The Village Square is truly delighted to offer you an episode of one of the best podcasts in the democracy space—Democracy Works.

Meet them:

The Democracy Works podcast seeks to answer that question by examining a different aspect of democratic life each week — from voting to criminal justice to the free press and everything in between. We interview experts who study democracy, as well as people who are out there doing the hard work of democracy day in and day out.

This episode of Democracy Works is Separating News From Noise, examining the very real dynamic of news avoidance.

How much news is too much? Or not enough? News Over Noise, the new podcast from Penn State's News Literacy Initiative explores that question and offers guidance on how to consume news that enhances your participation in our democracy without becoming overwhelmed by all the noise on social media and the 24/7 news cycle.

If your first reaction is to demonize people who don't want to read the news, hold up. Read this Washington Post piece by our favorite journalist Amanda Ripley "I stopped reading the news—is the problem me or the product."

The Village Square is a proud member of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.

Both The Democracy Group and Democracy Works are projects led by the wise and wonderful Jenna Spinelle of the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University. If you don't know them already you should.

Village SquareCast will be back with brand new episodes of Village SquareCast this fall.