A. Brad Schwartz

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.

Detroit’s RoboCop statue

RoboCop’s back

RoboCop’s leg

RoboCop’s thigh with text: “OCP POLICE 001”

I mean, the detail!

Detroit’s RoboCop statue

No joke, Detroit’s RoboCop is among the most impressive pieces of statuary I’ve ever seen.

Back in March 1938, Edward R. Murrow made his debut as a reporter on the very first CBS News Roundup, which more or less established the format broadcast journalism still uses today.

End of an era (in more ways than one)…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=igrr...

Getting into the spirit of the Yule.

#Krampus

Great piece from @chrisyogerst.com on what Warner Bros. has meant to film culture—and what’s at stake with its sale to Netflix:

www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Post your favorite "Transformers" character. Wrong answers only.

We tried to warn you all…

YouTube video by CBS 1960: "Harvest of Shame"

Sixty-five years ago, in one of his final CBS News broadcasts, Edward R. Murrow introduced viewers to the migrant workers who harvested the food on their Thanksgiving tables:

youtu.be/yJTVF_dya7E?...

Use only ONE piece of art convince folks to follow you

Back in February, I wrote a piece for TIME’s “Made By History” about how this sort of journalistic malpractice not only fueled McCarthyism, but arguably caused it:

time.com/7213586/medi...

The really infuriating thing is that some journalists realized, as early as mid-1950, how they were helping McCarthy, unwillingly or otherwise.

But despite all the writing on this subject, then and since, the profession still hasn’t learned this basic lesson.

This exact sort of framing, with headlines taking an official accusation at face value, is how the news media helped fuel the rise of Joe McCarthy.

Here’s the NY Times in Feb. 1950, with one of many headlines implying that McCarthy’s lies had at least some basis in reality:

And at the same time, Paddy Chayefsky knew *exactly* where we were headed…

This film is on a constant loop in my head.

YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, CHARLIE BROWN!

That archive, incidentally, is now online and accessible to all here: quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wow/

Grew up listening to old-time radio shows because that was the only way my parents could get me to go to sleep.

Then, as an undergrad, heard about an untapped archive of fan mail from the most (in)famous radio broadcast of all, Orson Welles’s WAR OF THE WORLDS, and used it to write my first book.

“To be an American is not to be someone, but to believe in something.”

We want to speak directly to members of the Military and the Intelligence Community.

The American people need you to stand up for our laws and our Constitution.

Don’t give up the ship.

What Robert Anton Wilson once said about Orson Welles’s F FOR FAKE may be even more true in the age of AI:

“A documentary that admits it’s lying is honest; a documentary that pretends to be honest is lying.”

a black and white photo of a man standing in front of a sign that says `` you are welcome '' . Alt: a black and white photo of a man standing in front of a sign that says `` you are welcome '' .

Congrats! I will never forget the day my first book went out into the wild. Enjoy it!

Calling @historyonfilm.bsky.social!

I guess this is our excuse to do that episode on NETWORK:

your last saved meme is your moral philosophy…

a man in a red suit and tie is sitting in front of a blue wall . Alt: a man in a red suit and tie is sitting in front of a blue wall reacts with excitement

Did not realize how much I wanted more of Paul Giamatti as John Adams until he started speaking on Ken Burns’s THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION and I reacted like this:

The bow of the Great Lakes freighter Arthur M. Anderson at a dock in Toledo

The SS Arthur M. Anderson seen earlier today, laid up in Toledo exactly fifty years after accompanying the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on its final voyage.

Make sure you don't miss this week's episode with @abradschwartz.bsky.social all about McCarthyism, Murrow, the news media, and much more! This and all of our episodes are ad-free wherever you get your podcasts!

TOMORROW: It's a cultural history of THE SIMPSONS with
@alansiegella.bsky.social!

#ScholarSunday Thread 249 (11/9/25) – Black and White and Read All Over Here it is, my 249th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below in comments, please share as widely as...

Here it is, my 249th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below in comments, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️

blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...

I took this photo from Belle Isle yesterday afternoon (following, I kid you not, an Edmund Fitzgerald commemorative event).

Only learned later that I apparently watched this freighter run aground in the Detroit River: