#17 on my @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social holiday countdown is a book of the year @lauragarbes.bsky.social superb Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry newbooksnetwork.com/listeners-li...

Your long read for the day www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

Was thrilled to help consult for this fantastic John Oliver segment on the tragic plight of U.S. public media and why, if we hope to be a democracy, we still need public media for so many things that commercial media will never provide. Deserves a wide viewership. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yknM...

"NBC Nightly News can show you pictures of devastating flooding, but they don't tell locals where to get fresh water."

They did an excellent job with this one. I’m always impressed with how LWT communicates the wonkiest things in an engaging way (like how local station funding allocations work, and how this has hurt local rural stations far more than NPR the national org and better funded, usu larger city stations)

Had a great time consulting with the “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” team over the past couple months, and they kindly gave my book a shoutout during the episode.

"More relevant than ever": Read @sarahscire.com's full review of @lauragarbes.bsky.social's new book Listeners Like Who?: Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry in @niemanlab.org: www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/fund....

the listener-member model that public radio has turned to after decades of government underfunding conflicts with its goal to reflect and serve all Americans. spoke with @lauragarbes.bsky.social about her book LISTENERS LIKE WHO? www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/fund...

"Listeners Like Who?" chronicles a contradiction at the core of public radio: the listener-member model that public radio has turned to after decades of government underfunding conflicts with its stated goal to reflect and serve all Americans. www.niemanlab.org/2025/11/fund...

ICYMI: Why is Public media’s "elitism" a result of funding failures? Read this op-ed by Listeners Like Who? author @lauragarbes.bsky.social in the @startribune.com ($): www.startribune.com/trump-admini....

Thanks to American Campus, the podcast about the history of higher education, for featuring my book. We talk about how NPR and PBS emerged from equal access to education discourses. And how Media Studies originated as a strategy of public media activism.

How public radio has perpetuated racial inequality since its founding—and how journalists of color are challenging white dominance in the workplace and on the public airwaves. @lauragarbes.bsky.social's Listeners Like Who? is out now. Explore a free sample: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

"Common decency stigmatizes people that do not participate in it—removes them from voluntary association. We indeed have to live with one another, but terms and conditions apply." me on why Ezra Klein should be ashamed / why shame is Good Actually www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

Civic media is URGENT. 🚨 Free Press' Arin Anderson is with Executive Director of @outliermedia.org, Orlando Bailey, discussing why local news is a public good. Outlier Media is a shining example of how local newsrooms fill information gaps to meet community needs.

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

Listen! @lauragarbes.bsky.social talks to @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social about one of the books of the year “Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry” newbooksnetwork.com/listeners-li...

WPSU in Pennsylvania becomes the first public media outlet to shut down as a result of the rescission of federal funding. WPSU TV and radio serves one of the largest geographic coverage areas in the nation, stretching across 24 counties of central Pennsylvania.

This is all making me think of India Walton’s advice to Zohran: “Moderating is what got us here… I pivoted fairly quickly… to try and integrate myself into the party, because I thought that was the way to build a broad-based coalition… It sort of ate away from our message from the inside out.”

How public radio has perpetuated racial inequality since its founding—and how journalists of color are challenging white dominance in the workplace and on the public airwaves. Laura Garbes' Listeners Like Who? is out now. Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

"The vague and subjective criteria of having a story that includes 'good talkers' ... end up favoring experts and guests with experience within and connections to white institutional spaces," writes @lauragarbes.bsky.social. current.org/2025/09/how-...

Many congratulations to Laura Garbes (University of Minnesota) on the publication of her pathbreaking sociology of the culture, idealism, and contradictions of public media. Out today on Princeton University Press.

It’s publication day for Listeners Like Who? @princetonupress.bsky.social. I’m grateful to the journalists that shared their stories with me, the colleagues and friends that read copious drafts, and the early readers of the book. press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

My new open-access article in the British Journal of Sociology explores how Korean queer activists envision and enact social change by rethinking “the global”—shifting from UN human rights frameworks to regional solidarities across Asia.

www.startribune.com/trump-admini... We must protect public media and keep fighting to fund it publicly. I make the case in the @startribune.com that fully publicly funding public media is a racial and economic justice issue.

If there was ever a time for bold new public infrastructure to support local news and informed communities, this is it. This is too important to miss. Join us w/ @reprabb.bsky.social @victorpickard.bsky.social @abigailhiggins.bsky.social @mikerispoli.bsky.social next week. RSVP: bit.ly/fpabbsoc9

My friend @lauragarbes.bsky.social is brilliant and wrote this amazing book about race, racism, and NPR. You should read it! press.princeton.edu/books/paperb... Showing how inequality persists even in a “woke” public institution - one that is also being torn apart these days Support public radio!

