On the Media

The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland concluded last weekend—the 26th “Conference of Parties.” After more than two decades of these promises, it’s worth wondering how much of this is all just hot air. According to the non-profit Climate Action Tracker, not a single country is on target to meet the COP21 pledge, also known as the Paris Climate Accords, and many aren’t even on target for their COP3 pledge, the Kyoto Protocol.

And yet, these summits are often still covered with breathless play-by-play analysis: all the juicy details about diplomatic attaches, late-night negotiation, and backroom deals. Which is not without value, but it’s worth asking: what are the stories being missed when all eyes are on the summit? To answer that, we called Nathaniel Rich, writer-at-large for the New York Times Magazine, who takes a markedly different approach.

Twenty months since the start of the pandemic, economic recovery has been uneven at best. This week, On the Media takes a look at one sector that’s been booming: cryptocurrency and, in particular, NFTs. Hear how a technology invented to give artists more control over their work has become a tool for speculators hoping to win big.

1. Anil Dash [@anildash], CEO of Glitch, helps explain the origin of NFTs. Listen.

2. OTM Correspondent Micah Loewinger [@MicahLoewinger] attends an NFT auction featuring Carlos Matos, one of crypto's most unlikely proponents. Listen.

3. Anil Dash [@anildash] on his ambivalence of what has come from his creation. Listen.

Music:

72 Degrees and Sunny by Thomas Newman
Eye Surgery by Thomas Newman
Horizon 12.2 by Thomas Newman
Okami by Nicola Cruz
Bitconnect Carlos Matos (What Is Love) by Psychol
Penguins by Michael Hurley
Solice by Scott Joplin
Carlos Matos (Take On Me) by Memeski
Bubblewrap by Thomas Newman
Vie En Rose by Toots Thielemans

The satire site The Babylon Bee, a conservative Christian answer to The Onion, stirred controversy when some readers mistook its headlines for misinformation. In this episode of WNYC/The Atlantic's The Experiment, religion reporter Emma Green sits down with the editor-in-chief, Kyle Mann, to talk about where he draws the line between making a joke and doing harm, and to understand what humor can reveal about American politics.

Further reading: “Who Would Jesus Mock?”

For decades, Silicon Valley leaders have been borrowing ideas from science fiction — from the metaverse to the latest tech gadgets. On this week’s show, hear why they might need to start reading their source material more closely. Also, why the midterm election results tell us so little about what’s coming next in American politics. And a forgotten behemoth of American literature gets a closer look. 

1. Paul Waldman [@paulwaldman1], opinion columnist at the Washington Post and senior writer for  The American Prospect, on why off-year elections need historical context. Listen.

2. Jill Lepore, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer; Gene Seymour [@GeneSeymour], culture critic with work in Newsday, the Nation, the Baffler, and more; and Annalee Newitz [@Annaleen], science fiction author and science journalist, on the makings (and potential mishaps) of the metaverse. Listen.

3. Paul Auster, acclaimed novelist and author of Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane, on the 19th century writer's forgotten legacy. Listen.

Music in this week's show:

Whistle While You Work - Artie Shaw and his New Music
You’re Getting to be a Habit with Me - Guy Lombardo
Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me - Ben Webster
Boy Moves the Sun - Michael Andrews
A Ride with Polly Jean - Jenny Scheinman
Gerry O'Beirne’s album “The Bog Bodies and other Stories: Music for Guitar"

700,000. That’s the latest COVID death count to dominate a headline in the United States. Over the last 19 months, we’ve seen a steady trickle of these morbid milestones in the news. They are one way to measure, and try to understand, the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world of journalism, death is a metric that’s important. It indicates significance, newsworthiness, and tragedy. But death is also an inevitable part of the human experience. This is a fact that journalist Katie Engelhart highlights in the title of her new book The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die. Brooke Gladstone spoke to Engelhart about the complicated ethics of physician-assisted deaths and the surprising parameters within which people can end their lives.

This week, On the Media takes a deep dive into the "No Compromise" gun rights movement. Its members see the NRA as too amenable to gun control measures. Follow reporters Lisa Hagen and Chris Haxel on their journey to understand how 3 brothers used a network of Facebook pages to grow their following with some startling results. 

Part 1: A World Where The NRA Is Soft On Guns. Listen.

Part 2: The Facebook Flock. Listen.

Part 3: A One-Man Propaganda Band. Listen.

