In The NoCo

When the Marshall Fire burned over 1,000 homes in Boulder County in December, it also destroyed possessions: couches, children’s toys and family heirlooms. Since then, many fire victims have dug through the rubble to find anything that might be salvageable. In the final part of our series From The Ashes, Leigh Paterson brings us a story about salvaged objects that contain memories. 

Hundreds of people summit Mount Everest each year. But before this year, fewer than 10 of them were Black. In May, the first all-Black team of climbers successfully reached the summit as part of the Full Circle Everest Expedition. To learn more about the expedition, KUNC's Samantha Coetzee spoke to Eddie Taylor. He's a member of the Full Circle Everest Team and a chemistry teacher from Boulder.

A new report looks at the emergency response during the first 36 hours of the most destructive fire in Colorado History. The Marshall Fire is responsible for an estimated $1 billion in damages. Two people died in the blaze. KUNC's Beau Baker spoke with colleague Leigh Paterson to learn more about this report.

Colorado Edition is hosted by Yoselin Meza Miranda and produced bythe KUNC newsroom, led by news director Sean Corcoran. Web was edited by digital operations manager Ashley Jefcoat. 

The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. It's available as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

Coloradans are still processing the Supreme Court’s historic decision to end federal abortion rights. Some residents are joining together to protest, while others are making plans to protect — or challenge — access to abortion here. KUNC’s Scott Franz has more on the early reactions to the ruling, and what it might mean going forward.

KUNC's Beau Baker spoke to Dr. Warren Hern, director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic. He's been providing access to care since 1975, and says that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade could impact abortion services in Colorado.

In the months after the Marshall Fire devastated parts of Boulder County, many families returned to sift through the debris. KUNC’s Leigh Paterson brings us a story about the memories contained in salvaged objects.

The Greeley Stampede returned this year for the first time since COVID.. The summer rodeo festival celebrated its 100th year with rides, children activities, and food vendors at the Island Grove Regional Park. KUNC's Yoselin Meza Miranda was there, along with lots of families enjoying live music, kid’s sheep races, and, of course, a multitude of different food trucks.

Colorado Edition is hosted by Yoselin Meza Miranda and produced by the KUNC newsroom, led by news director Sean Corcoran. Web was edited by digital operations manager Ashley Jefcoat. Additional production support was provided by Stephanie Daniel. The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling.

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

The Marshall Fire ripped through Boulder County at the end of last year. Many fire victims took almost nothing with them that day. But they went back to sift through the debris in the months that followed. In the KUNC series From The Ashes, Leigh Paterson brings us the stories of how they salvaged objects to help families process what they lost.

Climate change is reshaping the natural world, but one animal is doing its part to fight back. A new study lays out all the ways that beavers are helping reshape rivers and streams. As Alex Hager reports, they’re creating healthy waterways that are more resistant — and resilient — to the worst effects of climate change.

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. There are over 14,000 DACA recipients living in Colorado. The federal program has allowed undocumented people to take advantage of many opportunities — including being able to work and go to college. Luis Antezana is the founder and CEO of Juntos 2 College. The organization awards 10 grants a month to DACA recipients to pay for DACA renewals and legal services. He spoke with Yoselin Meza Miranda about his organization and 10 years of DACA.

Colorado Edition is hosted by Yoselin Meza Miranda and produced by the KUNC newsroom, led by news director Sean Corcoran. Web was edited by digital operations manager Ashley Jefcoat. The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. 

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

In the months since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians have fled the country -- many of them refusing to leave without their beloved family pets. Seeing those images prompted Dr. Jon Geller to hop on a plane and head overseas to the Ukrainian border to help. Once there, the Fort Collins-based emergency veterinarian helped set up a clinic providing necessary care to ensure families' pets are cleared to travel with them to other European countries.

In 2015, Geller founded the Street Dog Coalition, a nonprofit based in northern Colorado that helps people experiencing homelessness get free vet care for their companion animals. He quickly discovered that his mission assisting Ukrainian refugees wasn’t all that different from helping unsheltered people care for their pets here in the U.S. He spoke with Colorado Edition on April 1, shortly after he’d returned home from the Ukrainian border.

