Retro Report on PBS

President Trump is taking on the press with a time-tested strategy. Explore the origins of the latest measles outbreak, pro sports free agency, and the consequences of a law meant to save wild horses. Andy Borowitz on the no-apology apology.

The drama of modern free agency has become as much a part of professional sports as the games themselves. But it wasn’t always that way. Today’s free agents owe a big debt of gratitude to St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood.

Blasting the media has been a hallmark of President Trump. He has also championed the prosecution of those who leak White House secrets, threatening to do the same to journalists. He is following a playbook that dates to Richard Nixon, and was revised more recently by Barack Obama.

There are now so many wild horses on public land – nearly 100,000 – that they have become caught in a battle between the government, ranchers and environmentalists. That’s because of a law from the 1970s that had some unexpected consequences.

Vaccines are one of the greatest achievements in the history of public health. So why are we always hearing about the reappearance of a disease like measles that we thought had been eradicated? Skepticism and fear surrounding vaccines were fed by a flawed study done in 1998. The study was quickly discredited, but years later, we’re still dealing with the repercussions.

New Yorker magazine humorist Andy Borowitz reviews the highly ineffective tropes and clichés that politicians use to cling to power after they have become mired in scandal.

After a sexual assault scandal at the Tailhook convention rocked the Navy in 1991, one female officer, Paula Coughlin, launched a campaign to change military culture.

50 years after Apollo 11, New Yorker magazine humorist Andy Borowitz looks at the evolution of the myth that the moon landing was faked, as well as other truth-adjacent conspiracy theories.

Why crime witnesses fail to act. A Naval officer who transformed the U.S. military. Psychedelic drugs like LSD are back in the lab. The meandering voyage of a trash barge that persuaded us to recycle. Andy Borowitz highlights lunar hoax theorists.

Today psychedelic drugs are back in the lab,  providing hope for people who suffer from anxiety, depression, and even addiction. LSD has long been associated with 1960s counterculture. But long before it hit the streets, LSD was being studied as a treatment in psychiatry.

Why would someone film an assault instead of intervening? And why didn’t those watching online call the police? A phenomenon social scientists call the “bystander effect” was first identified some 50 years ago after the murder of Kitty Genovese in New York City. That case can shed light on behavior in the digital age.

In the 1980s, rising public awareness about waste was fueled by a bizarre news story: the story of New York’s meandering garbage barge. Today, Americans recycle about 68 million tons of trash.