Reveal podcast

29:03

David Folkenflik occupies a unique role at NPR: He’s a journalist who writes about journalism. And that includes the very organization where he works, which is once again being threatened by conservatives in Washington. The second Trump administration has aggressively gone after the media in its first few months. It’s kicked news organizations out of the Pentagon. It’s barred other newsrooms from access to the White House. And Trump supporters in Congress are targeting federal funding for public media. On this week’s episode of More To The Story , Folkenflik talks to host Al Letson about this unprecedented moment for journalists, why more media outlets seem to be bending the knee to the Trump administration, and how journalism can begin to win back public trust. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Host: Al Letson Listen: Trump’s FCC chief opens investigation into NPR and PBS (NPR) Read: Meet the New State Media ( Mother Jones ) Read: The Media and Trump: Not Resistance, But Not Acceptance ( Mother Jones ) Watch: PBS and NPR leaders testify on federal support for public broadcasting in House hearing (PBS NewsHour ) Donate today at Revealnews.org/ more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram @revealnews Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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The Churn 50:19

6 days ago50:19

50:19

Adam Aurand spent nearly a decade of his life stuck in a loop: emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, jails, prison, and the streets in and around Seattle. During that time, he picked up diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder. He also used opioids and methamphetamine. Aurand’s life is an example of what happens to many people who experience psychosis in the US: a perpetual shuffle from one place to the next for visits lasting hours or days or weeks, none of them leading to longer-lasting support. This week on Reveal , reporters who made the podcast Lost Patients , by KUOW and the Seattle Times , try to answer a question: Why do America’s systems for treating serious mental illness break down in this way? The answer took them from the present-day streets of Seattle to decades into America’s past. You can find Lost Patients wherever you get your podcasts: NPR: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510377/lost-patients Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lost-patients/id1733735613 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1avleoc5U4DA7U37GFPzIH This is an update of an episode that originally aired in July 2024 . Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Instagram Take our listener survey Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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She Launched “The Daily Show.” Now She’s Fighting Red State Abortion Bans. 27:55

9 days ago27:55

27:55

The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead’s path to advocacy was a curvy one. She started out as a comedian, first as a stand-up and then working on The Daily Show . In the early 2000s, she co-founded Air America Radio, which was designed to be a counterweight to the popularity of radio personalities on the right. Today, as producer of the Feminist Buzzkills podcast and founder of Abortion Access Front, she’s weaving together politics and comedy to educate people about abortion laws and give them the tools to fight. Thank you to Abortion Access Front for the use of its video “I’m Just a Pill” at the beginning of our episode. Credits | Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Production manager: Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Host: Al Letson Support our journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Instagram Listen: The Post-Roe Health Care Crisis ( Reveal ) Read: Planning for the Worst in Trump’s Next Term: Prepare, Don’t Panic, and Don’t Comply in Advance ( Mother Jones ) Read: The Forgotten—and Incredibly Important—History of the Abortion Pill ( Mother Jones ) Watch: I’m Just a Pill (Abortion Access Front via YouTube) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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The Strike That Broke a Supermax Prison 50:33

13 days ago50:33

50:33

At 18, Jack Morris was convicted of murdering a man in South Los Angeles and sent to prison for life. It was 1979, and America was entering the era of mass incarceration, with tough sentencing laws ballooning the criminal justice system. As California’s prison population surged, so did prison violence. “You learn that in order to survive, you yourself then have to become predatorial,” Morris says. “And then, you then expose somebody else to that, and it's a vicious cycle.” When California started aggressively targeting prison gangs, Morris was accused of associating with one of the groups. The punishment was severe: He was sent to a special supermax unit at the state’s highest-security prison, Pelican Bay. The facility was designed to isolate men deemed the “worst of the worst.” Like Morris, most lived in near-total isolation. No phone calls, no meaningful physical contact with another human, no educational classes, no glimpses of the outside world. The only regular time out of a cell was for a shower and solo exercise in another concrete room. Decades later, prisoners at Pelican Bay, including Morris, started a dialogue through coded messages and other covert communication. They decided to protest long-term solitary confinement by organizing a hunger strike. It would become the largest in US history and helped push California to implement reforms. This week on Reveal , we team up with the PBS film The Strike to tell the inside story of a group of men who overcame bitter divisions and harsh conditions to build an improbable prison resistance movement. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Connect with us on Bluesky , Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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Exclusive: Trump Fired This Top Watchdog. Now He’s Speaking Out. 26:34

