What happens when TikTokers replace TV hosts and interviewers, and presidential candidates start begging to be on their shows? Brian Reed sits down in a Brooklyn wine shop with four of the internet’s biggest creators: Caleb Simpson, who gets people on the street to take him up to their apartments; Julian Shapiro-Barnum who interviews kids on Recess Therapy; Anania Williams of the LGBTQ quiz show Gaydar; and Jack Coyne, host of the music game show Track Star. Their videos reach more people than m...
Oct 23, 2025•38 min
Kate grew up believing the Sandy Hook school shooting was an elaborate false flag operation. For years she thought the 20 elementary school children and six educators who were killed that day did not actually die, but were played by crisis actors. And then, one day – in a matter of minutes – suddenly Kate realized how wrong she was. Brian talks to Kate about what it’s like to realize you believed something so obviously wrong, so deeply damaging, for so long. And he argues that her story is a cas...
Oct 16, 2025•48 min
This episode of Death, Sex, and Money is a recommendation from our contributing editor Jen Kinney. When blogger AJ Daulerio broke the Brett Favre sexting scandal in 2010, it became one of the biggest stories of his career. But it came at a cost: he had betrayed Jenn Sterger, the woman at the center of the story, who had confided in him as a friend and explicitly asked him not to name her. The fallout was immediate and lasting. Jenn became the target of relentless online harassment and scrutiny t...
Oct 09, 2025•56 min
Two veteran journalists set out to document Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system: hospitals attacked, medical workers killed, doctors detained without charge. The BBC commissioned the film. Then pulled it. Sometimes killing a story is routine. Sometimes it’s a scandal, even immoral. In this episode, producer Sophie Kazis pulls back the curtain, and goes inside the edits, the delays, and the mounting pressure that shaped the fate of this film. You can watch the film the BBC...
Oct 02, 2025•46 min
When late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was forced off the air, it raised huge questions about who really controls what we’re allowed to say. From billionaires and politicians to social media platforms and regulators, the boundaries of free speech in America are being redrawn in real time. To get a sense of the country’s mood, host Brian Reed goes to the Iowa State Fair – a carnival of fried food, political rallies, and raw opinions. What he finds – people are depressed. And they have reason to be. At...
Sep 25, 2025•29 min
Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes have been picked apart in headlines, documentaries, and endless conspiracy theories. And yet there have continued to be shocking new revelations in the story this year, as President Trump’s base has pressured him to release the government’s files about Epstein. In this episode of Question Everything, host Brian Reed brings together the reporters who know the case best – along with one of their Trump-supporting producers – for drinks and a candid, no-holds-barred conversa...
Sep 25, 2025•56 min
We're back. September 25th.
Sep 18, 2025•3 min
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 segment on KCRW’s show Left, Right & Center , which we’re sharing with you here. This is the kind of action that’s happening over on our new Substack – which you should subscribe to! If you do, we’ll enter you in a lottery to join us at the next taping we do at Bibber & Bell Wine Shop in Brooklyn. We’re getting together reporters who a...
Aug 28, 2025•18 min
After her NPR show was canceled some years back, producer and host Yowei Shaw gave herself a new title: “Emotional Investigative Journalist.” She started a podcast called Proxy, where she helps people who are facing unique emotional or personal obstacles by connecting them with a proxy who’s uniquely positioned to help them. Our host, Brian, recently went on Proxy, and got help with a problem of his own: something he’s been struggling with involving a member of his family. Here are the caregivin...
Jul 24, 2025•52 min
Local reporters from around the country tell stories of using the experiences of their neighbors to confront people in power. Featuring: Anna Wolfe with Mississippi Today Lisa Halverstadt with Voice of San Diego Alissa Zhu with The Baltimore Banner Tony Plohetski with The Austin American-Statesman and KVUE Austin Lisa is a part of the Homelessness Beat Reporters Collective, which recently produced a guide on how to responsibly cover homelessness. That guide can be found here. Sign up for our new...
Jun 26, 2025•55 min
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 had recently left Kansas City PD. So she heads to Marion to see what she can find out. And what she finds…is basically a Bravo reality series, small-town midwestern style. Part One of this story aired last week. Listen to it first if you haven’t already. We’re now on Substack! You can weigh in on what we’re doing at Question Everything – ma...
Jun 12, 2025•41 min
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. Within minutes, they’re inside his home, seizing his electronics. At the same time, officers are raiding his newsroom, confiscating computers and phones. No subpoena. No warning. And, according to legal experts, no right to do it. The publisher scrambles to understand: Why is this happening? Who’s behind it? He has made some enemies over the years, in thi...
Jun 05, 2025•29 min
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 the corruption and commercialization of our attention. Thanks to “ Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso ” for sharing this interview with us. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory ....
