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Depolarization in the age of misinformation

Depolarization in the Age of Misinformation | Jonathan Rauch, David Blankenhorn & Ciaran O'Connor

Braver Angels has never been shy about engaging our nation’s most sensitive political issues. Last year, we held a public debate on the 2020 election exploring themes of voter fraud, voter suppression, and disagreements about the outcome. Recently, we hosted a podcast with a guest who claimed that the January 6th riots were incited by liberal activists working in collusion with the FBI.

After initially taking down the podcast for violating its terms on misinformation, YouTube reinstated the episode after reviewing it in the context of our larger mission. On this episode of the podcast, Ciaran O’Connor hosts David Blankenhorn, president of Braver Angels, and Jonathan Rauch, author of The Constitution of Knowledge, for a wide-ranging discussion on depolarization in the age of misinformation, bridge-building across the epistemological divide, and the Braver Angels approach to controversial content.

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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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