You're Wrong About

Sarah Marshall has a talent for making you realize how thoroughly the media warped your understanding of events you thought you knew. You're Wrong About started in 2018 as a collaboration between Marshall and journalist Michael Hobbes, though Hobbes left in 2021 and Marshall has continued with rotating guests. The premise is straightforward: take a person or event that the public got wrong — Anna Nicole Smith, the McDonald's hot coffee lawsuit, the satanic panic, the O.J. Simpson trial — and walk through what actually happened. Marshall does the research and presents the story in a conversational, informal style that feels like getting a really detailed text from a smart friend. The show gets downloaded around two and a half million times per month, which is remarkable for something that doesn't chase trending topics. Episodes run about an hour, and some subjects span multiple installments. The multi-episode book series are particularly good for long drives — Marshall reads a book (like Jessica Simpson's autobiography or Nancy Grace's legal memoir) and discusses it chapter by chapter with a guest. These arcs can fill an entire road trip on their own. Marshall's perspective tends toward empathy for people who were publicly vilified, and she's especially sharp on how gender, class, and media incentives shape public narratives. The tone stays accessible and often funny, but there's real intellectual substance underneath. For driving, the narrative structure gives you something to follow without requiring you to watch a screen or track complex visual information. You just listen and discover how wrong you were about something you were certain you understood.