Reckonings by Stephanie Lepp

12.18.2020

Trump concedes. Fake news?

For the last episode of Reckonings, none other than: Donald Trump. This episode is part of Deep Reckonings — a series of explicitly-marked deepfake videos that imagine Mark Zuckerberg, Brett Kavanaugh, and other public figures having a reckoning. Here,...

09.16.2020

#29 || DEEP RECKONINGS

If Brett Kavanaugh, Alex Jones, and Mark Zuckerberg had a crisis of conscience, what would they say? Reckonings presents Deep Reckonings — a project that uses deepfakes to take Reckonings in a *fictional* direction, and imagine public figures having a...

06.23.2020

#28 || How To Tackle Trump's Lies

How do we cover the communications of a president who lies, especially when those lies can be fatal? The traditional rituals of journalism don't really work with a president who doesn't tell the truth, and so, what can we do...

06.16.2020

#27 || How do people change?

How do we change our hearts and minds? What moves us to shift our political worldviews, transcend extremism, and make other kinds of transformative change? That's the $64 million dollar question that gave birth to Reckonings. And that's the question...

06.09.2020

#26 || Biden, #MeToo, and Growing in Public

Joe Biden stands accused of sexual assault. And the Democratic Party leadership, which had been loud in its support for #MeToo, is suddenly……..silent. But, is it possible to support Biden's candidacy without abandoning #MeToo? Can we take Tara Reade's allegation...

08.08.2019

#25 || Beyond Goliath

He built Facebook’s business model. Then he went on to become the President of Pinterest. And then he realized: he was addicted to his phone. And later: he was complicit in his own — and all of our — addictive...

07.17.2019

#24 || How to turn a monster into an apologist

'In writing this apology, I moved him from monster to apologist…and in doing that, he lost power over me.' That's Eve Ensler, talking about her recent *masterpiece* of a book, The Apology. In it, she imagines the apology her father...

06.11.2019

#23.5 || Where is Reckonings going?

Let's take a quick peek behind the curtain on a few things, including the question: where is Reckonings going?

05.21.2019

#23 || An uncommon conversation about clergy sex abuse

She was sexually abused by her Catholic school teacher, a former nun. As a young priest, he sexually abused boys in his parish. Buckle your seat belts for an *uncommon conversation* about clergy sex abuse. Enormous gratitude to the National...

02.24.2019

#22 || An imaginary reckoning with Pope Francis

If the Pope had a reckoning, what would it sound like? And then after you listen.....if you're curious *why* this was made, go to episode #23.5 and scroll to 01:18 for an explanation.

12.03.2018

#21 || A survivor and her perpetrator find justice

Sameer met Anwen freshman year. He was into her, and they started seeing each other. Then one night, after a fraternity party, Sameer convinced Anwen to come home with him — which is when he coerced her into sexual activity....

09.21.2018

#20 || A journalist reckons with truth

Alternative facts. Fake news. How are journalists grappling with this moment?? Dive into one journalist’s reckoning with truth.

05.01.2018

#19.5 || Behind The Mic

'Behind The Mic' is a series of short pieces I produce periodically, to bring you behind the microphone and reveal a bit of what’s going on back here. This time, I’m pulling the curtain on three things: a new creative...

03.24.2018

#19 || How will we become majestic elephants?

‘I could have been a left-wing guerrilla in Columbia. Whatever would have grabbed me at the right time, I was ready for.’ What ended up grabbing Frank was neo-Nazism. What ended up grabbing Jesse was jihadi extremism. What do we...

01.04.2018

#18 || The defection of a Roger Ailes warrior

"Very earlier on, Roger called me Ailes Junior. He told my dad, 'I've never met anyone more like me than Joe.'" As the protégé of Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, Joe Lindsley was closer to the man who built Fox...

10.31.2017

#17 || A paid climate skeptic switches sides

'I can say to climate skeptics on the right, 'I used to believe what you believe. Hell, I wrote your talking points, and for 20 years, I was there! But let me tell you why I'm not there anymore.'' As...

09.10.2017

#16 || Two teens overcome bullying

'When I'm angry and I don't know how to get it out, I take it out on other people. I call people names, I say they're ugly, I talk about the way they dress. And when I get into fighting...

07.05.2017

#15 || From health insurance spin doctor to truth teller

'I was getting people to make decisions based on misleading information that could have life or death consequences.' That’s Wendell Potter, the former head of public relations for CIGNA. As the executive spin doctor for one of the biggest health...

