A few highlights from this week’s radio program and podcast:

BROOKINGS VS STEVE BANNON. The Brookings Institute recently published a study of 79 prominent political podcasters (darn, I didn’t make the cut). After analyzing 36,603 episodes, Brookings concluded that ten conservative podcasters were responsible for 60% of all “unsubstantiated and false claims.”

The study focuses mostly on election denial and COVID (incredibly, researchers ignored the blatantly false statements on climate change prevalent in conservative podcasts). Steve Bannon’s War Room finished a decisive first. From the Brookings study: “Bannon’s podcast alone accounted for nearly three-quarters of all conspiracy-related content on political podcasts and more than one-quarter of all COVID-related claims.”

Placing a distant but still respectable third was the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. They’re Rush Limbaugh’s successors, and they now dominate commercial radio for three hours each weekday. It was, in fact, during a Clay and Buck episode that I learned of the Brookings study. You know the mainstream media isn’t covering your story when I have to find out about it from a program the study critiques. Continue Reading →