Bob reads from a few of your letters and comments.

Jim James - All Is Forgiven

Last week, Bob spoke to Craig Brittain, the founder of a website called "Is Anybody Down?". The site posts nude photos of people and includes personally identifying information about them - things like their full names, Facebook pages, sometimes even their addresses and phone numbers. (interview with Brittain starts @6:00.)

Bob's interview with Brittain sparked a lot of listener reaction - both positive and critical. 

This article originally appeared in The Guardian

There are lies and there are lies and there are lies.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Big Lie.

"OMG, your [homely] baby is beautiful!": small social lie.

And then, there is the highly debatable third category: lies in service of the greater truth.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are unleashing a new ad campaign that graphically depicts the consequences of smoking. The campaign, called "Tips From Former Smokers," is the first of its kind by the federal government.  Bob speaks to CDC director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden about the new commercials.

For years, Pepsi was the "Choice of a New Generation." The iconic tagline was used in Pepsi advertisements throughout the 1980s, but now the breakfast cereal company MOM Brands is repurposing the phrase to market its Better Oats instant oatmeal. Bob speaks to MOM Brands corporate communications manager Linda Fisher about using an old tagline for a new product.

Boots Randolph - Yakety Sax

Typically, political pundits are able to get away with making predictions that are spectacularly wrong because it’s not as if somebody’s going to go back and check their work. But the new site Pundit Tracker seeks to change that by scoring television pundits on their prognostication powers. Bob talks to Sanjay Ayer, the founder and CEO of Pundit Tracker, about what he hopes to achieve with the site.

A new crop of cleavage-baring ladies on YouTube known as "reply girls" have been manipulating the video sharing site's related video function in order to cash in on some advertising revenue. Bob speaks to Daily Dot writer Fruzsina Eordogh about the "reply girl" phenomenon and why they are making YouTube users so angry.

JumokeTV - Reply Girl (Song)

It's pledge week at On the Media's parent station WNYC. Hosting this website and our podcast costs our producing station a sizeable chunk of change each year. If you’d like to contribute to WNYC to help keep us online and available to you whenever you want to listen, now is the time to do it. For a one time pledge of $60 you can get our popular ON [CAFFEINE] coffee mug which host Brooke Gladstone can be seen modeling below – follow this link to get the mug or to pledge at any level to WNYC (you can also see the other great thank you gifts on offer).

Normally for our pledge shows, Bob and Brooke spend the hour recalling some of our favorite segments, and talking about how great we are. But instead of tooting our own horns this time around, OTM decided to go to some of our favorite public radio personalities and ask them to tell our listening audience just how amazing, wonderful, and worthy of support we are. All week we've been posting segments featuring Brooke and Bob talking to folks like Terry Gross, Peter Sagal, and Deb Amos. In our final pledge show segment, Brooke talks to Radiolab's Robert Krulwich!

Don't forget to support us at https://pledge3.wnyc.org/epledge/desktop/otm/ or text OTM to 25383 to make a $10 donation via your phone bill. We're counting on your support! 

It's pledge week at On the Media's parent station WNYC. Hosting this website and our podcast costs our producing station a sizeable chunk of change each year. If you’d like to contribute to WNYC to help keep us online and available to you whenever you want to listen, now is the time to do it. For a one time pledge of $60 you can get our popular ON [CAFFEINE] coffee mug which host Brooke Gladstone can be seen modeling below – follow this link to get the mug or to pledge at any level to WNYC (you can also see the other great thank you gifts on offer).

Normally for our pledge shows, Bob and Brooke spend the hour recalling some of our favorite segments, and talking about how great we are. But instead of tooting our own horns this time around, OTM decided to go to some of our favorite public radio personalities and ask them to tell our listening audience just how amazing, wonderful, and worthy of support we are. In this segment, Brooke talks to Deb Amos, an NPR correspondent who covers the middle east.  

We still have one more segment from our pledge show to come, so check our blog again tomorrow!

In an attempt to make the government more transparent with the information it has collected about her, OTM producer Sarah Abdurrahman is sending out personal Freedom of Information Act Requests to numerous government agencies.  Bob speaks to Sarah about what it takes to FOIA yourself.

Errors - Tusk

Berlin based artist Julian Oliver has crafted an object that looks just like the classic Russian F1 hand grenade you often see in war movies. But when you pull the pin on this grenade, it doesn’t explode in fire and bits of shrapnel, it records nearby audio and gathers information from local wireless signals and explodes that information onto the Internet. Bob talks to Oliver about the motivations behind his transparency grenade.

The Iranian government is set to launch a "Halal Internet" this spring as an alternative to the greater World Wide Web. Bob speaks to Fast Company reporter Neal Ungerleider about the most ambitious attempt by a government to censor the internet since China's "Great Firewall."

Quantic and His Combo Barbaro - Cancao Do Deserto

Familiar with the apps that vacuum in your personal information without your knowledge? Or online companies that track you even after you’ve nicely asked them not to? Well, the White House announced last week a new ‘Consumer Bill of Rights’ that will try to clarify how online companies and app developers are supposed to navigate your privacy.  Bob speaks with Ryan Singel of wired.com about consumer privacy’s prospects and potential.

This week Iranians returned to the polls for the first time since 2009’s presidential election, and opposition groups and reformers have called for a boycott of the elections. The government wants high voter turnout to show that the regime is still strong, and so they've attempted to clamp down on the media in order to get their version of the story out. Bob talks to Muhammad Sahimi of Tehran Bureau about the regime's efforts at message control. 

On this week’s show, we have a few stories exploring the subject of transparency. Inspired by the story of a woman who discovered the FBI had a 436-page report on her after sending in a bunch of personal FOIA requests, I decided to make the government get transparent with me as well.

Hollywood can conjure realistic car chases, wars, and alien invasions. When it comes to a simple evening newscast, however, the results are almost always unconvincing. Bob speaks with a TV critic, a TV news director, an Onion News Network writer, and two directors to find out why Hollywood gets it wrong.

Battles - White Electric (Shabazz Palaces Remix)

Jafar Panahi is an award-winning Iranian director who was recently given a six-year jail sentence and a twenty-year filmmaking ban for what his government has called propaganda against the state. In response, he’s made a movie. It’s called This is Not a Film, and he shot it in his apartment on a digital camera and an iPhone. Fellow Iranian filmmaker Jamsheed Akrami talks to Bob about the non-film, which was smuggled out of Iran in a cake.

In the wake of MIA's bird-flipping performance at the Super Bowl and Gisele Bundchen's post-game profanity, Bob talks to Mary Prevost, a lawyer representing a California sports fan's who was ejected from a football game for swearing. Prevost says that ejecting him from the park was a violation of his First Amendment rights.

MIA - Paper Planes

A few weeks ago Dana Milbank, political columnist for the Washington Post, pinned his heart on his sleeve and wrote a very high profile love letter.  To Newt Gingrich.  It was raw, it was honest and it was a totally tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging the vested interest that reporters have in the seemingly endless horse race coverage. Milbank tells Bob why it was time to take his Newt love to the next level.

The situation in Syria is worsening, with estimates of over 5000 dead and the regime of President Bashar Al Assad showing no signs of backing down. With a virtual media blackout in the country, videos posted to YouTube and Facebook are providing some of the only glimpses into the atrocities taking place on the ground.  Bob speaks to NPR senior strategist Andy Carvin and Sky News digital news editor Neal Mann about walking the line between conveying the immensity of the brutality without traumatizing audiences.

The Chieftans - The Stone