Robert Madison Evans (born March 22, 1988)[1] is an Americaninternet broadcaster, journalist, and author who has reported on global conflicts andonline extremism. A former editor at the humor websiteCracked.com, Evans has also written for theinvestigative journalism outletBellingcat while working on several podcasts, includingBehind the Bastards,Behind the Police,Behind the Insurrections,It Could Happen Here,The Women's War, andWorst Year Ever. In 2021 he published his first novel,After the Revolution (AK Press 2022) first as aserialized podcast.
Evans worked at the humor websiteCracked as an editorial manager. In that position, Evans led a team that published "personal experience" articles. These articles fell into two main categories: journalistic pieces involving a variety of sources andpersonal narratives.[3]
In 2016 Evans published his first book,A Brief History of Vice, about the formative effects ofnarcotics on the development andhistory of civilization.[4]
Evans has done reporting for the investigative reporting outlet Bellingcat between 2018 and 2021.[5][6][7]He has reported on conflicts inIraq,Ukraine, andRojava, as well as onfar-right extremists in the United States.[8][when?]
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Evans produced a variety of content about8chan, an anonymousmessage board, as well as theGamergate controversy movement, a movement he describes as largely organically generated, with some direction given bywhite supremacists and extremists with long experience inradicalizing people on internet forums.[9]
Starting in late May 2020, Evans covered theGeorge Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon. He began reporting in the first days of the protests by taking footage of protesters,counter-protesters, and police.[19][20][21] His reporting on the protests was highlighted in theNew York Times opinion section, which published an interview with Evans after the 50th day of protests about covering the events.[22]
In July, Evans joined aclass-action lawsuit against the City ofPortland for policeuse of force at the protests. The suit is non-monetary, seeking instead "declaratory andinjunctive relief — asking the court to find the plaintiffs within their rights and to order police to stop brutalizing and unlawfully arresting protesters." Evans joinedfreelance journalist Bea Lake and housing services specialist Sadie Oliver-Grey as a plaintiff. The suit alleges that police officers were unlawfully violent, stopped journalists from reporting, and interfered with theright to free speech. The suit describes incidents that occurred to Evans including the "police allegedly threatening him with arrest if he did not leave the area, shooting him in the foot with atear gasgrenade and spraying him, and repeatedly shoving him".[19]
On Saturday, August 22, aright-wing protester wielding abaton broke Evans' hand while he was filming.[21] In an interview withThe Guardian, Evans said the right-wing counter-protesters "absolutely came prepared to fight", were "very aggressive from the jump", and were equipped with "knives, guns,paintball guns with frozen pellets, batons".[21]
Evans is the host of the podcastBehind the Bastards and one of three co-hosts of the podcastWorst Year Ever.[24][25]In 2019, Evans completed the podcast seriesThe War on Everyone, a podcast about howwhite supremacy andfascism have developed and spread into the American consciousness in the modern age, as well asIt Could Happen Here, a podcast about the possibility of a SecondAmerican Civil War.[26][24] Evans published a new podcast series titledThe Women's War in March and April 2020 about the primarilyKurdish autonomous region inSyria known asRojava.[24][27] Evans also published aBehind the Bastards podcast miniseries titledBehind the Police in June and July 2020, covering thehistory of policing in the United States to inform the present time of civil unrest.[28][29] Behind the Police was co-hosted byJason "Propaganda" Petty.[30][31][32] In November 2020 through early 2021, Evans publishedUprising: A Guide From Portland, a podcast detailing first-hand accounts of the 2020George Floyd protests in Portland, Oregon.[33]
In August 2021,iHeartMedia announced a launch of a new podcast network Cool Zone Media helmed by Evans, who would become its head of content. The network would unite under one umbrella both existing and upcoming podcasts from Evans and his frequent collaborators such asJake Hanrahan and Petty.[34][35]
Behind the Bastards (2018–): Evans' flagship podcast series, featuring biographies of "the worst people in all of history", varying fromAdolf Hitler toScott Adams.
Behind the Police (2020): A mini-series on the history of American police, released in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests
Cracked Gets Personal (2017): Short lived show Evans co-hosted with Brandon Johnson while they worked for Cracked.com
It Could Happen Here (2019, 2021–): Originally a mini-series about the possibility of a Second American Civil War, later relaunched as a daily podcast
Uprising: A Guide From Portland (2021): A first-hand report and background on then-ongoingProtests in Portland, Oregon
The War on Everyone (2019): An audiobook where Evans details how white supremacy and fascism have developed and spread into the American consciousness in the modern age
