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Question Everything

Question Everything

Brian Reed 72 Episodes Jun 11, 2026

Question Everything is a weekly investigation into how the truth gets buried, distorted, and denied, and the ways people are fighting to make it matter again. Hosted by Brian Reed, of S-Town and This American Life. The podcast has won a Webby Award, an Ambie Award, and a Signal Special Achievement Award for pushing the boundaries of the medium.

Episodes

How a Tiny Newsroom Helped Bring Down Hungary’s Authoritarian Leader Jun 11, 2026 2841 Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian grip on Hungary became a model for the American right. He hollowed out the country’s democracy and turned much of the media into a government megaphone. Then a small newsroom called Direkt36 exposed a plot against the opposition party involving a mysterious political operative, a young IT worker, a raid on a boat in the Danube an
From Drilled: Carbon Cowboys Jun 4, 2026 1896 While we’re heads down working on a bunch of great new episodes, we’re sharing the first episode of the new season of Drilled. In it, award-winning climate journalist Amy Westervelt exposes how Republican corn ethanol mogul Bruce Rastetter sold "sustainable aviation fuel" to world leaders from North Dakota to Brazil. The problem is, his “clean energy” p
‘Kick Him Off The Bench.’ A Judge in Trump’s Pulitzer Case Gets a Prize May 28, 2026 2386 The Freedom of the Press Foundation just filed an ethics complaint against Florida Judge Jeffrey Kuntz, who has been nominated by President Trump for a lifetime federal court appointment. They want him stripped of his gavel and his law license. Why? Judge Kuntz was one of the judges who ruled in Trump’s favor in his peculiar defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize
Can a Chatbot Convince Conspiracy Theorists of the Truth? May 21, 2026 1609 Like millions of others, Gordon Pennycook’s older brother has leapt down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, and Gordon says he’s tried to change his brother’s mind, without success. Which tracks, if you’ve ever debated a conspiracy theorist — it can feel impossible to pull them back to reality.  If anyone was qualified to convince his br
Claude’s Russian Propaganda Problem May 14, 2026 1907 According to the fact-checking company NewsGuard, Claude has been a very reliable and accurate chatbot. But in the last month or so, users have started complaining that it seemed to be getting slower, stupider, and less trustworthy. So NewsGuard AI analyst Isis Blachez ran a test on Claude, to see if it is actually getting worse. And running this test revealed a whole new iter
Did FEMA Really Build a Secret Lair in a Mountain? May 7, 2026 3103 The first episode of a special series from On The Media’s Micah Loewinger about how a seemingly benign and important agency, FEMA, has become the subject of some of the wildest conspiracy theories. FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) is supposed to keep Americans safe from wildfires, hurricanes, and nuclear disasters. So why has it become so profoundly distrus
ICE Jailed a Student for an Op-Ed, Now She’s Left America Apr 30, 2026 4996 In recent days, we learned that Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University grad student who was snatched off the street by masked ICE agents last year and locked up for more than a month, has had enough of America, and moved home to Turkey. The U.S. government had continued to threaten her with legal proceedings and deportation, even after releasing her from detention
You Can Bet on Everything Now. What Could Go Wrong? Apr 23, 2026 2897 Gambling is infiltrating American life. Ads for online sportsbooks are everywhere. Prediction markets – which are not legally considered gambling – now allow betting on everything from the unemployment numbers, to the war in Iran, to how many times Elon Musk will tweet this week. Lots of news outlets are getting in on the action: CNN, CNBC, the AP, and others are p
The Story She Reported, the View She Buried Apr 16, 2026 2394 It’s easy to get frustrated with the charade reporters are supposed to keep up, where they pretend they don’t have opinions or feelings or any kind of human thoughts about a story they’re reporting. Plenty of journalists have been trying to break out of that charade. But the decision to do that: it can be a fraught one, with real implications.  This week
I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life Apr 9, 2026 2578 Taylor Little was 11 years old when they lied about their age to sign up for Instagram. Now, 13 years later, they’re one of thousands of people suing the company, accusing Instagram of purposely addicting them as a child and driving them to years of mental health struggles.  Taylor takes Brian inside their dark and twisted experience with the app. They say it all st
Meta Knew They Were Addicting Kids. Now They’re Paying for It. Apr 2, 2026 1957 In the span of two days, juries handed down landmark verdicts against Meta and Google. In New Mexico, a jury ordered Meta to pay the state $375 million for failing to protect young people from predators on Instagram. And in Los Angeles, a jury found that Meta and Google knowingly designed social media platforms that addicted a young girl, causing depression, body dysmorphia, a
A Video So Real It Looks Fake Mar 26, 2026 1694 Brian sits down with expert fact-checker Sofia Rubinson who spends hours every day tracking lies online, and together they dissect a single lie that’s been rocketing around the world to millions of people, affecting the way people think about the war in Iran — including the world’s biggest podcaster.  Sofia says the AI deepfakes she’s seen consume

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