In Reality

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media. I'm Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. 

What does it mean to be media literate? It means being able to distinguish between opinion and news and being able to discern misinformation when you see it, knowing which news organizations to trust...

But my guest today argues that real media literacy, or as he sometimes prefers, being media savvy, goes deeper. It means understanding how information gets made and importantly, what likely motivates the people making any particular claim. It also means understanding how your own prior beliefs can shape your sense of what's true and false without your even being conscious of it. 

Michael Spikes is an assistant professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and director of its Teach for Chicago journalism program. He spent most of his career understanding how to teach media literacy, this very 21st century skill, and advocating for it in education programs, which raises the harder question, is how do you make an entire country, an entire population more media literate?

So we'll talk about why teaching kids isn't enough, why adults need media literacy training just as much, why our decentralized education system makes population level change especially difficult here in the US, and perhaps most relevant to every one of us citizens, is how do you know what to believe?!

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schoenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. It's hard to imagine principles more foundational to American self-conception as a free people than the guarantees of free speech and a free press embedded in the First Amendment. Given their importance, it's strange to realize that these principles almost didn't become

Part of the Constitution. Rights, after all, already existed in state constitutions and centuries of English common law, so many framers didn't think it necessary to write them down. Given how frequently those rights have been challenged since, it's a good thing they did. So, what happened to change their minds? The guest today is Pulitzer Prize winning historian and Stanford Professor Emeritus Jack Rakove.

The episode is a distilled version of a longer interview covering the origins of the First Amendment, but for this episode, we'll leap right into its adoption into the Constitution. And then we'll take another great leap into whether that Constitution, for all its eighteenth century brilliance, is up to governing the country we have become today. Rakove has doubts.

It's a question Eric will explore further this fall when he teaches an online course on the First Amendment open to everyone at the University of Chicago's Gram School. You'll find the sign-up link below in the show notes. But now, first, here's Jack Rakove.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the origins of the First Amendment
01:13 The absence of free speech in the original Constitution
02:24 State declarations of rights and their meanings
06:30 The political process behind adding the Bill of Rights
09:13 Madison's concerns and the drafting of amendments
17:00 Contemporary challenges to free expression and the First Amendment
20:39 The state of American constitutional norms today

Eric's University of Chicago Class https://graham.uchicago.edu/course/revolutionary-origins-of-the-first-amendment

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg—longtime journalist and media executive, now founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.

When Eric started in journalism, the enforcer of accuracy was the newsroom. Editors questioned your work. Fact checkers combed through it for errors. The organization you worked for held you accountable for its reputation.  

But as everyone knows, fewer people today get their news from this kind of institutional journalism. The growth in news consumption comes from so-called independent journalists—social media influencers, podcasters and Substackers, many of whom never set foot in a newsroom.  In this media environment, people trust individuals more than organizations to tell them the truth.

Rather than resisting this trend, today’s guest  is trying to shape it. Rachel Lobdell is the executive director of News Creator Corps, which trains creators in the disciplines that professional reporters learned in the newsroom: sourcing, fact checking, public records, transparency, and ethics.

This raises all kinds of questions for an institutionalist like Eric. Can news integrity be repotted outside the newsroom? Can creators maintain audience trust without pandering?  And what happens to news gathering when journalists backed by newsrooms are replaced by individuals?

So, let’s ask News Creator Corps’ Rachel Lobdell.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Rachel Labdell and News Creator Corps
02:01 Rachel's background in traditional journalism
03:30 What is News Creator Corps and its mission
04:48 Training creators with no journalism background
05:42 Impact of creator trust in underserved communities
07:34 Different types of creators and their roles
08:02 Why focus on creators without journalism training
09:25 The importance of mentorship and community
12:42 The NCC Collective and creator accreditation
13:59 Handling monetization and ethical standards
16:33 Dealing with sponsored content and disclosures
18:21 Guarding against sensationalism and algorithm influence
20:46 Sourcing and transparency in creator content
22:50 The future of creator-driven news ecosystems
27:34 Long-term vision for trustworthy information
28:30 Measuring impact and community engagement

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation and
the media with host Eric Schurenberg, long time journalist,
now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.

