I listen to a fair number of podcasts, and am really grateful for the ones that make me think, “I wish more people knew this.” So, for your listening pleasure—or maybe as an invitation to rethinking—I wanted to share a couple of these with you.
First is Scene on Radio, a podcast I’ve followed for years. Its eighth season, The News, recently wrapped up, and I found it timely and insightful. The season takes a deep dive into how American journalism got to where it is today: the decline of local reporting, the changing economics of the news business, the growth of explicitly partisan media, and the complicated relationship between journalism, business, and government.
One of the things I found most interesting was the history behind the increasingly polarized media landscape. The podcast helped me understand better the consequences of changes in the regulation and economics of broadcasting, including the 1987 end of the “fairness doctrine,” and how we moved from robust metro-area and even small-town newspapers to today’s highly concentrated, profit-driven regional and national news sources.
It also made me think about what we mean when we talk about “the media.” We have an extraordinary amount of news coming at us, all day, every day. But much of what we call “the media” these days is really commentary about the news—people sharing their perspective on the reporting those actual journalists have published.
And Scene on Radio complicates another common assumption: that the mainstream news media are “left-leaning.” That doesn’t really hold up very well once you look closely at the economic and institutional relationships of the major news organizations, and the topics these outlets typically don’t tackle. The story is considerably more complicated—and, in some ways, more troubling—than simply saying that Fox is conservative and MSNBC and The New York Times are liberal.
If you’re new to Scene on Radio, I hope you’ll check out their many earlier seasons. The show does these deep dives into big subjects, bringing history and social movements into a conversation about where we are now. I first encountered this podcast through Seeing White, its season on race and the history of white supremacy. Other seasons have explored gender and patriarchy, American democracy, climate change, capitalism, and more. All have opened my eyes to history I wasn’t taught and angles I needed to take into account.
As I was wrapping up the current Scene on Radio season, the hosts recommended another podcast that I’m following now: First America, hosted and reported by Cherokee Nation journalist Rebecca Nagle.
It is especially timely this year, as we celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. First America looks at the founding of the United States from the perspective of Native people and argues that they have been written out of much of the story we have been taught about America’s beginnings. It asks us to look again at familiar events—the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, even the Boston Tea Party—and recognize how deeply the relationships between European settlers and Indigenous nations were woven into the story. And how little we know these stories.
I’m only a few episodes in, but I’m already finding it fascinating. And, like Scene on Radio, it is doing more than giving me some new information. It is making me rethink a story I thought I already knew.
None of this is about becoming ashamed of our history. For me, it’s about being able to learn things that help make sense of our present—why things are the way they are, and how we got here.
It is said that the more we learn, the more we realize what we didn’t know. Any discomfort in that realization is worth it! I’d rather know, and rethink, than stay with the partial view I had before. Even if that knowledge is unsettling.
And that willingness to rethink reminds me of what we’ve been practicing this summer—in the Psalms. We’ve walked through thriving, and desolation, and unknowing, along with Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s book Dangerous Songs. We’ve been reminded that moving through these stages is painful. Discomfort is hard. Sadness takes its toll.
And: there is life on the other side! We’ve all experienced that. The Psalms remind us that it’s easier, and more manageable, when we remember and call on God’s presence along the way.
What has been making you rethink lately? I hope you’ll share your own podcasts, books, and the like. This work is never fully done. But it’s good for us, whatever the subject: to keep listening, keep learning, and keep rethinking.