There’s a long history in the U.S. of people creating guides to help others find safe, inclusive spaces. In the 19th century, safe houses along the Underground Railroad displayed quilts with coded messages to help people who escaped slavery find safe passage. In the 20th century, Black travelers used the Green Book to navigate as safely as they could.

Now, in the 21st century, two Colorado women have created a website that aims to do something similar. The Inclusive Guide, allows users to rate their experiences at businesses and other spaces. Those ratings give insight to users about how others with a similar identity have been treated, and whether they will be welcomed at a given business. Crystal Egli and Parker McMullen Bushman are the co-founders of Inclusive Journeys, a tech startup that created Inclusive Guide. They spoke with Colorado Edition in January.

One Monday morning in August of 2020, host Erin O’Toole started getting a flood of new Twitter mentions and followers – from Canada. A quick search of the news revealed there is another Erin O'Toole, north of the border, who was just elected leader of the Conservative Party in Canada. Lots of social media merriment ensued, and when news of the mix-up reached the offices of the Canadian Erin O’Toole, the Conservative Party politician was kind enough to join his newfound American doppelganger to discuss their unlikely connection. 

Legendary ski map artist James Niehues recently announced his retirement from hand-painting ski trail maps. Niehues, who lives in Parker, Colorado, has painted more than 200 ski trail maps in multiple countries over his 30-year career. Those resorts include Vail, Breckenridge and Winter Park here in Colorado. Some of his work has been published in a coffee table book called The Man Behind the Maps. Colorado Edition first spoke with Niehues in 2019.

Colorado Edition is hosted and produced by Erin O'Toole (@ErinOtoole1). Web was edited by digital operations manager Ashley Jefcoat. The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. It's available as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many Colorado businesses to shut down storefronts. Many are still dealing with supply chain issues and inflation. Despite the financial squeeze, new business filings in the state have skyrocketed during the last three years, hitting a ten-year peak. And, as KUNC'S Adam Rayes reports, this economic development is happening in urban and rural communities alike.

Colorado’s 2022 primary elections are on June 28. They’ll determine which candidates appear on the November ballot for U.S. Senate and House, Governor and Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, and other offices. One big change for this year is that Colorado picked up a new seat in the U.S. House, so many voters will find they’re in a new Congressional district this year. Colorado Edition spoke with Bob Murphy, AARP Colorado’s state director, for advice on how to make sure your voter registration is current, and about the issues that are most important to voters 50 and up this year.

Colorado Edition is hosted and produced by Erin O'Toole (@ErinOtoole1). Web was edited by Ashley Jefcoat.

The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. It's available as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

For many Coloradans, Memorial Day weekend marks the ‘official’ start of barbecue season. Not that we’re afraid to fire up the grill in the middle of winter, of course -- but there’s just something about this holiday weekend that inspires the outdoor cook to clean off the grill or the smoker and get dinner fired up.  

Barbecue is hands-down one of the most popular cuisines in the country right now. But where did it come from? And why is it that the contributions of African Americans who helped establish this cooking style are left out of the current conversation around barbecue? 

Colorado Edition spoke with Adrian Miller last September to get some of those answers. Miller is a soul food scholar, food historian and certified barbecue judge. He’s also the recipient of a James Beard Foundation Book Award. His most recent book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, is intended to celebrate African American barbecue culture and to restore the voices of Black Americans to barbecue storytelling.  

Colorado Edition is hosted and produced by Erin O'Toole (@ErinOtoole1). Web was edited by Ashley Jefcoat. 

The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. It's available as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you! 

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions. 

Colorado is poised to take an unusual step in granting state lawmakers paid parental leave. The move highlights a legacy of female political representation in the West. KUNC’s Robyn Vincent has the story.

