Locked up, alone, accused of being a spy, reporter Jeremy Loffredo has to defend the fact that he’s a journalist. To the Israeli courts. And then…to our reporter.

This is part two of our two-part series about Jeremy Loffredo, who in October 2024 became the first American journalist arrested by Israel. This story won Best Reporting at the 2026 Ambie Awards, which is why we’re sharing it again now.

“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

This episode originally aired January 30th, 2025.

Part one of a special, two-part series, about Jeremy Loffredo, the first American journalist ever arrested by Israel, and the questions that were raised about not only Israel, but the outlet Jeremy worked for, once our team started looking into his story. We’re re-airing these episodes because they won Best Reporting from the Podcast Academy, at the 2026 Ambie Awards.

“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

This episode originally aired January 15th, 2025.

News recently broke that Paramount, which is newly controlled by David Ellison and his billionaire dad Larry Ellison, won the bid to buy Warner-Brothers Discovery, after aggressively squeezing out Netflix.

As Trump himself has said, the Ellisons are “friends of mine…big supporters of mine, and they’ll do the right thing.”

Is the “right thing” squashing critical coverage of the president? Doing stories he’s more inclined to like? The Ellisons already own CBS News, through Paramount; now they’re about to own CNN. Larry Ellison also has a new ownership stake in TikTok, via a deal anointed by Trump.

Is this what experts call “media capture?” Is the U.S. in it, right now?

In this conversation we first ran in October 2025, after the Ellisons took control of Paramount, foreign correspondent Natalia Antelava explains the insidious implications of media capture from her experience living and reporting in captured countries around the world.

“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

This episode originally aired October 30th, 2025.

Guests:

• Natalia Antelava, founder of Coda Story