May 29, 2025•1 hr 14 min
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 Akleh in 2022. This is the story of how they figured it out. Sign up for our newsletter: www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory ....
May 22, 2025•36 min
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 probably haven’t even heard of – to see what narratives are emerging from the people who post there. A lot of these are conspiracy theories, and also violent threats. This week, we check back in with the creator of that software, Dr. Welton Chang, about what narratives he’s seeing, right now, that might soon make the jump from fringe internet post...
May 08, 2025•27 min
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 Tufts University with the student journalists at The Tufts Daily? This week Brian and Question Everything co-host a live event with the editor-in-chief and associate editor from The Tufts Daily– Arghya Thallapragada and Ellora Onion-De. Together they interview journalists and attorneys, including Carol Rose, one of Rümeysa’s lawyers and executive directo...
May 01, 2025•1 hr 18 min
Last episode we discussed the campaign to overturn the Supreme Court decision that protects reporters’ ability to criticize and investigate people in power. But even with that decision still in place, reporter David Enrich has discovered a shocking wave of legal attacks that is being waged on journalists in towns and cities across the country. These are often reporters at tiny, local outlets, trying to hold people accountable in their communities. And these legal claims don’t even have to succee...
Apr 25, 2025•27 min
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 gave the first amendment teeth and made our country great. But recently, under our noses, some of the same people who once sang its praises have turned against it. The story of the growing movement that is trying to get the Supreme Court to overturn one of the strongest protections for speech and the press in America. This is part one of a ...
Apr 24, 2025•40 min
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. After a nasty estate battle, the series will not be released. No one will ever see it. In his first sit-down interview about this catastrophe, the filmmaker, Ezra Edelman seeks catharsis – if not closure – in the fight for truth and control over the life story of one of the biggest control freaks ever. Thanks to “ Pablo Torre Finds Out ” fo...
Apr 17, 2025•49 min
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 prepare for a second Trump term. A bunch of you have been asking us to have Barton back, to find out what he’s doing, now that the second Trump term is here. So we called him up. Barton works at the Brennan Center for Justice . “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory ....
Apr 03, 2025•23 min
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 telling. 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. Dana Ballout struggled with this on a story she was investigating about Hassan Diab – a sociology professor who’s living as a free man in Canada, yet is con...
Mar 27, 2025•39 min
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 - and surprising - conversations about journalism he’s had in a long time. Sign up for our newsletter to see some stories and pictures from a recent event Brian held in Alabama about his podcast S-Town. Including a photo of an S-Town inspired tattoo somebody was eager to show him. www.kcrw.com/questioneverything “Question Everything” is a p...
Mar 20, 2025•33 min
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. But recently, V found themself in a public dustup with NPR over, in part, how the outlet had classified V in an interview. In this special episode of Question Everything––largely recorded live at On Air Fest––Brian and V take the stage to explore the tensions between traditional and non-traditional journalism, and what the two can learn f...
Mar 06, 2025•51 min
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 wine shop to discuss – over drinks – what they’ve learned from covering billionaires for years, and how it can help us hoi polloi make sense of what the ultra-rich are doing right now. Featuring Vicky Ward, who has covered the Kushner family and Trump, and who, in 2002, was the first journalist to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s finances in a ...
Feb 27, 2025•39 min
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 Semafor and co-host of the Mixed Signals podcast. He used to be tThe New York Times media columnist and was founding editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed News. Sign up for our newsletter to read the lengthy listener criticism that helped inspire Brian to do this episode: www.kcrw.com/questioneverthing “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Place...
Feb 13, 2025•37 min
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 then…to our reporter. Part two of our two-part series about Jeremy Loffredo, who in October became the first American journalist arrested by Israel. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory ....
Jan 31, 2025•57 min
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 one of a special, two-part series. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory .
Jan 16, 2025•57 min
Four Hollywood directors gather after hours at a wine shop to drink and commiserate about the perils – and power – that come when you’re straddling fact and fiction. With behind the scenes stories about documentary romance, regret, and pirates. Featuring Tom McCarthy, who won an Oscar for Spotlight; Antonio Campos, creator of The Staircase for HBO; Tina Satter, who directed and co-wrote Reality starring Sydney Sweeney; and Tobias Lindholm, director and writer of HBO’s The Investigation. As we kn...
Dec 19, 2024•49 min
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 ideas are forming in the shadows of the internet before they hit the mainstream. Brian interviews a journalist who uses this tech, to see what conversations are brewing right now that we might want to keep an eye out for in the coming weeks. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory ....
Dec 05, 2024•30 min
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 production of KCRW and Placement Theory .
Nov 21, 2024•39 min