Over the years, he's interviewed a number of people from the so-
called bridge-building community. They’ve been researchers like
Matt Levendusky of University of Pennsylvania, Journalists like
Amanda Ripley, bridge builders like Monica Guzman, all
convinced that things would be better if Americans could just stop
demonizing their neighbors. Let’s stipulate that’s a worthy goal.
Still, all of these movements face a similar problem: How do you
scale listening skills? How long do the effects of civil
conversations across political divides actually last?

I’ll put those questions to today’s guests, Malka Kopell and Palma
Strand, the founders of 13-year old Civity.org. Kopell describes
her background as a community organizer, but she’s also been a
program officer at the Hewlett Foundation and founding managing
director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at
Stanford. Strand came to Civity after a career it law, teaching law
at Creighton University and the University of Marland and
clerking for, among others, Supreme Court justice Byron White.

The Civity insight is that relationships are key to building trust and
trust is fundamental to getting things done in a diverse society.
Civity’s recipe is to train local leaders—from mayors to city
councils and nonprofit directors —to build relationships before
tackling contentious issues.

It sounds great, but perhaps still subject to the issues of scale and
persistence facing all bridge builders. But let’s let Civity’s
founders explain themselves why they believe their approach
works.

Now, here’s Malka Kopell and Palma Strand.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
01:03 Main Questions About Civil Conversations
02:16 Introducing Civity and Its Work
03:21 Types of Leaders Trained by Civity
04:40 Founders' Backgrounds and Epiphanies
08:31 What Makes Civity Different from Other Approaches
10:00 The 'Conversation Before the Conversation'
12:46 Relationship Building in Civic and Business Spheres
15:02 Addressing Scale and Reach Challenges
17:39 Engaging the Middle and Open-minded Communities
21:34 Storytelling Guidelines and Listening Skills
23:47 Media's Role in Societal Divides
26:44 Media Narratives and Real-Life Community Stories
29:23 Journalistic Approaches to Divisiveness
31:20 AI's Impact on Society and Connection
33:49 A Simple Civic Workshop for Neighborhoods
35:45 Focusing on Differences and Complexity in Conversations
36:20 Micro Interactions and Building Trust in Daily Life
38:36 The Power of One-on-One Conversations
39:28 Optimism vs. Pessimism About Society's Future
40:39 Closing Remarks and Final Thoughts

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime media executive, and now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. 

If you've listened to this podcast more than once, you've likely heard a recurring question: What would it take to get Americans over their political alienation? Would it help to clean up and diversify our media diets? Would it help to understand where the other side is coming from?

Today's guest thinks the answer might be to emphasize all we have in common as Americans, as neighbors, as friends. More important than the theory, perhaps, is that he actually tested this hypothesis in the field. Matthew Lewandusky is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Our Common Bonds. Through a series of experiments described in the book, he tested whether reminding us of what we have in common, friendships,

Sports teams, patriotism, can reduce the instinct to demonize fellow citizens. Some approaches work well, others hardly at all. His findings are especially interesting to me because they're closely related to an Alliance for Trust project in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, exploring whether shared local history can help bridge political divides. So today, as we brace for the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding.

Let's dive into the power of our common bonds...

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. 

When Eric interviewed Rob Sand last summer, his run for Iowa governor had more than a whiff of tilting at windmills. He remains the only Democrat to hold statewide elected office in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the governorship in more than 20 years and that Trump carried in 2024 by 13 points.  

Sand’s prospects have drastically improved. Nothing quixotic about it now. He has run a campaign that may be one of the most bi-partisan in the country, by accusing both parties as out of touch with Iowans. His Republican opponent, Zach Lahn, has vulnerabilities, including that he voted in Kansas until recently, allowing Sand’s campaign to label him a carpetbagger.  

Which is why we decided to encore last summer’s interview. We’ll hear how Sand plans to persuade Republicans to cross party lines and vote for him. We’ll hear what personal qualities he thinks can bridge political divides and how, in his own life, he manages to avoid being trapped in the filter bubbles that make America’s media ecosystem so toxic to civil discourse.  

Imagine an election in which the deciding principle isn't 'let’s choose the lesser of two evils', but rather, 'may the best man win'. What a concept.  

