On the Media

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On the Media is an hour-long weekly radio program currently hosted by Bob Garfield and Brooke Gladstone. It is produced by New York Public Radio station WNYC. It is broadcast on Sunday morning in New York City, and syndicated nationwide on National Public Radio and other public radio stations. Additionally, the program may be downloaded from the wnyc.org website or received as a podcast.

On The Media explores how the media is changing, and its effect on America and the world. Many stories are centered on events of the previous week and how they were covered. These often consist of interviews with reporters about the dilemmas they face in covering controversial issues.

Stories regularly cover such subjects as the use of video news releases, net neutrality, digital broadcast flags, media consolidation, censorship, freedom of the press, the influence of 24 hour cable news coverage, media oppression, and how the media is changing with technology. The show also exposes how the media can be manipulated or spun by politicians, corporations, and interest groups in order to influence public opinion. Another reoccurring theme is the struggle reporters often face in using neutral terminologies that do not engender bias towards one point of view. A list of articles about such words is posted at word watch.

"On the Media" won a 2004 Peabody Award for excellence. The judges wrote that On the Media "reminds us that the messenger is always part of the message and must be examined as such." ^[1]