On the Media

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It's not TV it's... Mar 29, 2023

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In 2022 HBO picked up nearly forty Emmy awards — many of which went to The White Lotus. That year also happened to be the Home Box Office's 50th birthday. John Koblin co-wrote the book It's Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO with Felix Gillette. Last winter, guest host Ilya Marritz spoke to Koblin, who covers the television industry for The New York Times, about how the network came to be a critical darling, and HBO's fraught future under its new owner, Discovery+.

This is a segment from our December 9, 2022 show, Still Watching?.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Bluesky, TikTok and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

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Is Lying On the Radio...Legal? Mar 24, 2023

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Highly politicized, partisan companies like Salem Media Group have a hold on the airwaves — and they don’t plan to give it up. This week, Senior Vice President of Salem Phil Boyce speaks candidly to reporter Katie Thornton about the personalities he handpicked to spread Salem’s message and about the company’s plans to expand into the media world off the airwaves. Peddling election denialism seems to be a solid business model — but is it legal?

This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.

The Divided Dial is reported and hosted by journalist and Fulbright Fellow Katie Thornton. You can follow her work on Instagram or on her website. The Divided Dial was edited by On the Media's executive producer, Katya Rogers. With production support from Max Balton and fact-checking by Tom Colligan, Sona Avakian, and Graham Hacia. Music and sound design by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Art by Michael Brennan. With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

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How Neoconservatism Led the US to Invade Iraq Mar 22, 2023

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If you ask Democrats why the US invaded Iraq in 2003, many will say that President George W. Bush cynically lied about weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, some Republicans will say that President Bush meant well, but had been led astray by faulty intelligence.

As we pass the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, both of these narratives persist — and both distort the past, according to New York Times columnist Max Fisher. Fisher argues that the invasion was instead simply the natural unfolding of the neoconservative worldview. In this week's pod, we revisit his 2018 conversation with Brooke to unpack the hubris behind this worldview and examine how it grew from an esoteric, academic ideology into a force that still shapes American policies and minds today.

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How did Talk Radio Get So Politically Lop-Sided? Mar 17, 2023

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How did the right get their vice grip of the airwaves, all the while arguing that they were being silenced and censored by a liberal media? This week, we look at the early history of American radio to reveal that censorship of far-right and progressive voices alike was once common on radio. And reporter Katie Thornton explains how, in the post-war and Civil Rights period, the US government encouraged more diverse viewpoints on the airwaves — until it didn’t. Plus, the technological and legal changes that led to conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh taking over the airwaves.

This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.

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Silenced Samples: How Copyright Laws Infringe on Hip Hop Mar 15, 2023

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Iconic hip hop group De La Soul's music is finally available on streaming platforms, just in time for the fiftieth anniversary of hip hop. To say listeners are overjoyed is an understatement. Only a few days after their streaming debut, De La Soul's 1989 debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, soared to no. 5 on the UK album chart, even topping their original 1990 high of no. 13. For fans this was a long time coming. The hip hop group had a towering presence in the 80s and 90s, their playful ingenuity and eccentricity even inspired other greats like the Beastie Boys, Childish Gambino, OutKast, and the Pharcyde. But what kept De La Soul's tunes out of rotation for decades — and thus, largely out of the public imagination — was an infuriating entanglement of legal restrictions surrounding sampling, an art form where producers take snippets of songs and stitch them together to form sonic collages. For this week's pod extra, OTM Correspondent Micah Loewinger speaks to Dan Charnas, an associate arts professor at NYU and author of the book "Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm," about how music copyright law suppresses the artistic voices of hip hop producers.

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The Most Influential Christian Talk Radio Network You've Probably Never Heard of Mar 10, 2023

Show notes

In 2016, Christian talk radio host Eric Metaxas begrudgingly encouraged his listeners to vote for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. By 2020, he pledged his life to fighting the “stolen election” while talking with Trump on the air. Ahead of the midterm elections, Metaxas and many of his fellow talk radio hosts made sure the falsehood of massive 2020 election fraud was top of mind — on the airwaves and beyond. And while election-denying candidates didn't do as well as many on the right had hoped, at least 170 such candidates have been elected to state and national offices, some of whom will be in charge of future elections. This week, reporter Katie Thornton introduces us to the company whose hosts never backed down from the lies of the stolen 2020 election: Salem Media Group, the largest Christian, conservative multimedia company in the country – and perhaps the most influential media company you’ve never heard of. Thornton traces the company’s rise to power from its scrappy start in the 1970s to the present day — a growth that paralleled and eventually became inextricable from the growth of the Religious Right.

