Log in

goodpods headphones icon

To access all our features

Open the Goodpods app
Close icon
headphones
Radioactive

Radioactive

Tablet Magazine

Before CNN and Fox News, before shock jocks and powerful pundits, there was Father Charles Coughlin, an ambitious priest who invented political talk radio as we know it, brought down one president and crowned another, and was at one point considered the most powerful man in America. He was also a rabid antisemite who wrote fan mail to Mussolini and cheered on Hitler, and who used his enormous platform to spread hate. In this 8-part podcast, Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin weaves together archival materials and incisive interviews to tell the story of Father Coughlin's alarming rise and dramatic fall. It’s a cautionary tale of how an unscrupulous bigot can manipulate mass media to spread hate and gather far too much political power. Radioactive is produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism.
profile image

1 Listener

Share icon

All episodes

Best episodes

Seasons

Top 10 Radioactive Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Radioactive episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Radioactive for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Radioactive episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Radioactive - Episode 6: Social Justice
play

11/09/21 • 34 min

Huey Long’s folksy populism wins over Louisiana voters and becomes darkly demagogic. Picking up where Long leaves off, Father Coughlin and his National Union for Social Justice energize the anti-FDR base at massive political rallies across the country. The Social Justice party runs a candidate for president in the 1936 election, and Coughlin blatantly solicits campaign funds on his radio show while Bishop Gallagher and Church higher-ups look the other way. Though his candidate fizzles, Coughlin’s political influence is firmly established—and his openly antisemitic speeches find a growing audience.

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Episode 7: Sedition
play

11/16/21 • 57 min

Faced with political defeat, Father Coughlin drops all pretense of diplomacy. He plagiarizes Joseph Goebbels in his Social Justice magazine and writes fan letters to Mussolini. His Kristallnacht broadcast gets him kicked off major radio stations. He incites his followers in a paramilitary organization known as the Christian Front to undertake violence in the streets. The FBI raids the Christian Front headquarters in Brooklyn, leading to the arrest of 17 men and the trial of the so-called “Brooklyn Boys.”

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Episode 8: The Ghost of Royal Oak
play

11/23/21 • 36 min

In the final chapter of this series, Father Coughlin disappears from the public eye, but his legacy lives on. When Coughlin stages a high-profile protest episode, and the church finally gives him an ultimatum: his radio career or the priesthood. The FBI closes in on Coughlin, but an unlikely figure steps in to save him from prosecution. Coughlin finally abdicates his on-air pulpit. But now, decades later, his legacy remains imprinted on the media landscape.

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Episode Three: The Sound of America
play

10/19/21 • 16 min

Father Coughlin’s decision to broadcast his sermons over the radio scandalizes the American listening public, with angry letters pouring in to radio stations and politicians. Preaching on the dial next to “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was sacrilegious, inappropriate, crass. But soon listeners were hooked by the radio priest's sonorous voice, and his increasingly deliberate messaging. Radioactive is hosted by Detroit-based journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios. The series weaves together archival material and present-day interviews to tell the dramatic story of Father Charles Coughlin's embrace of radio, the nascent mass media of his day, to attain nearly unparalleled cultural influence and broadcast his antisemitic, nationalist views into millions of living rooms across America. Our theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin are authentic to the source, as well as music and other audio from his radio program. For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.
profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Episode 1: In the Beginning...
play

10/05/21 • 29 min

In the first episode of this eight-part series, we take a look at beginnings. We uncover the humble origins of Father Charles Coughlin and his fellow antisemite, Henry Ford. We also investigate how the dawn of radio combined with world-shattering events to fuel Coughlin’s meteoric rise.

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Episode 2: Radio Days
play

10/12/21 • 23 min

Father Coughlin builds his church, with a little help from famous friends. The ambitious priest embraces the airwaves and becomes America’s first talk radio celebrity.

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Introducing: Gatecrashers
play

09/19/22 • 3 min

What topic is more controversial, sensational, and endlessly captivating than college admissions? It’s a billion-dollar industry. It sends celebrities to jail. The Supreme Court is weighing in on who gets in and why. We might think we have read all there is to read on the issue, and heard all there is to hear. But if you want to understand everything that’s going on with college admissions today—not just the battles over diversity, but the very existence of college applications, the essays and interviews and standardized tests—you have to look at the first group that tried to diversify elite schools. You have to look at the Jews. Gatecrashers, an 8-part podcast series launching Sept. 13, 2022, tells the story of how Jews fought for acceptance at elite schools, and how the Jewish experience in the Ivy League shaped American higher education, and shaped America at large.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Father Coughlin responds to the chaos of the Great Depression by creating a clear villain for his audiences: President Hoover, of course, but also the bankers he claimed controlled politicians and the communists he said were secretly infiltrating the country’s labor leadership. Any shred of subtlety evaporates as he rants on air about the Old Testament and the “atheist Jew Karl Marx.” CBS drops Coughlin from its lineup, but his influence only grows as he enters the political arena.

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Episode 5: His Cross to Bear
play

11/02/21 • 27 min

President Roosevelt embraces radio while distancing himself from Father Coughlin, whose broadcasts are becoming increasingly antisemitic. Coughlin rants about the Rothschilds and singles out Roosevelt’s Jewish secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr., while the Jewish community debates how to respond. Turning on Roosevelt, Coughlin starts his own political movement. Meanwhile, the Nazis gain momentum in Germany.

Radioactive is hosted by Detroit journalist Andrew Lapin and produced by Tablet Studios, with support from Maimonides Fund, and in association with The WNET Group’s reporting initiative, Exploring Hate: Antisemitism, Racism and Extremism. The show’s theme music is from The Ghost Writer and was composed by Alexandre Desplat. All speeches and material of Father Coughlin, as well as music and other audio from his radio program, are authentic to the source.

For more information on all of Tablet’s podcasts, visit tabletmag.com/podcasts.

profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Radioactive - Introducing Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair
play

10/15/24 • 14 min

Dreyfus: A Very Modern Affair is an October 7th story, but one that begins not in 2023, but in October of 1894 with the arrest of French military officer Alfred Dreyfus, who also happened to be a Jew. The implications of his framing, arrest, incarceration and the fallout of his eventual exoneration reverberate today. Over this five-episode series, we examine how these events unfolded, and how they connect to the antisemitism that exists today.

Visit https://www.tabletmag.com/dreyfuspodcast or search for Tablet Studios on your podcast app for the rest of the series.

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Show more best episodes

Toggle view more icon

FAQ

How many episodes does Radioactive have?

Radioactive currently has 13 episodes available.

What topics does Radioactive cover?

The podcast is about History, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts and Religion.

What is the most popular episode on Radioactive?

The episode title 'Episode 1: In the Beginning...' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Radioactive?

The average episode length on Radioactive is 23 minutes.

How often are episodes of Radioactive released?

Episodes of Radioactive are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Radioactive?

The first episode of Radioactive was released on Sep 30, 2021.

Show more FAQ

Toggle view more icon

Comments