Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Athens, GA., bookstore battles bans by stocking shelves

News Ambassadors is working to narrow the partisan divide through a collaborative journalism project to help American communities that hold different political views better understand each other, while giving student reporters a valuable learning experience in the creation of solutions reporting.

A program of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, News Ambassadors is directed by Shia Levitt, a longtime public radio journalist who has reported for NPR, Marketplace and other outlets. Levitt has also taught radio reporting and audio storytelling at Brooklyn College in New York and at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., as well as for WNYC’s Radio Rookies program and other organizations.


TODAYS FEATURED STUDENT REPORT
Radio station partner WUGA, recently worked with students at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Solutions Journalism Hub of the South, to cover efforts advancing around the country to remove books from the shelves of libraries and schools, and the state of Georgia is no exception. Chloe Beaver, a Grady College senior majoring in journalism and business administration, covered the community of Athens, GA., as part of Charlotte Varnum’s podcasting class.

In her radio piece, she explores how one Athens bookstore is responding to what critics call book censorship.

Enjoy Beaver’s Audio story report.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter


******************************************

HOW NEWS AMBASSADORS WORKS:
News Ambassadors enlists journalism students to help local newsrooms fill gaps in coverage of underreported communities by fostering collaborations between journalism schools and local radio stations to create community-responsive reporting that reflects local concerns and priorities. In the spring, News Ambassadors introduced students to two key reporting strategies:
Solutions journalism: rigorous, evidence-based reporting on how people have responded to existing problems.
Complicating the narratives, a conflict-mediation–informed framework designed to help journalists improve their reporting on polarizing issues.

Student participants report stories informed by one or both of these approaches as well as by local community priorities surfaced during preparatory community engagement work. The best stories are shared with local newsrooms for vetting and potential broadcast.

This collaborative project helps young reporters better understand the perspectives of people outside the bubbles where they live and helps American communities that hold different political views better understand each other. Throughout the process, the project links journalism students to counterparts in politically or demographically dissimilar areas to collaborate on stories exploring solutions to contentious issues.

Read More

Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis

Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis.

Getty Images, MTStock Studio

AI Is Here. Our Laws Are Stuck in the Past.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises a future once confined to science fiction: personalized medicine accounting for your specific condition, accelerated scientific discovery addressing the most difficult challenges, and reimagined public education designed around AI tutors suited to each student's learning style. We see glimpses of this potential on a daily basis. Yet, as AI capabilities surge forward at exponential speed, the laws and regulations meant to guide them remain anchored in the twentieth century (if not the nineteenth or eighteenth!). This isn't just inefficient; it's dangerously reckless.

For too long, our approach to governing new technologies, including AI, has been one of cautious incrementalism—trying to fit revolutionary tools into outdated frameworks. We debate how century-old privacy torts apply to vast AI training datasets, how liability rules designed for factory machines might cover autonomous systems, or how copyright law conceived for human authors handles AI-generated creations. We tinker around the edges, applying digital patches to analog laws.

Keep ReadingShow less
Nurturing the Next Generation of Journalists
man using MacBook Air

Nurturing the Next Generation of Journalists

“Student journalists are uniquely positioned to take on the challenges of complicating the narrative about how we see each other, putting forward new solutions to how we can work together and have dialogue across difference,” said Maxine Rich, the Program Manager with Common Ground USA. I had the chance to interview her earlier this year about Common Ground Journalism, a new initiative to support students reporting in contentious times.

A partnership with The Fulcrum and the Latino News Network (LNN), I joined Maxine and Nicole Donelan, Production Assistant with Common Ground USA, as co-instructor of the first Common Ground Journalism cohort, which ran for six weeks between January and March 2025.

Keep ReadingShow less
Project 2025’s Media Agenda: The Executive Order Threatens NPR and PBS
NPR headquarters | James Cridland | Flickr

Project 2025’s Media Agenda: The Executive Order Threatens NPR and PBS

President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday evening to eliminate federal funding for NPR and PBS. The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and other agencies to cease both direct and indirect public financing for these public broadcasters.

In a social media post, the administration defended the decision, asserting that NPR and PBS "receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.’" The executive order argues that government-funded media is outdated and unnecessary, claiming it compromises journalistic independence.

Keep ReadingShow less
Remote control in hand to change channels​.

Remote control in hand to change channels.

Getty Images, Stefano Madrigali

Late-Night Comedy: How Satire Became America’s Most Trusted News Source

A close friend of mine recently confessed to having stopped watching cable news altogether because it was causing him and his wife anxiety and dread. They began watching Jimmy Kimmel instead, saying the nightly news felt like "psychological warfare" on their mental state. "We want to know what's going on but can't handle the relentless doom and gloom every night," he told me.

Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live, seems to understand this shift. "A year ago, I would've said I'm hoping to show people who aren't paying attention to the news what's actually going on," he told Rolling Stone last month in an interview. "Now I see myself more as a place to scream."

Keep ReadingShow less