This episode is an adaptation of our latest series, The Divided Dial. You can listen to the full series here.

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How Lina Khan Became Antitrust Critics' Favorite Target Mar 08, 2023

Show notes

In March 2021, when President Joe Biden announced the nomination of Lina Khan to be a commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, the decision was met with a rare kind of excitement for the otherwise sleepy agency. The excitement seemed bipartisan as 21 Republican senators voted to confirm the commissioner. Not long after, then 32-year-old Khan was promoted to chairperson of the agency, making her the youngest chair in the FTC's history. Since then the tone around Khan has changed dramatically, as Republican commissioners at the agency have pushed back against what they see as a radical agenda. For this week's pod OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger speaks with Emily Birnbaum, a technology and lobbying reporter for Bloomberg, about a growing anti-antitrust movement emerging in the press and in Washington and why Khan has become its main target.

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Historical Fictions Mar 03, 2023

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A billion dollar defamation lawsuit has given the public an unprecedented view into the inner workings of Fox News. On this week’s On the Media, how the network’s election falsehoods reveal the company’s commitment to profit over truth. Plus, the story of how historical fiction became the unexpected darling of the literary world. And, how a historian grapples with gaps in our historical record.

1. Andrew Prokop [@awprokop], senior politics correspondent at Vox, and David Folkenflik [@mjs_DC], media correspondent for NPR News, on the latest revelations in Dominion Voting Systems' lawsuit against Fox News. Listen.

2. OTM producer Eloise Blondiau [@eloiseblondiau] takes a deep dive into how historical fiction became a rich resource for reckoning with our past, feat: Alexander Manshel, assistant professor of English at McGill University [@xandermanshel], and novelitsts Alexander Chee [@alexanderchee] and Min Jin Lee [@minjinlee11]. Listen.

3. Tiya Miles [@TiyaMilesTAM], professor of history at Harvard University and author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, on rediscovering lost histories. Listen .

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The OTHER Lawsuit Involving the Murdochs Mar 01, 2023

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Fox News is in the fight of its legal life right now. Dominion is suing Fox News for 1.6 billion dollars in damages over false claims that it helped rig the 2020 elections for President Biden. Dominion’s legal team draws a direct line from the heated rhetoric of Fox hosts to the January 6, 2021 protests that became a violent siege of the US Capitol. And that forms the basis of an entirely different defamation suit, filed roughly 10,000 miles away. This time, the suit was filed by Lachlan Murdoch against a small Australian paper for an opinion piece that implied the Murdochs had some responsibility in the events of the January 6 insurrection. Guest host David Folkenflik speaks with Lachlan Cartwright, the Editor at Large of the Daily Beast where he covers power, crime, celebrity and justice, to get a look into the lawsuits and what they mean for the future of the Fox empire.

This is a segment from our October 7th, 2022 program, So Sue Me.

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Who Profits? Feb 24, 2023

Show notes

The Supreme Court heard two cases this week that could upend Silicon Valley. On this week’s On The Media, a look at the fragile law holding the modern internet together. Plus, how a century-long PR campaign taught Americans to love the free market and loathe their own government.

1. Emily Birnbaum [@birnbaum_e], tech lobbying reporter with Bloomberg, Mark Joseph Stern [@mjs_DC], senior writer at Slate, and Emma Llanso [@ellanso], director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, on two cases argued in front of the Supreme Court this week and how they could impact the future of the internet. Listen.

2. Naomi Oreskes [@NaomiOreskes], professor of the history of science at Harvard University and the co-author, with Erik M. Conway, of “The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market,” on century-old PR campaign, conducted by big business, to imbue Americans with a quasi-religious belief in the free market. Listen.

3. China Miéville, a speculative fiction writer and author of the recent book, "A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto," on the ebb and flow of the text’s popularity through the decades, and what we might draw from it today. Listen.
Music:
Nocturne No.1 in B-Flat Major Op.9. No1 (Chopin) - Ivan Moravec
Ballade No. 2 in F, Op. 38 (Chopin) - Maurizio Pollini
March for the 3rd Regiment of Foot - Liberty Tree Wind Players
The New East Louis Toodle-Oo (Duke Ellington)
The People United Will Never Be Defeated - Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, Don Cherry
Stolen Moments - Ahmad Jamal Trio

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