In 1995, Gladstone returned to the United States and was hired as NPR's first "media reporter," based in New York City.

In October 2000, Gladstone joined WNYC—New York Public Radio—to help relaunch On the Media, a locally produced and nationally distributed radio show.

Academic journals called her book, an illustration of the history of media's influence on culture.

[5] In 2015 Gladstone was part of the cast of the historical documentary Best of Enemies, directed by Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville.

[6] In 2017, Gladstone wrote The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time, a nonfiction book in which she talks about how people's filtered reality in a constantly changing media landscape threatens democracy,[7] published by Workman Publishing Company.