In 2022 Brent Renaud became the first American journalist to be killed by Russian soldiers while covering the war in Ukraine. Brent’s collaborator for many years was his younger brother Craig. When word got back to Craig that Brent had been shot, he did what he and his brother had always done. He kept filming.

Craig and his producer Juan Arredondo used that footage along with material from their archive to make the Oscar nominated short documentary “Armed Only With a Camera.”

The film is part tribute to his brother, part salute to war journalists who are still out there, risking their lives. Micah spoke to Craig about how the brothers got started in the journalism business.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

The Trump administration called Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal officers, a “domestic terrorist.” And then bystander footage flooded the internet. On this week’s On the Media, how the real-time verification of video evidence is transforming public discourse. Plus, what the anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis have in common with the Boston Massacre.

[01:00] Host Brooke Gladstone speaks with Brandy Zadrozny, senior enterprise reporter at MS Now, about the informal network of far-right content creators traveling to anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, and why the right-wing narrative is losing power in the face of an outpouring of bystander footage.

[17:45] Host Micah Loewinger talks with Radley Balko, author of The Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces, about similarities between the conditions that led to the Boston Massacre in 1770 and what we’re seeing today in Minneapolis and other cities targeted by ICE operations today.

[31:43] Brooke sits down with Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, to discuss his framework for the essential functions of democracy— verification, deliberation, and accountability—which have broken down into hollow performances or simulations in the United States today.

Further reading / watching:

• “In Minneapolis, far-right influencers frame ICE resistance as terrorism,” by Brandy Zadrozny
• “Two cities under siege,” by Radley Balko
• “Verification, Deliberation, Accountability: A new framework for tackling epistemic collapse and renewing democracy,” by Eliot Higgins and Natalie Martin

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.

Stars and Stripes, the venerated, independent award-winning newspaper that has served the armed services for roughly a century, may be getting an uninvited makeover, courtesy of Pete Hegseth’s Defense Department.

In a statement posted on X earlier this month, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that Stars and Stripes would no longer be carrying wire reports from the Associated Press, and that it would steer away from all that is woke or might sap morale. Parnell said the defense department would be bringing the newspaper “into the 21st century.”

Brooke spoke to Erik Slavin, Editor-in-Chief of Stars and Stripes.

On the Media is supported by listeners like you. Support OTM by donating today (https://pledge.wnyc.org/support/otm). Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @onthemedia, and share your thoughts with us by emailing onthemedia@wnyc.org.