06.13.2017

#14.5 || Behind The Mic

‘Behind The Mic' is a series of short pieces I produce periodically, to share what's going on behind the scenes. This time, I'm bringing y'all behind the microphone on two things: 1) an event Reckonings hosted back in December, inviting...

12.24.2016

#14 || When her daughter became her son (and vice versa)

'You have all these plans, all these dreams, and then it hits you: my daughter's no longer a daughter, she's a son.' In struggling to accept her daughter as a transgender man, Rita DiNicola had to surrender dreams of wedding...

09.13.2016

#13 || Navigating wealth within cross-class relationships

'I was taught that money is not something you talk about, because once people know you have it, you’ll get taken advantage of.' Like many young members of the 1%, Michelle inherited immense wealth at an early age. In a...

06.21.2016

#12 || A conversion on climate change

"When my son said, 'dad, I'm gonna vote for you, but you're going to clean up your act on the environment,' it wasn't a threat. It was my son saying, 'dad, I love you, and I want you to be...

05.24.2016

#11 || The fracture of a fundamentalist worldview

'I don't know if I can convey how comforting it is to believe that you possess the secret to how everything in the universe works. And as a consequence, we had this amazing bonus: we were going to heaven and...

$#11 || The fracture of a fundamentalist worldview$

05.03.2016

#10 || An unlikely friendship transforms the gun debate

"What really blinds people on both sides is thinking that it's either or: either we do nothing and put up with the horrendous tolls of firearm deaths and mass shootings, or we take all the guns away." That's public health...

04.26.2016

#9 || Defecting from the Donald

"One of my co-workers said, 'Trump supporters are without exception the worst people I've ever met, they're almost sub-human.' And I'm standing there thinking, you know, we're friends, but I think I'll keep my mouth shut." That's Alex Mamach, a...

04.25.2016

#8.5 || Behind The Mic

There's so much that goes on behind the microphone, and I'm going to start bringing you back here. This is the inaugural 'Behind The Mic' piece, stay tuned for more. For this first one: what is Reckonings, and why did...

01.21.2016

#8 || Transcending a lineage of violence

"I called myself a Karma King, because I was distributing the shit that had been given to me." The finale of Season 1 features Daniel Gallant, a former violent extremist turned anti-violence activist, counselor, and scholar. Violence is what he...

01.13.2016

#7 || Emergence of a conscientious objector

'I realized that my excuses for justifying war had nothing to do with what we were trying to achieve. I justified war because I wanted to believe that the things I’d done were right, and that my fellow soldiers hadn't...

01.05.2016

#6 || From addiction to recovery and beyond

'My mantra back then was I hate my life...My mantra now is I love my life.' Paige Sargent is a singer and song-writer, who once struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction. The destruction of her addiction was vast and damaged...

12.23.2015

#5 pt. 2 || The conscience of a public intellectual

'What I regret is not being aware of the extent to which what I was pronouncing as right or wrong for the world was motivated by my own personal issues.' So admits Glenn Loury, prominent academic economist and one of...

12.23.2015

#5 pt. 1 || The conscience of a public intellectual

'What I regret is not being aware of the extent to which what I was pronouncing as right or wrong for the world was motivated by my own personal issues.' So admits Glenn Loury, prominent academic economist and one of...

12.15.2015

#4 || Revelations of a tough-on-crime prosecutor

'I went through 4 years of college, 3 years of law school, and a 2-year judicial clerkship without ever really thinking about the way our criminal justice system functions.' That's the admission of Preston Shipp, a former tough-on-crime prosecutor for...

12.08.2015

#3 || Mother of an ISIS militant

"He wanted a purpose." Those are the words of Christianne Boudreau, whose son Damian left Calgary for Syria, to join ISIS. She raised him Christian, but he was convinced by Islamic State recruiters to take up jihadism. Damian kept his...

12.01.2015

#2 || White-collar criminal turned whistleblower

'The top executives from Enron, WorldComm, and ADM — we went to jail for narcissism.' Mark Whitacre was the FBI informant in one of the biggest price-fixing cases in US history, against global food conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland. While undercover,...

11.17.2015

#1 || Drug cop turned drug war critic

"When you call something a war, everyone believes that they're a warrior." Neill Franklin is a former Maryland State Police Major, who oversaw 17 drug task forces. Take a ride on his journey from narcotics agent to vocal critic of...

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