16 days ago26:34

26:34

Fraud, waste, and abuse: That’s what inspectors general are tasked with investigating throughout the federal government. But in his first week in office, President Donald Trump did something unprecedented. He fired at least 17 IGs—more than any president in history—without notifying Congress or providing a substantive rationale for doing so, both of which are required by federal statute. On this week’s episode of More To The Story , host Al Letson talks with one of those fired IGs, Larry Turner of the US Department of Labor, in his first full interview since being let go. Turner says the kind of fraud that Elon Musk’s DOGE says it has found within days isn’t actually possible to uncover as quickly as Musk claims. And he describes Trump’s effort to oust inspectors general like himself as a threat to democracy itself. Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Production manager: Zulema Cobb | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Taki Telonidis and Brett Myers | Host: Al Letson Read: Trump Ousts Multiple Government Watchdogs in a Late-Night Purge ( Mother Jones ) Donate today at Revealnews.org/ more Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram @revealnews Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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The Deputies Who Tortured a Mississippi County 50:30

20 days ago50:30

50:30

When Andrea Dettore-Murphy first moved to Rankin County, Mississippi, she didn’t believe the stories she heard about how brutal the sheriff’s department could be when pursuing suspected drug crimes. But in 2018, she learned the hard way that the rumors were true when a group of sheriff’s deputies raided the home of her friend Rick Loveday and beat him relentlessly while she watched. A few years later, Dettore-Murphy says deputies put her through another haunting incident with her friend Robert Grozier. Dettore-Murphy was just the latest in a long line of people who said they witnessed or experienced torture by a small group of deputies, some of whom called themselves the “Goon Squad.” For nearly two decades, the deputies roamed Rankin County at night, beating, tasing, and choking suspects in drug crimes until they admitted to buying or selling illegal substances. Their reign of terror continued unabated until 2023, when the deputies were finally exposed. “Rankin County has always been notorious,” says Garry Curro, one the Goon Squad’s many alleged victims. “They don't follow the laws of the land. They make their own laws.” This week on Reveal , reporters Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield with Mississippi Today and the New York Times investigate the Goon Squad, whose members have allegedly tortured at least 22 people since the early 2000s. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky , Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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Bird Flu, Measles, and Trump’s Ticking Time Bomb 31:35

23 days ago31:35

31:35

This month marks the five-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed 1.2 million people in the US alone. While life has returned to normal for most Americans, the threats to our health haven’t disappeared. On this week’s episode of More To The Story , infectious disease epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera talks with host Al Letson about the collision course between the Trump administration’s health priorities and our developing public health emergencies, including the spread of bird flu and the ongoing measles outbreaks. We’ve not only failed to learn our lessons from the pandemic, she argues, but we also might be stumbling into the next one. Donate today at Revealnews.org/ moreSubscribe to our weekly newsletter at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram @revealnews Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producers: Nikki Frick and Artis Curiskis | Interim executive producers: Taki Telonidis and Brett Myers | Host: Al Letson Listen: The Covid Tracking Project ( Reveal ) Read: Avian Flu Could Define Trump’s Second Presidency ( Mother Jones ) Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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The Plague in the Shadows 50:50

27 days ago50:50

50:50

Decades before Covid-19, the AIDS epidemic tore through communities in the US and around the world. It has killed some 40 million people and continues to take lives today. But early on, research and public policy focused on AIDS as a gay men’s disease, overlooking other vulnerable groups—including communities of color and women. “We literally had to convince the federal government that there were women getting HIV,” says activist Maxine Wolfe. “We actually had to develop treatment and research agendas that were about women.” This week on Reveal , reporters Kai Wright and Lizzy Ratner from the podcast Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows take us back to the first years of the HIV epidemic in New York City. One of the most influential activists for women with AIDS was Katrina Haslip, a prisoner at a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. In the 1980s, Haslip and other incarcerated women started a support group to educate each other about HIV and AIDS. Haslip took her activism beyond prison walls after her release in 1990, even meeting with leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the main goals was to change the definition of AIDS, which at the time excluded many symptoms that appeared in HIV-positive women. This meant that women with AIDS often did not qualify for government benefits such as Medicaid and disability insurance. The podcast series Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows is a co-production of The History Channel and WNYC Studios. This is an update of an episode that originally aired in February 2024 . Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky , Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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Trump’s Mass Deportations Are Decades in the Making 30:46

