On the Media

Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger have been doing something rare with On the Media for over two decades now: they treat the news itself as the story. Instead of chasing the latest headline, each semiweekly episode steps back and asks how and why that headline got made in the first place. You'll hear a segment on why a particular framing dominated cable news all week, followed by an interview with a reporter who spent months on a story nobody else picked up. Gladstone brings this steady, almost professorial clarity to everything she touches, while Loewinger adds a sharper edge when it comes to tech platforms and digital culture. With nearly 1,900 episodes and a 4.6-star rating from almost 9,000 reviews, this is one of the longest-running media criticism shows in existence. Recent episodes have tackled Meta's social media addiction trials, internet blackouts in Iran, and the Epstein files. The show doesn't shy away from criticizing outlets across the political spectrum, which makes it genuinely useful rather than just another echo chamber. It's produced by WNYC Studios, and the production quality reflects that public radio polish without feeling sterile. If you care about understanding not just what happened but how the story about what happened got told, this belongs at the top of your rotation.