Friends! Inherited Inequality makes its debut Sept 16 🎉 Join me for an open & honest conversation about the power & limits of the two-parent family for improving child outcomes & addressing one of America’s most intractable problems: racial inequality Hope to see you there!

2025 book publication! Assistant Professor Laura Garbes authored a recent book titled "Listeners Like Who? Exclusion and Resistance in the Public Radio Industry." Check it out!

“It’s the little stations like us that are going to go away because, for instance, about 60% of our budget came from the CPB grant,” said a station leader. (Via @statesnewsroom.com) current.org/2025/08/trib...

How school choice reproduces inequality by creating gendered and socioeconomic decision-making labor for parents. Kindergarten Panic by Bailey A. Brown is out now. Order your copy today: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb... #Education #Sociology

It's a start. We won't really *save* public media until we address board composition and governance, but any port in a storm.

Delighted to have interviewed with WBUR's Meghna Chakrabarti "On Point." First half discusses the historical intricacies of the US public media ecosystem. Second half I tried to detail how the GOP rescission bill was designed to attack democratic media.

"At once a source of demystification of AI for the recently concerned and an intervention which encourages veteran sceptics to sharpen their criticism, [The AI Con] serves as a call to action to ridicule AI hype as a consumer, argue against it as a citizen, and resist it as a worker."

I'm closely interviewed for this Nieman Lab report that discusses how rural areas will be affected by loss of funding for local NPR reporting. We must not underestimate the importance of equal access to information - we're about to witness a seismic ideological shift in American sense of "place."

Had a blast seeing my book Listeners Like Who? in the wild at ASA this weekend 🤩 @princetonupress.bsky.social press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

"I think there are lessons to be learned from the long period when civic-minded advocates wandered the wilderness of American media capitalism." current.org/2025/08/what...

I was on @kalwradio.bsky.social today to discuss how publicly funding public media is a racial justice issue. The full episode is dedicated to understanding CPB’s closure and well worth a listen. The last 15 mins is my interview with @angiecoiro.bsky.social www.kalw.org/show/your-ca...

PBS and NPR have been defunded by law passed by Congress, not just an executive order. The government agency that funds them will wind down in a few weeks. It’s crazy all of this was mapped out in Project 2025 and is being executed like clockwork. A well oiled machine of societal sabotage.

"CPB informed employees that the majority of staff positions will be eliminated with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025." www.npr.org/2025/08/01/n...

When we rebuild our public media up from the ashes it will need to be much bigger, bolder, and better funded -- not so dependent on private capital and corporate sponsorships, but truly public. It will need to be more democratic, more independent, and capable of withstanding two-bit fascist regimes.

my grief is complicated, but it is still grief.

This is right and also: given the nature of this defunding, we also need to think about the mechanism(s) for that funding. The CPB nuclear option that has unfolded is a sword of Damocles that has hung over public media for decades and impacted many decisions even before now. Need to rethink.

Good thread on some of the implications from the shutdown of CPB. I'll add that I also expect a wave of consolidations, where some smaller stations are saved but at dramatically reduced capacity - not quite just repeater stations, but not far off - which also degrades local news capacity.

cpb.org/pressroom/Co... The corporation for public broadcasting shutting down is awful news for people looking to keep public media’s mission alive. a brief thread on what it means for public radio:

A reminder that there is a whole universe beyond these fake ass, violent borders and I wrote a book about magnets and neutrinos and what is space even and you can and should preorder hardcover, ebook, AND audiobook 🪩 #BookSky www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/746817...

Finished recording the audio book of Radical Unlearning! Cruising towards October publication...preorder now (a big help to getting the book out into the world)! allgoodbooks.com/item/VdT28uS...

I'm sad to remove NPR's Diverse Sources from my database, but I'm proud that DiverseDatabases.com has been here for you since 2018 and I have no plans to stop running it.

Is NPR erasing diverse voices? NPR's Diverse Sources Database - an incredibly resource for qualified experts from underrepresented and marginalized perspectives -- is GONE. Click any link to the former directory and it just says "not found." One example: guides.library.columbia.edu/findingsources

I think I may have seen you give a talk on this topic almost a decade ago? If that’s at all possible. And I remember that talk. Anyway this feels important given the attacks on public media.