In April, voters in the front range town of Erie, Colorado, elected Justin Brooks as mayor. He’s lived in Erie for 13 years and in that time, helped found a grassroots organization called Being Better Neighbors, aimed at making Erie a more welcoming and inclusive place. That group was instrumental in creating Erie's first Juneteenth celebration last year, just before it was declared a federal holiday.Brooks is the town’s first Black mayor in its history. He joined Colorado Edition to talk about the significance of the moment, and to outline some of his priorities for the next two years of his term.

Interview Highlights
These interview highlights have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Erin O’Toole: For those who aren't familiar, what’s it like living in Erie?

Justin Brooks: People are flocking to the area like mad. Houses are on the market for a day, it seems -- not much different than the rest of the Front Range, but the growth is extremely rapid. People settle here in Erie because it kind of gives you the best of both worlds. You get to be in a suburban landscape near open space, and it's quiet. Just this morning two hot air balloons went over my house, and I stood on the back deck watching them go over. So you have those unique pieces of solace that you get in in a town like Erie. But if you want to go to a major league sports game, it's really close to be able to get downtown through some mode of transportation and participate in it. So that's why I think Erie has been growing so quickly; and people come from all over. We have folks who are migrating here from every corner of the country, it seems. It's creating a little bit of a melting pot, and it's really changing the demographics and the dynamics of this area, and enriching it.

You've been part of the Being Better Neighbors organization that helped create that first Juneteenth celebration; I imagine you're already planning for this year's! What prompted the creation of the organization?

At the beginning of COVID, right at the very beginning of everything [being shut down] in our country, there were some instances of racial injustice where the concerns of Black people about being hunted in our neighborhoods by people who are fearful of our presence, or being unfairly mistreated by law enforcement when encountered. Those were very deep concerns. The town approached me and others in town about having some open dialogue about it. And so I and a few other residents participated in these talks. There was a virtual town hall talk on racism and about race relations. And that was the beginning of this community conversation that really has ensued over the last couple of years.

You know, the town police department and the town government have been really mindful about finding ways to break down those barriers between people, to get people talking about the tough conversations with a goal of improving relations among community members. The Black people who live here don't want a community where we are perceived as outsiders, or that we are visitors to this area. We, too, want to be treated as residents and neighbors, just like everyone else. The town wants a community that is welcoming, that is open, that is accepting of all people. And if people are feeling as if they are unwelcome, unwanted in Erie, then we are failing as a community.

What are some of your early priorities as you begin your term as mayor?

One of the key issues that I am tackling in my administration is the trend of housing affordability. The area, as beautiful as it is and as wonderful as it is and as much as I love living here, I recognize that it is becoming out of reach for so many people. Young families are having a tougher and tougher time being able to live here. Young families are being priced out of our community. The average listing price in areas around $750,000. Now, our average household income is about 116,000. And so those numbers don't close. It means that the average person here could not purchase their own home were it not for the equity that they've accrued. That creates a problem for our workforce in a sense that our small businesses in town have a really hard time recruiting and retaining workers. This is a cocktail for crisis.

I'm working diligently to partner with local and regional organizations and entities to try to curb that trend so that we can have Erie to continue to be a welcoming place. Over the time I've been here, it's largely been a community centered around families. It would be a shame if, as children are graduating from college and getting their first jobs, that they have to move away from this region because they just cannot afford to be here. So, I hope to have an impact there.

I'm very passionate about ensuring that inclusion and equity are a part of the fabric of our town. I see that trend growing and I and I'm proud to be a part of it. So I want to further that.

I am planning to utilize this summer to draw people out into in-person events. I hope the COVID numbers cooperate with this desire. Erie, when I first moved here, was known for all of our community events. I want to get people out and I want to see people in the community. We have a farmer's market on Thursdays. We have a huge Pride event that Being Better Neighbors is putting on on June 5th. I want to see people come out to that and show support. And so this first summer, while I'm trying to figure out how we tackle housing, in the forefront I'm going to be out in the community trying to meet as many people as I can and make sure that they're talking to one another and engaging, because I think that opportunity to meet and greet really helps bolster community.