30 days ago30:46

30:46

This past weekend marked a major escalation in the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts, with the dramatic detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who played a prominent role in the protests against Israel on Columbia University’s campus last year. Khalil, a Columbia graduate student, is a permanent legal resident in the US. The Trump administration says it detained Khalil for what it described, without evidence, as his support for Hamas, and President Donald Trump promised “this is the first arrest of many to come” in a Truth Social post. In the meantime, a federal court in New York prevented the federal government from deporting Khalil while it hears his case. He’s currently being held at an immigration detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil’s arrest—and the Trump administration’s reimagining of immigration writ large—are in many ways a product of decades of dysfunction within the US immigration system itself. On this week’s episode of More To The Story , Reveal ’s new weekly interview show, host Al Letson talks with The New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer about the 50-year history of the country’s inability to deal with migrants at the southern border and why the Trump administration’s approach to immigration is much more targeted—and extreme—than it was eight years ago. Support our journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Instagram Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Host: Al Letson Dig Deeper/Related Stories: Did the US Cause Its Own Border Crisis? (Reveal) https://revealnews.org/podcast/did-the-us-cause-its-own-border-crisis/ Immigrants on the Line (Reveal) https://revealnews.org/podcast/immigrants-on-the-line/ The Forgotten Origins of a Migration Crisis (Mother Jones) https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/02/jonathan-blitzer-migration-crisis-everyone-who-is-gone-is-here-interview/ Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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An Atrocity of War Goes Unpunished 50:45

5 weeks ago50:45

50:45

In November 2005, a group of US Marines killed 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. The case against them became one of the most high-profile war crimes prosecutions in US history—but then it fell apart. Only one Marine went to trial for the killings, and all he received was a slap on the wrist. Even his own defense attorney found the outcome shocking. “It's meaningless," said attorney Haytham Faraj. “The government decided not to hold anybody accountable. I mean, I don't know, I don't know how else to put it.” The Haditha massacre, as it came to be known, is the subject of the current season of The New Yorker ’s In the Dark podcast and this week’s episode of Reveal . Reporter Madeleine Baran and her team spent four years looking into what happened at Haditha and why no one was held accountable. They also uncovered a previously unreported killing that happened that same day, a 25th victim whose story had never before been told. Photos from this story, as well as a searchable database of military war crimes, can be found at newyorker.com/season-3 . Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky , Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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How Trump’s January 6 Pardons Hijacked History 35:59

5 weeks ago35:59

35:59

One of President Donald Trump’s first actions as president was simple and sweeping: pardoning 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. That single executive action undid years of work and investigation by the FBI, US prosecutors, and one person in particular: Tim Heaphy.Heaphy was the lead investigative counsel for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and he’s arguably done more than anyone to piece together what happened that day. His work helped inform related cases that were brought against rioters, Trump administration officials, and even Trump himself.In the first episode of More To The Story , Heaphy talks to host Al Letson about how Trump swept aside those consequences; the overlap between the January 6 attack and the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia; and what Trump’s pardons mean for the country going forward. Check out the Reveal episode Viral Lies , in which we dig into the origins of “Stop the Steal.” Support our journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Instagram More To The Story team: Kara McGuirk-Allison, Josh Sanburn, Al Letson Taki Telonidis, Brett Myers, Fernando Arruda, Jim Briggs, Nikki Frick, Kate Howard, Artis Curiskis Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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A Decade of Reveal 50:51

6 weeks ago50:51

50:51

This week on Reveal , we celebrate our 10-year anniversary with a look back at some of our favorite stories, from investigations into water shortages in drought-prone California to labor abuses in the Dominican Republic. And we interview the journalists behind the reporting to explain what happened after the stories aired. Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky , Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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More To The Story with Al Letson 2:33

6 weeks ago2:33

2:33

From the unflinching investigative team behind Reveal comes a new weekly podcast that delivers More To The Story . Every Wednesday, Peabody Award-winning journalist Al Letson sits down with the people at the heart of our changing world for candid—sometimes uncomfortable—conversations that make you rethink your entire newsfeed. Whether he's sounding the alarm about the future of democracy, grappling with the shifting dynamics of political power, or debating big cultural moments, Al always brings his unfiltered curiosity to topics and perspectives that go too often ignored. Because, as Al reminds us every week on Reveal , when you take the time to listen, there’s always More To The Story. Find it in your Reveal feed beginning March 5, 2025. Support our journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/weekly Follow us on Instagram or BlueSky Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

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40 Acres and a Lie Part 3 51:01

7 weeks ago51:01

51:01

The loss of land for Black Americans started with the government’s betrayal of its “40 acres” promise to formerly enslaved people—and it has continued over decades. Today, researchers are unearthing the details of Black land loss long after emancipation. “They lost land due to racial intimidation, where they were forced off their land (to) take flight in the middle of the night and resettle someplace else,” said Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, an assistant professor of Africana studies at Morehouse College. “They lost it through overtaxation. They lost it through eminent domain…There's all these different ways that African Americans acquired and lost land.” It’s an examination of American history happening at the state, city, even county level as local government task forces are on truth-finding missions. Across the country, government officials ask: Can we repair a wealth gap for Black Americans that is rooted in slavery? And how? This week on Reveal , in honor of Black History Month, we explore the long-delayed fight for reparations. This is an update of an episode that originally aired in June 2024 . Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter Connect with us on Bluesky , Facebook and Instagram Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices…

Reveal

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40 Acres and a Lie Part 2 50:40

8 weeks ago50:40