Question Everything

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Every two weeks

Question Everything is a weekly investigation into how the truth gets buried, distorted, and denied -- and the ways people are fighting to make it matter again. Hosted by Brian Reed, of S-Town and This American Life. Winner of the Webby Award, Ambie Award, and a Signal Special Achievement Award for pushing "the boundaries of the medium."

3 days ago

Is A Billionaire Bromance Capturing Our Media?

Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glazer investigates the rich and powerful, and recently, she got a tip that she couldn’t get out of her head: sources told her that Donald Trump and billionaire Larry Ellison are genuine friends. She found it hard to believe – in all her experience reporting on the wealthy, she’s used to hearing about transactional relationships, not people who truly like each other. It seemed especially important to understand because in Trump’s second term, Larry Ellison has amassed enormous power over American media organizations – including CBS News, 60 Minutes, Paramount, and TikTok – often with the Trump administration’s help. Are Ellison and Trump really friends? Emily and her colleagues set out to investigate and found out way more that was going on behind the scenes between these two men than anyone in the public knew. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: Emily Glazer, Wall Street Journal Enterprise Reporter, covering the rich and powerful. Read Emily's reporting on Larry Ellison and Donald Trump. We first heard Emily talk about her reporting on The Town with Matthew Belloni. Please support the organizations that support this show: GroundNews Quince OneSkin Laundry Sauce Ultra Pouches
16 Jul

The Sunscreen Paradox

In June, disgraced former Florida Congressman turned right-wing One America News Network anchor Matt Gaetz peddled a novel and dangerous conspiracy to his audience: that using sunscreen causes skin cancer. Gaetz’s guest was Nicholas Hulscher, a prominent voice in the COVID anti-vaccination movement and co-author of one of the most prolific medical disinformation newsletters in America. Within days, this false claim had reached millions of viewers and dozens of countries – and was popping up in the comments of innocuous mommy blogger videos about applying suntan lotion to kids. NewsGuard health editor John Gregory explains how Hulscher’s false claim metastasized throughout the internet, and how he sold it to the world by twisting the surprising findings of a legitimate scientific study. If you're new to our show and liked this episode, let us suggest a couple of our other recent stories you might like "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life" and "The Talented Ms. Goldiee". Guests: John Gregory, Health Editor at NewsGuard Please support the organizations that support this show: GroundNews Quince OneSkin Ultra Pouches
9 Jul

The Sting That Exposed How Meta Endangers Kids

If you're new to our show and liked this episode, let us suggest a couple of our other recent stories you might enjoy -- check out "How Meta Is Making Billions from Scam Advertising", "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life", "The Talented Ms. Goldiee" and "Why Did ICE Lock Up This Pro-Trump Reporter?" In a windowless room in Albuquerque, a small team of New Mexico investigators created a fake Facebook account for a 13-year-old girl to target a child predator. They made posts of her losing her last baby tooth and starting her first day of 7th grade. To their surprise, Facebook funnelled adults to the account by the thousands – men who began trying to groom, solicit, and sexually harass a person they believed was an underage girl. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez says this was the moment when he realized “there is a very, very serious problem inside of this company and on these platforms.” He launched a lawsuit against Meta, which led to the first successful verdict for child safety against a social media company. Question Everything executive producer Robyn Semien visited New Mexico to attend parts of the trial and hear from AG Torrez and his team how they took on Mark Zuckerberg, and what this victory, along with a second decision still to come, could mean for the future of social media. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questioneverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez Please support the organizations that support this show: Zbiotics One Skin Ultra Pouches Ground News
11 Jun

How a Tiny Newsroom Helped Bring Down Hungary’s Authoritarian Leader

Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian grip on Hungary became a model for the American right. He hollowed out the country’s democracy and turned much of the media into a government megaphone. Then a small newsroom called Direkt36 exposed a plot against the opposition party involving a mysterious political operative, a young IT worker, a raid on a boat in the Danube and a whistleblowing police captain. A few weeks later, Orbán was ousted from power in a landslide election. Sean Cole reports on the investigation, called the Hungarian Watergate, and what it shows about why an independent press still matters. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: Zsuzsanna Wirth, Direct36 investigative reporter András Pethő, Direct36 editor Marius Dragomir, Director of the Media and Journalism Research Center Please support the organizations that support this show: Ground News Zbiotics DeleteMe
4 Jun

