EPISODE 4

In recent years, creative, often music-focused pirate broadcasting has been thriving on shortwave. But these surreptitious broadcasters are up against a surprising ideological foe: Not the FCC, but a deep-pocketed group of finance bros that is trying to wrestle the airwaves away from the public, and use them for a money-making scheme completely antithetical to broadcasting. What do we lose when we give up our public airwaves?

The Divided Dial was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Before they were appointed, the leaders of the F.B.I. boosted misinformation about a ‘deep state.’ Now they’re in power, they’ve become the focus of conspiracy theories. On this week’s On the Media, how MAGA infighting about Jeffrey Epstein reveals a greater problem for the Republican Party. Plus, the story of one of the world's farthest-reaching radio stations: a haven for extremists based in small-town Maine.

[01:00] Host Micah Loewinger talks with Will Sommer, senior reporter at The Bulwark, about why the Trump White House’s allegiance with conspiracy theorists is souring, and how Jeffrey Epstein is dividing the MAGA base.

[09:04] Episode 3 of The Divided Dial, Season 2: World's Last Chance Radio. In the internet era, much of the shortwaves have been left to the most extreme voices — including a conspiratorial flat earth ministry, and an ultra-conservative cult complete with everything from sexual abuse to dead infants and illegal burials. In the 737-person northern Maine town of Monticello, reporter Katie Thornton explores one of the world's farthest-reaching radio stations that has given them a home, pumping out extremism and conspiracy theories to the world as the voice of American broadcasting.

Further reading:

• “The Real Reason Trump World Just Can’t Quit Conspiracy Theories,” Will Sommer

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Season Two of On the Media’s Peabody-winning series The Divided Dial is the untold story of shortwave radio: the way-less-listened to but way-farther-reaching cousin of AM and FM radio. The medium was once heralded as a utopian, international, and instantaneous mass communication tool — a sort of internet-before-the-internet. But like the internet, it also took a turn for the chaotic. And like AM and FM talk radio, it also went hard to the right, with extremists and cults still finding a home on the shortwaves.

EPISODE 3

Today, in the internet era, much of the shortwaves have been left to the most extreme voices — including a conspiratorial flat earth ministry, and an ultra-conservative cult complete with everything from sexual abuse to dead infants and illegal burials. In the 737-person northern Maine town of Monticello, one of the world's farthest-reaching radio stations has given them a home, pumping out extremism and conspiracy theories to the world as the voice of American broadcasting.

The Divided Dial was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.