On The Media

Since many of us have retreated to our homes in the past month, we’ve been connected to each other mostly through our screens. Work meetings, dinners, catch-ups with old friends, classes, religious ceremonies, weddings, funerals. They’re all taking place in one location: our computers. And often, over an app called Zoom.  A piece of software that until recently was mostly used for business-to-business conversations, Zoom has taken over lives... and, given the company's track record of misrepresenting its data and encryption policies, that might be a bit of a problem. For this podcast extra, Bob speaks with Motherboard journalist .

Elected officials offer a flood of facts and spin in daily coronavirus briefings. On this week’s On the Media, hear how the press could do a better job separating vital information from messaging. Plus, a look at the unintended consequences of armchair epidemiology. And, how one watchdog journalist has won paid sick leave for thousands of workers during the pandemic.  1. Bob [ .  2. Ivan Oransky [ .  3. Ryan Broderick [ .  4. Judd Legum [ .  5. Brooke [ .   

Last week, roughly 400 Israelis got an alert on their cell phone:  “You must immediately go into isolation [for 14 days] to protect your relatives and the public.” Data-tracking suggested that they had recently spent time near someone who had tested positive for Covid-19. The next day, hundreds of Israelis set up a convoy of cars to demonstrate outside the Knesset, the Israeli parliament (since mass gatherings are prohibited, to slow the spread of the virus).  Protestors said that the surveillance measures were just one of a series of undemocratic actions taken by Benjamin Netanyahu's government in a power grab that uses the coronavirus as a cover. So what happens when a country faces a series of crises on top of a pandemic? Bob spoke with about what the virus has meant for Israelis in the midst of a politically polarized maelstrom.

As a global pandemic threatens to upend life as we know it, the future is becoming increasingly difficult to grapple with. On this week's On the Media, we turn to people who have been spent years readying themselves for societal collapse: doomsday preppers. Plus, how a different disaster — Hurricane Katrina — revealed inconsistencies in how we care for one another in times of crisis.  1.  As the pandemic continues to disrupt our communities and daily routines, the very passage of time feels distorted. Brooke [ 2. OTM Producer Micah Loewinger [ 3. Rebecca Onion [ 4. Vann Newkirk II, staff writer at The Atlantic and host of the new podcast "   Music from this week's show: Time is Late by Marcos Ciscar PRELUDE 8: The Invisibles by John Zorn Coffee Cold by Galt MacDermot Slow Pulse Conga by William Pasley Down to Earth by Peter Gabriel "Auf einer Burg" by Don Byron Melancolia by Marcos Ciscar  

From Miami to Massachusetts, from San Francisco to Pittsburgh to New York, housing courts are closing up and marshals are standing down as various ) discuss whether the policy changes we've seen can avert a total housing catastrophe — and whether the present crisis might cause us to ask deeper questions about housing affordability in America.