Trump Sued Himself … and ‘Settled’ for a $1.8 Billion Fund

Summary

Podcast Summary – On the Media

Episode: Trump Sued Himself … and ‘Settled’ for a $1.8 Billion Fund
Date: May 29, 2026
Hosts: Brooke Gladstone, Michael Loewinger
Guests: Anna Bauer (Lawfare), Brad Schwartz (historian, author)

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Overview

This episode of On the Media examines two major media stories: the political and legal controversy around the creation of President Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund—essentially a settlement Trump made with his own administration using federal money to financially support those claiming to be targets of "lawfare" by the Biden administration, including participants in January 6th—and the end of the historic CBS News Radio, using its origins in a devastating 1930 prison fire as a lens to discuss truth, journalism, and legacy.

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Segment 1: Trump’s Self-Settlement and the “Anti-Weaponization” Fund

(Begins ~01:52)

Key Discussion Points

• Background on the Fund:

  • President Trump and his Justice Department reached a settlement for Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS, resulting in the creation of a $1.8 billion fund to assist those who claim they were victims of legal targeting ("lawfare") by the Biden administration.
    • “The DOJ says the $1.8 billion fund will support those who claim they were a victim of lawfare at the hands of the Biden administration.” — Anna Bauer, 02:07
  • This move faces legal, ethical, and political challenges, including a lawsuit from Capitol police officers, since rioters from January 6 could be eligible for compensation (02:31).

• Eligibility and Backlash:

  • Law enforcement officers are concerned that those who assaulted police on January 6 might benefit.
    • Senator Chris Van Hollen queries the Attorney General: “Why not make that a rule?” re: excluding convicted rioters. The answer is evasive, fueling outrage. (03:03–03:13)
    • GOP divided—some, including Mitch McConnell, call it "utterly stupid, morally wrong to award money to pardon January 6 rioters." (03:15)
    • MAGA-aligned Republicans support the fund as compensation for "lawfare." (03:43)

• Origins as Self-Dealing Lawsuit:

  • Anna Bauer details how Trump sued the IRS for leaking his tax returns, but filed after the statute of limitations had expired. His workaround was claiming he only learned of the leak in 2024, although his lawyer had previously referenced it in court (04:44–05:20).
  • Potential government liability was dubious—the agent was a contractor, not an employee, and past settlements for such breaches did not involve large sums, just apologies (05:20–06:28).
  • “He controls the government that he is suing, and he controls the lawyers who are litigating on the other side of the case… whatever he says goes.” — Anna Bauer, 06:55

• Unprecedented Process and Constitutional Questions:

  • The case raised fundamental legal questions about whether there was any real adversarial dispute, as required by federal courts (07:43).
  • Before the judge could rule on this, the two sides (both essentially controlled by Trump) announced a settlement for $1.776 billion.

• Where the Money Comes From and Accountability:

  • Settlement money is from the federal “judgment fund”—a permanent appropriation established so Congress wouldn’t have to authorize every settlement (08:58).
  • “The assumption up until now has been that the Justice Department will pay out settlements in a responsible way.” — Anna Bauer, 08:58
  • Because the fund is presented as a legal settlement rather than a new government program, congressional oversight is circumvented. (08:58–09:55)

• Direct Aid to January 6 Rioters & Political Allies:

  • Trump has discussed compensating "January Sixers", and some have already applied for money (10:17).
  • The administration is also moving to dismiss charges against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, and scrubbing government websites of their convictions (10:28).
  • “...the evidence at trial involved stockpiling weapons to bring to Virginia to ferry them across the river on January 6. [Oath Keepers leader] Stewart Rhodes... his only regret was that people… didn’t bring rifles because they could have fixed it right then and there.” — Anna Bauer, 10:45

• Personal Reflections on Justice and Journalism:

  • Michael Loewinger, a witness in the Oath Keepers trial, discusses feelings of witnessing justice being undermined (11:29):
    • “It just feels like such an obvious subversion of justice… the idea that the obvious thing that happened that day didn’t happen… it feels like a profound eff you to all of us.” — Michael Loewinger, 12:03

• Media Framing & Public Perception:

  • The narrative that the Biden DOJ "weaponized" charges against MAGA supporters has become a right-wing media fact, making the scheme possible (12:57).
    • “People can see the obvious self dealing that's happening…” – Anna Bauer, 13:25
  • Anna Bauer notes local, less politically engaged people notice the self-dealing more clearly with the fund than with subtler moves to dismiss Jan 6 cases or scrub history.

• Media’s Role & Responsibilities:

  • The hosts debate whether the press should use plain language like “Trump Administration attempts to steal money… to pay out political allies” (14:33–14:59), but note legacy outlets’ reluctance due to editorial standards.
  • “Journalists, in their effort to not seem biased, will hide their own analysis behind explanations of boring mechanisms. And it’s like, the stakes are a little bit too high for this stuff. If there's any chance people won't understand what's happening, it's our job to translate it for them.” – Michael Loewinger, 14:59
  • Discussion closes with doubts that Congress will intervene, but possible legal or legislative challenges may emerge after midterm elections.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “He sued himself and just gave himself $1.8 billion of government money, because nobody could stop it.”
  — Paraphrased summary of events throughout the segment

• “This really feels like a profound eff you to all of us.”
  — Michael Loewinger, 12:03

• “I am from rural Georgia… people can see the obvious self-dealing that’s happening…”
  — Anna Bauer, 13:25

• “Are you doing multiple stories, wall to wall coverage… or just hanging back and doing one story and then moving on? Because things just don’t break through.”
  — Anna Bauer, 16:01

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Segment 2: The End of CBS News Radio and Journalism’s Origins

(Begins ~19:45, CBS segment fully starts at 21:00)

Key Discussion Points

• CBS News Radio’s Closure and Legacy:

  • Considered foundational to broadcast journalism, CBS News Radio ended on May 22, 2026, after nearly a century.
  • Edward R. Murrow's career and “the sound of America” originated here; segment uses archival Murrow audio.

