Journalism

The Vital Role of Journalism in a Liberal Democracy - Let’s accept at the outset what Hannah Arendt wrote half a century ago about truth and politics: They are not on good terms. Donald Trump is not the first president to lie. He is not the first populist to turn out to be a plutocrat. He is not the first to surround himself with advisers and spokespeople without respect for reality (remember the George W. Bush aide who spoke of journalists sneeringly as “the reality-based community”). He is of course in an unbroken line of presidents who attack the press — including both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. What is original with Donald Trump is his mastery of Twitter, a social media platform that about a quarter of Americans use, but is practically universal among American journalists. Read More

New Global Survey Raises Red Flags for Journalism in the COVID-19 Era - Facing everything from a barrage of disinformation to heightened security risks and a mental health crisis, journalists around the world are contending with myriad daunting challenges as they report on a deadly pandemic, according to the first results from a global survey on journalism and the COVID-19 crisis. The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University launched the Journalism and the Pandemic Project in April 2020 to study the impacts on the field worldwide. Based on survey responses from more than 1,400 English-speaking journalists in 125 countries, the first report from the project surfaces alarming obstacles and threats confronting journalism during the first stage of the pandemic. Read More

Technology and Society

New Tool Aims to Help Government Fight COVID Misinformation - When the data analytics and messaging company AlphaVu launched in 2009, it filled, as founder and CEO Scott Wilkinson recalls, a “sleepy niche” for technology that helps government agencies assess public opinion and craft messaging. Over half of the Washington, D.C.-based company’s business since then has been in the transportation sector, helping public transit or tolling agencies with outreach regarding road construction and multibillion-dollar toll projects. But in the midst of a global pandemic exacerbated by relentless misinformation on social media, the company believes its software could have a role to play in public health. Read More

To Mend a Broken Internet, Create Online Parks - Much of our communal life now unfolds in digital spaces that feel public but are not. When technologists refer to platforms like Facebook and Twitter as “walled gardens”—environments where the corporate owner has total control—they’re literally referring to those same private pleasure gardens that (Walt) Whitman was reacting to. And while Facebook and Twitter may be open to all, as in those gardens, their owners determine the rules. Now, accelerated by the pandemic, we spend much of our time living and conversing with others in a different location: digital space. But social media and messaging platforms weren't designed to serve as public spaces. They were designed to monetize attention. Read More

Democracy & Voting

Opinion: A triumph for conservative women - “Only 100 years ago, women in this country were given the right to vote. And today, we began considering adding another woman to the highest Court in the land,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said on the opening day of U.S. Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. If confirmed, Barrett will become the fifth woman to be nominated and confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. Making history, she will be the first woman with young children to do so, breaking another glass ceiling. In a different vein, she’s doing it with a conservative ideology shunned by so-called feminist groups and Democrats who claim to be the party for women. Read more

How to fix America’s voter registration system so more people can vote - The Arizona Coalition for Change, a Black-led nonprofit organization, revamped their voter registration efforts for the Covid-19 pandemic. They went digital, texting, and phone banking instead. In recent weeks, they’ve hosted socially distanced pop-up voter events. They hosted a Black Panther drive-in movie that doubled as a voter registration drive. They partnered with other organizations to host a food drive, and as people picked up food in their cars, organizers would talk to drivers about registering to vote. Sena Mohammed, the coalition’s civic engagement director, told me they’d registered 30 people from that event alone. Read more

The Real Reason Why Republicans Keep Saying “We’re a Republic, Not a Democracy” - The timeworn phrase “we’re a republic, not a democracy,” once confined to campus political debates and the nerdier corners of the political internet, has been bubbling up to mainstream politics for some time now. But it was still jarring, during last week’s vice presidential debate, when Sen. Mike Lee of Utah tweeted, simply, “We’re not a democracy.” He later followed up, “Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.” The critique that too much democracy will inevitably lead to mob rule and tyranny is as old as Plato—hence the togas—and these men are right that it was very much on the minds of America’s founders. Read more

COVID-19 

AMERICA’S INTERNET WASN’T PREPARED FOR ONLINE SCHOOL - It’s not uncommon for households in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, to lose the internet for a full day. The last time it happened, back in the spring, Christina Rothermel-Branham connected herself (a professor at Northeastern State University, teaching online) and her son (a kindergartener at Heritage Elementary, learning online) to the hotspot on her phone. Luckily, nobody had a Zoom call scheduled that day; worksheets and YouTube videos proceeded as planned. Read more

Johnson & Johnson paused its COVID-19 drug trial. Now what? - One of the leading American coronavirus drug trials hit the brakes Monday night after one patient in the trial suffered “an unexplained illness.” It marks the second time that a leading vaccine trial in Phase 3 testing has been paused. Under normal circumstances, a delay like this would not be much news, but in the intensive spotlight of the pandemic where the president of the United States is promising a vaccine “very soon,” every bump along the way raises concerns. Read more

Covid: Enrollment Is Dropping In Public Schools Around the Country - Orange County, Fla., has 8,000 missing students. The Miami-Dade County public schools have 16,000 fewer than last year. Los Angeles Unified — the nation's second-largest school system — is down nearly 11,000. Charlotte-Mecklenburg in North Carolina has 5,000 missing. Utah, Virginia, and Washington are reporting declines statewide. Comprehensive national data aren't available yet, but reporting from around the country, shows enrollment declines in dozens of school districts across 20 states. Large and small, rich and poor, urban and rural — in most of these districts the decline is a departure from recent trends. Over the past 15 years, data from the U.S. Education Department show that small and steady annual increases in public school enrollment have been the rule. Read more

NOTEWORTHY FREE EVENTS

Monday, October 19th at 1:30 PM (EDT) Hosted by New England First Amendment Coalition and Sponsored by Framingham State University. The discussion will explore Fake News, how we can tell what we're reading is not false information, trusted news sources, how this relates to the presidential election, and affects our voting decision. Special guest speakers, Emily Sweeney, a reporter for The Boston Globe and a member of the New England First Amendment Coalition Board of Directors, and Laura Saunders, Professor at Simmons University who focuses on areas of reference, information literacy, and intellectual freedom. Register Here

Wednesday, October 21st to Thursday, October 22nd, the second Knight Public Spaces Forum, hosted by Knight Foundation examines how leaders across the country are pivoting their public space plans and operations in light of COVID-19 and investing in the future. We’ll hear from leaders in the field, like New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, spatial justice advocate Liz Ogbu, and Uber’s Shin-pei Tsay. St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Akron Mayor Daniel Horrigan will talk through how city leaders are exploring the power of public spaces during a pandemic. RSVP Here
 

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