The Harvard Plan - our collaboration with the Boston Globe, is back! In episode one, we hear what unfolded at Harvard from Donald Trump’s inauguration to convocation 2025. Three main characters, inside Harvard, tell the story from their perspective: politics professor Ryan Enos, genetics professor and cancer researcher Kamila Naxerova and campus conservative Kit Parker, lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserve and Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at Harvard. The personal perspectives of our three guides are interwoven with the dramatic timeline and unfolding news.

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.

The federal government shutdown has entered its fourth week. On this week’s On the Media, hear about the man who is laying off four thousand federal workers this month, whom some call a “shadow president.” Plus, a white nationalist influencer reveals how fast the Republican party is shifting right.

[02:21] Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Andy Kroll, a reporter covering justice and the rule of law at ProPublica, to discuss Russell Vought, the director of a little-known, but powerful office inside the White House.

[20:23] Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Ben Lorber, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, about his work tracking Nick Fuentes, the Gen Z white nationalist influencer, since 2019 – and why he’s not convinced that Fuentes is as powerful as he claims to be.

[38:13] Host Micah Loewinger called up Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, a junior and student journalist at the University of Texas, Dallas, to talk about the turmoil between campus newsrooms and their administrations over covering student protests.

Further reading / listening:

• “The Shadow President,” by Andy Kroll
• Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber

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.

This summer, Republicans clawed back over a billion dollars that had been pledged to public media. But it wasn’t until this month that the corporation for public broadcasting – longtime distributor of that money – started to wind down operations, and those federal funds finally ran out.

Now, many stations are weighing whether to spend their shrinking budgets on national programming from the likes of NPR, or to fund journalism on their local communities. We’re affected, too. So begins a new reckoning to save not just individual stations, but the interconnected system that makes public radio so special.

LaFontaine E. Oliver is  the president, CEO and executive chair of New York Public Radio. This week -- which is also WNYC pledge week -- he tells Brooke about how federal cuts are changing public media, and how our station is facing this critical moment.

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.