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Is that a fact?

In today’s episode, Opinion creep: How facts lost ground in the battle for our attention, we discuss how the blurring of fact-based news and opinion has left the public more confused than informed. Our guest is Tom Rosenstiel, professor at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism and co-author of The Elements of Journalism.

New episodes drop every other Thursday.

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NLP’s podcast Is that a fact? informs listeners about news literacy issues that affect their lives through informative conversations with journalists and other experts across a wide range of disciplines.

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Season 3 Episode 5

Opinion creep: How facts lost ground in the battle for our attention

Have you ever scratched your head when reading an article or watching the news and wondered if you were getting facts or opinion? If so, you’re not alone. News organizations have not made it easy for consumers to differentiate between news and the views of an individual or media outlet.

Season 3 Episode 4

The future of newsrooms: Innovation and authenticity

In today’s episode of our podcast Is that a fact?,  guest LaSharah Bunting, CEO and executive director of the Online News Association, discusses how digital innovation has allowed newsrooms to create deeper connections with their audiences so they  can better understand the needs of the communities they serve.

Season 3 Episode 3

Flagrant foul: Misinformation and sports

In today’s episode of our podcast Is that a fact?,  guest host Jake Lloyd digs into how misinformation manifests in the sports world with author and journalist Jemele Hill.

Season 3 Episode 2

Will chatbots change how journalism is practiced?

Our guest on this episode is Madhumita Murgia, the first artificial intelligence editor at the Financial Times, based in London. We talked about how generative AI is changing journalism.

Season 3 Episode 1

Chatbots are supercharging search: Are we ready?

Our guest on this episode is Will Knight, senior writer about artificial intelligence at WIRED magazine. We discuss how ChatGPT is being applied to search and what some of the potential and pitfalls are of this new class of technology known as “generative AI.”

Season 2 Episode 7

Sandy Hook at 10: Tragedy, conspiracy theories and justice, part two

This episode of “Is that a Fact?” is part two of a two-part episode marking the 10th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults.

Season 2 Episode 6

Sandy Hook at 10: Tragedy, conspiracy theories and justice, part one

This episode of “Is that a Fact?” is part one of a two-part episode marking the 10th anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six adults. Soon after, conspiracy theories calling the massacre a hoax emerged. And they have persisted for a decade, thanks to amplification and profiteering by alt-Right media figure Alex Jones.

Season 2 Episode 5

Are journalists getting the immigration story right?

In this episode, we interview Dr. Reece Jones, chair of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and author of White Borders: The History of Race and Immigration in the United States from Chinese Exclusion to the Border Wall, for an overview of the most enduring false narratives that have shaped our public conversations about immigration.

Season 2 Episode 4

Disinformation and Russia’s War in Ukraine

In this episode we talk to two journalists covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine to help us better understand how disinformation and propaganda are obscuring, or outright contradicting, the facts, both within Russia and beyond its borders.

Season 2 Episode 3

The politicization of the pandemic

In this episode, we set out to explore whether false narratives about the pandemic and the COVID-19 vaccines have overshadowed science or whether science has managed to hold its own, particularly in light of the politicization of the pandemic.

Season 2 Episode 2

Perception or reality: Just how divided is America, really?

In this episode, we set out to explore whether the narrative of the country’s deep political polarization is fiction or reality.

Season 2 Episode 1

How 9/11 truthers planted the seeds for QAnon

For the second season of Is that a fact?, we’re exploring the origins of false narratives and the harm they have caused.

Season 1 Episode 11

Special: Is misinformation to blame for vaccine hesitancy?

In this special episode of “Is that a fact?” we explore why some people remain hesitant to get one of the COVID-19 vaccines, despite growing evidence that inoculation is the key to getting our lives and the economy back on track, and we consider how much misinformation is to blame.

Season 1 Episode 10

How much did misinformation impact the election?

In our season finale, Enrique Acevedo of CBS’ “60 in 6,” Dr. Joan Donovan of the Shorenstein Center and Jane Lytvynenko of BuzzFeed News discuss how misinformation impacted the 2020 elections and what the near future of misinformation might look like.

Season 1 Episode 9

Truth Decay: Why Americans are turning away from facts

In our penultimate episode of the season, we speak to Jennifer Kavanagh, senior political scientist at RAND corporation, who describes a growing phenomenon she and her colleagues call “Truth Decay” and why Americans are rejecting formally trusted institutions.

Season 1 Episode 8

The mainstreaming of conspiracy theories

In this episode, Cindy Otis, a former CIA analyst who is now the vice president for analysis for Alethea Group, where she leads disinformation investigations in the private sector explains why conspiracy theories have become more mainstream, what’s lending them such currency and what we can do to inoculate ourselves against them.

Season 1 Episode 7

Why democracy falters without local news

We speak to Gilbert Bailon, the editor-in-chief of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, about the importance of local news to American democracy and why we all should care about the loss of local newspapers across the country.

Season 1 Episode 6

Who are journalism's new gatekeepers?

Rebecca Aguilar, a multiple Emmy award-winning reporter who recently became the first Latina president-elect of the Society of Professional Journalists, talks about how the gatekeeping role of journalists has been altered by the internet and social media, what’s been lost, but also what’s been gained.

Season 1 Episode 5

Here's what we know about Russia's disinformation campaigns

Deen Freelon, associate professor at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC, Chapel Hill talks about how foreign adversaries, and particularly the Internet Research Agency in Russia, are using social media platforms against us.

Season 1 Episode 4

Kara Swisher on why Facebook is a threat to democracy

In this episode, our guest is Kara Swisher, one of the premiere tech columnists in the country, who talked about how social media platforms have affected our ability to talk to one another.

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