Erie is a town of about 27,000 people; and according to census data, its population is not very diverse. You are the first African American mayor in the town's 140-year-plus history. How significant is this?

I think that my winning the election represents a voting base that has chosen to select a candidate based on the issues and platform that matter as opposed to just identity think. So, while it is extremely significant that I was elected as the first Black mayor, that wasn't necessarily my platform. It represents that people really listened to what was being said and what was being represented, and they took stock of what was important to them and what they felt needed to be represented in office. And they chose. Erie, demographically, I think it's 0.19% African American. And we are a family of six, so we're a pretty large portion [of that]. It's not lost on me that there are not numerically a lot of Black people in this area.

I think it's a sense of progress that says I, for example, represent a different walk of life. I have a different cultural experience than a lot of my neighbors and for the 13 years that I've been here, I've had numerous frank and deep conversations to enlighten others and be enlightened myself about various issues. And that varying perspective, a different life experience and just the expertise that I bring to the area I think makes a difference in my ability to serve. The people who live in this community all have the success of this community in mind. My quest for making housing more affordable is not just abou...

A landmark of the northern Colorado art scene is turning 102 years old this year. The historic Rialto Theater in Loveland originally planned to celebrate its true centennial in 2020, when it would have turned 100. Because of the pandemic, though, those festivities had to be postponed – until now. 

Visitors from all over Colorado flocked to the Rialto this week to share memories and to marvel at the lovingly restored building.  Guests enjoyed silent film screenings and special behind-the-scenes tours that took them through winding, cramped passageways below the stage and into the bright, newly designed community spaces.   

KUNC’s Erin O’Toole and Yoselin Meza Miranda tagged along on one of those tours, joining about a dozen guests who gathered in front of the main stage with small bags of fresh popcorn. Rialto theater manager Steve Lemmon and events coordinator Heather Rubald spoke about the work that's been done to update and expand the space. Most of the theater’s aesthetic has been preserved. The seats are new, but have a vintage look, and the stylized flower murals on the walls have either been restored or painted to look almost exactly like the original.

Rubald remembers when she used to go to the Rialto to watch movies. 

“It was a rather run-down movie theater, so we had mutated the name from Rialto to 'Rathole,'" she said with a laugh.

Built in 1920, the Rialto was designed as a silent movie theater. In the late 1960’s they tried to attract more visitors by installing a large movie screen and a snack bar. The building went through many changes over the years, and for a time it housed a shopping mall and office space. It was so rundown that it came perilously close to being torn down. 

In 1988 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. And after the Downtown Development Authority purchased the building, the process of restoring the Rialto to its original glory began.  Some of that work included expanding dressing rooms and adding a modern Green Room for performers.

Donna Evans was one of those touring the theater. Years ago, she performed a few times at the Rialto as part of a choral group. There were only two tiny dressing rooms below the stage, and she remembers a Tae Kwon Do studio across the alley that would allow performers to change costumes there.

“We had to go out through those back doors, run across all the parking and stuff, get in there [with] no privacy, change your costumes, run back across the thing, get back up on the stage again," Evans recalled. "It’s much better now. It’s beautiful.”

Theater manager Steve Lemmon says much of the renovation was done by a group of volunteers who would come in Saturday mornings to work. “Slowly but surely they brought it back to life, and that’s the only reason this theater’s still open today,” he said.

Of course any building that is over 100 years old has secrets. 

“We have a couple of ghosts that live here in the theater,” said Rialto technical coordinator Phil Baugh. 

One of those spirits haunting the theater is Clarence, a projectionist who worked from the 1940s and 50s. Baugh says Clarence messes with sound and light every now and then. 

There’s also the infamous “woman in white," a performer from the vaudeville era who has allegedly been seen floating on the stage. She even has her favorite seat – J-16. 

“She was  in the middle of a performance and passed away in the dressing rooms,” said Baugh. “If you feel a little bit of a cold breeze, it just might be the woman in white.”

