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Bob Cusack, Editor in Chief at THE HILL | Talkin Politics & Religion Jun 12, 2023

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Journalistic integrity. How can individual reporters and news outlets uphold their professional ethics? Is it possible in today's environment? How can a journalist get a coveted interview, yet be fair without it becoming a hit job or a puff piece? Is it any different now than 5 or 10 or 25+ years ago, when our guest Bob Cusack of THE HILL first entered the business? What is it like interviewing Donald Trump (which Bob has done 4 times)? How can reporters be equipped to deal with attacks from a subject like Trump who repeatedly refers to the press as "the enemy of the people"? What about situations when correspondents are in harm's way due to such attacks? What lessons can be learned from the demise of companies such as BuzzFeed and Vice Media? Oh, and of course we do a little political prognostication!

Bob Cusack serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Hill, a media platform that provides nonpartisan reporting on the inner workings of Government and the nexus of politics and business. Bob has been reporting on policy and politics in Washington, D.C. since 1995 and has interviewed top newsmakers such as former President Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He regularly appears on news networks as a non-partisan political analyst and has won six awards from the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. Bob is also an accomplished tennis player and has appeared in numerous movies and tv shows such as WONDER WOMAN and VEEP.

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Talkin‘ Politics & Religion Without Killin‘ Each Other Podcast

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A Braver Story: The Braver Angels Story of American Citizenship | Village SquareCast Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. —Abraham Lincoln.

This episodes tells the story of one group of people who have risen.

Built by patriotic volunteers, Braver Angels is a national movement to bridge the partisan divide, equally balanced between conservatives and progressives at every level of leadership. They work in communities, on college campuses, in the media, and in the halls of political power. We’ll offer up a behind the scenes view of this extraordinary group of Americans—how they formed, what they’ve learned and what’s next.

Find bios for our participants and a full program description online here.

We hope you’ll join us as we explore what happens when people of goodwill who might not agree cross each others’ thresholds and break a little bread together. Whoever you are, whatever your beliefs, bring an open mind, an open heart (and an empty stomach) for a continuing conversation on the two topics your mother taught you to never broach in polite company: politics and religion. We can’t wait.

Funding for this program was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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AI Revolution: Disaster or Great Leap Forward? Nathanael Fast | How Do We Fix It? Jun 05, 2023

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Generative Artificial Intelligence has the power to transform lives and change our jobs. In this episode, we discuss the potential for good and bad from large, creative AI models such as ChatGPT.

Our guest is Nathanael Fast, who serves as Director of the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making and Co-Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute. Professor Fast teaches in the MBA, Ph.D., and Executive Education programs at USC Marshall in Los Angeles.

ChatGPT reached over 100 million active users within two months of its release. Consumers have used it to write essays, take tests, crack jokes and write poetry in response to questions or prompts. We raise the questions we need to ask about rapidly changing forms of artificial intelligence. Should we be scared or excited… or both?

With calls for new regulation, even from the industry itself, policy makers and the public need to gain a fuller understanding of the AI revolution. This episode introduces listeners to the meaning of large language models and generative AI.

Nate Fast argues that if we want to understand and improve the future, we’ll need to focus on the adoption of technology and how AI, social media and other platforms shape human psychology.

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Saving Democracy from & with AI ft. Nathan Sanders | Politics is Everything May 31, 2023

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In this episode, Nathan Sanders joins us to discuss how Artificial Intelligence technologies are impacting political processes in complex ways, including increasing disruptive risks to legislative processes but also providing enforcement mechanisms. Sanders also addresses what regulatory frameworks and Codes of Ethics should include.

Nathan Sanders is a data scientist and an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University where he is focused on creating open technology to help vulnerable communities and all stakeholders participate in the analysis and development of public policy.