No Compromise is hosted by Chris Haxel and Lisa Hagen, produced by Graham Smith and edited by Robert Little and is a production of NPR, KCUR, WABE, and WAMU. To listen to all 6 episodes (and you should!) go to NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Music from this week's show:

Stormy Weather - Franck Pourcel

Washington’s March - Liberty Tree Wind Players

Country outro 

All other music written and performed by Humpmuscle

True crime is incredibly popular. Whether it's books, movies, television shows, or podcasts, stories that play to our deepest fears and most sensational imaginations command large audiences. The genre, when done poorly, can also aggravate our misconceptions and biases about crime. But true crime, at its best, offers something most of us can’t turn down, despite our better instincts—the chance to understand a master criminal mind. 

That’s what writer Rachel Corbett stumbled upon while working on an upcoming book about criminal profiling. The former FBI agents she called up kept talking about a new kind of podcast that they were listening to—where the mobsters of a bygone era were speaking for themselves. This week Corbett, author of a recent article in The New Yorker called “Why the FBI Loves Mob Podcasts,” sits down with Brooke to talk about these new shows and who's listening.

From boosters to breakthrough infections, pandemic vocabulary is still all over the news. On this week’s On the Media, why the terms we use to talk about the virus obscure as much as they reveal. And, why the history of medical progress is filled with so many twists and turns. Plus, why a preference for simple stories has made it so hard to keep track of the pandemic. 

1. Katherine J. Wu [@KatherineJWu], staff writer at The Atlantic, on the slippery definitions of our pandemic vocabulary. Listen.

2. Dr. Paul Offit [@DrPaulOffit], professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, on why medical progress always carries risk. Listen.

3. OTM correspondent Micah Loewinger [@MicahLoewinger] speaks with Soren Wheeler [@SorenWheeler] and Rachael Piltch-Loeb [@Rpiltchloeb] about why the narrative arc of the COVID-19 pandemic has been deeply unsatisfying. With some help from Kurt Vonnegut. Listen.

Music:

In the Bath - Randy Newman

Milestones - Bill Evans Trio

Paperback Writer - Quartetto d'Archi Dell'orchestra Sinfonica di Giuseppe Verdi

Quizas Quizas Quizas - Ramon Sole 

Misterioso - Kronos Quartet

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered - Brad Mehldau Trio

Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, Joint Chiefs chairman, and omnipresence in American foreign policy for the past 20 years, died on Monday from complications from COVID-19. He was 84-years-old and been sick for years with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer. 

Colin Powell was many things to many people. A symbol of the American dream. The public voice — for a time — of the Iraq War. A so-called “RINO,” or Republican-in-name-only. A good soldier. Though widely remembered as a barrier-breaking hero by folks across the aisle, in his death, as in life, there are those who are using Colin Powell as an opportunity for scoring political points. 

Looking back at the life of Colin Powell, it is worth recalling that he was once one of America's most popular public officials, polling favorably among 85 percent of Americans in a 2002 Gallup poll. But what Colin Powell is perhaps most remembered for is his 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council explaining the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A little over a year later, Powell went on NBC's Meet the Press and essentially retracted his assertion, saying it "turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading." Brooke speaks with Fred Kaplan, a veteran reporter on foreign policy and national security, long-time writer of Slate’s "War Stories" column, and even longer-time husband of Brooke, about the life and legacy of Colin Powell.

Have you been wondering exactly what it means to Build Back Better? On this week’s On the Media, hear why political coverage seems to address everything about Joe Biden’s bill--except what’s in it. Plus, find out if social media really does turn nice people into trolls.

1. Andrew Prokop [@awprokop], Senior Politics Correspondent at Vox, on the gap between political coverage of the Build Back Better Act, and what the bill actually says. Listen.

2. Michael Bang Petersen [@M_B_Petersen], political science professor at Aarhus University, on the difference (or lack thereof) between on and offline behaviors, and how Facebook might not be affecting us in the ways we think. Listen.

3. Meghan O’Gieblyn, writer and author of God, Human, Animal, Machine, on the ever-deeper entwining of humanity and technology, and what it might mean for our future. Listen.  

Music from this week's show:

Passing Time - John Renbourn
Clap Hands - Tom Waits
Okami - Nicola Cruz
Carmen Fantasy - Anderson and Roe
Young at Heart - Brad Mehldau
For the Creator - Richard Souther