The David Pakman Show (TDPS), originally Midweek Politics with David Pakman, is a progressive news talk show currently airing on television, radio, and the Internet, hosted by David Pakman. The program first aired in August 2005 on WXOJ-LP, a radio station located in Northampton, Massachusetts, later being nationally syndicated, and eventually achieving broader international distribution in a number of countries, as well as online. The show is made up of both live and pre-recorded interviews, clips from television and radio programs related to politics and current events, segments with correspondents on the street and in public, and other specially produced segments. It focuses on modern North American politics and society, with frequent discussion of economics, science, religion in public life, culture, LGBT rights, capital punishment and crime, policing, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, North American foreign policy, technology, and other topical issues. The show has drawn criticism for interviewing many fringe or "extremist" personalities, and has been accused of platforming them. Pakman has responded that these interviews expose their opinions to the public, putting them on record, and that he does not simply give them a "platform" to express their views without balance. History As Midweek Politics with David Pakman Pakman started the radio version of the program at age 21 on Pacifica radio affiliate WXOJ while an undergraduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, during his time as an intern at the Media Education Foundation. Public radio syndication began in 2006 on the Pacifica Radio Network. Initially, a handful of non-commercial talk radio stations broadcast the show in syndication. The show expanded in 2007 to more public radio stations. Pakman was for a time the youngest syndicated radio host in the United States. The same year, Louis Motamedi, a childhood friend of Pakman's, was added as radio producer. In 2009, The David Pakman Show added its first commercial radio affiliates, starting with Green 1640 in Atlanta, Georgia and WHMP Northampton, Massachusetts. On September 2, Midweek Politics, a simultaneously-produced television show, was launched, originally offered to public-access television stations across the country as well as published on the show's YouTube Channel. The number of television affiliates grew and Pakman attributed this to expanding from radio to a visual medium. Pakman's brother, Natan Pakman, became the program's television director in September 2009. As The David Pakman Show In 2010, the show launched a paid membership program maintaining the podcast at no charge,