Long Shadow

PRX

Through a series of riveting, complex narratives, LONG SHADOW makes sense of what people know — and what they thought they knew — about the most pivotal moments in U.S. history, including Waco, Columbine, Y2K, 9/11, COVID-19, January 6, and beyond. Hosted by Pulitzer-finalist historian, author, and journalist Garrett Graff, this Peabody-nominated podcast has been called “rigorous, authoritative, and an electrifying listen” by the Financial Times and honored as one of the year's best podcasts by The Atlantic, Audible, Mashable, Rolling Stone, and The Week. A winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award and the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award, it has also been honored with eight Signal Awards, including for Best History, Best Documentary, Best Technology, and Best Activism, Public Service, & Social Impact Podcast. The second season of LONG SHADOW has been added to the history program at the University of Houston and the third season has been integrated into Harvard Law School's curriculum on the Second Amendment. Season 4 LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET When was the last time you felt good about the internet? Today’s online landscape is a harrowing one. People screaming at each other on social media. Violent videos going viral. Cyberbullying, racism, misogyny. Back in the day, the web gave power to the people, and going online could actually be fun. LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET retraces 30 years of web history — a tangle of GIFs, blogs, apps, and hashtags — to answer the bewildering question many ask when they go online today: “How did we get here?” It’s the story of mankind’s greatest invention, a tool that gave everyone access to all the world’s information and unlocked democracy across the globe. But LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET is also about the biggest crisis facing society today: how the web's unlimited feed of data morphed into a firehose of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and lies that divided Americans over things we once agreed on, like science, diversity, and even democracy itself. Chronicling innovations, revolutions, cyber attacks, and meltdowns across seven episodes, this limited series podcast untangles the web in a way you’ve never considered before. Featuring memes and moments you know — like when the world became transfixed by the color of a dress — and others you don’t, but should — like how people sent death threats to the woman who posted that meme online — LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET both scales the heights of internet virality and plumbs the depths of social media's depravity. Within weeks of its launch in 2021, LONG SHADOW became a No. 1 history show on Apple Podcasts, and its first season, 9/11’s LINGERING QUESTIONS, won Best History Podcast at the inaugural Signal Awards. Its second season, RISE OF THE AMERICAN FAR RIGHT, was named Best Podcast at the 2024 Edward R. Murrow Awards. IN GUNS WE TRUST, the show’s third season produced in collaboration with The Trace, was nominated for a Peabody Award and awarded the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award for its coverage of America’s gun violence epidemic. LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET premiered June 24, 2025 and won three Signal Awards (for Best Technology, Documentary, and History podcast) as well as an Anthem Award for Best Responsible Technology Awareness. LONG SHADOW is produced by the award-winning journalism studio Long Lead and distributed by PRX. For more visit www.longlead.com and www.longshadowpodcast.com.

Location:

United States

Networks:

PRX

Description:

Through a series of riveting, complex narratives, LONG SHADOW makes sense of what people know — and what they thought they knew — about the most pivotal moments in U.S. history, including Waco, Columbine, Y2K, 9/11, COVID-19, January 6, and beyond. Hosted by Pulitzer-finalist historian, author, and journalist Garrett Graff, this Peabody-nominated podcast has been called “rigorous, authoritative, and an electrifying listen” by the Financial Times and honored as one of the year's best podcasts by The Atlantic, Audible, Mashable, Rolling Stone, and The Week. A winner of the Edward R. Murrow Award and the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award, it has also been honored with eight Signal Awards, including for Best History, Best Documentary, Best Technology, and Best Activism, Public Service, & Social Impact Podcast. The second season of LONG SHADOW has been added to the history program at the University of Houston and the third season has been integrated into Harvard Law School's curriculum on the Second Amendment. Season 4 LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET When was the last time you felt good about the internet? Today’s online landscape is a harrowing one. People screaming at each other on social media. Violent videos going viral. Cyberbullying, racism, misogyny. Back in the day, the web gave power to the people, and going online could actually be fun. LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET retraces 30 years of web history — a tangle of GIFs, blogs, apps, and hashtags — to answer the bewildering question many ask when they go online today: “How did we get here?” It’s the story of mankind’s greatest invention, a tool that gave everyone access to all the world’s information and unlocked democracy across the globe. But LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET is also about the biggest crisis facing society today: how the web's unlimited feed of data morphed into a firehose of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and lies that divided Americans over things we once agreed on, like science, diversity, and even democracy itself. Chronicling innovations, revolutions, cyber attacks, and meltdowns across seven episodes, this limited series podcast untangles the web in a way you’ve never considered before. Featuring memes and moments you know — like when the world became transfixed by the color of a dress — and others you don’t, but should — like how people sent death threats to the woman who posted that meme online — LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET both scales the heights of internet virality and plumbs the depths of social media's depravity. Within weeks of its launch in 2021, LONG SHADOW became a No. 1 history show on Apple Podcasts, and its first season, 9/11’s LINGERING QUESTIONS, won Best History Podcast at the inaugural Signal Awards. Its second season, RISE OF THE AMERICAN FAR RIGHT, was named Best Podcast at the 2024 Edward R. Murrow Awards. IN GUNS WE TRUST, the show’s third season produced in collaboration with The Trace, was nominated for a Peabody Award and awarded the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award for its coverage of America’s gun violence epidemic. LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET premiered June 24, 2025 and won three Signal Awards (for Best Technology, Documentary, and History podcast) as well as an Anthem Award for Best Responsible Technology Awareness. LONG SHADOW is produced by the award-winning journalism studio Long Lead and distributed by PRX. For more visit www.longlead.com and www.longshadowpodcast.com.

Language:

English

Episodes

Panic World: Russiagate (Bonus)

1/7/2026

Long Shadow listeners: Today we’re sharing a great episode of the Panic World podcast in our feed because we think you’ll like it. Panic World is a weekly chat show that explores how the internet warps our minds, our culture, and eventually reality — which is pretty much the story of Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet, only we do it in a longform narrative format. The show's host, Ryan Broderick, knows a lot about the web, but he doesn’t quite know what to think about Russian interference in the 2016 election. So for a recent episode, he invited Garrett Graff to re-examine the truth behind the scandal. This is a great listen for Long Shadow fans because it dives deeper into Russiagate and all consequences of that moment in history. Thanks for listening to Long Shadow and be sure to listen and subscribe to Panic World wherever you get your podcasts.

Duration:01:02:12

The Red Pill

8/5/2025

A toxic army of trolls goes after women in the gaming industry, giving birth to an online movement of disaffected men. This "manosphere" contributes to the resurgence of Donald Trump and a constitutional crisis that holds American democracy in the balance.

Duration:01:04:20

Going Viral

7/29/2025

After the twin disasters of the massacre in Myanmar and the 2016 election, social media undergoes a reckoning in the halls of Congress… until a novel virus uncorks a global pandemic and a contagion of hoaxes, conspiracies, and lies online.

Duration:00:55:15

Weapons of Mass Distraction

7/22/2025

North Korea hacks a movie studio over a screwball comedy, inspiring America’s enemies to launch cyberattacks against the U.S. To roil an election, one even unleashes a network of trolls pitting ordinary Americans against each other, online and in the streets.

Duration:00:44:06

Enragement Equals Engagement

7/15/2025

With the dawn of the newsfeed, Facebook begins a mass experiment on the human psyche — what we like and hate, what makes us happy and angry. Over the course of a decade, its algorithm drives the world to like, comment, and eventually, kill.

Duration:00:36:40

The Facebook Revolution

7/8/2025

In Egypt, a ragtag group of young activists uses social media to spark a revolution and remove a dictator from power. They credit Facebook with the fall of the regime… until the platform is turned against them.

Duration:00:41:27

Establishing Connection

7/1/2025

At the dawn of the new millennium, the internet yields powerful tools for coordinating and organizing online. From the 9/11 hijackers to flashmob pranksters to activists, it puts power in the hands of the people, for better and for worse.