For those interested in paranormal activities, the Rialto offers ghost tours in October, just in time for Halloween. 

But for this week, the focus is entirely on celebrating the here and now of this longtime cornerstone of the Loveland arts community.

“A lot of people who grew up here remember it in its heyday; they remember the tough times it went through; they remember the redemption story of all the community members who brought it back to life," said theater manager Steve Lemmon. "People feel like it’s their theater, and that’s really what a community theater should be.”   

The Rialto's centennial celebration wraps up Saturday, May 21. Due to inclement weather, many of the events will be held inside the theater. Find more information and a full event schedule here.

Colorado Edition is hosted and produced by Erin O'Toole (@ErinOtoole1). Web was edited by Jackie Hai.

The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. It's available as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

Warmer days are here, and the snow that supplies most of the water to the Colorado River is melting. Certainly, our drought-stricken region needs all the water it can get. With just a few weeks left in spring, KUNC’s Alex Hager tells us what we can expect for water this summer in the Colorado River basin.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a lot of uncomfortable truths about ourselves and our society. One of those things was just how undervalued many essential workers are, especially those in lower-paid service-industry jobs. According to an analysis from the Bell Policy Center, around 20% of Colorado’s workforce are considered essential workers — in fields ranging from healthcare to transportation to stocking the shelves of grocery stores.

Whether they considered themselves "essential" or not — there was no option for remote work in their fields. Many have said they felt unsafe working through the pandemic, and have said companies didn't do enough to protect frontline workers — from the virus itself, or from angry customers who were unhappy with mask requirements or stores running out of particular items. Some of that experience is behind a recent wave of unionization votes across the country, including at several Starbucks locations here in Colorado.

Denver-based writer Adam Kaat had a unique vantage point to understand just what that was like. He happened to be working in a busy grocery store right as the pandemic hit. He then chronicled that experience in the form of a novel, Life on the Grocery Line: A Frontline Experience in a Global Pandemic. He spoke with Colorado Edition in March about the book, and what life is really like for essential frontline workers.

Colorado Edition is hosted and produced by Erin O'Toole (@ErinOtoole1). Web was edited by digital operations manager Ashley Jefcoat. The mission of Colorado Edition is to deepen understanding of life in Northern Colorado through authentic conversation and storytelling. It's available as a podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Colorado Edition is made possible with support from our KUNC members. Thank you!

Our theme music was composed by Colorado musicians Briana Harris and Johnny Burroughs. Other music in the show by Blue Dot Sessions.

Today – on KUNC’s Colorado Edition. https://colostate.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1AE0AAFmNOWWjcy

Anyone with an internet connection these days can create false or misleading content that spreads like wildfire to reach millions of people. The rising flood of inflammatory rhetoric and false information is so concerning that the Department of Homeland Security recently announced the creation of a Disinformation Governance Board to combat it — a move that quickly prompted backlash from many Republicans, who compare it to the “Ministry of Truth” from George Orwell’s novel “1984.”

It’s an insidious issue that communities and local newsrooms in Northern Colorado are wrestling with, especially with the midterm elections less than six months away. Dominik Stecula studies the intersection of political communication and media. He’s an assistant professor of political science at Colorado State University. He’s part of a virtual panel discussing misinformation Thursday, May 12, 3:00pm to 5:00pm, hosted by the CSU Center for Public Deliberation, in partnership with the NoCo Deliberative Journalism Project. It’s free and open to the public.

Interview Highlights
These interview highlights have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Erin O'Toole: What is the impact of misinformation or disinformation on people's perceptions of topics like science or vaccines, to use a recent example? Is this persuasive? I mean, does it change people's minds?

