Hello, dear listeners. What you're about to hear is the chronicle of our efforts over the last

12 months to explore the messages, the meanings, and stakes of a frankly preposterous year. In 2025,

the media ether was sparking with shiny objects launched from the White House, but not just from there.

And of course, real things happen too.

Horrible things.

And some good ones.

Definitely missed a few, but we sure tried.

If you're a frequent listener, you know that.

And we'll be here next year just as we have for the last 25, if we can.

And by now, frequent listeners will also know that this is all prelude to a pitch, and we're all knee-deep in them.

Because it seems the impact of 2025 on the collective psyche has been to either paralyze or intensify one's passions.

If we are one of yours, or if you think we could be,

or should be, we need your help each and every year to stay here. WNYC is doing what it can to keep the public radio system going as a whole, especially in those places where the

internet is bad. Public radio is sometimes

the only news they can actually use. So please, if you like the work, support it. Give today

at onemedia.org slash donate. And thank you now and for as long as it takes. That said, on with the show.

And this week's on the media, a year to remember, even if you'd rather forget. I signed a sweeping

slate of executive orders to stop the invasion of our borders. Musk has been given access to the Treasury Department's payment system, including the personal

information of millions of American workers.

The January 6th investigation and the hundreds of criminal cases connected to it effectively

erased.

Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team.

...