Reading Time: 1 minute WhoWhatWhy podcaster Jeff Schechtman gets the lowdown on the federal investigation into the death of Michael Brown at the hands of a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri. What was that really about? Was there more to it than an isolated event? In short, yes. Find out in this interview with an NAACP official what systemic issues played a role in generating the deep anger in Ferguson—and throughout the country.
Reading Time: 1 minute As countries launch cyber attacks on each other constantly, online soldiers are becoming increasingly important to militaries around the world.
Reading Time: 1 minute Just how weak is the global economy, how did we get here, and what should governments be doing to rekindle growth? Jeff Schechtman talks to the FT’s economics guy.
Reading Time: 1 minute June 18, 2015 is the two-year anniversary of the mysterious death of investigative journalist Michael Hastings. The car crash that took his life was quickly dismissed at the time as the consequence of some inherent recklessness on the part of the victim. An intrepid reporter, Hastings did indeed cover some controversial topics, but was he really a wild man responsible for his fiery demise? Here, we present an interview with a very different fellow, a thoughtful and likable person, on a more prosaic but timely topic: ways to view a presidential campaign.
Reading Time: 1 minute Blackwater may have become a symbol of all that can go wrong when government contractors outnumber trained military personnel, but what really happened in the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan? WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman sits down with Blackwater founder Erik Prince to discuss the history and future of “outsourced” warfare.
Reading Time: 1 minute Whistleblowers are often ostracized for their willingness to speak out against corruption and unchecked power. What is it in human nature that’s so scared of transparency and truth? RadioWhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman speaks with former whistleblower Wendy Addison, recognized for bringing attention to massive corruption at a major South African company and now outspoken supporter of whistleblowers worldwide.
Reading Time: 1 minute This week we speak with Richard Vague—a former credit card company insider—about what will trigger the next financial meltdown.
Reading Time: 1 minute Is President Obama’s recently announced order seeking to reverse the dramatic over-arming of police forces nationwide too little, too late? We all saw—in Baltimore, in Ferguson, in Boston—how civilian law enforcement has turned into a virtual sixth branch of the military. Where is this going? Our guest, author of a new book on the topic, shares his research.
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s been 23 years since the 1992 race riots in LA sparked by the failure to convict police officers who brutally beat Rodney King. With Baltimore smoldering, what’s really changed?
Reading Time: 2 minutes The mainstream media seems to be moving to where WhoWhatWhy has long been on the Boston bombing story. Welcome to the truth.
Reading Time: 1 minute We take a random walk through what the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights are really all about with Burt Neuborne. Neuborne is the former national legal director of the ACLU and the founder of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law School.
Reading Time: 1 minute Lawyers, money and enforcement are an ever growing part of elections in America. A new set of rules now prevail. Issues such as campaign finance, voting rights, voter ID, electronic voting and ballot access itself are now debatable parts of voting in America.
Reading Time: 1 minute Sixty-two years after the Cuban Revolution began and 53 years after they were severed, diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba have been restored. Tom Hayden, a leader in the student, antiwar, and civil rights protests throughout the 1960s talks to WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman about what this new opening might mean.
Reading Time: 1 minute Killing by remote control is already a reality, and it’s about to get a lot cheaper. Not only that, the image of a perfect, surgical killing machine presented to us is far from the reality. Tune in for Jeff Schechtman’s conversation with Andrew Cockburn, the Washington editor of Harper’s magazine.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Pioneering author, filmmaker and media reform activist Danny Schechter saw the dystopian future of the corporate media long before it became a reality. RadioWHO host Jeff Schechtman spoke with “the News Dissector,” who died last week at the age of 72, in 1998. It will surprise you just how much of that conversation is still relevant. Here’s a tribute to a friend of WhoWhatWhy—and the truth.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Criminal trials are often anything but a search for the truth. That’s certainly the case with the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tune in with RadioWHO host Jeff Schechtman for a conversation with WhoWhatWhy Editor-in-Chief Russ Baker and reporter James Henry for some essential context about the trial and the evidence being presented.
Reading Time: 15 minutes The role of Vladimir Putin on the world’s stage, from Syria to Ukraine, is complicated, and some see him as an important moderating influence on the West’s virtually unchecked power. But his role in his own country is deeply troubling. And the public is terrified, because his opponents keep getting murdered. RadioWHO host Jeff Schechtman talks to Bill Browder, who was once Russia’s largest foreign investor. That’s until his criticism of Putin forced him to leave, and his lawyer was jailed and murdered.
Reading Time: 1 minute Many prisoners say “I’m innocent,” but some really are. Every year hundreds of men and women are incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Tune in for RadioWHO host Jeff Schechtman’s conversation with authors Nikki Pope and Courtney Lance, who’ve spent years dedicated to the cause of the wrongly convicted.
Reading Time: 2 minutes The U.S. is the only home of the “American Dream,” a concept still so powerful that millions of illegal immigrants take grave risks to achieve just a tiny semblance of it. RadioWHO host Guillermo Jimenez interviews filmmaker Diego Quemada-Diez about his award-winning film examining the phenomenon, originally entitled “The Golden Cage.” It will debut on HBO this summer as “The Golden Dream.” Which is it? That depends on how you translate it.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Most people know what Hollywood agents do: but how Paul Alan Smith does it is unlike anyone else.