Hyped podcast available now

By Jennifer Cloer

My first interview for the Hyped podcast is with Dr Riley Dunlap, one of the world’s foremost experts on climate denial and who sat in his bedroom closet during the pandemic to ensure we could get good audio. He knows, like us, how important it is to increase awareness about some of the dark tactics that are being used behind the scenes to advance agendas that threaten democracy. Being an information consumer can’t be a passive experience. 

Our guests have been so generous and have shed important light on the state of communications and misinformation. We’ve interviewed documentary filmmakers (Get Me Roger Stone), bestselling authors, professors, sociologists and activists for a podcast that I’m so proud to have co-produced with my friend Amanda McPherson. 

In Season One, which is available now, we explore the history of PR to give proper context to what we’re seeing happen today.

We go on an exploration to understand front groups in tobacco and climate and how the Rockefellers and their PR man Ivy Lee orchestrated the first PR stunt to cover up a deadly incident.

We also go inside the world of fake news, troll farms and end-to-end manipulation systems in our episode dedicated to what is being called “Dark PR.” 

I wrote in one of my debut posts for the Story Changes Culture Media platform that “there will be a collective call on the PR industry and content producers to examine trust and truth. As communications experts and architects, the industry's leaders have the opportunity to lead the discussion and be on the right side of history.” 

I hope the Hyped podcast can advance some of the work at hand. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.