• True History of CBS News: The Ohio Prison Fire

  • Brad Schwartz presents a rarely-told story: CBS News as we know it started with a live report from a 1930 fire at Ohio Penitentiary, broadcast by inmate Otto “Deacon” Gardner.
  • CBS had no formal news division; originally an upstart rival to NBC focused on entertainment (22:06–23:16).
  • Early broadcast news was just reading wire stories or newspapers on air; the prison fire introduced eyewitness accounts.

• The Fire & Deacon Gardner's Role:

  • Fire intended as a prisoner escape distraction caught with inmates locked in, resulting in 322 dead—the deadliest prison disaster in US history (24:00–25:09).
  • Gardner, an African American minister imprisoned for murder, managed the prison chapel’s radio—used to broadcast prisoners’ musical performances. His presence, skill, and access to the mic were critical (25:29–27:10).
  • When the fire erupted, CBS affiliates set up live reporting, and Gardner gave the first vivid, on-the-spot description ever broadcast nationally (32:15).

• Humanizing the Incarcerated:

  • Gardner’s commentary focused on the brotherhood and heroism of prisoners risking their lives to save each other.
    • “After seeing the things they did and the bravery of them, I am glad and proud to call them brothers.” — Reported by Brad Schwartz, 35:49

• A New Standard of News:

  • The broadcast stunned America; press called Gardner a “radio hero” and the event a transformative moment for journalism (36:17).
  • Just as Murrow would later, Gardner's delivery combined fact and emotional witness, breaking through to create public empathy.

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CBS's Institutional Memory and Loss

• CBS took credit for Gardner’s achievement (Paley sent Gardner a $500 check and a thank you note) and rebranded itself as a news leader—yet Gardner himself, and the real origin, became a footnote (40:18–44:38).
• Corporate anxieties about antagonizing newspapers slowed CBS’s development of news, but insiders (like Ed Klobber, later Paul White and Edward R. Murrow) built the famous journalism brand over the 1930s/40s (41:46–44:11).

Journalism’s Legacy: Integrity and Values

• Schwartz notes contemporary CBS leaders “invoke Murrow’s legacy without seeming to understand what created it”—the willingness to stand for democratic values, and communicate plainly, not just recite facts.
  • “Murrow’s viewpoint was no one can escape their background... all you can do is be upfront about where you’re coming from, tell the audience what you’ve seen and let them take it or leave it.” — Brad Schwartz, 51:23
• Loss of audio and paper archives, with the closing of CBS Radio, means centuries of lived experience and critical history are vanishing (46:01–47:40).
• The show closes by stressing the stakes of journalism as a witness, not just a reciter of process, and decrying how history (and its lessons) are lost when corporatized, sanitized, or simply erased.

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Timestamps to Key Segments

• [01:52] – Discussion of Trump’s lawsuit, fund, and initial legal issues
• [03:03] – Congressional questioning and internal GOP conflict
• [04:44] – Breakdown of the IRS leak and lawsuit background
• [06:55] – The extraordinary fact of Trump suing himself
• [08:58] – How the “anti-weaponization” fund is funded, oversight gaps
• [10:17] – Fund’s intended recipients: January 6 rioters, political allies
• [12:03] – Journalist’s personal account of testifying at Oath Keepers trial
• [13:25] – Public perception and media’s handling of the fund
• [14:33] – Dilemma on how media should cover blatant corruption
• [21:00] – Shift to CBS legacy: Murrow, CBS Radio, and early history
• [24:00] – The Ohio prison fire and Gardner’s pioneering broadcast
• [35:49] – Gardner calls his fellow prisoners “brothers” on national radio
• [40:18] – CBS whitewashes the origin of its news division
• [44:38] – What happened to Gardner afterward
• [47:40] – The loss of CBS archival audio and history
• [51:23] – Murrow’s true standards versus current lip service

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Conclusion

This episode exposes the dangers—then and now—of history being manipulated, erased, or whitewashed by those in power, whether by corruptly channeling government money to political allies (as with Trump’s fund) or by legacy media rewriting or neglecting its own origins. Both stories highlight journalism’s essential role in bearing witness, demanding truth, and refusing to look away, even as the tools and institutions of that witness decay or are co-opted.

Notable final quote:
“Murrow’s viewpoint was no one can escape their background... all you can do is be upfront about where you’re coming from, tell the audience what you’ve seen and let them take it or leave it.”
– Brad Schwartz, 51:23

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For Further Reading/Listening:

• Anna Bauer & Ben Wittes, “The President Who Sued Himself” (Lawfare)
• Brad Schwartz, forthcoming Edward R. Murrow biography
• Archival clips: Edward R. Murrow on Vienna, the London Blitz, Buchenwald

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Transcript

[Brad Schwartz]

Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund? Anybody in this country is eligible to apply.

[Brooke Gladstone]

President Trump's attempt to create a $1.8 billion fund for those, quote, targeted by the Biden administration is raising eyebrows of friends and foes alike.

[Anna Bauer]

People can see the obvious self dealing.

[Brooke Gladstone]

From WNYC in New York, this is ON the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Michael Loewinger]

And I'm Michael Ohinger. Also on this week's show, CBS News Radio is no more. And while obits for the network celebrate nearly a century of broadcasting Back in 1928, the launch was less than promising.

[Brad Schwartz]

CBS is this upstart company formed by a stock promoter and a talent agent. The early reviews of the first performances don't make you want to tune in again.

[Michael Loewinger]

It's all coming up after this.

[Brooke Gladstone]

On the Media is supported by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home in auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Michael Loewinger]

OnTheMedia is supported by Viking. Committed to exploring the world in comfort, offering destination focused small ship experiences on all seven continents with a shore excursion included in every port and programs designed for cultural enrichment. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Learn [e-mail] From WNYC in New York,

[Brooke Gladstone]

this is on the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Michael Loewinger]

And I'm Michael Ohinger. Last week, President Donald Trump and his own Justice Department reached a settlement on the president's $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS with the creation of a so called anti weaponization fund.

[Anna Bauer]

The DOJ says the $1.8 billion fund will support those who claim they were a victim of lawfare at the hands of the Biden administration.

[Michael Loewinger]

On Friday, a federal judge temporarily froz slush fund ahead of a June 12 court date. But there were already other efforts to kill it, including a challenge from two officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th.

