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About Gordon Katic

Gordon Katic is an award-winning radio producer and journalist with a background in health, science, and climate reporting. He is director of Cited Media Productions, which produced Cited Podcast and CRACKDOWN. Now, Gordon hosts Darts and Letters. When he’s not making podcasts, he’s working on a PhD at the University of Toronto focussed on theorizing a critical theory of science communication. Previously, he earned a Masters in Journalism from the University of British Columbia.

Gordon Katic is an award-winning radio producer and journalist with a background in health, science, and climate reporting. He is director of Cited Media Productions, which produced Cited Podcast and CRACKDOWN. Now, Gordon hosts Darts and Letters. When he’s not making podcasts, he’s working on a PhD at the University of Toronto focussed on theorizing a critical theory of science communication. Previously, he earned a Masters in Journalism from the University of British Columbia.

Gordon's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Gordon:

Darts & Letters February 1, 2023

Discordia Revisited

The Concordia Netanyahu Riot of 2002

Hosted by Gordon Katic
20 years ago at Concordia University in Montreal pro-Palestinian protestors clashed with police over whether Benjamin Netanyahu should be allowed to speak on campus. Windows were smashed, arrests were made …
Darts & Letters December 26, 2022

"Medical Assistance in Dying" (MAID)

A Discussion of the Ethics of Dying in Canada

Trudo Lemmens and Derryk Smith

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Is medical assistance in dying, or MAID letting the government off the hook from providing what they should be providing? Should we respect people's choices on harm reduction grounds, even …
Darts & Letters November 30, 2022

Mathematical Morality

The Ideology that Justifies Billionaires

Émile P. Torres

Hosted by Gordon Katic
How can billionaires justify the endless accumulation of wealth? Effective altruism. An almost religious philosophical belief. Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO and founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX is a …
Darts & Letters November 16, 2022

Science Against the People

Anti-Capitalist Science

Sigrid Schmaltzer

Hosted by Gordon Katic
It’s difficult to criticise science from the left. Right-wingers attack science and liberals defend it. Science for the People is a radical movement of scientists and educators who argue that …
Darts & Letters October 31, 2022

Darts Transit Commission

Silicon Valley’s Car Culture

Paris Marx

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Paris Marx is one of the sharpest modern writers on Silicon Valley and transit. We have been talking a lot lately about the idea of techno-utopian thinking, but we’re coming …
Darts & Letters October 19, 2022

Technocracy Now! Part 3

Technocracy in the Private Sector

Hosted by Gordon Katic
The first two episodes of this series told stories of technocrats who tied themselves to a muscular state. They believed the state could remake society, if it had the right …
Darts & Letters October 10, 2022

Technocracy Now! Part 2

Exploring Technocracy through Cybernetics

Joy Rohde

Hosted by Gordon Katic
On part #2 of Technocracy Now, we tell stories of cybernetic technocracies. First, we hear the story of Charles A. McClelland, a liberal political scientists who proposed a cybernetic computer …
Darts & Letters October 3, 2022

Technocracy Now! Part 1

Noam Chomsky on Intellectuals and Expertise

Noam Chomsky

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Technocracy is the idea that experts should govern. For the common good, presumably. In fact, it's an idea as old as politics itself, and it emerges just about everywhere across …
Darts & Letters September 9, 2022

Pew Research Center

Analyzing the Evangelical Right

Andre Gagne

Hosted by Gordon Katic
You’ve seen hilarious videos of the evangelicals for Trump. You might be inclined to ignore them, mock their excesses, or dismiss their threat. But the evangelical right is a force …
Darts & Letters September 6, 2022

Alexandr Dugin, Russia’s Imperial Philosopher

Into the Mind of a Russian Political Theorist

Matt McManus

Hosted by Gordon Katic
We look at the mind behind Russia’s imperial vision, Aleksandr Dugin. Political theorist Matt McManus walks us through this far-right thinker’s strange and often contradictory ideas, from: his geopolitical clash-of-civilizations …
Darts & Letters September 5, 2022

Truck Nuts

The Political History of Trucks and Trucking

Matt Christman

Hosted by Gordon Katic
The pickup truck is the symbol of rural conservative masculinity. So, it often takes centre stage in the tired culture wars between reactionary neo-populists and liberal moralists. Like today, with …
Darts & Letters September 2, 2022

The Tamiflu Trials

Profit and Public Health--How Do We Choose Which Drugs to Use?

