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I Fought To Keep VOA Independent. Now It’s Gone.

I Fought To Keep VOA Independent. Now It’s Gone.

Project 2025 and the Assault on Immigrants

Project 2025 and the Assault on Immigrants

Just the Facts: Digital Services Tax

Just the Facts: Digital Services Tax

Kids' Healthcare Can't Withstand Medicaid Cuts

Kids' Healthcare Can't Withstand Medicaid Cuts

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Power of One: What Tyler Perry’s Hiring of Sinbad Teaches About Clemency and Second Chances

Podcast: Moving beyond news deserts and misinformation

Podcast: Moving beyond news deserts and misinformation
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumFeb 24, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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We’ve talked a lot on this show about the problems that news deserts, misinformation, and information silos present to democracy. Our guest this week says these things are all downstream from a much more fundamental disconnect between the need for a free press in a democracy and the models the United States has set up to make it happen.

Victor Pickard is the C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy at the University of Pennsylvania and author of "Democracy Without Journalism? Confronting the Misinformation Society." We discuss the history of market failures and policy choices that led to the decline of local journalism and the spread of misinformation.

Victor walks us through his vision for what a re-imagined public media ecosystem in the United States might look like and what it will take to get there. Examples like WBEZ’s recent acquisition of the Chicago Sun-Times provide examples of what’s possible. Candis and Chris discuss how Victor’s arguments about the assault on public media are similar to what we heard from Derek W. Black about public education last year.

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The American Flag's Meaning: Hope and Heartache
Bridging & Common Ground

The American Flag's Meaning: Hope and Heartache

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Entertainment Can Improve How Democrats and Republicans See Each Other

Since the development of American mass media culture in the mid-20th century, numerous examples of entertainment media have tried to improve attitudes towards those who have traditionally held little power.

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Entertainment Can Improve How Democrats and Republicans See Each Other

Entertainment has been used for decades to improve attitudes toward other groups, both in the U.S. and abroad. One can think of movies like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, helping change attitudes toward Black Americans, or TV shows like Rosanne, helping humanize the White working class. Efforts internationally show that media can sometimes improve attitudes toward two groups concurrently.

Substantial research shows that Americans now hold overly negative views of those across the political spectrum. Let's now learn from decades of experience using entertainment to improve attitudes of those in other groups—but also from counter-examples that have reinforced stereotypes and whose techniques should generally be avoided—in order to improve attitudes toward fellow Americans across politics. This entertainment can allow Americans across the political spectrum to have more accurate views of each other while realizing that successful cross-ideological friendships and collaborations are possible.

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Congress Must Not Undermine State Efforts To Regulate AI Harms to Children
Congress Must Not Undermine State Efforts To Regulate AI Harms to Children
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Congress Must Not Undermine State Efforts To Regulate AI Harms to Children

A cornerstone of conservative philosophy is that policy decisions should generally be left to the states. Apparently, this does not apply when the topic is artificial intelligence (AI).

In the name of promoting innovation, and at the urging of the tech industry, Congress quietly included in a 1,000-page bill a single sentence that has the power to undermine efforts to protect against the dangers of unfettered AI development. The sentence imposes a ten-year ban on state regulation of AI, including prohibiting the enforcement of laws already on the books. This brazen approach crossed the line even for conservative U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who remarked, “We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years, and giving it free rein and tying states' hands is potentially dangerous.” She’s right. And it is especially dangerous for children.

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Many people inside and outside of the podcasting world are working to use the medium as a way to promote democracy and civic engagement.

Getty Images, Sergey Mironov

Ben Rhodes on How Podcasts Can Strengthen Democracy

After the 2024 election was deemed the “podcast election,” many people inside and outside of the podcasting world were left wondering how to capitalize on the medium as a way to promote democracy and civic engagement to audiences who are either burned out by or distrustful of traditional or mainstream news sources.

The Democracy Group podcast network has been working through this question since its founding in 2020—long before presidential candidates appeared on some of the most popular podcasts to appeal to specific demographics. Our members recently met in Washington, D.C., for our first convening to learn from each other and from high-profile podcasters like Jessica Tarlov, host of Raging Moderates, and Ben Rhodes, host of Pod Save the World.

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True Confessions of an AI Flip Flopper
Ai technology, Artificial Intelligence. man using technology smart robot AI, artificial intelligence by enter command prompt for generates something, Futuristic technology transformation.
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True Confessions of an AI Flip Flopper

A few years ago, I would have agreed with the argument that the most important AI regulatory issue is mitigating the low probability of catastrophic risks. Today, I’d think nearly the opposite. My primary concern is that we will fail to realize the already feasible and significant benefits of AI. What changed and why do I think my own evolution matters?

Discussion of my personal path from a more “safety” oriented perspective to one that some would label as an “accelerationist” view isn’t important because I, Kevin Frazier, have altered my views. The point of walking through my pivot is instead valuable because it may help those unsure of how to think about these critical issues navigate a complex and, increasingly, heated debate. By sharing my own change in thought, I hope others will feel welcomed to do two things: first, reject unproductive, static labels that are misaligned with a dynamic technology; and, second, adjust their own views in light of the wide variety of shifting variables at play when it comes to AI regulation. More generally, I believe that calling myself out for a so-called “flip-flop” may give others more leeway to do so without feeling like they’ve committed some wrong.

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