[Anna Bauer]

Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges are bringing the lawsuit because the fund could be used to compensate the Capitol rioters who attack them and put their lives at risk. In this tape, you hear Officer Hodges as he's pinned against the against a door by the mob.

[Brad Schwartz]

Will individuals who assaulted Capitol Hill police officers be eligible for this fund?

[Michael Loewinger]

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen questioning Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

[Brad Schwartz]

Why not make that a rule? I expect that. Well, because I'm not one of the commissioners setting up the rules.

[Michael Loewinger]

That doesn't sound like a no. The fund has divided the GOP with some Senate Republicans refusing to vote on a spending bill over concerns that taxpayer DOL could go to insurrectionists. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it would be, quote, utterly stupid, morally wrong to award money to pardon January 6 rioters. But unsurprisingly, the MAGA faithful have fallen in line. This is about compensating Americans for the

[Brad Schwartz]

lawfare that we saw under the last administration.

[Michael Loewinger]

J.D. vance, at a press briefing last week,

[Anna Bauer]

you previously told me that anyone who assaulted a police officer on January 6 should go to prison, so why not

[Michael Loewinger]

rule out giving them taxpayer funded? Kaitlyn, what I said is we're gonna

[Brad Schwartz]

look at everything case by case. But why pull it out? Because, Kaitlyn, there are people who I

[Michael Loewinger]

don't know their individual circumstances. The origins of this contentious slush fund go back to an even more contentious lawsuit.

[Anna Bauer]

So the story of the president who sued himself really begins actually in 2019.

[Michael Loewinger]

Anna Bauer is a senior editor at Lawfare. She recently wrote about how in 2019, an IRS contractor named Charles Littlejohn leaked tax return for a number of wealthy Americans. And those leaks were later published by the New York Times and ProPublica. Trump sued the IRS for the leak earlier this year, which Bauer says makes sense. He was legitimately wronged. But there were a couple of things that should have turned his case into a nothing burger.

[Anna Bauer]

Chief among them is that Trump filed this suit well after the two year statute of limitations.

[Michael Loewinger]

His workaround of the statute of limitations is that he didn't know that his information had been leaked, and therefore he was basically filing within two years of his learning.

[Anna Bauer]

Yeah, his claim is that he didn't know until he received a letter in January of 2024 from the IRS saying Little John leaked your tax return information.

[Michael Loewinger]

But before that, his lawyer was speaking about harm done to him in court.

[Anna Bauer]

Yeah, A year before that, his lawyer, Alina Haba, had gone to federal court on the record and spoke on his behalf at a public hearing about Little John leaking his tax returns. But then there's also this separate issue of whether the government would have been liable because Little John was a contractor, not an employee. And there's different rules of liability around what the government can actually be held culpable for when it's a contractor versus an employee. And in other cases, the government had raised this issue as a defense, including the Trump administration itself this year filing briefs to that effect. And then if you look at the one case that was Also related to Little John's conduct. That was a case brought by the billionaire Ken Griffin, whose tax return information was also leaked. That case, the Justice Department did enter a settlement, but that only resulted in a public apology.

[Michael Loewinger]

So, no. No money, no $10 billion.

[Anna Bauer]

Yeah. Point is just there's no reason in Trump's case to believe that this would have resulted in anything substantial, much less a settlement to the tune of $1.776 billion.

[Michael Loewinger]

Trump seems to be getting some preferential treatment here. Does that have anything to do with the fact that he effectively controls both sides of the courtroom?

[Anna Bauer]

And that's the other thing that is completely unusual and unprecedented about this case. He controls the government that he is suing, and he controls the lawyers who are litigating on the other side of the case. Keep in mind, under Trump's theory of executive control of the Justice Department, he has been very clear that, you know, whatever he says goes.

[Michael Loewinger]

And to point out the obvious, the Justice Department is not supposed to be the President's personal lawyer or act in any way like that. And in fact, the judge for this case, Kathleen Williams of the U.S. district Court for the Southern District of Florida, said that she thought this all smelled pretty funny.

[Anna Bauer]

It raised the question for her as to whether or not she actually even had jurisdiction to oversee the case. And the reason why has to do with a constitutional issue, because federal courts are only allowed to oversee cases where there's a real, genuine dispute. We call it adverseness or adversity. She wanted to hear from the parties on this, because if there's no real dispute, she could dismiss the case. But we never got around to hearing what Trump and the Justice Department thought about all this, because before the judge could ever even hold a hearing on the matter, there was this announcement that a settlement had been reached.

[Michael Loewinger]

Trump's settlement with himself was for a cool $1.7 billion, $1,776,000,000 to be exact. He said that this money would go to charity, but actually that money is set to go to a newly minted anti weaponization fund to compensate people who, quote, suffered weaponization and lawfare. So where exactly is that money coming from, and where do we think it's going?

[Anna Bauer]

The $1.776 billion for this anti weaponization fund is coming from a permanent appropriation called the judgment fund, that of appropriation that Congress set up because it didn't want to basically have to do a new appropriation every time that the Justice Department settles a case. Right. The assumption up until now has been that the Justice Department will pay out settlements in a responsible way. But what happened here is that there's really no normal type of congressional oversight that you would have in. If you, as the executive, just wanted to create this fund outside the context of litigation, right, through the guise of a settlement that they could go through the judgment fund that kind of acted as an essentially like a blank check.

[Michael Loewinger]

And this anti. Weaponization fund, which. It's painful to even read those words because it feels like it's obvious that a weaponization of the Justice Department is what is creating this fundamental. It does seem like some of this money is intended to go to January 6th rioters and other political allies who attempted to interfere with the 2020 election.

[Anna Bauer]

Trump has long talked about compensation for the January Sixers, and we've already seen reports of Jan Sixers who are applying for compensation from the fund.

[Michael Loewinger]

The Trump administration has dismissed multiple cases for members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys with prejudice. Right. Meaning they can't be tried again. They've taken press releases of their convictions off government websites. It really feels like they're just kind of setting the table here.

