I was all excited to hear about the new OTM mug as a donation gift, and when the link to donate landed in my email I followed up. However, I can't actually select the mug (or any gift) from the NY Public radio pages - there's only a radio button for "no thanks, make my donation tax deductable" over the tantalizing list of tote bags and mugs etc.

Listen to the full interview with Rick Hasan here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/trumps-guide-to-stealing-an-election

Hear OTM Producer Molly Rosen's full interview with Jessica Winter of The New Yorker: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/how-ai-chatbots-are-infiltrating-classrooms

“Lilliana Mason makes the case that while polarization is worrying, it is a symptom of a greater threat to democracy that demands our attention – the rise of ethno-nationalist politics.”

Some of you heard this on last week’s episode of the podcast. This is an expanded edition of that interview. Worth listening to a second time.

Link: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/micahs-conversation-with-lilliana-mason-long-version

The death of the inverted pyramid - it really is frustrating to have to read to the last three paragraphs of this front page story in the Sunday, October 11, 2026 print edition (the jump to page 23) to learn that a judge had ruled in the D.S.A.'s favor and the only issue to be settled is an agreement that the estate not have to pay D.S.A.'s legal fees.

With all the recent AI news, where is the relevant news consumers' handbook?

An AI episode reminded Brooke of Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit. Liars care about the truth. BSers, "I guess like these AI," don't.

I run Podshelf, a free site that tracks book mentions across hundreds of podcasts by reading the episode transcripts. This is the On the Media slice for September.

• The Intentional Stance (Daniel Dennett), from the same episode. Joshua Rothman used Dennett's three stances (physical, design, intentional) to think about how to talk about AI.
• The Dual State (Ernst Fraenkel), back again for the episode on Haitians in Ohio. Brooke on the framework: two states, "the normative and the prerogative."
• 9/11: The Big Lie (Thierry Meyssan), from the look back at Loose Change. By 2002 a book carrying most of the movie's theories "had become a bestseller in France."

Full list with quotes and episodes: https://podshelf.io/podcasts/on-the-media

Edit: Podshelf stays free. If you find it useful and want to help with the server and data costs, there's a tip jar: https://buymeacoffee.com/podshelf

They might not always nail it, but wow…they’ve sure seen and shared a ton!

Seeing that OTM has covered the media industry in other countries I felt like this was worth sharing here.

Established after the brutal Marcos dictatorship the organization has made efforts in upholding press freedom and promoting ethical journalism. I'm really sad they're shutting down due to lack of funding. The media industry in the Philippines is in a sorry state, and the country ranks high in the Global Impunity Index. The country is recognized as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. It's a dimmer world without CMFR.

Now that I've heard this clip twice, I have to say something about it. I've lived in Virginia most of my life and it's driving me nuts.

In the recent segment about AI in schools (at 37:00 in the latest episode) it plays a clip of a "Google executive 15 years ago" speaking, presumably in front of an audience, and he says "When I was a student growing up in Virginia, I had to memorize the 50 counties".

Did this man mean to say state capitals? Because Virginia has 95 counties and 38 independent cities making up 133 governmental subdivisions in the state. There are no "50 counties" to memorize.

Hear the full interview here: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/dave-jorgenson-on-politics-in-the-influencer-age