From Drilled: Carbon Cowboys

While we’re heads down working on a bunch of great new episodes, we’re sharing the first episode of the new season of Drilled. In it, award-winning climate journalist Amy Westervelt exposes how Republican corn ethanol mogul Bruce Rastetter sold "sustainable aviation fuel" to world leaders from North Dakota to Brazil. The problem is, his “clean energy” project does nothing to help climate change. Drilled: Carbon Cowboys follows the land grabs, pipelines, and political power stopping real progress from being made. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts, or at pushkin.fm/plus. Please support the organizations that support this show: Go to https://zbiotics.com/QUESTION and use QUESTION at checkout for 15% off any first-time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. Ground News is a platform that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias, and break free from algorithms. Go to GroundNews.com/QUESTION to get 40% off the unlimited Vantage plan. DeleteMe makes it quick, easy and safe to remove your personal data online. Get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/QUESTION and use promo code QUESTION at checkout.
28 May

‘Kick Him Off The Bench.’ A Judge in Trump’s Pulitzer Case Gets a Prize

The Freedom of the Press Foundation just filed an ethics complaint against Florida Judge Jeffrey Kuntz, who has been nominated by President Trump for a lifetime federal court appointment. They want him stripped of his gavel and his law license. Why? Judge Kuntz was one of the judges who ruled in Trump’s favor in his peculiar defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize board. The Freedom of the Press Foundation claims the judge handed Trump this victory while, behind the scenes, he was seeking a nomination from the Trump administration for a federal judgeship. While Judge Kuntz’s nomination is being considered by the Senate, we revisit an episode we first aired in February 2025 about this strange lawsuit against the organization behind journalism’s most prestigious award. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: Ben Smith, editor-in-chief of Semafor and co-host of the Mixed Signals podcast Please support the organizations that support this show: Zbiotics DeleteMe Ground News
21 May

Can a Chatbot Convince Conspiracy Theorists of the Truth?

If you're new to our show and liked this episode, may we suggest a couple of our other recent stories you might enjoy? Check out "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life", "The Talented Ms. Goldiee" and "Why Did ICE Lock Up This Pro-Trump Reporter?" Like millions of others, Gordon Pennycook’s older brother has leapt down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, and Gordon says he’s tried to change his brother’s mind, without success. Which tracks, if you’ve ever debated a conspiracy theorist — it can feel impossible to pull them back to reality. If anyone was qualified to convince his brother, though, it’s Gordon, who’s a psychology professor at Cornell University where he studies why people believe things that aren’t true. So Gordon wanted to put this question to the test: Is it actually the case that conspiracy theorists rarely change their minds? He and a team of researchers ran an experiment using an AI chatbot to rebut people’s theories. And the results were very surprising. In fact, they ended up changing Gordon’s mind about conspiracy theories, and the people who believe them. Sign up for our newsletter and we’ll share the Debunkbot from Gordon’s study, where you can test out your own beliefs. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Guests: Gordon Pennycook, Cornell University, Associate Professor, Dorothy and Ariz Mehta Faculty Leadership Fellow Please support the organizations that support this show: Zbiotics Quince Ground New
14 May

Claude’s Russian Propaganda Problem

According to the fact-checking company NewsGuard, Claude has been a very reliable and accurate chatbot. But in the last month or so, users have started complaining that it seemed to be getting slower, stupider, and less trustworthy. So NewsGuard AI analyst Isis Blachez ran a test on Claude, to see if it is actually getting worse. And running this test revealed a whole new iteration of Russian disinformation campaigns, designed for the AI-era, that are evolving by the second specifically to coerce chatbots into deceiving us. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: Isis Blachez, analyst for AI and France at NewsGuard Please support the organizations that support this show: Go to https://zbiotics.com/QUESTION and use QUESTION at checkout for 15% off any first-time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com/QUESTION for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Ground News is a platform that makes it easy to compare news sources, read between the lines of media bias, and break free from algorithms. Go to GroundNews.com/QUESTION to get 40% off the unlimited Vantage plan. DeleteMe makes it quick, easy and safe to remove your personal data online. Get 20% off DeleteMe consumer plans when you go to joindeleteme.com/QUESTION and use promo code QUESTION at checkout.

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Trailer

Question Everything Returns, Raring for a Fight

We're back. September 25th.

Brian Reed

Host
Emily Glazer

Guest
Ashley St. Clair

Guest
Gordon Pennycook

Guest
Isis Blachez

Guest
Joon Lee

Guest
Danny Funt

Guest
Kate Knibbs

Guest
Dana Ballout

Guest
Hamza M. Syed

Guest

Question Everything is a weekly investigation into how the truth gets buried, distorted, and denied -- and the ways people are fighting to make it matter again. Hosted by Brian Reed, of S-Town and This American Life. Winner of the Webby Award, Ambie Award, and a Signal Special Achievement Award for pushing "the boundaries of the medium."