[Anna Bauer]

The seditious conspiracy cases that you just mentioned that the Justice Department sought to dismiss, those are people who were adjudicated guilty and sentenced to, like, decades in prison for their conduct. I actually, in the Oath Keepers case, I covered some of that trial. You know, Stewart Rhodes, the evidence at trial involved stockpiling weapons to bring to Virginia to be able to ferry them across the river on January 6. It involved recorded statements that he made in which he said that his only regret was that people who were at the Capitol that day didn't bring rifles because they could have fixed it right then and there.

[Michael Loewinger]

You know, the Oath Keepers trial hits kind of close to home because I was actually a federal witness in that trial.

[Anna Bauer]

Oh, wow.

[Michael Loewinger]

The government used some of my reporting into the Zellow walkie talkie app as evidence. And I authenticated the evidence. And, you know, I was pretty ambivalent about it at the time. I felt like I didn't really have a choice. I was subpoenaed. It was complicated. But now, just like, I don't know,

[Anna Bauer]

what was it like seeing that news about the Oath Keepers case and this anti. Sorry to turn the tables on you. Become the interviewer. But, like, I'm just curious.

[Michael Loewinger]

I mean, honestly, I find it really upsetting because it just feels like such an obvious subversion of justice. And you don't have to have sat in that courtroom to take offense to this. I mean, we all watch January 6th unfold on TV. There's a lifetime of footage on the Internet. So the idea that we shouldn't believe our lying eyes and that, you know, the sort of obvious thing that happened that day didn't happen that day, it just feels like a profound eff you to like all of us.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Right?

[Anna Bauer]

I am so in the details on these things that I agree with you. What I wonder is, does the average kind of not really tuned in news consumer feel the same way? And I don't know the answer to that.

[Michael Loewinger]

I'm not sure I know the answer to that either. I was going to ask you that. I do fear that the idea that the Biden administration weaponized its DOJ against innocent MAGA supporters, this framing has become just a kind of basic fact in right wing media and that that's kind of what is allowing this charade to take place.

[Anna Bauer]

I'm from rural Georgia and I hear that sentiment from people a lot. But I also think that when I've talked to people back home about this settlement fund in particular, people can see the obvious self dealing that's happening in a way that maybe they can't when it's just in the context of government dismissing some of these January 6th cases or rewriting history and deleting press releases and that kind of thing.

[Michael Loewinger]

Do you think that the press, the coverage that you're reading and watching hearing is making it clear how upside down all of this, how baldly corrupt it all seems?

[Anna Bauer]

I always just wonder, like, is it that the media is not expressing these things in a concrete way, or is it just that general audiences don't have the attention span or the desire to really get into the legal weeds on some of this stuff.

[Michael Loewinger]

I appreciate that, but I also feel like we can't blame laypeople for not understanding the maneuvers taking place here. Like, isn't it our job to make this clear and make people care? Maybe we do need the headlines to be Trump Administration attempts to steal money from the Federal Government to pay out political allies.

[Anna Bauer]

Is that your view or is that just a suggestion?

[Michael Loewinger]

Is it my view that that kind of language should be used by mainstream outlets? I don't know. You know, it's easy for me to preach this because I don't work in a newsroom and I don't have to deal with standards editors at the New York Times and this kind of stuff. I'm just afraid that journalists, in their effort to not seem biased, will hide their own analysis behind explanations of boring mechanisms. And it's like the stakes are a Little bit too high for this stuff. I think if there's any chance people won't understand what's happening, it's our job to translate it for them.

[Anna Bauer]

Yeah. And I also wonder too, how much coverage are you giving to the IRS settlement fund? Like, are you doing multiple stories, like wall to wall coverage of it because it's really terrible and seems like people should know about it, or are you doing one story and then kind of moving on?

[Michael Loewinger]

Yeah.

[Anna Bauer]

Because things just don't break through.

[Michael Loewinger]

Yeah, no, exactly. This has been great. I want to try to bring, I'm going to try to bring the conversation.

[Anna Bauer]

I'm sorry, I feel like we got derailed on me asking you questions.

[Michael Loewinger]

Yes, absolutely. No, thank you. And thanks for your curiosity. There have been some reports that at least some Republicans are skeptical of this slush fund. Is there any hope that Congress will intervene here?

[Anna Bauer]

I have kind of given up on thinking that Congress will exercise itself oversight powers in the way that it ought to, or at least the way that I think it ought to. But keep in mind, you know, there's the midterms. And so we, we could very well see some changes there depending on the outcome of the election. If you have a change of party in the House of Representatives, you may very well see an effort in House to bring litigation to challenge this. And that could actually be one avenue in which standing might be successful. But it's unclear because the case law on that issue is a little bit unclear.

[Michael Loewinger]

Okay, I guess we'll cross that bridge if we get there.

[Anna Bauer]

Yeah, we will see. There's a lot of just unprecedented things going on with this settlement. So unfortunately, a lot of my answers to you are, it's unclear.

[Michael Loewinger]

I'll take whatever hope I can get. Anna, thank you very much.

[Anna Bauer]

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[Michael Loewinger]

Anna Bauer is a senior editor at Lawfare and co author of the recent article the President who Sued Himself.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Coming up, the true story of the glorious launch and legacy of CBS News began in a prison fire.

[Michael Loewinger]

This is on the media. Onthemedia is supported by Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort, offering destination focused small ship experiences on all seven continents, with a shore excursion included in every port and programs designed for cultural enrichment. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Learn [e-mail]

[Brad Schwartz]

this week on the New Yorker Radio Hour. A candidate for Senate who could pull off a major upset and won't sign up for either party all the time. When you have the undecideds, I hear people like, how could you be undecided I'm like, I just am. I'm not just gonna vote a letter. I'll talk with Nebraska union leader Dan Osborne on the New Yorker Radio hour from wnyc. Listen wherever you get your podcasts,

[Michael Loewinger]

This is ON THE media. I'm Michael Loewinger.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Big shakeups at CBS's 60 Minutes this week. On Thursday, CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss named Nick Bilton, a former New York Times opinion columnist and documentarian who's never worked in traditional TV news, to run what is, for now TV's most watched news magazine. Also this week, another bombshell. The network did not renew the contract of veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Chad Aaron Alfonsi after 22 years on the job. Last December, she had prepared a report on the notorious prison in El Salvador where the president was deporting people. The night before the segment was slated to air, Barry Weiss pulled the story.

