On The Media

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Channel • 2 Shows

Politics

Politics

Updated weekly
News Commentary

News Commentary

Updated 22/08/2025

01/10/2025

Bobi Wine: The People's President

This week in Uganda, the pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine released his election manifesto to win the presidency in 2026. The current leader, Yoweri Museveni, has held power in Uganda since 1986 and is seeking his seventh term. Last year, Brooke spoke with Bobi Wine and Moses Bwayo, a co-director of the Oscar-nominated documentary Bobi Wine: The People's President. They discussed Bobi’s first bid for the presidency, the brutal backlash he has faced alongside his supporters, and why it's important for the world to pay attention to what's happening in Uganda. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

01/10/2025

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22 min
09/04/2025

Sen. Chris Murphy on the Crisis Facing Our Democracy

This week we’re bringing you an interview from our friends at the New Yorker Radio Hour. It's a conversation between host David Remnick and Democratic congressman Chris Murphy. Murphy is the junior senator from Connecticut and a vehement critic of leaders in his party who’ve taken a “business as usual” approach in dealing with the Trump administration. He opposed Chuck Schumer’s negotiation to pass the Republican budget and keep the government running and Murphy advocated for the democrats to skip the president’s joint address to congress en masse. He believes that his party has a winning formula if they stick to a populist anti-big-money agenda and he despairs that some in his party aren’t responding appropriately to what he sees as a crisis. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

09/04/2025

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23 min
05/05/2011

June 2, 2006

Chaos in the TV business, early American propagandists, a supreme blow to whistleblowers On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

05/05/2011

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54 min
18/08/2021

How Radio Makes Female Voices Sound Shrill

"Shrill" popped back up in the national lexicon in the coverage of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential bid, and again, in a 2020 race filled with female candidates. "This spike in usage is hardly a revelation," writes University of Florida professor Tina Tallon, in a piece for The New Yorker. "Women who speak publicly and challenge authority have long been dismissed as 'shrill' or 'grating.'" But these slurs are not just the product of age-old misogynistic stereotypes. Biases against female voices were perniciously exacerbated by the broadcast technology that powers radio and audio recording technology. They're designed to thin higher frequency voices and enrich lower ones. In this interview from 2019, she and Brooke revisit the proliferation of radio in the 1920's and 1930's, when our ears were trained to prefer listening to men talk, and reflect on how societal gender standards have been shaped since. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

18/08/2021

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16 min
19/07/2025

MAGA Fractures Over Epstein. Plus, What Michael Douglas Movies Tell Us About Masculinity.

The Trump administration is trying to subdue fury from all angles over the Epstein Files. On this week's On the Media, how the controversy is fracturing Republicans and firing up Democrats. Plus, tracing today’s so-called “masculinity crisis” through the films of Michael Douglas. [00:00] Host Brooke Gladstone dissects the bitter division between President Trump and several MAGA politicians and influencers over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files, and how the president is suddenly at odds with the initial source of his political momentum – conspiracies. [00:00] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Dan Friedman, a senior reporter for Mother Jones, about what we actually know regarding Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the line between skepticism and conspiracism. [00:00] Brooke sits down with Jessa Crispin, critic and editor-in-chief of The Culture We Deserve, to chat about her new book What Is Wrong with Men: Patriarchy, the Crisis of Masculinity, and How (Of Course) Michael Douglas Films Explain Everything, which tracks the “masculinity crisis” through Michael Douglas films. Further reading: “Stop Taking the Epstein Bait, Dems,” by Dan FriedmanWhat Is Wrong with Men: Patriarchy, the Crisis of Masculinity, and How (Of Course) Michael Douglas Films Explain Everything by Jessa Crispin On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

19/07/2025

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50 min
12/09/2014

Deadbeats

OTM looks at the great decline in beat reporting. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

12/09/2014

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51 min
28/12/2018

The Worst Thing We've Ever Done

After World War II, Germany and the Allied powers took pains to make sure that its citizens would never forget the country’s dark history. But in America, much of our past remains hidden or rewritten. This week, Brooke visits Montgomery, Alabama, home to The Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a new museum and memorial created by the Equal Justice Initiative that aim to bring America’s history of segregation and racial terror to the forefront. 1. Brooke talks to the Equal Justice Initiative's [@eji_org] Bryan Stevenson about what inspired him to create The Legacy Museum and memorial and to historian Sir Richard Evans [@RichardEvans36] about the denazification process in Germany after World War II. Listen. 2. Brooke visits The Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Listen. 3. Brooke speaks again with Bryan Stevenson about his own history and America's ongoing struggle to confront our racist past and present. Listen. This episode originally aired on June 1st, 2018. It was re-broadcast on December 28, 2018. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

28/12/2018

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52 min
05/05/2011

June 22, 2007

On The Media travels to Russia for an in-depth look at the state of Russian freedom of the press. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

05/05/2011

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51 min
03/11/2021

The Only Inevitability

700,000. That’s the latest COVID death count to dominate a headline in the United States. Over the last 19 months, we’ve seen a steady trickle of these morbid milestones in the news. They are one way to measure, and try to understand, the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world of journalism, death is a metric that’s important. It indicates significance, newsworthiness, and tragedy. But death is also an inevitable part of the human experience. This is a fact that journalist Katie Engelhart highlights in the title of her new book The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die. Brooke Gladstone spoke to Engelhart about the complicated ethics of physician-assisted deaths and the surprising parameters within which people can end their lives. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

03/11/2021

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37 min
11/01/2017

January Surprise

For weeks now, journalists have been aware of a dossier circulating among top officials and the media; it alleges among other things, that Russia has compromising (Kompromat) information on President Elect Donald Trump. But it wasn't until a chain of events set off by a presidential briefing about the contents of the dossier that the media felt free to talk about what they knew. Brooke speaks with Slate's Will Oremus about Buzzfeed's (and Slate's) decision to publish the anonymous (and unverified) Russia memos in full. On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

11/01/2017

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21 min

On the Media is a weekly show that uses the media as a lens to understand our world. On the Media listeners say the show is an essential companion, helping them survive the firehose of media coming at them 24/7. Hosted by Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger, the show does not do ‘hot takes’, instead offering listeners context, historical parallels, media analysis and often a much appreciated deep exhale. On the Media hosts have an eye on the nuances and details regularly missed by other outlets which helps listeners understand where they should be paying attention (and what they can afford to ignore). Our media diets have untruths woven in, and inconvenient truths left out. These are the bits explored every week at On the Media.

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