Brooke Gladstone

Host, On The Media

Brooke Gladstone appears in the following:

Threats in Cyberspace

Friday, June 20, 2014

The Supreme Court will hear a case involving Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man serving jail time for posting death threats against his wife on Facebook. Elonis says he didn’t mean it literally, and it’s up to the High Court to decide if that distinction matters. Brooke talks with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick about the impact this case could have on how violent speech online is viewed in the eyes of the law.

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Your Morals Depend on Language

Friday, June 20, 2014

Would you sacrifice one person to save the lives of five others? Your answer may depend on whether you consider the problem in your native tongue or a secondary one.

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Extremist Social Media

Friday, June 20, 2014

ISIS and its brutal offensive in Iraq has left the media reeling. But social media has become another battleground. Intelwire.com editor J.M. Berger has been tracking ISIS on social media for the last year, and he talks with Brooke about how the group's online strategy is better honed than its extremist competitors.

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ISIS on the TV Screen

Friday, June 20, 2014

As ISIS storms through Iraq, its allies and enemies wage an information war on television. Elliott Colla, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown and author of the crime novel, Baghdad Central, has been watching the events unfold onscreen alongside his wife's Iraqi family, who recently resettled from Baghdad to Amman. Colla reads part of his essay, “Watching ISIS on TV,” published in the online magazine Jadaliyya, and talks with Brooke about the origins of Iraq's frenzied media landscape.

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A Prisoner Dilemma

Friday, June 13, 2014

The exchange of American POW Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo has set off a political firestorm whose flames have been fanned by wild speculation in the absence of clear facts. Brooke wades through the breathless conjecture to ponder what's really behind this controversy.

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Trying to Make it News

Friday, June 13, 2014

For years the Sudanese government has been waging a bombing campaign against civilians in Nuba, a region in the country's South. The conflict has gone unreported by most media outlets, except one: Nuba Reports. Brooke talks with the site's founder, Ryan Boyette, about his efforts to bring global attention to the crisis. 

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Failing the Turing Test

Friday, June 13, 2014

It was widely reported this week that for the first time ever, a computer program had passed the "Turing Test." The trouble is, the story was a sham. Brooke talks with Tech Dirt's Mike Masnick about how the media should have known better. 

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He Didn’t Jump on the Couch!

Friday, June 06, 2014

On May 23rd, 2005, Tom Cruise was on Oprah to talk about his new movie. But Oprah wanted to hear about his new relationship, with Katie Holmes. The freeze frame from that interview, of Cruise apparently jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch, is now enshrined in pop culture history, and has tarnished the mega-star’s reputation. Trouble is, it never actually happened. Brooke talks to Amy Nicholson, head film critic for the LA Weekly, about the incident.

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A Year of Snowden

Friday, June 06, 2014

On the one-year anniversary of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks, Brooke reflects on the man who set off a global debate about surveillance and the right to privacy, and whose personal saga ...

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Our Digital Afterlives

Friday, June 06, 2014

After a loved one passes away, accessing his or her Facebook profile, emails, and other “digital assets” often puts family members in a legal bind. But there’s a robust array of online services tailor-made for people who want to control the future of their own digital content, pre-mortem. Brooke talks with Evan Carroll, co-author of the book, Your Digital Afterlife, about the potential for these services to change the way we think about death.

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Reflecting on Nerd Culture

Friday, May 30, 2014

Is discussing a persistent global horror, violence against women, appropriate in the wake of one angry lunatic’s rampage? Absolutely, argues actor, writer and former Jeopardy champion...

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Managing the Media After Tragedy

Friday, May 30, 2014

Following last week’s massacre, residents of Isla Vista were confronted with misery of another kind: the constant presence of television news cameras, reporters, and broadcast vans in the midst of the grieving community. But in the aftermath of such tragedy, the media can play a crucial role in helping those affected make something meaningful out of their devastating loss. As Karen Duffin reported last fall, the template for that kind of PR savvy was established back in 1999, after the massacre at Columbine High School.

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#YesAllWomen

Friday, May 30, 2014

Amid revelations of Elliot Rodger's deep-seated anger and resentment toward women, Internet activists crafted a counter-narrative with the hashtag #YesAllWomen. It has created a catalog of stories about what not all men do, but what most women fear: male violence. Brooke talks with Deanna Zandt, co-creator of the Tumblr "When Women Refuse", about the potency of the hashtag to shed light on everyday misogyny. 

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Clock Your Sleep: Winner Crowned

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The results of the two-week sleep team challenge are in, and a winner will be crowned. Tune in to hear which team won - was it team Digital Detox, led by New Tech City's Manoush Zomorodi? The Vice Squad, captained by On the Media's PJ Vogt and Brooke Gladstone? Or was it Rock Your Routine, led by The Takeaway host John Hockenberry

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9/11 Enters the Realm of Museum

Friday, May 23, 2014

The opening of the 9/11 Memorial Museum on the footprint of the twin towers marks a new phase of remembering the events of that day and their ongoing impact. Brooke and producer Meara...

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What’s a Health Journalist To Do?

Friday, May 23, 2014

Resveratrol is a chemical in red wine that, over the years, has been both heralded as heart healing and dismissed as bogus by the media. While this head-spinning trajectory is the nor...

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Battle of the Zzzzs: The Home Stretch

Thursday, May 22, 2014

As part of WNYC's Clock Your Sleep project, WNYC hosts have been leading teams competing to get more sleep by trying different strategies. Hear how it's going and who's winning in the...

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Clock Your Sleep: Battle of the Zzzzs

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

The two-week sleep team challenge has begun. Follow along and Clock Your Sleep. The WNYC hosts leading the sleep teams are: Manoush Zomorodi, host of New Tech City and captain of sleep team Digital Detox, Brooke Gladstone, host of On the Media, PJ Vogt, associate producer of On the Media, co-creator of TLDR, and co-captain of Vice Squad and John Hockenberry, host of The Takeaway and captain of team Rock Your Routine. They report on their team's progress.

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Retraction Watch Revisited

Friday, May 02, 2014

Ivan Oransky is a doctor and journalist and founder, along with Adam Marcus, of a blog called Retraction Watch. The site monitors scientific journals and investigates why articles were retracted. Brooke talks with Oransky, who says that since he and Marcus started the site in 2010 retractions have become more and more frequent.

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Piltdown at 100: A Look Back on Science's Biggest Hoax

Friday, May 02, 2014

A hundred years ago, a human-like skull and ape-like jaw were presented at a special meeting of the Geological Society in London. The so-called "Piltdown Man" became widely accepted as a crucial link in the human evolutionary chain; crucial, that is, until 1953, when the bones were exposed as a total hoax. In an interview from December of last year, Nova Senior Science Editor Evan Hadingham talks to Brooke about this tantalizing example of "scientific skullduggery."

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