On the Media: American Emergency | Radiolab Podcast

From the Radiolab podcast: In the series American Emergency, the On the Media team investigates how the agency tasked with saving America became distrusted, despised… and defunded. A little while back, our friends over at On the Media released a gripping and immersive reporting series about FEMA, the agency that is supposed to be there for all of us in the wake of disaster. In American Emergency (https://zpr.io/qQF7rfdJa4xF), OTM investigates how the agency tasked with saving America became distrusted, despised… and defunded. Today we talk to On the Media co-host Micah Loewinger about how this project came out, what reporting went into making it happen, and play a couple of fun and truly surprising bits of the story that the OTM team uncovered. And it’s a story that highlights the ideal and promise of good government, right alongside the frustration with bureaucracy and mismanagement, and of course the undercurrent of profound mistrust in governmental power. As natural disasters are getting more extreme and less predictable, this series makes sense of that tangle, and provides a prescient peek into FEMA’s future. Special thanks to On the Media. Episode Segments: 0:00 Segment 1 27:47 Break 28:44 Segment 2 🎧 Subscribe to Radiolab wherever you listen to podcasts: https://lnk.to/radiolab!youtube 🔎 Subscribe to Radiolab on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3I9KI53 🖋 Subscribe to Radiolab’s Newsletter: https://radiolab.org/newsletter 🌱 Check out Radiolab's Starter Kit Playlist: https://bit.ly/3sX8f4P 👍 Like this video ✏️ and leave us a comment! Follow Radiolab: Instagram —   / radiolab   X — https://x.com/Radiolab Facebook —   / radiolab   Threads — https://www.threads.net/@radiolab TikTok —   / radiolab   Our newsletter includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up here: https://radiolab.org/newsletter Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab today: https://radiolab.org/the-lab Photo illustration by Jared Bartman Video by Joanna Strogatz