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Before Remdesivir and Hydroxycloroquin there was Tamiflu. To prepare for Swine Flu and Bird Flu, governments spent billions stockpiling this drug called Tamiflu. You’d think governments used the best evidence-based …
Darts & Letters September 1, 2022

The Heroin Clinic

Medical Grade Heroin Given Out Legally to Users

Hosted by Gordon Katic
At Crosstown Clinic, doctors are turning addiction treatment on its head: they’re prescribing heroin-users the very drug they’re addicted to. This is the story of one clinic’s quest to remove …
Darts & Letters August 30, 2022

Pathological--The Work of Dr. Charles Smith

How Bad Forensics Sent an Innocent Mother to Jail

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Dr. Charles Smith performed autopsies at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, ON. The cops kept turning to him with new corpses, and he kept claiming that these deaths …
Darts & Letters August 29, 2022

Derailed--The Crisis of Forensic Expertise

What a False Positive Fingerprint Match Tells Us About the Politics of Forensics

Hosted by Gordon Katic
When it comes to complex social problems, us “sensible” types turn to the experts, but what if they don’t actually know what they’re talking about? That happens to be the …
Darts & Letters August 23, 2022

Save the Whales

The Addictive Psychology Behind Video Games

Hosted by Gordon Katic
We’ll save the Moby Dick puns for the episode itself, but suffice it to say that sinister game developers are on a whale hunt. This episode, originally published last fall …
Darts & Letters August 19, 2022

The Poison Paradigm

What a Toxic Chemical Tells us about the Politics of Science

Hosted by Gordon Katic
We are exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals daily. This is no accident; it is by design. They are everywhere – coating our consumer products, in our food packaging, being …
Darts & Letters August 18, 2022

The Pavilion

When Canadians First Had to Confront the Country’s Genocidal Story

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Expo 1967 was the centrepiece of Canada’s 100th birthday. Amid the crowds and the pageantry, one building stood out: The Indians of Canada Pavilion. This was more than a tall …
Darts & Letters August 17, 2022

Canada’s Dumbest Public Intellectual

Darts and Letters’ Most Coveted Award

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Canada’s intellectual culture is now like a barren soil that struggles to give life to even the simplest flora. They’re just not that smart. We make too many right wing …
Darts & Letters August 16, 2022

Nothing Spreads Like Greed

The Pandemic Profiteers Who Made the Crisis Worse

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Has the pandemic taught us anything? As we look forward and imagine what the future might look like, we like to think ‘next time will be different.’ But, if we …
Darts & Letters August 15, 2022

Don’t Look Left

A Discussion with David Sirota, writer of "Don't Look Up"

David Sirota

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Why does the democratic establishment always avoid turning left, even when it might mean a political win? Gordon asks David Sirota. Sirota is behind the smash-hit Netflix movie Don’t Look …
Darts & Letters August 12, 2022

Made of Corn

How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 2 of 2)

Hosted by Gordon Katic
This is part 2 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. For the final episode of our “Activism & Academia”-themed week of programming, we’re …
Darts & Letters August 11, 2022

Modifying Maize

How Genetically Modified Corn Changed Science, Academia and Indigenous Rights in Mexico (Part 1 of 2)

Hosted by Gordon Katic
This is part 1 of a 2-part series from Cited - the predecessor of Darts and Letters. When genetically modified corn was found in the highlands of Mexico, Indigenous campesino …
Darts & Letters August 10, 2022

The Colonial Lens

Analyzing Decolonization, Reconciliation, and Colonialism in Academia

Hosted by Gordon Katic
Scholars want to decolonize everything, and universities say they are doing the hard work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. But is anything really being done, or is it all for …