Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
An abstract grid wall of shipping containers, unevenly arranged with some jutting out, all decorated in the colors and patterns of the USA flag. A prominent percentage sign overlays the grid.

Tariffs on Trial: The Supreme Court’s Hidden Battle for Balance

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Two people in business attire walking into an office.

How Do We Become the Gatekeepers?

Pete Hegseth walking in a congressional hallway

The War against DEI Is Gonna Kill Us

Donald Trump isn’t joking about a third term

Donald Trump isn’t joking about a third term

Meet the change Leaders: Jaisal Noor

Jaisal Noor
Hugo Balta
By Hugo BaltaDec 05, 2024
Hugo Balta
Hugo Balta is a journalist, educator, and communicator. Hugo is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is the publisher of the Latino News Network, a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network, and an adjunct professor teaching journalism courses.
See More Writings by author

Jaisal Noor is the Solutions Journalism Network’s democracy cohort manager, helping newsrooms reinvent the way they cover politics, including deepening their election coverage beyond the horse race. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, Noor has reported for Democracy Now!, The Atlantic, Bolts Magazine, The Real News Network and Baltimore Beat.

Noor leads the Advancing Democracy Fellowship with the goal of finding ways to support more newsrooms in improving their important role in our democracy. In 2025, SJN plans to move the program away from a fellowship model to focus more on the support newsrooms need to thrive. In doing so it will continue to support reporters and editors advancing democracy through innovative approaches that build civic engagement, equity, trust in journalism and healthy discourse.

The program is run by three journalism support organizations — SJN, Hearken and Trusting News — and also supported by the experts at Good Conflict. The goal is to help newsrooms shift their political reporting away from horse-race narratives focusing on candidates and opinion polls, toward stories that prioritize the key concerns of communities and highlight problem-solving approaches to address them, as well as adding transparency and nuance to their reporting. Participating news organizations gain skills in the Citizens Agenda approach, solutions journalism, Engaged Elections, Good Conflict and building trust with audiences.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Noor a couple of weeks ago for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of his democracy reform work:

www.youtube.com

Balta is director of solutions journalism and DEI initiatives for The Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is publisher of the Latino News Network and a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.

Latest news

A woman speaking in front of an audience.
Democracy

Wins for Women Offer a Blueprint for the Future

A stethoscope, calculator, pills, and cash.
Health

America’s $5.6 Trillion Healthcare Gorilla: Why We’re Blind to the Real Crisis

Rethinking the Church’s Calling in a Time of Crisis
Community

Rethinking the Church’s Calling in a Time of Crisis

Read More

Rebuilding Democracy in the Age of Brain Rot
person using laptop computer
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

Rebuilding Democracy in the Age of Brain Rot

We live in a time when anyone with a cellphone carries a computer more powerful than those that sent humans to the moon and back. Yet few of us can sustain a thought beyond a few seconds. One study suggested that the average human attention span dropped from about 12 seconds in 2000 to roughly 8 seconds by 2015—although the accuracy of this figure has been disputed (Microsoft Canada, 2015 Attention Spans Report). Whatever the number, the trend is clear: our ability to focus is not what it used to be.

This contradiction—constant access to unlimited information paired with a decline in critical thinking—perfectly illustrates what Oxford named its 2024 Word of the Year: “brain rot.” More than a funny meme, it represents a genuine threat to democracy. The ability to deeply engage with issues, weigh rival arguments, and participate in collective decision-making is key to a healthy democratic society. When our capacity for focus erodes due to overstimulation, distraction, or manufactured outrage, it weakens our ability to exercise our role as citizens.

Keep ReadingShow less
Two people looking at computer screens with data.

A call to rethink AI governance argues that the real danger isn’t what AI might do—but what we’ll fail to do with it. Meet TFWM: The Future We’ll Miss.

Getty Images, Cravetiger

The Future We’ll Miss: Political Inaction Holds Back AI's Benefits

We’re all familiar with the motivating cry of “YOLO” right before you do something on the edge of stupidity and exhilaration.

We’ve all seen the “TL;DR” section that shares the key takeaways from a long article.

Keep ReadingShow less
We Need To Rethink the Way We Prevent Sexual Violence Against Children

We Need To Rethink the Way We Prevent Sexual Violence Against Children

November 20 marks World Children’s Day, marking the adoption of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. While great strides have been made in many areas, we are failing one of the declaration’s key provisions: to “protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.”

Sexual violence against children is a public health crisis that keeps escalating, thanks in no small part to the internet, with hundreds of millions of children falling victim to online sexual violence annually. Addressing sexual violence against children only once it materializes is not enough, nor does it respect the rights of the child to be protected from violence. We need to reframe the way we think about child protection and start preventing sexual violence against children holistically.

Keep ReadingShow less
Teen Vogue Changed How a Generation Saw Politics and Inclusion. That Era Could Be Over.

Teen Vogue editors Kaitlyn McNab, left, and Aiyana Ishmael, right. Both were laid off as Condé Nast announced that Teen Vogue would be absorbed into the Vogue brand.

J. Countess, Phillip Faraone; Getty Images

Teen Vogue Changed How a Generation Saw Politics and Inclusion. That Era Could Be Over.

For the last decade, Teen Vogue has been an unexpected source of some of the most searing progressive political analysis in American media. It’s a pivot the publication began in April 2016 when Elaine Welteroth took over as leader. She became the publication’s second editor in chief, and the second Black person ever to hold that title under the publishing giant Condé Nast.

Previously focused mostly on teen style trends and celebrity red carpet looks, the magazine’s website soon included headlines like “Trauma From Slavery Can Actually Be Passed Down Through Your Genes” and “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America.” Readers took notice: Between January 2016 and January 2017, web traffic reportedly grew from 2.9 million U.S. visitors to 7.9 million.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2025