Dominik Stecula: The reality is more complex than it frequently gets portrayed. We tend to have this belief that just because a piece of information exists out there, then it somehow has a super powerful effect on people out there. Actually, scholars have a name for it. It's called the "third person effect," and it's this idea that you yourself might not think that you would be persuaded by something, but other people are much more gullible than you, and they're definitely going to be persuaded. So I think it's a useful idea to understand when we think about the effects of these things, much like any other form of information, misinformation, disinformation matters. It plays a role in terms of shaping our attitudes, shaping our beliefs, and even shaping our actions, like whether to take the COVID vaccine, for example. But just because one is exposed to one particular false story or just because they listened to one questionable interview that somebody did with, like, Joe Rogan on his podcast, doesn't mean that persuaded them.

So, we need to remember that there's a kind of supply and demand there. Some people want this kind of things, want this kind of content because they're predisposed to believe it — in the context of a pandemic, especially. The pandemic was, and still is, scary. And especially if you put yourself back in early 2020, February, March, when we were just trying to learn what's going on, exactly how it was going to impact us. Nobody really had all the answers, even the experts. Some people have a very strong psychological need to have simple answers, and they don't trust the kind of more complex, nuanced explanations. So, they're just more drawn to a particular set of answers that in that context tend to be the more harmful things.

So when we talk about misinformation and disinformation and its effect, we have to understand it through the prism of all of these different considerations, all of the different predispositions, that every user of the information environment brings to the table. And also the fact that, you know, sometimes just because you see one story, it's not going to do it. You need repeated exposure, just like with everything else. That doesn't necessarily happen with misinformation, right? You might see like a viral meme or tweet or whatever, that is a piece of disinformation. If that just a one-off thing, then it's unlikely to have made a huge impact on you. But if you're kind of bombarded with the same kind of theme of misinformation on a specific topic, then it's going to be much more likely to influence you because you just consumed a lot more. It's more of a top-of-mind consideration for you, and it's more likely to kind of make an impact on you.

I'm wondering how we can, as a community, address the impacts of misinformation while at the same time balancing freedom of speech, because that's also important.

I think that's a very difficult and obviously contentious issue to grapple with. I think the first thing that is worth remembering is that the fact that we have misinformation on these platforms is not necessarily a thing that leads to our democracy and our politics being more toxic, but the other way around. When we think back to 2016 and we think back to Russian interference in the election and what the trolls from Russia were doing, they didn't create these divisions. They just poured gasoline on a fire.

So I think it's worth remembering that as we think about solutions, because there's certain steps we can take to address some of the concerns surrounding information disorder, but to really get to the bottom of the issue requires fixing our politics, which is a much more complex task. Some of the things we can do — there's different layers. The first layer is what platforms can do, and platforms can design social media to slow us down so that we don't get into our partisan urges of sharing the most hyper partisan content. So little problems that pop up like, “Are you sure you want to share this before reading the article?” These things have been demonstrated to have an effect in randomized controlled trials. These things work. We have data to back it up and platforms are implementing them.

I think I'm skeptical of the government and post-moderation policies. I think even the most well-intentioned laws — like in Germany, there's a fake news law that passed in 2017. It had the best intentions of trying to eliminate misinformation and disinformation from platforms like Facebook. And essentially if platforms don’t remove certain things in a timely fashion, they face fines. But these laws essentially have been very heavily criticized by the human rights groups, by freedom of speech groups that highlight how they definitely stifle speech. And they have been used as a blueprint by authoritarian regimes who essentially passed similar laws that are de-facto aimed at censoring pro-democracy voices in countries like Russia or Philippines. 

I think that leaves us with what can we do as a citizens? And I think we are not helpless. I think the information environment is much more complex than it used to be. I study media and politics and I frequently see sources I've never seen before. There's definitely a lot of information out there. We're drowning in information. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. There are tools that we can use to help us guide us towards better sources; there are browser plug-ins, like Newsguard. 

I think it's good to be aware of your own biases, knowing that we all come to the table with a certain set of beliefs. Getting outside of our comfort zone, having a balanced diet and when something seems kind of crazy or too good to be true, then it probably is. So triangulating, making sure you research something if something's particularly controversial or it strikes you as unlikely, it probably is.  

A lot of our politics are toxic because they focus on national culture wars. But local news...