[Anna Bauer]

Weiss told show leadership to pull the segment in part because there was no interview with the Trump administration. Angry with the decision, correspondent Sharon Alfonsi emailed her fellow 60 Minutes colleagues, saying the story is factually correct and accusing CBS News editor in Chief Bari Weiss of pulling it for political reasons.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And she's not the first 60 Minutes lifer to rebel against Weiss. In April 2025, longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigned, saying it was no longer possible to run the show with journalistic independence. Last week, CBS's star anchor Anderson Cooper quit the network, ending his final broadcast with a subtle jab.

[Brad Schwartz]

I think the independence of 60 Minutes has been critical, and I think the trust it has with viewers is critical to the success of 60 Minutes. So, yeah, for the last time, I'm Anderson Cooper.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And something else happened far less covered but no less important.

[Michael Loewinger]

May 22 marks the end of CBS on the radio.

[Brad Schwartz]

Over its nearly 100 years, CBS has

[Michael Loewinger]

helped define the sound of America.

[Edward R. Murrow]

This is Edward Murrow speaking from Vienna. It's now nearly 2:30 in the morning and Herr Hitler has not yet arrived.

[Brooke Gladstone]

CBS Radio launched the career of the legendary news anchor Edward R. Murrow and helped shape the format of broadcast news. But in late March, Barry Weiss and President Tom Zabrowski issued a memo declaring that CBS Radio would be tossed into history's dustbin.

[Brad Schwartz]

CBS News says the change is coming as the world moves on to digital sources and podcasts.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Weisen Zabrowski wrote that, quote, cbs News Radio served as the foundation for everything we have built since 1927. But if true, it was kind of an accident. Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, historian A Brad Schwartz, author of Broadcast Hysteria and a forthcoming biography of Edward R. Murrow, recounts the remarkable tale of history's first on the spot breaking news broadcast that entirely changed the trajectory of CBS News and yet is largely lost to memory. Brad, welcome to the show.

[Brad Schwartz]

Thank you for having me.

[Brooke Gladstone]

What's the real story?

[Brad Schwartz]

Well, for one thing, the company that we now know as cbs, the Columbia Broadcasting System, didn't have anything like a news division or a news organization when it started broadcasting in 1927. It goes on the air about a year after the National Broadcasting Company, NBC,

[Brooke Gladstone]

its arch rival, it's the unreachable star,

[Brad Schwartz]

absolutely, because it has the backing of the Radio Corporation of America. It has the blessing of the US Government. It is intended to be essentially the American version of the BBC, structured differently, but starts in a very similar way. Whereas CBS is this upstart company. It's formed by a stock promoter and a talent agent, concert manager who are really trying to compete with NBC in terms of entertainment. So you see, that's what they're promoting from 1927 and struggling. Early reviews of the first performances don't make you want to tune in again.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You quote one reviewer in your piece saying that its three hour premiere declined in quality with astounding speed and that no one not paid to listen could have survived it.

[Brad Schwartz]

That's right. And I left out the fact that they were, I believe, at least 15 minutes late getting on the air in the first place because there were storms and there were technical difficulties and they were in a studio that didn't have clocks. But back in those days, broadcast journalism as we think about it today, certainly didn't exist. You would have people reading bulletins off the news wire or literally just they'd buy a newspaper and read the text on the air.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And in fact, CBS executes a great leap ahead of NBC. What happened was there was a prison fire in 1930 in Columbus, Ohio. The prison had a broadcasting facility right near where the cells were burning.

[Brad Schwartz]

So this prison, by the time of the prison fire in 1930, is almost 100 years old. It had held Confederate prisoners of war during the Civil War. It's a very old facility near downtown Columbus. And during what appears to have been an escape attempt, a couple of inmates would later confess to setting an incendiary device in a cell block that was unoccupied but was next to an occupied and overcrowded cell block.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And just to be clear, these prisoners who were trying to escape, they set up this incendiary device in this abandoned building in Order to create a distraction, Right?

[Brad Schwartz]

Correct.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But they got the timing wrong. They set it so that everyone would be at dinner, but it didn't actually catch fire until they were all back in their cells, locked individually. There wasn't any automatic unlock.

[Brad Schwartz]

Exactly. These cells, which would contain probably three or four inmates, are individually locked. So, yes, these inmates, hoping to create a diversion so they can escape during dinner, by the time the fire catches, everybody's locked up.

[Brooke Gladstone]

The untold story here, perhaps even more then the first time a live unplanned event was broadcast, was the broadcaster Otto Gardner, a prisoner who fellow inmates knew as the Deacon. Tell me about him.

[Brad Schwartz]

Otto Gardner was originally from Virginia. He's African American. And he comes north to Ohio at some point. This is of course, the period of the great Migration. He's living in Youngstown in 1917 when he murders his wife and her sister in law, sh them both on a crowded streetcar in front of a lot of witnesses. So he's convicted of first degree murder, pleads guilty, is sent to the Ohio Penitentiary in 1918, and it appears that he experiences a religious conversion within the prison. He at some point obtained a degree from the Moody Bible Institute, I'm fairly certain by correspondence because they even in the twenties had radio correspondence courses. The Moody had its own radio station, and a lot of prisoners in the Ohio Penitentiary had radio sets in their cells like crystal receivers by 1929, 1930. He is known within the prison as the Deacon because of his religious degree, but also because he is working as the secretary of the Protestant chapel in the prison, which is in a building that's located right next to the cell blocks that are going to burn in April 1930. And one of his duties in the Protestant Chapel is managing a radio stat wau, the CBS affiliate in Columbus, installed there to broadcast musical performances by the prisoners. And this was a regular program that began in early 1929, was quite popular regionally.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Apparently people all over were tuning in to hear these prisoner performers.

[Brad Schwartz]

One duo in particular. There was an inmate, Harry Dawson, I believe, who wrote a song, I'm Just a Black Sheep, and it became sort

[Brooke Gladstone]

of a regional hit and we can't find it.

