Telescope

As COVID settled over college campuses, most schools moved students’ education entirely online. It was a necessary move, designed to prevent the spread of the virus. But American college tuition now costs tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of dollars. And coronavirus has, for the first time, moved students and their parents into the driver’s seat. Some have decided to sue the very schools they’d been so eager to gain admission to, demanding colleges give them some money back.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Reporter & Producer: Carla Green

Editors: Catherine Saint Louis & Vikram Patel

Engineer: Scott Somerville

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

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Teaching high school during a pandemic has been near impossible. Educators are in crisis mode. One English teacher in Flint, Michigan, has spent the last few months trying to teach remotely and worrying about her students. Students who have lost family members to COVID and are working essential jobs. But she also sees an opportunity to completely change the system.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Reporter & Producer: Hayley Fager

Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis

Engineer: Mark Bush

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

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When stay-at-home orders hit, daycares and preschools across the country had to figure out new protocols. Some shut down. Some laid off staff. Some reopened to serve essential workers with new safety measures. We look at two early childhood educators -- Melissa Belnap in Oregon and Tanya Garcia in Los Angeles -- to see how two classrooms are adapting to this new normal. 

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Dr. Laurie Santos is something of an expert at being happy. Her class “Psychology and the Good Life” became the most popular class at Yale University. She also hosts a podcast called “The Happiness Lab,” where she talks about counting blessings, battling misconceptions about happiness and maintaining good relationships -- lessons that feel even more relevant in the time of Covid-19.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Reporter & Producer: Kate Mishkin

Editors: Vikram Patel & Catherine Saint Louis

Engineer: Scott Somerville

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

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Now that many of us are in isolation, we have to use technology to communicate with each other. But that technology isn’t always built with everyone in mind. On today’s episode, we talk about what the transition to virtual learning -- and to quarantine life in general -- has meant for one person in the Deaf community as she spends her last semester of college online.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Reporter: Catherine Saint Louis

Producer: Hayley Fager

Editors: Vikram Patel

Engineer: Mark Bush

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For many of us, our weekly trip to the grocery store is the most dangerous outing of the week. The place we’re most likely to be exposed to coronavirus. Today on Telescope, we spend some time with two people who are spending forty hours a week in those stores – praying that they don’t get sick.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Reporter & Producer: Carla Green

Editors: Catherine Saint Louis & Vikram Patel

Engineer: Scott Somerville

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today is Juneteenth. It’s a holiday that marks the end of slavery in America, and for many it represents a second day of independence. As the mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism continue across the country, journalist Soledad O’Brien gives her take on how the media narratives around police are changing and how coronavirus helped inspire outrage.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Guest Host: Catherine Saint Louis

Reporters: Catherine Saint Louis & Kate Mishkin

Producer: Tanner Robbins

Editors: Vikram Patel & Jonathan Hirsch

Engineer: Scott Somerville

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social media’s role during this moment -- as we face two pandemics in the name of COVID and racism -- is cyclical. It’s both impacting and being impacted by the various tragedies that have unfolded over the last few months. To dig deeper into this phenomena, Neon Hum's Senior Editor Catherine Saint Louis speaks with Slate Magazine reporter Julia Craven about what we're seeing online with white people confronting their whiteness -- how it's different, how it's the same, and whether or not things will really change this time.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Guest Hosts: John Asante & Catherine Saint Louis

Reporter: Catherine Saint Louis

Producers: Mary Knauf & Kate Mishkin

Editors: Vikram Patel & Jonathan Hirsch

Engineer: Mark Bush

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two activists share their journeys of leading anti-racism protests in response to the killing of George Floyd. KC Short -- an Army veteran based near San Diego -- quickly learned the ins and outs of organizing protests. Melina Abdullah, a longtime organizer and the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, juggles her efforts to defund the LAPD with the overwhelming response to thousands of people joining the protests she’s leading.

Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Guest Host & Managing Producer: John Asante

Producers: Carla Green & Joanna Clay

Editors: Catherine Saint Louis, Vikram Patel, Jonathan Hirsch

Engineer: Scott Somerville

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Zach Stafford rose like a comet through the media, going from Huffington Post blogger to Editor-In-Chief of The Advocate magazine in just a few short years. As a Black gay man, Zach’s identity has driven him to fight the systemic problems in our society. Now, he wants LGBTQ Pride to meet the moment and stand up against police brutality.

Host & Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch

Managing Producer: John Asante

Reporter & Producer: Tanner Robbins

Editors: Catherine Saint Louis, Vikram Patel

Engineer: Scott Somerville

Music by Matt McGinley & Blue Dot Sessions

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram: @neonhummedia. We want to stay connected with you during this unprecedented time in our history, so please don’t be shy. Share your stories with us. Our DMs are open. Email us your story. We’re also interested in hearing what life in isolation sounds like to you. We welcome your voice memo recordings. You can email them to [email protected]. Also, you can join our Facebook group by searching for Telescope.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices