The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

By YVoteNewsNews Commentary
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The Round Table: A YVote Podcast episodes

  • A lot of politics comes down to incentives
    From Peter Loge’s perspective--not as an academic or as a professor--but as someone who has had to pay the bills by advising candidates and electeds on issues, is that a lot of it comes down to incentives. Nobody gets into politics because they like yelling at each other, or because they want to meet a lobbyist, or wear loafers. They get in because they want to make the world a better place and they care about issues. The problem is that we say we want more compromise, but that really means I want more people to agree with me. Politicians behave in a way that responds to electoral incentives because if they don’t, they lose their jobs.
    1 min
  • Journalists Should Avoid Bias
    In honor of our One Year Anniversary, we’re revisiting our archives and sharing some clips from our early episodes last year. Here, Professor Howard Schneider, founder of the Center for News Literacy, shares his thoughts about how journalists should avoid bias in the media.
    1 min
  • It’s not about you as the journalist, it’s about the readers
    Gabe Fleisher shared that he’s always thinking about what he can write or what details he can add to make the readers really understand what’s going on and make them feel like they know what happened at momentous events and momentous places. You’re trying to represent things for people in a way that makes barriers fall away and makes them feel like they’re right there too, because he’s at places where important things are happening, as being part of a six person press conference with Bernie Sanders earlier in the day demonstrates.
    1 min
  • My goal is to help readers feel like they’re here with me
    Gabe talked about his excitement to bring original reporting to the newsletter now that he’s at college in DC rather than St Louis. In his few weeks in DC, he’s interviewed Senators in the Capitol, covered the vigil on the steps of the Supreme Court on the night RBG died, was one of just six reporters reporting on Bernie Sanders’ first press event since ending his campaign, and covered Nancy Pelosi’s speech by the Washington Monument about coronavirus deaths. His goal is to be everywhere he can, cover as much as possible, and make readers feel as if they are there with him, which is the goal of any journalist.
    1 min
  • I don’t think age is a determinant or skill or quality
    Gave Fleisher notes that he thinks How hard you are willing to work, or how much you are willing to learn, are much greater determinants. His age DOES provide a different perspective in his writing. He’s deeply committed to making politics as accessible as possible, and often adults aren’t as focused on this —a lot of politics can be complex and dense and not that easy to follow. As a young person, he asks himself “would my peers be able to follow this?” which is a litmus test for good political writing
    1 min
  • You come at it with the knowledge that you can’t cover everything
    Gabe Fleisher talked to us about the challenges of figuring out what to cover and what NOT to cover in his daily newsletter. He tries to stay focused on several specific areas—The White House, Congress, The Courts, and Elections—and DOESN’T cover things like foreign affairs or state level politics. Then there are things like coronavirus that in some ways fits into all those categories and in other ways is in its own category.
    He underscores that politics runs into everything and everything comes back to politics so it can be hard to have firm filters. But for the most part, he focuses on what happened yesterday, and what’s going to happen today, in the core institutions he covers, which impacts you whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican and thus entails being as close to objective as possible.
    1 min
  • As a journalist today, you can’t say anything without expecting some kind of attack
    Gabe Fleisher recognizes that criticism is inevitable. Some people think that’s sad but Gabe thinks journalists should ALWAYS be open to to receiving critical feedback. He notes that he loves hearing from readers—and doesn’t let it dictate his writing. You can’t control how people are going to respond to your journalism so it’s wisest for a writer to focus on what one sees to be the truth. Gabe emphasized that he tries to be subjective, while recognizing that we all have biases. He takes pride in the fact that he receives criticism from both sides of the political aisle.
    1 min
  • Politics reaches into every aspect of our everyday lives
    We were so fortunate to speak with Gabe Fleisher, the 18 year old founder of the Wake Up To Politics daily newsletter, this week. Gabe talked about how all encompassing the impact of politics is, for young people even more than older ones, given that politics affects the air we breathe, the water we drink, the schools we go to. Everything is a political decision.
    WE are able to influence those political decisions w our vote, and it’s so important bc the decisions being made today, whether for President, or Congress, or when it comes to judicial appointments on the courts, will be affecting us for decades and decades and our entire adult lives. Really big decisions about our climate, our health care, any issue you’re can think of, are being made right now and it’s important for us to have voice in them.
    1 min
  • Time To Wake Up To Politics

    At this week's Round Table, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline, Olivia, and our new correspondent from Real Talk, Eliza Goler, spoke with Gabe Fleisher, the 18 year old founder of the Wake Up to Politics newsletter. Every morning, 50,000 readers wake up to Gabe’s newsletter, which he started as an email to his mom when he was 10.  Gabe has been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post, Samantha Bee, and now The Round Table :) Given all that’s been happening politically, we were thrilled to speak with Gabe about how he decides what to cover and what not to cover each day, how he’s grown his readership, and how he strives to be cross-partisan in such polarized times. His enthusiasm about politics is infectious and we think you too will want to wake up to politics (subscribe here) Thanks for joining us!

    27 min

About The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

From the publisher's feed

The Round Table provides a platform for conversation and engagement of civically-minded young people from different parts of the country. We strive to model civil dialogue across various divides--socioeconomic, racial, ethnic, political, and regional. We aim to challenge norms and represent all kinds of diversity--especially of perspective and ideas--enabling listeners to “hear” our thinking.