Question Everything with Brian Reed

Dec 05 2024 9 ep. 34 mins 606

Question Everything with Brian Reed Podcast artwork

With gripping stories every other Thursday, Question Everything is a show for anyone who's ever felt confused, frustrated, or misled by the news they rely on. At a time when distrust in the media is at an all time high, when so many believe that journalism is failing, Question Everything is a real-time quest to try and make journalism better.

In the middle of making his second hit podcast, reporter Brian Reed got sued. Accused. Told the biggest story of his career – the Peabody Award-winning series S-Town – wasn’t journalism. Which meant he had to spend years proving that it was. Obsessing over the question, “What is journalism, anyway?” Join Brian as he turns the tools he’s acquired over his years as a journalist on journalism itself.

For more behind each episode, sign up for the newsletter: https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/question-everything

Produced by Placement Theory and KCRW.

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8: Can AI tell us what stories to look out for? A live experiment.

Dec 05 2024 31 mins

Our team at Question Everything has been playing around with a new technology that sucks up tons of social media posts, and then uses AI to figure out what ideas are forming in the shadows of the internet before they hit the mainstream. Brian interviews a journalist who uses this tech, to see what conversations are brewing right now that we might want to keep an eye out for in the

7: Getting Ready to Interview Trump: An Exercise

Nov 21 2024 40 mins

We hire a freelancer to research every comment Donald Trump has made about the press. He ends up telling his wrestling buddy about the assignment, and using it to see if he can get him to trust in journalism. You can find more work by Sam Eagan here. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice

6: Special Election-Eve Episode: The Story of a Story Untold

Nov 04 2024 20 mins

A special election-eve episode from Brian: Ruminations on a story that never was, and a late night conversation with the source he was supposed to make it about. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5: When To Call A Thing What It Is

Oct 24 2024 39 mins

Did you hear us on This American Life? Keep listening as Brian stops doomscrolling and starts doom-living. He brings two journalists he saw duking it out on Twitter into a studio, where they debate how to report on lies and racism in the Trump era. Then he finds a journalist who’s putting their big theoretical questions into practice – at a personal cost – as she covers one o

4: Can Journalism Save a Marriage? (featured on This American Life)

Oct 10 2024 32 mins

A married couple finds themselves fighting miserably over the news. So they set out on a quest for the seemingly impossible: to find a news source that both a self-admitted “bleeding heart liberal” and a Trump supporter can trust. Check out Tangle News here. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph

3: The Journalist and the Firefighter: How Predicting January 6 Led a Top Reporter to Quit Journalism

Sep 26 2024 41 mins

How one of the most accomplished reporters of our time, Barton Gellman, lost his confidence in journalism. Sign up for our newsletter to hear the one outtake from the interview that Brian wished he could get into the episode, but couldn’t. “Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2: Journalists Question Everything: Ira Glass, Zoe Chace, Jonathan Eig, Astead Herndon

Sep 12 2024 52 mins

Brian puts four journalists together in a room, gives them drinks, and starts rolling tape. Their only instructions: show up with questions for each other and be ready to talk candidly about the challenges in their jobs. Foremost on their minds: Why do people even share their stories with journalists in the first place? You can watch this whole episode on YouTube! And subscribe to

1: S-Town Host Brian Reed Meets His Harshest Critic

Sep 12 2024 49 mins

Brian talks to a fellow journalist who called his most well-known work “morally indefensible.” You can read Gay Alcorn’s column here. Subscribe to our newsletter to read Gay’s full reaction to this episode. You can listen to S-Town here. If you’re having thoughts of suicide, please reach out for help by dialing 988 or clicking here. “Question Everything” is a p

Question Everything is out now!

Aug 30 2024 2 mins

Journalist Brian Reed of S-Town is questioning everything, even his own work. Season premiere Sept 12. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices