Shows / Question Everything
Question Everything
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.
Winner of the Webby Award, Ambie Award, and a Signal Special Achievement Award for pushing "the boundaries of the medium."
Episodes
Question EverythingA Listener on What Journalists Should do Better
A listener weighed in with some criticism on Substack. Brian (our host) got involved. Some advice for journalists ensued. It ended up inspiring an entire…
Question EverythingBrian Can't Stop Fact-checking His Mother-In-Law (from “Proxy with Yowei Shaw”)
After her NPR show was canceled some years back, producer and host Yowei Shaw gave herself a new title: “Emotional Investigative Journalist.” She…
Question EverythingBadass Local Journalists on How to Fight Corruption
Local reporters from around the country tell stories of using the experiences of their neighbors to confront people in power. Featuring: Anna Wolfe with…
Question EverythingWho’s Behind the Raids? A Mystery in Marion (Part Two)
A TV reporter from Kansas City hears about the newspaper raids over in Marion. Her interest is piqued by the fact that the police chief who oversaw the raids…
Question EverythingA Mystery in Marion (Part One)
On a Friday morning in rural Kansas, the publisher of a tiny local newspaper hears a knock at the door. It’s the police—with a search warrant…
Question EverythingThe Fight for Your Attention with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes
MSNBC host Chris Hayes discusses his book The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, and reckons with his own culpability in…
Question EverythingThe Hunt for a Journalist’s Killer
A group of reporters recently uncovered a closely held secret: the identity of the Israeli soldier who shot and killed renowned veteran journalist Shireen Abu…
Question EverythingFrom the Fringe Web to Real Life: How Seriously Should We Be Taking Conspiracy Theories?
Back in December, we did an episode about Pyrra, an AI-powered software that tracks sifts through the far corners of the internet – in some places you…
Question EverythingRümeysa Öztürk is Locked Up for an Op-ed: An Urgent Summit with the Student Newspaper that Published It
Where better to huddle up and discuss what to do about Rümeysa Öztürk and the chilling effect that is happening in journalism than on campus at…
Question EverythingPounding Beers in a Shed, and Other Dispatches from the War on Free Speech
Last episode we discussed the campaign to overturn the Supreme Court decision that protects reporters’ ability to criticize and investigate people in…
Question EverythingFreedom of the press is great, until you're the target
For decades, a Supreme Court decision called New York Times vs Sullivan was widely beloved by people across the political spectrum. Hailed as a decision that…
Question EverythingThe masterpiece Prince documentary Netflix won’t let the public see.
The best documentary filmmaker in America spent nearly five years of his life making a nine-hour masterpiece for Netflix. It will never see the light of day…
Question EverythingHe quit journalism to fight authoritarianism. How’s that going?
Last year, we did an episode with Barton Gellman, who talked about the war games he was running with high-level military leaders and government officials to…
Question EverythingA Rant or a Slant: When Should Reporters Speak From the Heart?
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…
Question EverythingA Teen, a Reporter, and a Grand Jury Leak (Over BBQ)
Brian tells the story of a reporting trip he took to Alabama, where two small-town journalists had been locked up in jail, that led to one of the most honest -…
Question EverythingThe News is Coming from Under the Desk… on TikTok (live from On Air Fest)
As trust in traditional journalism plummets, social media content creator V Spehar of Under the Desk News is ascendant, with over 3.4 million TikTok followers…
Question EverythingNot Like Us: How Billionaires Think
As billionaires hoard more control over our politics, it seems more important than ever to ask: What makes them tick? Four reporters gather after hours at a…
Question EverythingAnd The Award Goes To...The Circuit Court Of The Nineteenth Judicial Circuit In and For Okeechobee County, Florida
Ben Smith tells the story of the strange controversy over a journalism award that’s been going down in a Florida courthouse. Ben is Editor-in-Chief of…
Question EverythingA reporter? A spy? Or something else? Israel arrests its first American journalist.
Locked up, alone, accused of being a spy, reporter Jeremy Loffredo has to defend the fact that he’s a journalist. To the Israeli courts. And…
Question EverythingBlindfolded and Arrested on Assignment in Israel
Just a few months ago, Israel did something it has never done before. It arrested an American journalist. His name is Jeremy Loffredo. This is his story. Part…
Question EverythingWhen Hollywood Tells The Truth: with Tom McCarthy, Antonio Campos, Tina Satter, and Tobias Lindholm.
Four Hollywood directors gather after hours at a wine shop to drink and commiserate about the perils – and power – that come when you’re…
Question EverythingCan AI tell us what stories to look out for? A live experiment.
Our team at Question Everything has been playing around with a new technology that sucks up tons of social media posts, and then uses AI to figure out what…
Question EverythingGetting Ready to Interview Trump: An Exercise
A journalist tries to get his wrestling buddy to trust in journalism. You can find more work by Sam Eagan here. “Question Everything” is a…
Question EverythingSpecial Election-Eve Episode: The Story of a Story Untold
A special election-eve episode from Brian: Ruminations on a story that never was, and a late night conversation with the source he was supposed to make it…
Question EverythingWhen To Call A Thing What It Is
Brian stops doomscrolling and starts doom-living. He brings two journalists he saw duking it out on Twitter into a studio, where they debate how to report on…
Question EverythingCan Journalism Save a Marriage?
A married couple finds themselves fighting miserably over the news. So they set out on a quest for the seemingly impossible: to find a news source that both a…
Question EverythingThe Journalist and the Firefighter
How one of the most accomplished reporters of our time, Barton Gellman, lost his confidence in journalism. Sign up for our newsletter to hear the one outtake…
Question EverythingDrinks for Five: Ira Glass, Zoe Chace, Jonathan Eig, Astead Herndon
Brian puts four journalists together in a room, gives them drinks, and starts rolling tape. Their only instructions: show up with questions for each other and…
Question EverythingThe Critic
Brian talks to a fellow journalist who called his most well-known work “morally indefensible.” You can read Gay Alcorn’s column here…
Question EverythingQuestion Everything is out now!
Journalist Brian Reed of S-Town is questioning everything, even his own work. Season premiere Sept 12. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.