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This week, OTM talks about popular cultural myths that refuse to die. The first is seems to have staying power: the rumor that President Obama is a Muslim. A 2009 Pew study found that many Americans still believe it to be true, and many more simply don't know the President's religion. Political scientist Brendan Nyhan explains how misperceptions spread and says we can be incredibly stubborn in the face of facts.
Most historical accounts of Rosa Parks focus on the story we all know: how the humble seamstress changed history by refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. But while that account is accurate, it's only part of her story. In this interview we originally aired in 2005, Bob talks with Duke historian Tim Tyson about the construction of an American hero.
We recorded this interview during the 2008 presidential campaign when the "Bradley effect" was getting a lot of media play. The term comes from Tom Bradley's 1982 California gubernatorial campaign, in which the discrepancy between polling (which predicted he was ahead) and the actual result (he lost) was attributed to white voters not being able to pull the lever for a black candidate. But Democratic and Republican strategists who worked on that campaign tell us there was no Bradley effect, even for Bradley. And Nate Silver of the blog 538 says the misnamed phenomenon hasn't been observed since the early 1990s.
Forty-six years ago, Kitty Genovese was murdered in Queens and, as the story goes, 38 witnesses watched the assault for half an hour but no one intervened. We spoke with historian Joseph De May last year. He says the truth is a bit more complicated.
Controversy over a 2007 news account about a war protester spitting on an Iraq vet at a peace march unearthed a trope that dates back to Vietnam. In the 1990s, sociologist and Vietnam War veteran Jerry Lembcke researched spitting stories in the media during the 1960s and 70s. He told us in 2007 that not a single first-hand account was published.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most politically tense moments of the Kennedy presidency, and one of the most memorable media moments of the Cold War. In an interview which originally aired in 2002, Fred Kaplan talked about how the media covered the Missile Crisis then, and how we interpret that coverage today.
In the Works 
Listen to the interview here>>
Columbia Journalism Review has also posted an edited, Q&A version of the interview.
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Highlights from Past Shows
Political news this week was dominated by the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque," but the Muslim community center at Park51 is neither at Ground Zero, nor is it chiefly a mosque. Late this week several news organizations including the AP issued memos which offered guidance as to how to cover this story. We talked to Yahoo! News media reporter Michael Calderone about the origin of this phrase and how it became media shorthand for this controversial story.
This week saw yet another sally in the battle over net neutrality. Verizon and Google jointly proposed that wired access to the internet remain open and as is, while mobile access ... well, it's complicated. And so we offer this musical allegory to help put the players in context.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
