Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a podcast about a family on the fringe who convinced tens of thousands of people across the globe to buy a miracle liquid made of poison, the international conspiracy they ignited, and the people who fought to take them down. Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a Neon Hum Media, Bloomberg & Sony Music Entertainment production. Want the full story? Unlock all episodes of Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure, ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge — All Episodes. All at Once....
Feb 01, 2023•7 min
From Neon Hum Media and L.A. Taco, this is Smoke Screen: The Sellout, a podcast about a politician dogged by allegations of corruption, harassment and pathological pettiness. It’s about the residents who fought gentrification even as their neighborhoods were auctioned off to the highest bidder. And it’s about a community that feels the pain of betrayal – from one of their own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Oct 26, 2021•9 min
It sometimes feels like we’re living in a time warp. Like we just went into lockdown. But it’s been four months – and the whole world is different now than it was then. After 50 episodes of Telescope, we’re checking back in with five people we spoke to this season, to see how they’re handling the new normal. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporters: Catherine Saint Louis, Joanna Clay, Tanner Robbins, Carla Green & Jonathan Hirsch Producer: Carla Green Edit...
Jul 24, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Eleven-year-old Emerson Weber has something of a hobby: she loves to write letters. And one day, she decided to write one to the person who makes her hobby possible -- her mailman. And, to her surprise, that gesture went much, much further than she ever imagined. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Joanna Clay Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis Engineer: Mark Bush Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Tw...
Jul 22, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Caitlin Doughty wants you to reconsider your relationship with death. She’s a funeral director and “Death Positivity” advocate in Los Angeles. And she believes that facing your own mortality can be transformative, even in the middle of a pandemic. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Tanner Robbins Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis Engineer: Scott Somerville Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Twitter ...
Jul 20, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Science journalist Ed Yong covers the pandemic for The Atlantic. But he also saw it coming, writing a story two years ago predicting the issues that we’re seeing now in the U.S. He reflected on hindsight compared to what he sees now and how this pandemic might end. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Producer: Joanna Clay Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis Engineer: Scott Somerville Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Twitter ...
Jul 17, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 47
As the pandemic shuttered stages across the country, playwright Qui Nguyen wanted to give schools a little bit of hope. He took his popular play, She Kills Monsters, and adapted it for video conferencing, with all new cues and ideas. The University of Pittsburgh had put on the play in 2018. They knew the show well. So they thought they’d try to revive it on Skype. How much could be different? Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Kate Mishkin...
Jul 15, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Something about these long hot days just feels off when there isn’t a baseball game on in the background. Games are about to start up again, but without any fans or most of the stadium staff. Today, we hear from a Dodger Stadium employee who has worked there every season for almost three decades -- until this year -- and what missing this season means for her and her family. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Hayley Fager Editors: Vikram P...
Jul 13, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 45
American democracy is complicated, especially when it comes to voting. Sam Levine is a journalist covering voter rights at The Guardian. As the 2020 election approaches, Sam will help us understand what is going right and what is going wrong as we prepare to go to the ballot box in November. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Producer: Tanner Robbins Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis Engineer: Scott Somerville Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot ...
Jul 10, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 44
Derrick Sanderlin was well-acquainted with the San Jose police department – he volunteered his time to train police on implicit bias. Then, he found himself at a protest where that very same police department was indiscriminately firing rubber bullets at the crowd. Derrick stepped up to try to deescalate the situation – and found that it was impossible. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter: Catherine Saint Louis Producer: Carla Green Editors: Vikram Patel &...
Jul 08, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 43
As COVID settled over college campuses, most schools moved students’ education entirely online. It was a necessary move, designed to prevent the spread of the virus. But American college tuition now costs tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of dollars. And coronavirus has, for the first time, moved students and their parents into the driver’s seat. Some have decided to sue the very schools they’d been so eager to gain admission to, demanding colleges give them some money back. Executive Produc...
Jul 03, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 42
Teaching high school during a pandemic has been near impossible. Educators are in crisis mode. One English teacher in Flint, Michigan, has spent the last few months trying to teach remotely and worrying about her students. Students who have lost family members to COVID and are working essential jobs. But she also sees an opportunity to completely change the system. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Hayley Fager Editors: Vikram Patel &...
Jul 01, 2020•27 min•Season 1Ep. 41
When stay-at-home orders hit, daycares and preschools across the country had to figure out new protocols. Some shut down. Some laid off staff. Some reopened to serve essential workers with new safety measures. We look at two early childhood educators -- Melissa Belnap in Oregon and Tanya Garcia in Los Angeles -- to see how two classrooms are adapting to this new normal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Jun 29, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Dr. Laurie Santos is something of an expert at being happy. Her class “Psychology and the Good Life” became the most popular class at Yale University. She also hosts a podcast called “The Happiness Lab,” where she talks about counting blessings, battling misconceptions about happiness and maintaining good relationships -- lessons that feel even more relevant in the time of Covid-19. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Kate Mishkin Editors: ...
Jun 26, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 39
Now that many of us are in isolation, we have to use technology to communicate with each other. But that technology isn’t always built with everyone in mind. On today’s episode, we talk about what the transition to virtual learning -- and to quarantine life in general -- has meant for one person in the Deaf community as she spends her last semester of college online. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter: Catherine Saint Louis Producer: Hayley Fager Editors:...