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. 

When we talk about the information ecosystem on this podcast, you tend to focus on its public-facing parts, so journalists, social media platforms, influencers. But there is another player, one that acts behind the scenes: public relations.

Now, PR has always been kind of a wholesaler of information, connecting clients who can pay the PR firm to make them visible with journalists who need the content. Like everything else, PR has been turned upside down first by social media and now by AI. Today's guest is Brett Farmiloe, co-founder and CEO of Featured, which uses AI to help do what PR associates used to do and still do to some extent.

Full disclosure, what brought Brett to my attention is that Featured is also the company that brought back Help A Reporter Out, known by its acronym HARO, the service that journalists of Eric's generation used religiously. Brett operates at a fascinating point in the evolution of the attention economy, where reputation once built by journalists and PR, then shaped by algorithms, is now increasingly at the mercy of what AI models say.

01:40
Introduction to Featured and HARO

03:46
Reviving HARO: Trust and Quality in PR

07:11
The Role of AI in PR and Media

09:55
Navigating Native Advertising and Content Creation

12:46
The Freemium Model and Revenue Generation

15:39
Legacy Media vs. New Media in the Information Ecosystem

17:59
The Importance of Sharing Knowledge

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. 

What happened to truth in the digital age and how will AI challenge it even further? Those are the questions at the heart of today's conversation. Steve Rosenbaum, Emmy award-winning filmmaker, founder of the Sustainable Media Center, and the author of the new book, The Future of Truth. 

The book runs through just about every institution that was once a pillar of what Jonathan Rauch calls the reality-based community. That is media, law, science, economics, medicine, and how AI is already reshaping it.

Eric and Steve talk about why those institutions lost their authority and what fills the vacuum. They'll talk about a generation raised inside the social media feed on whom we've been conducting a society level experiment whose outcome we can't predict. And we'll talk about whether there is any path back to truth as we once knew it through regulation or technology or just old fashioned media literacy.

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.

If you want to understand how we got to this moment, a moment in which most Americans say they can't tell what's true online anymore, when loud minorities can manufacture the appearance of mass consensus, when we have retreated from a shared sense of facts to our own bespoke realities, let me introduce you to Renée DiResta. Renée has been a warrior for truth in these polarized times longer than almost anyone. 

She mapped anti-vaccine networks on Facebook in 2013. At the Stanford Internet Observatory, she exposed state-sponsored influence operations and for her trouble, she has been slandered before Congress, subpoenaed and doxed and harassed. Her book, Invisible Rulers, is an encyclopedic account of what happened to us all when the ancient human rumor mill met the modern machinery of networked propaganda. She's now a professor at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy and she's still very much in the fight. 

Renée and Eric talk about how ordinary people get pulled into false narratives, how it feels to be targeted by powerful people living out fake and cynical narratives, and how AI is rewriting the rules of influence. And why, despite everything, Renée hasn't given up the fight. And now here's Renée de Resta.

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schoenberg, a longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. Most people think of America's political divisions as based in political ideology, red versus blue, liberal versus conservative. But what if we're misunderstanding the fault lines?

Today's guests, Brian Waniewski, the CEO of Harmony Labs and Melody Mohebi of Democracy 2076, have spent the past two years collaborating on a study of how to get Americans to engage with politics. The key lever they identified wasn't policy arguments, but rather stories. Their report, The Power of Story to Grow Democracy, and we'll link to it in the show notes, analyzes hundreds of popular films and shows.

It runs dozens of randomized experiences with more than 10,000 participants and what they found was striking. Americans today may seem irreconcilable, and tend to converge on what they actually want from democracy. A system that is fair, representative and effective. Where they differ is the set of values that move them towards those goals. Values that are revealed by the stories that resonate with them. 

Americans that prioritize particular values tend to respond to particular narratives, particular kinds of heroes, particular story arcs, particular visions of change. Now, the conclusion of this report, which Eric found very interesting as a media guy, is how we frame the news, and how we frame our telling of American history can matter more in healing divisions than arguing over facts.

Dig into this more in the conversation coming up with Brian Waniewski and Melody Mohebi.

Website - free episode transcripts
www.in-reality.fm

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com