This month on "Story in the Public Square" - March 2026
"Story in the Public Square" is a national broadcast that unpacks narratives with outside impact on public understanding and public policy. Hosted by Jim Ludes, the show can be seen each week on public television stations across the United States and seeks to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.
Elizabeth Samet: March 2-8, 2026
Go to the movies or visit the bookstore and you’ll see that war stories are everywhere—whether the protagonists are gods, super-heroes, or human beings. But author and West Point professor Elizabeth D. Samet warns that the appeal of the good war story obscures the complexity of conflict and shapes the way we view current international tensions.
Pete Hammond: March 9-15, 2026
This year’s Academy Awards nominations have almost everything: fast cars, conspiracies, classic tales, monsters, intrigue, and nature. It’s a remarkable collection of films and pre-eminent film critic and awards columnist Pete Hammond has reviewed them all.
David McCraw: March 16-22, 2026
Journalists play a vital role in the health of a free society. But The New York Times’ David E. McCraw isn’t a journalist, he’s a lawyer, reporting from the frontlines of the battle for freedom of the press.
Julia Minson: March 23-29, 2026
Senator Wendell Ford of Kentucky once said, “we can disagree without being disagreeable.” Harvard Kennedy School professor and author Julia Minson has made a career out of how to disagree better—and she has the science to back her claims.
Thomas Chatterton Williams [Rebroadcast]: March 30- April 5, 2026
In the summer of 2020, the country was racked by disease, violence, and social disruption as generations of racial injustice seemed to fall in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Author Thomas Chatterton Williams warns, however, that extreme views on the left—ascendent in that summer heat—are just as dangerous to western liberalism as extreme views on the right.
In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and is rebroadcast on Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Check your local public television listings for air times near you!
An audio version of the program airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 2:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. and Mondays at 4:30 a.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124.