Question Everything

Is A Billionaire Bromance Capturing Our Media?

Wall Street Journal reporter Emily Glazer investigates the rich and powerful, and recently, she got a tip that she couldn’t get out of her head: sources told her that Donald Trump and billionaire Larry Ellison are genuine friends. She found it hard to believe – in all her experience reporting on the wealthy, she’s used to hearing about transactional relationships, not people who truly like each other. It seemed especially important to understand because in Trump’s second term, Larry Ellison has amassed enormous power over American media organizations – including CBS News, 60 Minutes, Paramount, and TikTok – often with the Trump administration’s help.  Are Ellison and Trump really friends? Emily and her colleagues set out to investigate and found out way more that was going on behind the scenes between these two men than anyone in the public knew.  Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast.  And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: Emily Glazer, Wall Street Journal Enterprise Reporter, covering the rich and powerful. Read Emily's reporting on Larry Ellison and Donald Trump. We first heard Emily talk about her reporting on The Town with Matthew Belloni. Please support the organizations that support this show:  GroundNews Quince OneSkin Laundry Sauce  Ultra Pouches

The Sunscreen Paradox

In June, disgraced former Florida Congressman turned right-wing One America News Network anchor Matt Gaetz peddled a novel and dangerous conspiracy to his audience: that using sunscreen causes skin cancer. Gaetz’s guest was Nicholas Hulscher, a prominent voice in the COVID anti-vaccination movement and co-author of one of the most prolific medical disinformation newsletters in America. Within days, this false claim had reached millions of viewers and dozens of countries – and was popping up in the comments of innocuous mommy blogger videos about applying suntan lotion to kids. NewsGuard health editor John Gregory explains how Hulscher’s false claim metastasized throughout the internet, and how he sold it to the world by twisting the surprising findings of a legitimate scientific study. If you're new to our show and liked this episode, let us suggest a couple of our other recent stories you might like "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life" and "The Talented Ms. Goldiee".  Guests: John Gregory, Health Editor at NewsGuard Please support the organizations that support this show: GroundNews Quince OneSkin Ultra Pouches

The Sting That Exposed How Meta Endangers Kids

If you're new to our show and liked this episode, let us suggest a couple of our other recent stories you might enjoy -- check out "How Meta Is Making Billions from Scam Advertising", "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life", "The Talented Ms. Goldiee" and "Why Did ICE Lock Up This Pro-Trump Reporter?" In a windowless room in Albuquerque, a small team of New Mexico investigators created a fake Facebook account for a 13-year-old girl to target a child predator. They made posts of her losing her last baby tooth and starting her first day of 7th grade. To their surprise, Facebook funnelled adults to the account by the thousands – men who began trying to groom, solicit, and sexually harass a person they believed was an underage girl. New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez says this was the moment when he realized “there is a very, very serious problem inside of this company and on these platforms.” He launched a lawsuit against Meta, which led to the first successful verdict for child safety against a social media company. Question Everything executive producer Robyn Semien visited New Mexico to attend parts of the trial and hear from AG Torrez and his team how they took on Mark Zuckerberg, and what this victory, along with a second decision still to come, could mean for the future of social media.  Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questioneverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests: New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez Please support the organizations that support this show: Zbiotics  One Skin  Ultra Pouches Ground News

Ashley St. Clair is Fighting X – And Tried To Stop This Episode

If you're new to our show and liked this episode, let us suggest a couple of our other recent stories you might enjoy -- check out "I Was 11 When Instagram Took Over My Life", "The Talented Ms. Goldiee" and "Why Did ICE Lock Up This Pro-Trump Reporter?" Last week, host Brian Reed interviewed former MAGA influencer and the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, Ashley St. Clair, in front of a live audience in New York. After they walked off stage, St. Clair laid into Brian over the questions he asked. She then demanded that we not release the interview publicly and asked to speak to our lawyers. Here is that interview, uncut. In it, St. Clair talks to Brian about her landmark lawsuit against xAI, the artificial intelligence company behind Grok, which generated millions of sexually explicit deep fake images of her and other women. xAI is owned by St. Clair’s ex, Elon Musk, and Brian asks her to share stories and insights from her relationship with Musk to help people understand his erratic and offensive behavior. Brian also asks St. Clair about her years as a major figure inside the right-wing propaganda machine. It's those questions that seemed to bother her most.  Find video highlights of the live interview on our new Instagram account – @questionverything.podcast. The full video is available at our Substack.  Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. The live taping was presented by OnAirFest. Our fact-checker reviewed this live, unedited conversation. We were not able to independently verify St. Clair’s remark that Musk’s devices were seized during French authorities’ search of X’s offices. Likewise with St. Clair’s recollection that she saw a Grok-generated image of a 4-year-old girl in a Bluey microprint bikini, and her claim that immigrants were getting on planes with boarding passes that didn’t have any name on them. We reached out to Musk and xAI for comment, but they did not reply. Guests: Ashley St. Clair Please support the organizations that support this show: DeleteMe  Ground News Zbiotics 

How a Tiny Newsroom Helped Bring Down Hungary’s Authoritarian Leader

Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian grip on Hungary became a model for the American right. He hollowed out the country’s democracy and turned much of the media into a government megaphone. Then a small newsroom called Direkt36 exposed a plot against the opposition party involving a mysterious political operative, a young IT worker, a raid on a boat in the Danube and a whistleblowing police captain. A few weeks later, Orbán was ousted from power in a landslide election.  Sean Cole reports on the investigation, called the Hungarian Watergate, and what it shows about why an independent press still matters.  Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter. Guests:  Zsuzsanna Wirth, Direct36 investigative reporter András Pethő, Direct36 editor Marius Dragomir, Director of the Media and Journalism Research Center Please support the organizations that support this show: Ground News Zbiotics  DeleteMe