On the Media is an hour-long weekly radio program, hosted by Bob Garfield

Bob Garfield

Bob Garfield writes the "Ad Review" TV-commercial criticism feature in Advertising Age. He is also the co-host of the On the Media show on National Public Radio. Before that, he was a frequent contributor to All Things Considered. He is the advertising analyst for ABC News...

 and Brooke Gladstone

Brooke Gladstone

Brooke Gladstone is an American journalist and media analyst. She is host and managing editor of the National Public Radio newsmagazine, On the Media, and has been a contributor to The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Observer, and Slate...

, covering journalism

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

, technology

Technology

Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...

, and First Amendment

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

 issues. It is produced by WNYC

WNYC

WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. OTM is broadcast Saturday mornings in New York City (with a repeat on Sunday afternoon), and syndicated nationwide through National Public Radio and other public radio outlets. The program is available by audio stream

Streaming media

Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...

, MP3

MP3

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...

 download, and podcast

Podcast

A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...

.

Format

As defined by co-host Garfield, On the Media covers "…anything that reaches a large audience—either electronically or otherwise…. Plus, throw into that anything that covers First Amendment issues; anything that has to do with freedom of speech, privacy, is also in our portfolio." The show explores how the media are changing, and their effects on America and the world. Many stories are centered on events of the previous week and how they were covered in the news. 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 release

Video news release

A video news release is a video segment made to look like a news report, but is instead created by a PR firm, advertising agency, marketing firm, corporation, or government agency. They are provided to television newsrooms to shape public opinion, promote commercial products and services,...

s, net neutrality, digital broadcast flag

Broadcast flag

A broadcast flag is a set of status bits sent in the data stream of a digital television program that indicates whether or not the data stream can be recorded, or if there are any restrictions on recorded content...

s, media consolidation, censorship

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

, freedom of the press, the influence of 24-hour

24-hour news cycle

The 24-hour news cycle arrived with the advent of television channels dedicated to news, and brought about a much faster pace of news production with increased demand for stories that can be presented as news, as opposed to the day-by-day pace of the news cycle of printed daily newspapers...

 cable news

United States cable news

Cable news refers to television channels devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, early networks included CNN in 1980, Financial News Network in 1981, and CNN2 ...

 television coverage, media oppression, and how the media are changing with technology.

The show also addresses questions about how the media is influenced

Media manipulation

Media manipulation is an aspect of public relations in which partisans create an image or argument that favours their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques, and often involve the suppression of information or points of view by crowding...

 or spun

Spin (public relations)

In public relations, spin is a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organization or public figure...

 by politicians, corporations, and interest groups with the intent to shape public opinion. This includes an OTM feature that covers the media's use of terminologies that may engender biased points of view, and the use of hot-button issues and code words such as Michael Moore

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

, torture

Torture

Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...

, evangelical

Evangelicalism

Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...

, and islamofascist.

History

On the Media began in 1995 on WNYC as a local call-in show, hosted by Alex Jones

Alex Jones (journalist)

Alex S. Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government since July 1, 2000. Jones is also a lecturer at the school, occupying the Laurence M...

. In 1997 the show went national in a magazine-style format, hosted by WNYC host Brian Lehrer

Brian Lehrer

Brian Lehrer is a radio talk show host on New York City's public radio station WNYC. His daily two-hour 2007 Peabody Award-winning program, The Brian Lehrer Show, features interviews with newsmakers and experts about current events and social issues...

. During this period, this show was hampered by Lehrer being stretched thin due to commitments from his own daily show, inexperienced producers, and the lack of an editor. In late 2000, Gladstone was brought in by WNYC's director of programming to rethink and relaunch the show.

The newly formatted OTM debuted in 2001, and since then has been one of NPR's fastest growing programs, with more than 200 public radio stations broadcasting the show weekly.

Awards

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."
In addition, the show has won Edward R. Murrow Award

Edward R. Murrow Award

The Edward R. Murrow Awards are presented by the Radio-Television News Directors Association in recognition of what the Association terms "outstanding achievements in electronic journalism."-Judging:...

s for feature reporting and investigative reporting, and the National Press Club

National Press Club

The National Press Club is a professional organization and private social club for journalists. It is located in Washington, D.C. Its membership consists of journalists, former journalists, government information officers, and those considered to be regular news sources. It is well-known for its...

's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism.

The previous iteration of On the Media was named "Best Weekly Show" by the Public Radio News Directors in 1999.

External links

• National Public Radio Official website
• WNYC - New York Public Radio
  WNYC
  WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...
  
  Official website