Duration:00:48:52

The End of the World as We Know It

6/24/2025

The internet as we know it today is a harrowing landscape. But in its quirky infancy, the web changed everything about how we lived, shared, shopped, and communicated. Then a computer bug threatened to shut it all down forever.

Duration:00:42:17

Trailer: Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet

6/17/2025

When was the last time you felt good about the internet? Today’s online landscape is a harrowing one. People screaming at each other on social media. Violent videos going viral. Cyberbullying, racism, misogyny. Back in the day, the web gave power to the people, and going online could actually be fun. In LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET, Pulitzer-finalist historian, author, and journalist Garrett Graff retraces 30 years of web history — a tangle of GIFs, blogs, apps, and hashtags — to answer the bewildering question many ask when they go online today: “How did we get here?” It’s the story of mankind’s greatest invention, but it's also about the biggest crisis facing society today: how the web's unlimited feed of data morphed into a firehose of hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and lies that divided Americans over things we once agreed on, like science, diversity, and even democracy itself. LONG SHADOW: BREAKING THE INTERNET is produced by Long Lead and is distributed by PRX.

Duration:00:03:14

Generation Lockdown

5/22/2024

Raised on active shooter and lockdown drills, Gen Z has endured an onslaught of violence — and emerged inspiring a wave of activism, a powerful gun safety movement, and hope.

Duration:01:08:10

A Good Guy with a Gun

5/14/2024

Easy to handle and easy to conceal, handguns went boom in the 2000s, the same moment when many Americans — falsely and tragically — began to equate guns with safety.

Duration:00:48:46

The Right to Bear AR-15s

5/7/2024

After a devastating, now largely forgotten, mass-shooting prompted lawmakers to take aim at assault weapons in the 1990s, their ban backfired — and caused gun sales to explode.

Duration:00:48:54

The Hardliners

4/23/2024

In the 1980s, a pair of intimidating NRA leaders recast the organization in their own imposing images as the group went on an all-out offensive against gun regulations.

Duration:00:46:23

Shall Not Be Infringed

4/16/2024

The Second Amendment may have begun as a Constitutional afterthought, but a late 20th-century ideological shift caused some to view it as a sacred right in the name of self defense.

Duration:00:33:40

A Uniquely American Problem

4/9/2024

Mass shootings have plagued the U.S. for generations. But in 1999, when shots rang out in a suburban Denver school, it was different. What changed? Everything.

Duration:00:41:04

Trailer: Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust

4/2/2024

This season host Garrett Graff, in collaboration with The Trace, recounts how a very specific, carefully manufactured fear has driven explosive demand for guns across the U.S. It’s the history of how firearms went from being an ordinary part of rural American life to a menacing element in modern society — and the epidemic of gun violence that’s come with it. How did we get here — how did America get so divided over guns — and can we we find a way forward? Find out, this season on LONG SHADOW. LONG SHADOW: IN GUNS WE TRUST is produced by Long Lead and Campside Media in collaboration with The Trace, and is distributed by PRX.

Duration:00:03:30

January 6: Day of the Rope

5/24/2023

Emboldened by COVID lockdown protests and fighting Black Lives Matter demonstrators, far-right extremists and white power groups prepare to overthrow the government on Jan. 6… or a later date.

Duration:00:56:06

MAGA: American Carnage

5/17/2023

After Trump’s election, far-right extremism explodes, and internet racism boils over into the real world. From Charleston to Charlottesville to Christchurch, experts warn of a race war.

Duration:00:51:17

The Bundys: A Call to Arms

5/10/2023

When the government seizes Cliven Bundy’s cattle over unpaid grazing fees, militias like the Three Percenters and the Oath Keepers—which are later at 1/6—aid a standoff on his ranch.

Duration:00:44:24

Info War: From the Fringe to Fox News

5/3/2023

Using conspiracy theories and anger to amass enormous audiences in the 1990s, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Cooper pave the way for Fox News to mainstream far-right outrage.

Duration:00:44:16