Brooke Gladstone

I’m not equipped to assess the tenure of the mayor because I’m not a political analyst and because the city is so much bigger, so much richer than any mayor. Even Michael Bloomberg. 

Next week, the story of Julian Assange and Wikileaks hits the big screen in "The Fifth Estate." Brooke speaks with Guardian reporter--and former Wikileaks employee--James Ball about the story of Wikileaks, the new film, and what it was like seeing something he experienced firsthand dramatized by Hollywood.

In Spike Jonze’s upcoming film “Her,” a man falls in love with his Siri-like personal assistant. Brooke speaks to Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist and the Director of User Experience and Research at Intel, who says that humans aren’t just interacting with their devices these days, they’re forming relationships with them

A recent study found that people will more accurately describe political realities--even if it contradicts their own partisan views--if they are paid for their correct answers. Brooke speaks to Gregory Huber, one of the authors of the study, about their findings.

Last Sunday, AMC aired the final episode of Breaking Bad. You may not watch the show, but if you’ve been hanging around anywhere online, its presence is inescapable. Fans on Twitter tweeted 100,000 times a day about the show leading up to the finale. Brooke talks with Kevin Slavin, an Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at  MIT and co-founder of Everybody at Once, who says that fans’ social media interactions are crucial to the modern television experience. 

Paul Whiteman - Love Nest

Recently, California passed a number of laws meant to protect individuals online from harassment and from themselves, but those laws have potentially problematic speech implications. Bob talks with Santa Clara University Law Professor Eric Goldman about the details of these laws, and how they can affect the rest of the country.

Paul Whiteman - Love Nest

With the federal government grinding to a halt this week, the specter of false equivalency rose up around the media landscape. The Atlantic’s James Fallows talked to Brooke about his quest to have the media stop over-prizing ‘objectivity’ and start communicating reality.

Terry Bressi is a staff engineer at the University of Arizona's planetary lab. To get to Kitt Peak National Observatory, he must take an east to west running highway, which has an in-country immigration checkpoint. Bressi estimates he’s been stopped over 300 times at immigration checkpoints along this road, which at no point crosses the border, since 2008. Brooke talks with Bressi about how he began videotaping his interactions with the border agents. (The videos have become something of an internet sensation).

Bob reads listener responses to producer Sarah Abdurrhaman’s piece“My Detainment Story or: How I learned to Stop Feeling Safe in My Own Country and Hate Border Agents.”  Brooke talks to former congressman Lee H. Hamilton, co-author of a recent report calling for reform of the Department of Homeland Security, about how the DHS can, and should, work better.

The next phase of the Affordable Care Act goes into effect next week with the opening of new health insurance exchanges. Brooke and Bob take a look at the messaging war, from the conservative ads advising people to "opt out," to the Obama administration's push to educate people about the new law, and the media's role in covering this protracted battle.

Last week the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project released a report stating that 74 percent of adult smart phone owners use their phones to get information based on their current location. As more websites and applications start picking up on this trend by launching mobile geo-navigation applications, Brooke talks to geographer Jim Thatcher about what data these apps are taking from our locations, and how is that data being used?

Night Thoughts - John Zorn

We've decided to bring you a list of best practices that will help you, the media consumer, weed out bad information the next time an event like this takes place.

In 2013, OTM producer Sarah Abdurrahman and her family (all US Citizens) were detained for hours, without explanation, on their way home from Canada. We're revisiting her story today.

Niero Gonzalez is the founder of a video gaming site called Destructoid. As the site's readers increased, advertising revenue leveled off and Gonzalez soon realized that almost half of his tech-savvy readers were using ad-blocker software. So he asked his readers "what now?" Brooke talks to Gonzalez about his search for new revenue streams.

As eyeballs continue to shift from TV to streaming online video, it remains doubtful that digital ad dollars will ever rival their analog predecessors. Meanwhile, companies like Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube continue to experiment with subscription and advertising models. Brooke sits down with Peter Kafka of All Things Digital, to ask him what the future holds for shows like Mad Men, and for YouTube stars like Ryan Higa.

This year has seen big crowd-funding successes, as films by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas and actor Zach Braff were put into production based on pledges from fans. Brooke talks crowdfunding past and future with Roman Mars, host of the show 99% Invisible, who used Kickstarter to fund his third season.

 

Citizen King - Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)

After its release in 2006, a browser plug-in called AdBlock Plus gained hero status as an open-source effort to save consumers from obnoxious ads. But in 2011, AdBlock Plus began poking holes in its filter, adding a whitelist of "acceptable ads" that it lets through--some of them for a fee. Brooke talks with Till Faida, AdBlock Plus’ managing director, about his company's policy.

 

5ive Style -- Outta Space Canoe Race

Mexico has an image problem around the world, exacerbated by stories of violence and corruption —not to mention lingering stereotypes from the era of the Frito Bandito. Brooke talks to a number of people grappling with Mexico's image problem.

Paco de Lucia & Rámon Algeciras - Cielito Lindo

News outlets are cutting back more and more on foreign coverage, even though international events obviously have profound effects domestically. Brooke talks to MIT's Ethan Zuckerman, author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection about the past and future of foreign reporting, and how he would like to do away with the term "foreign news" altogether.