Jun 24, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 38
For many of us, our weekly trip to the grocery store is the most dangerous outing of the week. The place we’re most likely to be exposed to coronavirus. Today on Telescope, we spend some time with two people who are spending forty hours a week in those stores – praying that they don’t get sick. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Carla Green Editors: Catherine Saint Louis & Vikram Patel Engineer: Scott Somerville Music by Matt McGinley ...
Jun 22, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Today is Juneteenth. It’s a holiday that marks the end of slavery in America, and for many it represents a second day of independence. As the mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue across the country, journalist Soledad O’Brien gives her take on how the media narratives around police are changing and how coronavirus helped inspire outrage. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Guest Host: Catherine Saint Louis Reporters: Catherine Saint L...
Jun 19, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Social media’s role during this moment -- as we face two pandemics in the name of COVID and racism -- is cyclical. It’s both impacting and being impacted by the various tragedies that have unfolded over the last few months. To dig deeper into this phenomena, Neon Hum's Senior Editor Catherine Saint Louis speaks with Slate Magazine reporter Julia Craven about what we're seeing online with white people confronting their whiteness -- how it's different, how it's the same, and whether or not things ...
Jun 17, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Two activists share their journeys of leading anti-racism protests in response to the killing of George Floyd. KC Short -- an Army veteran based near San Diego -- quickly learned the ins and outs of organizing protests. Melina Abdullah, a longtime organizer and the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, juggles her efforts to defund the LAPD with the overwhelming response to thousands of people joining the protests she’s leading. Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Guest Host & Managi...
Jun 15, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Zach Stafford rose like a comet through the media, going from Huffington Post blogger to Editor-In-Chief of The Advocate magazine in just a few short years. As a Black gay man, Zach’s identity has driven him to fight the systemic problems in our society. Now, he wants LGBTQ Pride to meet the moment and stand up against police brutality. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Tanner Robbins Editors: Catherine Saint Louis, Vikram Pate...
Jun 05, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 33
Jonathan Hirsch and Seth Fischer tell the stories of their fathers. How their robust intellects fell to late-life mental illnesses. And how living in an elder-care facility made them especially vulnerable to the coronavirus. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Producer: Kate Mishkin Editors: Catherine Saint Louis, Vikram Patel Engineer: Mark Bush Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to ...
Jun 03, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Olympic fencers Ysaora Thibus and Race Imboden were set to compete in the most important matches of their careers at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. But when the coronavirus postponed the Games until July 2021, the couple had to scrap their plans and make new ones. Now they have to figure out how to train while sheltering in place in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away from their training facility in Italy. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Re...
Jun 01, 2020•25 min•Season 1Ep. 31
As we all prepare for summer, we’re trying to decide what is safe and what isn’t safe to do. Joel Stein has been reporting on wealth disparities, risk analysis, and whether or not we trust experts to tell us what to do next. And according to his reporting, it seems like we aren’t going through this moment together. Our different circumstances -- jobs, living situations, mayors -- change how we experience this pandemic. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante...
May 29, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Live sports is one of the many things that’s halted during the pandemic. But recently ESPN the got rights to air South Korean baseball games. Dan Kurtz, a superfan, explains why the KBO is worth watching -- and why it holds a special place in his heart. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Joanna Clay Editor: Vikram Patel Engineer: Mark Bush Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhu...
May 27, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 29
During the coronavirus pandemic, most non-essential business have taken a hit. But there are always exceptions. And Todd Thornbury’s hot tub business in Southern California happens to be one of the more fascinating ones. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Natalie Rinn Editors: Vikram Patel & Jonathan Hirsch Engineer: Scott Somerville Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhumm...
May 25, 2020•24 min•Season 1Ep. 28
When Sam Sanders isn’t hosting NPR's "It’s Been A Minute," he’s watching TV and movies, reading books, and doing research for interviews with high profile celebrities. In quarantine, all of it has gotten to be a bit much. It’s made him realize that even before quarantine he was cramming too much stuff into his day. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Tanner Robbins Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis Engineer: Scott...
May 22, 2020•20 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Layla Besson is a special education teacher, and a mother of three boys. She’s well-organized, resourceful – knows how to juggle. But then, the lockdown started. And everything fell apart. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Carla Green Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis Engineer: Mark Bush Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected wi...
May 20, 2020•23 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Self-isolating has inevitably changed the dynamic of every household, but what are the particular nuances involved with quarantined roommates right now? On this episode, we explore three different roommate relationships to try and figure out how people are managing the highs and lows of isolating with housemates. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Mary Knauf Editor: Vikram Patel Engineer: Scott Somerville Music: Matt McGinley &a...
May 18, 2020•21 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Singer-songwriter Greyson Chance was preparing for one of the most exciting moments of his career, which included a world tour and a new album. When the pandemic hit, he felt like all his momentum deflated. But Greyson has found other ways to bring joy and music to his fans while back home in Oklahoma City. You can find Greyson's new single, "Honeysuckle," and more of his music here: https://greysonchancemusic.com/ And you can find Sarah Ramey's book, "The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illn...
May 15, 2020•18 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Scott Duvall and his family, from Athens, Georgia, have been sheltering in place since before the stay at home order came down from Governor Brian Kemp. And in the weeks that followed, Scott realized he and his wife weren’t just processing this new normal -- but so were his three kids. COVID-19 proved to be a reality he couldn’t completely shelter them from. Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch Managing Producer: John Asante Reporter & Producer: Joanna Clay Editors: Vikram Patel, C...
May 13, 2020•22 min•Season 1Ep. 23
