Hey, it's Micah. If you've been enjoying the Divided Dial series as much as we have,

come join us in New York on June 11th for a very cool, very low-key live show that I'll be doing

with Katie Thornton. We'll hear about the crazy lengths Katie went to to bring these stories to

life. And we'll talk about what our role is in keeping the public airwaves

public. The event is on June 11th in New York. You can find more information at WNYC.org

slash events and in the show notes for today's podcast. Come and nerd out with us on all things radio.

It's going to be really fun. The way it was kind of described to me was

like if Fox News was basically every TV channel and the New York Post was like every newspaper.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Michael Loenger. On this week's show, we're trying to

answer the question, where is the U.S. right now on the backsliding democracy scale?

We were wondering, like, is it fair to call U.S. like an illiberal regime? But then we were

talking and we were thinking like, oh, but they are like deporting people for no reason.

Meanwhile, an old academic study about what works to push back on autocratic regimes is a hot new meme on the resistance internet. If one percent of the population participates at the peak of the movement, then the regime has a 50 percent chance of giving away,

and it gets better from there, up to 3.5%

no regime has survived a 3.5% population resistance. It's all coming up after this.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Michael Onger. A few weeks ago, I got an email

with an interview request that stopped me in my tracks.

What did it feel like for you to see your country turn into an illiberal regime?

And how do you manage to continue doing your job with integrity and courage?

This is Juana Philip.

I am a Romanian journalist.

The weird thing is we were in the middle of putting together this episode,

...