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People Power and AI: Chris Wiggins & Matt Jones | Future Hindsight May 29, 2023

Show notes

Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones are co-authors of How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms. Chris is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the New York Times’s chief data scientist and Matt is a professor of history at Columbia. Together, they taught a course called “Data: Past, Present, and Future," and their book is an extension thereof. We discuss the history of how data is made; the relationship between data and truth; and the unstable three-player game between corporate, state, and people power.

We are currently in an unstable and unpredictable three-player game between state power, corporate power, and people power. In fact, we have a lot of collective influence via the way we construct norms. Our constant human activity is the grist of the mill for machine learning. Corporations do not have all the power. Still, the mix between advertising and data has created a lot of the most pressing concerns in the world’s algorithmically mediated reality.

Follow Chris on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chrishwiggins

Follow Matt on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/nescioquid

Follow Mila on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/milaatmos

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Gen Z's fight for democracy | Democracy Works May 24, 2023

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We've talked about generational politics on the show before with episodes on Millennials and Baby Boomers. This week, we turn our focus to Gen Z, those born from the late 1990s to early 2000s. This generation's formative experiences include school shootings, a global pandemic, and reckonings with racial and economic inequality.

In his book Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America, John Della Volpe argues that Gen Z has not buckled under the weight of the events that shaped them. Rather, they have organized around the issues America has left unsolved, from gun control to racial and environmental justice to economic inequality, becoming more politically engaged than their elders were at their age and showing a unique willingness to disrupt the status quo.

Della Volpe joins us this week to unpack what he's learned from thousands of conversations with members of Gen Z and what this generation's growing power means for the 2024 election and beyond. Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, where he has led the institute’s polling initiatives on understanding American youth since 2000.

Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America

John Della Volpe on Substack

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The Abortion Talks: They Found Respect, but not Common Ground. Frances Hogan, The Rev. Anne Fowler | Let's Find Common Ground May 22, 2023

Show notes

We speak with two women from opposing sides of the bitter and often toxic debate over abortion. Frances Hogan and The Rev. Anne Fowler were involved in a series of years-long intensive, secret talks. Their candid conversations began after a gunman opened fire at two Massachusetts abortion clinics nearly thirty years ago. The attack left two women dead and five people injured.

In this episode, we learn the extraordinary story of how Anne and Francis gained a much deeper understanding and respect for one another. They didn’t change their views about the abortion issue, but they did become friends.

We share moments of compassion, kindness, and humor.

Both Frances and Anne were among those profiled in the new documentary, "Abortion Talks", about what happened after the deadly attacks. On "Let's Find Common Ground", both of them explain how incredibly difficult it was to be part of many hours of exhausting conversations. We hear how they learned to overcome fear, stereotyping, misunderstandings, and anger.

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The Politics of Globalization with Gordon Brown | The Bully Pulpit May 17, 2023

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CPF Director Bob Shrum joins Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, for a discussion on the politics of globalization. They discuss the war in Ukraine, challenges from China, the 2008 global financial crisis, and America’s role in globalization.

Featuring:

Gordon Brown: Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education; World Health Organization (WHO) Ambassador for Global Health Financing
Bob Shrum: Director, Center for the Political Future; Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, USC Dornsife

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Twitter Pill | Democracy in Danger May 15, 2023

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After Elon Musk bought Twitter and fired most of its staff, the platform seems to be floundering, if not imploding. Traffic is flagging, major news outlets have abandoned their handles, hate speech is on the rise. And yet, Twitter remains one of the easiest ways to speak out in public. Media scholar Meredith Clark doesn’t know if Twitter will survive, but she does know it’s a repository for a remarkable history of antiracist activism. Hear how she is working to preserve that archive, and why.

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Is Joe Biden's approval too weak for him to win the 2024 presidential election? | Politics is Everything May 10, 2023

Show notes

Across more than 230 years of American history, 26 presidents have run for re-election after a full term and only 10 have lost. A mere four have lost in the past century - Herbert Hoover in 1932, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George Bush in 1992 and Donald J. Trump in 2020. Based on recent history, a key question for Biden is whether a president can win reelection with an approval rating in the low-to-mid 40s.

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