A guest episode from the podcast Proxy: Nicole is an organizer who's good at channeling her anger. The trouble is she can't always downshift -- or even allow herself to feel sad about the problems she's fighting against. That doesn't seem healthy. Maybe it'll help if Nicole can talk with someone who's been there -- years before, in a movement Nicole idolizes. With Proxy host Yowei Shaw.
Jan 14
50 min
Host John Biewen reads an essay from his newsletter, Keeping ScOR. After a visit to his hometown, Mankato, Minnesota -- the subject of the Scene on Radio episode, "Little War on the Prairie" -- John reflects on the changes there and America's latest assault on history.
Music by goodnight, Lucas.
To read see the Keeping ScOR newsletter archive or subscribe to receive it, go here: https://buttondown.com/KeepingScOR#subscribe-form
Oct 22, 2025
14 min
We're sharing an episode from another podcast that asks big questions about who we are and how we got here: The Alabama Murders, a new series by bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast. Entangled in an affair with a parishioner, a Northwest Alabama minister made a devastating choice. Eventually, the consequences led to the center of a hot national debate about who should be allowed to live, who should die, and how the state should kill them. Malcolm asks: why, in our efforts to alleviate suffering, do we so often make it worse?
Oct 9, 2025
34 min
A rebroadcast of a Scene on Radio episode, eighty years after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The word “Hiroshima” may bring to mind a black-and-white image of a mushroom cloud. It’s easy to forget that it’s an actual city with a million people and a popular baseball team. What did the cataclysm of 1945 mean in the place where it happened, to the people who lived through it? John Biewen went to Hiroshima and interviewed A-bomb survivors in 1995.
“Voices of Hiroshima” is a production of Minnesota Public Radio, from American Public Media.
Aug 6, 2025
33 min
A bonus episode from the Lever Time podcast: Their latest, exploring the decision by CBS to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and the wider context for that move -- Donald Trump's effort to crush dissent through lawsuits and other attacks on media corporations. With host David Sirota and his guest, New York Times journalist David Enrich.
Jul 23, 2025
39 min
The fifth and final installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from outstanding podcast series. This project, led by host and senior producer Ruxandra Guidi and editor Rekha Murthy, is called Happy Forgetting. The episode we're sharing, "Finding the Wisdom," by producer Adreanna Rodriguez, explores themes of care, healing -- and history -- among Indigenous and Mexican women in California and Mexico.
Find the rest of the Happy Forgetting series here: https://happyforgetting.com/
May 21, 2025
36 min
Host John Biewen reads an essay from his newsletter, Keeping ScOR. Reflections on the Trump Administration's attempt to wrangle control of the national story and how it's told. Will this attack on factual history succeed?
Music by goodnight, Lucas.
To read see the Keeping ScOR newsletter archive or subscribe to receive it, go here: https://buttondown.com/KeepingScOR#subscribe-form
The video of David Joy referred to in the episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0g_6uidwcE
May 14, 2025
15 min
The fourth installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from exceptional podcast series. From CBC Podcasts and the L.A. Times, this is Season 1, Episode 5 of The Outlaw Ocean, reported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina. The episode, titled "Waves of Extraction," uncovers brutal exploitation of sea life -- and of people. It's a powerful complement to Scene on Radio's Capitalism season.
May 7, 2025
52 min
The third installment in our between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen -- selections from exceptional podcast series. From producer Jess Shane and Radiotopia Presents, this is Episode 1 of "Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative," an innovative exploration of the process and the ethics of narrative documentary storytelling.
Apr 23, 2025
39 min
The second in a between-seasons miniseries, "a few of my favorite things," chosen by host John Biewen: Episode 1 of The Copernic Affair, from the Canadaland network. The series tells the story of a sociology professor living near Ottawa who finds himself accused of a decades-old bombing attack against a synagogue in Paris. Did Hassan Diab do it? By reporters Dana Ballout and Alex Atack.
Apr 9, 2025
28 min
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