[Brad Schwartz]

Neither could I, I'm sorry. But he and his partner were sort of known as the Black Sheep. People would write mail to the prison. When you look at the newspaper coverage, you see indications of like, you know, if you like this performance, like write to the governor, you know, these were popular broadcasts. And it appears that because Gardner was the secretary of the Protestant Chapel, he was responsible for managing what they referred to as the radio station. And he almost certainly did some broadcasting as well. He was acting as an announcer in some capacity on at least a few of. So when the fire breaks out, not only do they have broadcasting facilities, but they have prisoners, and one in particular who have microphone experience, which makes a big difference when you're covering an event like this.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You said that he knew the difference between addressing an in person audience and addressing a radio audience.

[Brad Schwartz]

Yeah, that's a big factor that I think is going to make this broadcast as impactful as it was. Because the, the craft of broadcasting that is developing in the 1930s, you know, particularly politicians, are still orating, they're still talking as if to a full lecture hall. But you see people like fdr, you see people like Edward R. Murrow, they're the ones who understand this is a conversation. You are addressing a singular imagined spectator, not a theater full of people.

[Brooke Gladstone]

But this is before Murrow's big moment and Roosevelt's. This was April 21, 1930. The fire breaks out. Describe what transpired after it started.

[Brad Schwartz]

You know, it's iron bars and stone walls, so it's essentially like being inside a brick oven. When they eventually were able to clear the burned building, they found men with their heads in the toilet trying to get away from the heat. But it's the heat and the smoke that overcome you before the fire. But once people smell the smoke and the cry of fire goes out, you know, the first concern of the prison officials, and the warden in particular, is to avoid a prison break. They show much less concern for the lives of the people inside the burned building. So while the warden and most of the guards are trying to secure the complex and bring the National Guard in, a few prison guards, but mainly other prisoners, are unlocking the cells, are breaking the locks off with hammers, are doing whatever they can to get each individual door open and get their fellow prisoners. And so there was some saving done by the prison officials, but certainly the inmates who survived this and left accounts, like Chester Himes, who became the famous novelist and wrote a story and later a novel about this. He marvels at how the people who are considered to be the worst of the worst, right, convicted of murder and every crime in the book, are risking their own lives to save their fellow prisoners.

[Brooke Gladstone]

How did waiu, that local CBS Columbus radio station, get the eyewitness account of the fires? I mean, technically, how did they pull it off?

[Brad Schwartz]

Well, because WAU is located on an upper floor of the only skyscraper at that time in Columbus. What is now the Leveque tower, they can see the smoke coming up from the prison which is right near downtown. So they actually break the news locally while they send someone over their station manager, Fred Palmer, to the prisoner. Within an hour or two of the breaking of the news they have Palmer reporting in by telephone. He can tell an announcer on the other end of the line what he's seeing and then the announcer can repeat what he's saying over the air, which is again about as close as you could get given the technical constraints. But once Palmer is able to get inside the prison, about a couple hours after the fire has started and he gets to the chapel and he sees that the radio facilities have survived and are in working order, they are able to patch in certainly using a phone line with the WAU transmitter. So now they're broadcasting locally direct from the scene of the disaster. Meanwhile, the WAU officials are getting on the phone with CBS in New York saying we have something. Can you clear your schedule? This requires getting long distance phone lines. The fire breaks out around 5 5:30pm By 11:15 the Columbia Broadcasting System in New York is ready to take this local broadcast from Columbus and send it out to 72 affiliates nationally. Who? You know, if you're listening to your radio at that hour, you have no idea what you're about to hear, right? But you know, certainly in the local Columbus coverage area there are reports that people thought this might be some sort of drama. They thought it might be, you know, a skit. Cuz this is just such a new type of reporting that people didn't quite know how to take it.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And Fred Palmer has this set up now and who does he put on the air to speak to the nation?

[Brad Schwartz]

Deacon Gardner. He's not identified by name in the broadcast, he's identified by number. Convict X46812. So that's what is in all the newspapers the next day. It's difficult to know exactly why Palmer did this cause accounts get very sketchy in that period between the fire and when they actually go on air. But they seem to have wanted a prisoner's perspective. And of course we know Gardner was very eloquent, we know he was experienced with the microphone. We don't have a recording. The newspaper accounts conflict in some details. I think it's likely Palmer came on as the announcer and then handed it over to convictx46812. But what is very clear from all the accounts is that the voice everybody remembered was Gardner's.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So 322 prisoners died in the Fire, the deadliest prison disaster in US history. Deacon Gardner was at the microphone delivering the first breaking news report in CBS history. Tell me what we know about Gardner's use of the mic.

[Brad Schwartz]

What's remarkable when you look at the press accounts is that the structure of what he's saying is so similar to a report that you would hear later from Murrow in World War II, during the London Blitz, for example, I'm standing

[Edward R. Murrow]

on a rooftop looking out over London. At the moment, everything is quiet.

[Brad Schwartz]

Gardner starts by describing what he's seeing because he's in the chapel building, which has windows. It's right next to the scene of the film. He starts with the objective information when the fire started, how it spread, what the estimated death toll was at that time, where the main loss of life was on the top floors, paints this word picture of what the prison looks like. Again, I'm reminded of Murrow, particularly when he's reporting from Vienna after the Nazis March in in 1938.

[Edward R. Murrow]

It's now nearly 2:30 in the morning and Herr Hitler has not yet arrived. No one seems to know just when he will get here, but most people expect him sometime after 10 o' clock tomorrow morning. It's, of course, obvious after one glance at Vienna that a tremendous reception is being prepared.

[Brad Schwartz]

Like all the radio reporters who were operating from Nazi occupied countries at that time, he has to pick his words carefully because the Nazis control the microphone so he can speak more frankly from Britain than he can from Germany. And there are things he doesn't say in that moment that he says later. And the same thing is going whereas Gardner knows he is on the air at the pleasure of the prison officials. So we know from other sources that there is a great deal of unrest in the prison, apparently attempts at escape or rumblings of what might become a riot. This would proceed over the succeeding days. But in the moment, Gardner is emphasizing that nobody's trying to escape, everybody's well behaved, the nurses don't feel that they're in danger, the press accounts, there's some conflict in who said what. But the one thing, all the newspaper accounts that reported on this, from the New York Times to papers in Canada, what they agree on is that more than once Gardner referred to his fellow prisoners as brothers, specifically in the context of talking about how they saved each other. And so he makes this comment, after seeing the things they did and the bravery of them, I am glad and proud to call them brothers. And because it shows up in all these news reports, you can tell that's the thing that really landed with the audience.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah. The Kansas City Star declared that, quote, radio for the first time in history gave millions of listeners eyewitness accounts of a catastrophe at the time of its happening. The Kentucky Post called Gardner a radio hero for his intensely dramatic account. And the Chicago Defender reported that Gardner startled America thanks to his vivid and amazing description.

