Brian Can't Stop Fact-checking His Mother-In-Law (from “Proxy with Yowei Shaw”)

A KCRW listener weighed in with some criticism on Substack. Brian (our host) got involved. Some advice for journalists ensued. It ended up inspiring an entire segment on KCRW’s show Left, Right & Center, which we’re sharing with you here. This is the kind of action that’s happening over on our new Substack – which you should subscribe to! If you do, we’ll enter you in a lottery to join us at the next taping we do at Bibber & Bell Wine Shop in Brooklyn. We’re getting together reporters there in a couple weeks who are all covering the Jeffrey Epstein story as it has burst back into the news and is threatening Donald Trump. If you want a chance to eavesdrop on the conversation from the storage area in the back with our sound guy – sign up at questioneverything.substack.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After her NPR show was canceled some years back, producer and host Yowei Shaw gave herself a new title: “Emotional Investigative Journalist.” She started a podcast called Proxy, where she helps people who are facing unique emotional or personal obstacles by connecting them with a proxy who’s uniquely positioned to help them. Our host, Brian, recently went on Proxy, and got help with a problem of his own: something he’s been struggling with involving a member of his family. Here are the caregiving resources from Claudia Drossel. Listen to Proxy with Yowei Shaw. Follow them on Instagram: @proxypodcast @yoweishaw Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Local reporters from around the country tell stories of using the experiences of their neighbors to confront people in power.  Featuring: Anna Wolfe with Mississippi Today Lisa Halverstadt with Voice of San Diego Alissa Zhu with The Baltimore Banner Tony Plohetski with The Austin American-Statesman and KVUE Austin Lisa is a part of the Homelessness Beat Reporters Collective, which recently produced a guide on how to responsibly cover homelessness. That guide can be found here.  Sign up for our newsletter at: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A TV reporter from Kansas City hears about the brazen newspaper raids over in Marion. Her interest is piqued by the fact that the police chief who oversaw the raids had recently left Kansas City PD. So she heads to Marion to see what she can find out. And what she finds…is basically a Bravo reality series, small-town prairie style.  Part One of this story ran last week. Listen to it first if you haven’t already. Also: We’re now on Substack! You can weigh in on what we’re doing at Question Everything – make your pleasure or displeasure known – and talk to us about our reporting, the stories we’re working on. This week, Brian will share an outtake from the Mystery in Marion series – a moment of police bodycam footage that makes his skin crawl.  Sign up at: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On a Friday morning in rural Kansas, the publisher of a tiny local newspaper hears a knock at the door. It’s the police—with a search warrant. Within minutes, they’re inside his home, seizing his electronics. At the same time, officers are raiding his newsroom, confiscating computers and phones. No subpoena. No warning. And, according to legal experts, no right to do it. The publisher scrambles to understand: Why is this happening? Who’s behind it? He has made some enemies over the years, in this town of just 2,000 people.  And then—just as he starts to piece it together—something even more devastating happens. A tragedy that would make national news, and change his life forever. Part Two of this story drops next week. Sign up for our newsletter: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MSNBC host Chris Hayes discusses his book The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, and reckons with his own culpability in the corruption and commercialization of our attention.  Thanks to “Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso” for sharing this interview with us.  “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A group of reporters recently uncovered a closely held secret: the identity of the Israeli soldier who shot and killed renowned veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022. This is the story of how they figured it out. Sign up for our newsletter: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything You can watch the documentary "Who Killed Shireen?" on Zeteo. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Back in December, we did an episode about Pyrra, an AI-powered software that tracks sifts through the far corners of the internet – in some places you probably haven’t even heard of – to see what narratives are emerging from the people who post there. A lot of these are conspiracy theories, and also violent threats. This week, we check back in with the creator of that software, Dr. Welton Chang, about what narratives he’s seeing, right now, that might soon make the jump from fringe shitposts to actually having an impact in the real world.  Welton’s especially worried about the violent rhetoric aimed at one particular group of people, which has been topping the charts in recent weeks. Welton is the creator of Pyrra Technologies, and Vice President for Digital Intelligence Solutions at AlertMedia.  A listener asked us to clarify that the Romanian presidential elections we refer to in the beginning of this episode are first-round elections, meaning the winning candidate still had to win another round before becoming president. Sign up for our newsletter: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where better to huddle up and discuss what to do about Rümeysa Öztürk and the chilling effect that is happening in journalism than on campus at Tufts University with the student journalists at The Tufts Daily? This week Brian and Question Everything co-host a live event with the editor-in-chief and associate editor from The Tufts Daily – Arghya Thallapragada and Ellora Onion-De. Together they interview journalists and attorneys, including Carol Rose, part of Rümeysa's legal team and executive director of the Massachusetts ACLU, to learn what all happened to Rümeysa and why. What did her abduction by federal agents a month ago have to do with her immigration status as a Turkish graduate student studying child development, here on a student visa? Why did Secretary of State Marco Rubio say her Op-ed was cause for incarceration? Why is she still in ICE’s custody? And what happened to the constitutional protections around free speech and a free press that we depend on in a free society?  Joined by former editor-in-chief of both the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, Marty Baron; First Amendment lawyer Robert Bertsche; and senior politics reporter at The Intercept Akela Lacey; the group wrestles in real time with the gravity of this moment, not just for Rümeysa Öztürk, but for all of us. Read the Op-ed Rümeysa and others wrote that ran in The Tufts Daily a year ago in March. Watch the video of federal agents in plainclothes, forcing Rümeysa Öztürk into an SUV on March 25, 2025. Quick thing: In our discussion Carol Rose says the ACLU has filed 100 legal actions in President Trump’s first 100 days. The specific count on those is actually higher: the ACLU filed 110 legal actions in the Trump administration’s first 100 days. Sign up for our newsletter: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last episode we discussed the campaign to overturn the Supreme Court decision that protects reporters’ ability to criticize and investigate people in power. But even with that decision still in place, reporter David Enrich has discovered a shocking wave of legal attacks that is being waged on journalists in towns and cities across the country. These are often reporters at tiny, local outlets, trying to hold people accountable in their communities.  And these legal claims don’t even have to succeed - and they frequently don’t - to shut down reporters. Plus, Brian waxes poetic about the first amendment, under the night sky.  This is part two of our series about David Enrich’s reporting from his book “Murder the Truth”. Listen to part one first – it’s called “Freedom of the press is great, until you’re the target.”  In our newsletter this week – Brian tells a personal story about how his lawyers helped him fend off a legal threat. Check that out at:  www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices