On the Media

Daniel Drucker's father died earlier this year. Daniel was excavating stuff on his Dad's computer when he found a file called JOKES.TXT. It was filled with thirty one punchlines to jokes, but not the jokes themselves. So he turned to the internet for help.

Conflicting messaging on Obamacare, why people leave fake reviews online, and India's effort to create the largest national ID program in history.

Christopher Hermelin has a project called "The Roving Typist," where he writes stories for people in the park on his typewriter. One day last summer, he found his photo posted to Reddit, and suddenly his image was the butt of jokes all over the internet. We talked to him about what it feels like to become a meme.  

Consider this a mini-episode. The final update to episode 1 of TLDR. We all found out on Monday that Pronunciation Book (along with the Twitter account horse_ebooks) were part of a collaborative stunt between Jacob Bakkila and Thomas Bender to promote their art project Alternate Reality Game, Bear Stearns Bravo. The Daily Dot's Gaby Dunn, who we spoke to for our original story, figured out that Bakkila was the guy behind Pronunciation Book months ago. In order to convince her not to publish her story, Bakkila manipulated Dunn with a very elaborate series of lies. Weirdly, many of the people in her life were in on those lies, in varying capacities. We did a follow-up interview with Gaby about living her own personal version of the Truman Show, and you should listen because it is bonkers.   

Brooke looks at ways for news consumers to filter bad information during big events, producer Sarah Abdurrahman talks about being detained at the US border as a US citizen without explanation, and Clive Thompson talks about his new book Smarter Than You Think.

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the TLDR podcast! Thanks for listening, and please check out the TLDR blog at tldr.onthemedia.org. In this episode - a YouTube channel dedicated to pronouncing words suddenly starts issuing ominous warnings, and a reporter tries to get to the bottom of it. 

A shift in the discussion about air strikes in Syria, a look at civil liberties 12 years after September 11, and why the Internet is obsessed with cats.

The media's cautious coverage of Syria, a look inside the sordid world of Washington D.C., and the pact between Hollywood and Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

This week, an encore of our special hour on the incredible volume of media available to consumers, and the incredible difficulty of making money for creators.

This week, Brooke talks to Ethan Zuckerman about where foreign reporting has been and where it's going. Also, an encore broadcast of Brooke's reporting trip to Mexico in June of 2012.

How Edward Snowden leaked information to the press, and the new baseline for online journalistic best practice, NPR's Ombudsman releases a scathing report on an NPR series, a reporter doing seven years of reporting on foot, and a pre-launch visit to the new Al Jazeera America.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post, the story of the (incredibly) difficult men behind the golden age of television, and a mysterious TV network from the past you probably don't know existed.

A busy week in the security state from Manning to Snowden, an internet security reporter being harassed by Russian cyber criminals, and a look at unpaid internships in the media.

Outing the woman at the center of the latest Anthony Weiner scandal, a new rule in the UK that would make people opt in to view porn on the internet, and the last defendant battling the recording industry over his illegal file sharing.

Discussions of race following George Zimmerman's acquittal, anti-vaccine activist Jenny McCarthy joins "The View," and American propaganda allowed stateside.