Long Shadow

When was the last time you felt good about the internet? Today’s online landscape is a harrowing one. Back in the day, the web gave power to the people, and going online could actually be fun. Across seven episodes, Long Shadow’s fourth season retraces 30 years of web history — a tangle of GIFs, blogs, apps, and hashtags — to answer the bewildering question many ask when they go online today: “How did we get here?”

Chronicling innovations, revolutions, cyber attacks, and meltdowns, the limited series podcast untangles the web in a way you’ve never considered before. Hosted by Pulitzer-finalist historian and journalist Garrett M. Graff and distributed by PRX, it’s the story of mankind’s greatest invention, how a tool that gave everyone access to all the world’s information unlocked democracy across the globe. But it’s also about the biggest crisis facing society today: How the web's unlimited feed of data morphed into a firehose of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and lies that caused Americans to divide over things they once agreed on, like science, diversity, and even democracy itself.

The Ruby Ridge raid, the Waco siege at the Branch Davidian compound, the Oklahoma City bombing, the January 6 insurrection… all explosive moments in recent U.S. history. But connect the dots between these — and other — seemingly disparate, violent events, and you’ll answer some of the most existential questions facing the U.S. today: How did America get the far right so wrong? What will it take now to get it right?

Long Shadow’s second season explores how the modern domestic extremist movement grew from a fatal shootout on a mountain top in Idaho and led to a riot on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Crackling with rich archival sound and riveting interviews, this seven-episode limited series examines a thread of history that’s vitally relevant to our current political climate.