[Brad Schwartz]

I can't help comparing it to Murrow's reports during the blitz, specifically because so much of the content of those reports is about the character of the people that he's seeing. In this case, the British.

[Edward R. Murrow]

I saw many flags flying from staffs. No one ordered these people to put out the flags. They simply feel like flying the union above their roofs. No one told them to do it. And no flag up there was white.

[Brad Schwartz]

It's sort of making an argument to American listeners that they can take what a lot of people outside of Great Britain thought they couldn't. The blitz. Right. And Gardner is doing the same thing. He is looking at these prisoners seen as the worst of the worst, the castoffs from society. He's commenting on the brotherhood, the sense of solidarity that they demonstrated in risking their lives to save each other. And that's really remarkable.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Coming up, we delve deeper into the evolution of CBS News after the fire and the Deacons set the stage for Edward R. Murrow and pick through the embers of network news today.

[Michael Loewinger]

This is on the media. Onthemedia is supported by Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort, offering destination focused small ship experiences on all seven continents with a shore excursion included in every port and programs designed for cultural enrichment. And every Viking voyage is all inclusive with no children and no casinos. Learn [e-mail] Are you hungry for some great investigative journalism?

[Brad Schwartz]

That sounds like music, Then Radiolab might be the show for you.

[Michael Loewinger]

Radiolab began over 20 years ago as an exploration of science, philosophy and ethics.

[Brad Schwartz]

The show has since expanded to become a platform for some of the best

[Michael Loewinger]

long form journalism and storytelling you'll hear today. Join Jad, Lulu Miller and myself, Latif Nasser as we investigate stories that provoke delight and ask you to completely change

[Brad Schwartz]

the way you view the world.

[Michael Loewinger]

You can find Radiolab wherever you get podcasts, this is on the Media. I'm Michael Loewinger.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Continuing with historian Abe Rad Schwartz, we shift our focus from the stunning impact of a horrific prison fire on broadcast news to the internal workings at cbs. Apparently, owner William Paley was known for taking credit when in fact, credit was not due.

[Brad Schwartz]

Yes, his memoir that came out in the 1970s, the title is as It Happened. But the joke was it should be as it didn't happen. So at the time of the prison fire in April 1930, he's 28 years old. He had acquired control of the CBS network about a year and a half earlier, right around the time he turns 27. So he didn't found the network even though he identified himself as the founder in later years. But he had bought this failing company that had never turned a profit. He comes in from a the family business in Philadelphia, successful cigar company founded and run by his father and uncle. He's in charge of the advertising for that concern and sees in the mid to late twenties what an amazing advertising medium. This new thing called radio is, how great it is at selling. So in the moment he's very conservative in the sense that he doesn't want to risk what he has. He's slow to see the promise in television, even though he would claim differently. And the same is true with news. Even when he has sort of this minor phenomenon on his hands with this prison fire broadcast, he's still reluctant to capitalize on it, as best we could tell.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Although ultimately Paley sends Gardner a $500 check and a thank you note. Presumably to allow CBS to take credit for what the local station had done.

[Brad Schwartz]

Yes, exactly. So this is really one of the only reasons we know Gardner's name. Because he's only identified on and in the initial news coverage as convict x46 812. But then within a day it goes out on the Associated Press and the other news wires that the president of cbs, William S. Paley, is sending this Otto Hugh Gardner a check and a thank you note commending him for this historic broadcast that he's made. Paley, One of his first actions when he took over CBS around about 1929, retained the services of Edward Bernays, who is the inventor of public relations, who is propaganda during the first World War,

[Brooke Gladstone]

and incidentally the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who really wasn't crazy about his nephew.

[Brad Schwartz]

Yeah, but Bernays was a big believer in what he called created news. And there's other examples of him in this 29:30 period ginning up stories that turn out not to be true. But the whole idea that if you can get the press to report on your company, that's better than buying advertising because it's cheaper. And people regard that with less skepticism because it's not an advertisement news story. So the idea of sending Gardner a $500 check gets CBS in newspapers around the country and keeps the story Alive literally for weeks.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And it demonstrates specifically that the public really wants up to the minute news.

[Brad Schwartz]

Somebody who works at the public relations firm of Edward Bernays, who used to work at the New York Times, whose name was Edward Klobber. He had an editor at the Times, someone who really internalized and believed in the principles of journal specifically as practiced at the Times. Now he's working in public relations and he's making an argument to Paley that this broadcast demonstrates that there is a public demand for news delivered in this way over the air that will be filled by someone. Because Paley is reluctant. Newspapers at this time are still the dominant news medium in the United States. Broadcasting depends on them not just for news content because newspapers are doing the reporting, but radio also depends on the press for advertising because radio listings in the newspapers, that's the only way people are going to know what's on the air. And Paley fears, as would turn out to be the case in later years, that the more radio becomes a competitor to newspapers in terms of delivering original reporting, there's going to be friction between radio and the press that would break out in the 33, 34, what they call the press radio war. But in this moment, Ed Klobber is urging Paley to move forward. Within four months of this broadcast, Paley has hired Ed Klobber to be an executive vice president, basically putting him in charge of news. By the end of that year, Klobber has hired Paul White, who is a wire service man from way back. And the two of them really start to build the news division. What we now know as CBS News, it's not its own sort of journalistic organization for a few more years, you know, they refer to it as like public affairs and special events. In 1935, when Ed Klobber hires a young man in his mid to late 20s, claiming to be in his early 30s, named Edward R. Murrow, he joins this special events division not as a journalist. He has no reporting background. He's never worked on a newspaper. But he is booking speakers for the CBS network in this organization where he's surrounded by all of these news people. He then credits Ed Klobber above everyone else for establishing the ethic, the integrity, the standards of CBS News.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Getting back to the fire. CBS had started promoting itself as the news network. But as you wrote, Gardner became a footnote, misremembered, if remembered at all. Paley's memoirs falsely describe an inmate who seized the microphone and began broadcasting the roar of the flames and the screams of the dying. What happened To Gardner?

