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Two containers, one with a U.S. flag and another with Canada's flag.

Just the Facts: U.S.–Canada Tariff War Escalates As Trump Raises Stakes

A person in a grocery store, paying with a credit card.

The U.S. Economy: Rebounding or Breaking Down?

What Texans need to know about Prop 16, the ballot question on citizenship and voting

What Texans need to know about Prop 16, the ballot question on citizenship and voting

Who’s Pulling Trump’s Strings? Inside Project 2025 and the 7 Think Tanks Reshaping America

Who’s Pulling Trump’s Strings? Inside Project 2025 and the 7 Think Tanks Reshaping America

The Life of a Showgirl Bodes Unwell for Popular Feminism

The Life of a Showgirl Bodes Unwell for Popular Feminism

Podcast: Saving social media

Podcast: Saving social media
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumJun 17, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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In recent years, American politicians seem to be getting tougher about internet oversight. But it remains unclear whether Washington has the will to regulate big tech companies and the platforms they control. This week on "Democracy in Danger" we hear from Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, and former Rep. Barbara Comstock, a Republican, live from the University of Virginia’s celebrated dome room. They see hope for bipartisan action on Capitol Hill — to protect users and free speech alike. Siva reflects with guest-host Danielle Citron.

S4 E15. Saving Social Media

S4 E15. Saving Social Media

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Latest news

Crisis Not Averted: How Government Shutdown Exposes America’s Food Insecurity
Governance & Legislation

Crisis Not Averted: How Government Shutdown Exposes America’s Food Insecurity

Why Mamdani and Sliwa Appeared Twice on the New York City Ballot
Governance & Legislation

Why Mamdani and Sliwa Appeared Twice on the New York City Ballot

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Robot building Ai sign.

As AI reshapes jobs and politics, America faces a choice: resist automation or embrace innovation. The path to prosperity lies in AI literacy and adaptability.

Getty Images, Andriy Onufriyenko

You Can’t Save the American Dream by Freezing It in Time

“They gave your job to AI. They picked profit over people. That’s not going to happen when I’m in office. We’re going to tax companies that automate away your livelihood. We’re going to halt excessive use of AI. We’re going to make sure the American Dream isn’t outsourced to AI labs. Anyone who isn’t with us, anyone who is telling you that AI is the future, is ignoring the here and now — they’re making a choice to trade your livelihood for the so-called future. That’s a trade I’ll never make. There’s no negotiating away the value of a good job and strong communities.”

Persuasive, right? It’s some version of the stump speech we’re likely to hear in the lead up to the midterm elections that are just around the corner--in fact, they’re less than a year away. It’s a message that will resonate with Americans who have bounced from one economic crisis to the next — wondering when, if ever, they’ll be able to earn a good wage, pay their rent, and buy groceries without counting pennies as they walk down each aisle.

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Community is Keeping this Young News Outlet Alive

Left to right: Abigail Higgins, Christina Sturdivant Sani, Maddie Poore, George Kevin Jordan, Martin Austermuhle

Photo Credit: Rodney Choice

Community is Keeping this Young News Outlet Alive

In 2018, WAMU 88.5 – Washington, D.C.’s NPR member station – saved beloved local publication DCist from certain death. WAMU’s funding and support kept DCist alive and enabled it to continue serving the community with the thoughtful journalism readers had come to love. Six years later, however, WAMU announced it would shut down DCist in favor of prioritizing audio-first content. DCist then joined the thousands of newspapers and news sites that have disappeared across the United States in the last 20 years.

Frustrated by decisions to axe newsrooms being made by suits in high offices, six former workers of DCist and WAMU decided to build their own, employee-run newsroom — and thus, The 51st was born.

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“There is a real public hunger for accurate, local, fact-based information”

Monica Campbell

Credit Ximena Natera

“There is a real public hunger for accurate, local, fact-based information”

At a time when democracy feels fragile and newsrooms are shrinking, Monica Campbell has spent her career asking how journalism can still serve the public good. She is Director of the California Local News Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former editor at The Washington Post and The World. Her work has focused on press freedom, disinformation, and the civic role of journalism. In this conversation, she reflects on the state of free press in the United States, what she learned reporting in Latin America, and what still gives her hope for the future of the profession.

You have worked in both international and U.S. journalism for decades. How would you describe the current state of press freedom in the United States?

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Person on a smartphone.

The digital public square rewards outrage over empathy. To save democracy, we must redesign our online spaces to prioritize dialogue, trust, and civility.

Getty Images, Tiwaporn Khemwatcharalerd

Rebuilding Civic Trust in the Age of Algorithmic Division

A headline about a new education policy flashes across a news-aggregation app. Within minutes, the comment section fills: one reader suggests the proposal has merit; a dozen others pounce. Words like idiot, sheep, and propaganda fly faster than the article loads. No one asks what the commenter meant. The thread scrolls on—another small fire in a forest already smoldering.

It’s a small scene, but it captures something larger: how the public square has turned reactive by design. The digital environments where citizens now meet were built to reward intensity, not inquiry. Each click, share, and outrage serves an invisible metric that prizes attention over understanding.

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