Hey, it's Bob, and it's the end of the year when we annually ask for your support.

And it's also the beginning of a new era when I think we need to support one another.

For our part with relentless questioning of authority and our brand of illuminating what isn't necessarily in plain view.

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Seriously.

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From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Bob Garfield. And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Look, there's not a whole lot of comfort in the show coming up. We're just trying to do what we do, which is drilled down on the stuff we think is important.

But frankly, recent events have made us less confident in our gut in deciding what to cover.

Less confident in our heads, too.

We find ourselves in the grip of centrifugal forces.

One is magical thinking, the other, failure of the imagination.

Let me explain.

Last summer, we spoke to journalist Masha Gessen,

whose perspective on American politics is shaped by her Russian roots.

She said our media suffered from a disabling failure of the imagination when it came to Donald Trump.

We need to start imagining what happens if he becomes president.

Now, the American system doesn't actually give the chief executive a lot of power.

There's an intricate system of checks and balances that will force him to mobilize things

...