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.

Two weeks ago, as we recorded this episode, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting closed its doors. As you no doubt know, Congress this summer voted to claw back money it had already approved to support the Corporation’s work. That work included, among other things, the distribution of federal funding to local public broadcasters, so the voiding of Congress’ promise leaves local stations to fend for themselves. Today’s guest stands at the center of this wrenching transition for public media. She’s Jennifer Ferro, the president of KCRW—Los Angeles’s flagship NPR affiliate—and the chair of National Public Radio’s board of directors.

Jennifer and Eric talk about how KCRW is reinventing itself for a generation that doesn’t own a radio, about the threats to public journalism that go beyond funding—from TikTok to political polarization—and why she believes her real competition isn’t commercial news but the erosion of trust in professional journalism itself.

We also discuss the accusations of political bias at NPR, the lawsuit between NPR and CPB, and what’s at stake when Americans live in separate, sealed information bubbles...

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.

On this show we often describe the news and information system as an ecosystem, and it’s a good metaphor. The media landscape is complex, interconnected, dynamic—and, right now, deeply out of balance. The guest today, Courtney Radsch, has spent her career studying the system from many angles: as a journalist, a scholar, and now as director of the Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute.

In ecological science, a keystone species is one on which other elements of the system depend. Courtney argues that in the information ecosystem, journalism is the keystone. Without trustworthy gatherers of news, the rest of the ecosystem—commentators, podcasters, social media influencers, informed citizens, ultimately democracy—can’t exist. Courtney and I will discuss why that is and why “information resilience” is the key measure of system health. We’ll also talk about where reform should begin—at the individual, institutional, or systemic level.

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. The cliche about disinformation is you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. What that formulation ignores though is that the facts that we regard as true, the opinions we hold as core beliefs are built on top of the stories we tell ourselves.

Stories are the way we humans make sense of the world we observe and always have been. And every group is entitled to its own stories. Actually, groups are defined by their stories. My guest today, Brian Wienyski, has made it his life's work to understand the stories we tell ourselves. He's the executive director of Harmony Labs, a nonprofit that maps how stories and media influence the ways Americans see the world, whether those stories are told on TikTok or the BBC or streaming media or movies or whatever.

In this episode, Brian and Eric talk about what his findings reveal about polarization, about how entertainment and news feed on each other and what strategies might actually help bridge divides.

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

Alliance for Trust in Media
alliancefortrust.com

Produced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapien
soundsapien.com