The Journalist and the Firefighter

What would it take to actually fix America’s broken journalism industry? Using rural North Carolina as a petri dish, the podcast Scene on Radio spent their latest season, called “The News”, diagnosing how American journalism is failing the public: collapsing local newsrooms, corporate consolidation, an information crisis nobody seems able to solve. In the final episode of “The News”, host John Biewen and co-host Chenjerai Kumanyika turn to solutions: how can good journalism survive, and what is the vision for a new age of robust, public interest journalism? You can hear the full season of Scene on Radio wherever you get your podcasts. 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: John Biewen, co-host of Scene on Radio Chenjerai Kumanyika , co-host of Scene on Radio Les High, Founder and publisher of The Border Belt Independent Victor Pickard, co-director of the Media, Inequality & Change (MIC) Center at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication Please support the companies that support this show: Quince OneSkin Zbiotics

Local reporters from around the country tell stories of using the experiences of their neighbors to confront people in power. Guests: 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.  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. This episode was originally published on June 26th, 2024. Please support the companies that support this show: Quince OneSkin

How one of the most accomplished reporters of our time, Barton Gellman, lost his confidence in journalism. 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. This episode was originally published on September 26th, 2024. You can listen to our follow up episode with Barton Gellman - He Quit Journalism to Fight Authoritarianism. How’s That Going? Guests: Barton Gellman Please support the companies that support this show: Quince OneSkin

Over the past few months, we’ve been closely covering the major lawsuits against Meta over the ways its apps have hurt young people.  This week, we’re sharing a special episode of "Left To Their Own Devices", a Peabody-nominated series hosted by Gen Z reporter and tech-safety advocate Ava Smithing. Recorded live on stage shortly after the recent jury verdicts against Meta and YouTube, Ava interviews NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of the wildly influential "The Anxious Generation", about his ideas for how to keep kids safe from social media -- some of which Ava doesn't buy into.  It’s a timely conversation as courts and policymakers continue to grapple with how to hold tech companies accountable, and force them to make their products safer for young people.  Guests: Ava Smithing, Left to Their Own Devices host Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation Please support the companies that support this show:  Zbiotics Quince OneSkin

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

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

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

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

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

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