics and author of Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, who says the potential of this burgeoning technology is enormous. 

As announced in David Carr’s New York Times column last weekend, AOL’s hyperlocal news network Patch may be on the verge of being shut down. This news has cast a pall over the viability of hyperlocal news. Bob speaks to BuzzMachine blogger, and hyperlocal enthusiast, Jeff Jarvis about the future of hyperlocal. 

While this week's news about government data collection was making headlines, Senator Jay Rockefeller and the Senate Commerce Committee released a scathing report about the many ways the consumer data industry collects, stores, and sells your private information. Bob talks with Kate Kaye of Ad Age about why Rockefeller is putting consumer data brokers on notice.

Andrew Bird - Danse Carribe

On Monday, a DC District Court judge issued a surprise injunction against the NSA's massive metadata gathering. Bob talks with University of Chicago Law Professor Aziz Huq who says that even though the injunction has little chance of surviving appeal, it may still have an influence. 

Shigeto - Ringleader

Last Sunday's 60 Minutes profile of the NSA was almost universally reviled. But 60 Minutes is not the only outlet that has spent time at the agency's headquarters in Maryland. Brooke talks to Daniel Drezner, who wrote about his trip to the NSA's headquarters and the agency's new PR push for Foreign Policy.

Shigeto - Ringleader

Unlike The Denver Post, High Times is not a new comer to the marijuana game, having covered the beat for 39 years. Bob talks with High Times editor-in-chief Chris Simunek about how the magazine reports on the world of marijuana, and whether pot coverage going mainstream will change High Times. 

Frustration is growing in the White House press corps due to limited access to the "transparency" president. In a piece that originally aired in March, Bob goes to the White House to find out how the role of the press corps is changing under this media savvy administration.

Raymond Scott - The Penguin

On January 1st, Colorado will be the first state to allow recreational marijuana use. To cover the story The Denver Post has hired a full-time pot editor to run a dedicated pot page. Ricardo Baca is his name and despite being a longtime, experienced journalist, he's spent the last few weeks enduring joke after joke about his new position. Bob talks with Baca about the new gig and all the jokes.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center just won a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, requiring the federal agency to release documents about the so-called "internet kill switch." Bob speaks with EPIC's Julia Horwitz about the lengthy battle with DHS, and the difficulty in getting information out of the notoriously opaque agency.

"Revenge porn" is naked photos of people posted on the internet alongside personal information about them, like their phone numbers and Facebook profiles. There has been no higher-profile revenge porn profiteer than Hunter Moore, who ran the now-defunct website "Is Anyone Up." In this interview from 2011, Moore talks to Bob about his site and his lack of ethics.

This week the editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, gave testimony to Britain's home affairs select committee about the publication of information leaked by Edward Snowden over the summer. Bob talks with Rusbridger about why he was summoned before Parliment, and how the threat of prior restraint makes journalists in the UK function differently than their US counterparts.

William Tyler - Country of Illusion

Former baseball player Lenny "Dude" Dykstra has become a seemingly endless fount of stories for sports reporters who cover scandal. He's been arrested for grand theft auto and drug possession, declared bankruptcy, and been accused of bouncing a check to a prostitute. Philadelphia sports writer Frank Fitzpatrick has been covering Dykstra since before his fall from grace, and in an interview that originally aired in 2011, he talks to Bob about how sports writers can be complicit in the bad behavior of the athletes they cover.