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Critical Frequency

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Channel • 10 Shows

Documentary

Documentary

Updated Weekly
History

History

Updated Weekly
History

History

Updated 10/01/2020
History

History

Updated 05/27/2019
TV & Film

TV & Film

Updated 01/06/2019
History

History

Updated 10/29/2018
News Commentary

News Commentary

Updated 02/26/2020

06/03/2025

SLAPP'd Ep 1: How did we get here?

Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fact that the Dakota Access Pipeline was built, and has been making Energy Transfer millions of dollars for years. How did we get here? Cody Hall, an Indigenous water protector who was a key figure during the Standing Rock protests and was initially also targeted in Energy Transfer's suit, walks us through how things went down back in 2016 and 2017, and where this suit began. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

06/03/2025

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43 min
01/30/2020

Straight News? AIDS and Queer Media History

Queer media has always been based in a personal experience, and being close to the story role served a particular purpose in a time of crisis. Sarah Schulman, Steven Thrasher, and John Scagliotti reflect on the history of queer media, from Scagliotti’s scrappy start in the 1970s, to Schulman’s groundbreaking reporting in the 1980s, to the work of the LGBTQ press to expose the truth about the AIDS crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

01/30/2020

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38 min
07/21/2023

Herb, Ep 1: The Panic

In the 1970s, Mobil Oil had invented the advertorial and was aggressively pursuing an entirely new type of marketing, branding the company as a person with a unique personality and opinions that deserved to be heard. When public backlash threatened to undermine their approach, they launched a campaign that would change the course of U.S. history. Transcript Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

07/21/2023

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35 min
10/26/2021

S1 Ep1 | Fake Experts and Real Bacon

In this episode we'll meet the godfathers of American PR, Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, and explore the origins and evolution of industry-funded experts who shaped everything from the breakfast table to our understanding of the economy and science. Read more: http://rigged.media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10/26/2021

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29 min
08/01/2023

Herb, Ep 3: The Next Citizens United Will Be a Climate Case

In more than 30 climate cases making their way through U.S. courts today, oil companies are using an argument they've been laying the legal groundwork for since the 1970s: that since everything they've ever said about climate change was in the interest of shaping policy or blocking regulation, it's protected speech, even if it was misleading. In this episode we take a look at how those cases are playing out and the likelihood that this new take on "corporate free speech" could make it all the way to the Supreme Court. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

08/01/2023

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27 min
11/09/2021

S1 Ep3 | A Tie Is A Win

The tactic of science denial is fairly well known these days. In this episode, we dig into a lesser-known aspect: the PR strategy behind science denial, and the origins and architects of that strategy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11/09/2021

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36 min
11/02/2021

S1 Ep2 | Ye Olde Crisis Actor Myth

You could be forgiven for thinking the crisis actor myth was cooked up by Alex Jones to sell people on school shooting conspiracies, but in fact it's more than a century old. In this episode we meet the world's first publicist, the legendary Ivy Ledbetter Lee, and learn about his work crushing mine strikes for the Rockefellers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

11/02/2021

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23 min
08/01/2023

Herb, Ep 2: A Legal Strategy

Worried that all their work creating Mobil's personality and a multi-pronged issue advertising campaign to go with it would go to waste if the TV networks deemed it all "propaganda" Herb and his boss looked to the courts for protection. In this episode we follow the "corporate free speech" movement through the courts, where it got a big assist from tobacco lobbyist-turned-Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

08/01/2023

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31 min
10/02/2018

Ski Mountaineer Hilaree Nelson on Defeating Everything from Everest to Doubt, Depression, and Mom Guilt

The list of "first woman to"s following Hilaree Nelson's name are too many to fit in a podcast description. Just this month, at 45, she became the first person to ski down Mount Lhotse, a sister peak to Everest & the 4th highest mountain in the world. The woman is a machine. She's also a person who thinks deeply about what it means to be human. In the 2nd The North Face's She Moves Mountains episode, we get deep and go big. For more info visit: https://www.thenorthface.com/featured/she-moves-mountains.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10/02/2018

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45 min
12/07/2021

S1 Ep6 | How a Standard Oil PR Guy Shaped Post-War America

In 1944 the greatest threat to American industry wasn't World War II, it was convincing Americans to fall back in love with free-market capitalism after having experienced government systems that actually worked for the greater good. In the season finale of Rigged, we lay out the strategy contained in a never-before-published confidential document from the archive of Earl Newsom, Standard Oil of New Jersey's (today ExxonMobil) top PR guy from the late '30s to the late '60s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12/07/2021

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35 min

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