The
Dr. Rod Berger
Show
The story behind the argument.
Fair Observer publishes what you think. On this show, listeners hear how you came to think it.
Recent guests
A note before we talk
Josef Olmert was in Madrid for the first Israeli-Syrian talks. When he joined me, we started somewhere else: a family that left revolutionary Russia for Harbin, China, and later made its way to Israel. By the time we reached Madrid, you knew why he says what he believes even when his allies would rather he didn't.
That is the shape of every conversation here. My guests have spent careers explaining positions. Ambassadors, generals, editors, scholars. I ask about the chapter before the position: where you grew up, who handed you the questions you still carry, the day the work stopped being a job.
The policy arrives anyway. It arrives with a person attached.
If you want a stage for talking points, this is the wrong room. If you have ever filed a piece and felt the real story never made it onto the page, this is where it goes.
Dr. Rod BergerHost, and Editor-at-Large at Fair Observer
Start here
Four Conversations Listeners Chose
Over the last twelve months, four of the ten most downloaded episodes on The Dr. Rod Berger Channel came from this show. Press play on any of them.
More from the show
What your episode becomes
One Hour, Many Lives
The full episode publishes on Fair Observer's feed and on The Dr. Rod Berger Channel, with the audio cleaned and the pauses trimmed. Cover art goes up with your face on it.
Then the conversation gets cut into vertical clips for LinkedIn, Instagram and X, the feeds where people now meet an interview first. Each of the last eight conversations became ten clips. Here is one from seven of them.
Where the listening happens
A Year of Listening, in 51 Seconds
The show shares a channel with Rod's other interview shows, so a listener who finds you through a Fair Observer conversation stays for the next one. This is where they tuned in.
Fair Observer conversations in the channel's top ten
- No. 4Stephen Zunes12,479
- No. 6Martin Plaut10,253
- No. 7Sebastian Schäffer9,730
- No. 10John Friedman9,530
Downloads on The Dr. Rod Berger Channel, November 2025 to October 30, 2026: 328,893 across all shows, in 136 countries. The United States leads, then Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rankings count episodes of Rod's own shows. Source: SimpleCast.
How it comes together
From Invitation to Episode
- 01
Write to me
Reply to Fair Observer's invitation or email me directly. We find an hour that works in your time zone.
- 02
I do the reading
I go through your Fair Observer pieces and your published work before we talk. There is no script to rehearse.
- 03
We record remotely
About an hour from your desk, in video and audio. A laptop camera and a quiet room are plenty.
- 04
The episode goes out
Fair Observer and The Dr. Rod Berger Channel publish it, with cover art and clips built around you.
Your host
Dr. Rod Berger
Dr. Rod Berger has conducted more than 4,000 interviews across five continents, from the late Pope Francis and Magic Johnson to families in Ugandan refugee camps most crews never reach. He is Editor-at-Large at Fair Observer and the author of The Narrative Edge: Authentic Storytelling That Meets The Moment (Wiley).
He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, which explains the questions more than the credential does.
“Berger reminds us that reclaiming our own narratives is essential for deeper understanding and genuine connection in a fragmented world.”
Atul SinghFounder and Editor-in-Chief, Fair Observer
Pull Up a Chair
Write to me directly. The note comes straight to me, and so does the follow-up.
rod@drrodberger.com