[Brad Schwartz]

Well, he's transferred to the less secure prison farm facility, as a lot of prisoners were, to relieve overcrowding because of the reforms, I think, that take place in the years after the fire. Even though he has a life sentence, he's paroled in 1947.

[Brooke Gladstone]

He stays in prison for 17 more years after the fire, though, right?

[Brad Schwartz]

Correct. And then once he gets out, by now he is an ordained minister, so he continues to do this ministry to the incarcerated. One of the black newspapers in Ohio, the Ohio State News, catches up with him two years after his release. This would be now in 49. And it's the only news source that I've been able to find in the years after the fire recognizing him as this. I mean, he's referred to in the headline as the hero of the Ohio penfire. Talking about the broadcasting that he did and then interviewing him, saying that he's turned his life around again. He doesn't talk much, if at all, about his own experience in the fire. He's putting the focus back on ministry toward the incarcerated and doing what he can to improve the lives of his brothers, as he called them, still behind bars at the time of his death in 1967. He's buried in the same cemetery in Columbus where the unclaimed bodies were interred after the 1930 fire.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Hmm. You say that the early years of CBS is just a black hole because CBS either doesn't care to preserve its history, or maybe it wants to make sure that some people don't see parts of its history. With CBS News Radio being shut down and the entire team being laid off, are you worried about the archives that will just lose more of this history? Or how much history is there left to lose?

[Brad Schwartz]

Well, the paper history of CBS's early years, as far as anybody has been able to determine, was destroyed probably sometime in the 1980s. The Library of Congress is specifically concerned with preserving the audio history because radio. One of the things that makes scholarship about broadcasting so important is that, especially in the 20th century, radio was the soundtrack of American life. And so much went on the air without being recorded. I mean, we're talking about the national network level. If you get down to local radio, college radio, I mean, just, you know, so much is gone. But you do have, if you're talking about a network like cbs, interviews with newsmakers of all kinds, just the work of all these journalists. For decades, by this point, CBS never cooperated, as far as I'm aware, with making the archived audio available at a facility like the Library of Congress. I do Know that there is a great deal of concern about what will happen to the record of all of that work because for scholarship and just for the interest of the general public in what the 20th and early 21st century sounded like, that would be in irreparable and immeasurable loss.

[Brooke Gladstone]

You say that CBS's new leaders invoke Murrow's legacy without seeming to understand what created it. What do you mean?

[Brad Schwartz]

Well, there is, especially at CBS throughout broadcasting writ large, a tendency to look back to those days, to refer to Murrow with words like integrity and standards and all of those things that are true but become cliched and lose their meaning the more, more times we use them. From having lived vicariously through much of his career by this point I'm struck by how in those early days when he and CBS are first breaking through in the late 1930s with these broadcasts from Europe. The Anschluss in 1938, the Munich crisis later that year leading up to the start of World War II. One of the things that audiences and critics are responding to is that they know that even if the text of the reports that Murrow is giving are objective, the way he is communicating the information, the details he is focusing on communicate an editorial comment on what he's witnessing. He is perceived as being opposed to the Nazi government at a time when NBC, because it was older, because it was, had longstanding relationships with European governments, including Germany. Before the Nazis, there was a perception that their commentators were moderating what they were saying, pulling their punches exactly in order to maintain access. Murrow and cbs, because of who Murrow was and what his beliefs were, but also because this is the young upstart company can be seen as more critical. And so there is a reservoir of trust that's built up and particularly going through the war years because people are in the United States experiencing World War II on the home front through the radio, primarily through CBS in large part, they know that Murrow was in Vienna in 1938.

[Edward R. Murrow]

They lift the right arm a little higher here than in Berlin and the Heil Hitler is said a little more loudly.

[Brad Schwartz]

They know he was in London in 1940 as the bomb were coming down.

[Edward R. Murrow]

Far away in the distance I can see just that faint red angry snap of anti aircraft bursts against this steel

[Brad Schwartz]

blue sky that he is at Buchenwald in 1945 bringing one of the first word pictures people have of the conditions in the Nazi concentration camps.

[Edward R. Murrow]

Men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description.

[Brad Schwartz]

People know him. They know what his values are. They know that he is always first and foremost concerned with the preservation and promotion of democracy around the world, but especially in the United States. He, he wrangles with CBS leadership throughout the war about how much he is able to communicate those beliefs, how directly he is able to say what he really feels.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And we all know he ran into problems in his coverage of McCarthy in the 50s. I want to know about your observation that CBS new leaders invoke his legacy without seeming to understand and what created it? What is it you're seeing at CBS today?

[Brad Schwartz]

Murrow's viewpoint was no one can escape their background, their experience, their reading, their education. All you can do is sort of be upfront about where you're coming from, tell the audience what you've seen and let them take it or leave it. But I see increasingly, especially at cbs, but I would say throughout broadcast journalism, this invocation of Murrow as the patron saint of broadcast journalism in the United States without recognizing that he came from a values based position where he was an advocate for democratic values as he understood them.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Brad, thank you very much.

[Brad Schwartz]

Thank you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Abrad Schwartz is a historian currently working on a biography of Edward Richard Murrow. Locked in the cells of a prison. When all the world held its breath, fire broke out in the prison, bringing destruction.

[Michael Loewinger]

That's it for this week's show on the Media is produced by Molly Rosen, Rebecca Clark Callender and Candice Wong. Travis Mannon is our video producer.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Our technical director is Jennifer Munson with engineering from Jared Paul. Eloise Blondio is our senior producer. And our executive producer is Katya Rogers. On the Media is produced by wnyc. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Michael Loewinger]

And I'm Michael Loewinger.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And in the hell of that prison, heroes were found that night.

[Anna Bauer]

Every day, WNYC Studios is working to get closer to New York and to New Yorkers. The underwriting we get from businesses helps power our independence. Learn how your organization can join in at sponsorship.wnyc.org.