Question Everything

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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."

1 h fa

Judge Compares Meta to a Factory Emitting ‘Noxious Pollution’ in a Landmark Ruling

Just hours after we dropped last week’s episode on New Mexico’s landmark trial against Meta, Judge Bryan Biedsheid issued his ruling on what changes the company would have to make to Facebook and Instagram to better protect kids. He ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $567 million, on top of the earlier $375 million jury penalty. He also mandated that Meta make unprecedented changes to its platforms, including limiting how long teens can use its apps and preventing their accounts from being recommended to adult strangers. This decision could become a blueprint for other states as they bring their own suits against Meta. But the judge rejected some of the state’s biggest demands, forcing him to wade into a thicket of questions about privacy, free speech, child safety, and the limits of what one court can do. Brian talks to Question Everything producer Zach St. Louis, one of the only reporters at phase two of the trial in Santa Fe, about the ruling. If you haven’t already, listen first to our other episodes about the New Mexico v Meta case, which led to this consequential decision – The Sting That Exposed How Meta Endangers Kids and We Went to the Trial That Could Force Meta to Change its Ways 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. Please support the organizations that support this show: Quince OneSkin
6 ago

We Went to the Trial That Could Force Meta to Change its Ways

Back in 2023, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed a historic lawsuit against Meta, arguing that the tech giant has enabled the exploitation of children on its apps for years. This year, that case finally went to trial in a Santa Fe courthouse. The state argued that Meta has knowingly harmed kids and should be forced, through a court order, to change how they operate. Meta says that these changes are unnecessary and, in some cases, an overreach of the law. Now, one man, Judge Bryan Biedscheid, is deciding what, if any, changes he will force Meta to make to Facebook and Instagram with the aim of protecting kids. It’ll be the first decision of its kind against a major social media company in the United States. We went to this phase of the trial in New Mexico, to see the testimony, evidence, and cross-examinations the judge is weighing right now as he makes his decision – and also to try and convince someone from Meta’s gigantic legal team to talk to us. If you haven’t already, listen first to our initial dispatch from the New Mexico v Meta case – The Sting That Exposed How Meta Endangers Kids. 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. Please support the organizations that support this show: Zbiotics Quince OneSkin
30 lug

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: Zbiotics GroundNews Quince OneSkin Laundry Sauce Ultra Pouches
16 lug

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 lug

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
25 giu

Ashley St. Clair is Fighting X – And Tried To Stop This Episode

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 "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life", "The Talented Ms. Goldiee" and "Why Did ICE Lock Up This Pro-Trump Reporter?" Last week, host Brian Reed interviewed former MAGA influencer and the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, Ashley St. Clair, in front of a live audience in New York. After they walked off stage, St. Clair laid into Brian over the questions he asked. She then demanded that we not release the interview publicly and asked to speak to our lawyers. Here is that interview, uncut. In it, St. Clair talks to Brian about her landmark lawsuit against xAI, the artificial intelligence company behind Grok, which generated millions of sexually explicit deep fake images of her and other women. xAI is owned by St. Clair’s ex, Elon Musk, and Brian asks her to share stories and insights from her relationship with Musk to help people understand his erratic and offensive behavior. Brian also asks St. Clair about her years as a major figure inside the right-wing propaganda machine. It's those questions that seemed to bother her most. Find video highlights of the live interview on our new Instagram account – @questionverything.podcast. The full video is available at our Substack. Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. The live taping was presented by OnAirFest. Our fact-checker reviewed this live, unedited conversation. We were not able to independently verify St. Clair’s remark that Musk’s devices were seized during French authorities’ search of X’s offices. Likewise with St. Clair’s recollection that she saw a Grok-generated image of a 4-year-old girl in a Bluey microprint bikini, and her claim that immigrants were getting on planes with boarding passes that didn’t have any name on them. We reached out to Musk and xAI for comment, but they did not reply. Guests: Ashley St. Clair Please support the organizations that support this show: DeleteMe Ground News Zbiotics
11 giu

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, Direkt36 investigative reporter András Pethő, Direkt36 editor Marius Dragomir, Director of the Media and Journalism Research Center Please support the organizations that support this show: Ground News Zbiotics DeleteMe
4 giu

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.

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Trailer

Question Everything Returns, Raring for a Fight

We're back. September 25th.

Brian Reed

Presentato da
Emily Glazer

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Ashley St. Clair

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Gordon Pennycook

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Isis Blachez

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Joon Lee

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Danny Funt

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Kate Knibbs

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Dana Ballout

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Hamza M. Syed

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5

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2 valutazioni

Critical and Refreshing

17/11/2025

Kitch btch

This podcast is one of the best ones I‘ve listened to in a long time. Journalists self-reflecting on their own profession, sharing moments from their own careers. Each episode is well thought out and feels relevant in our current political climate. Thank you for this poscast! I‘m a big fan

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."