Media

"Newspapers were still read on trains and in libraries, but the contest for news supremacy lay in the domestic space. News was something that came to us, that occupied our homes. It tied us constantly to the turn of events happening outside our protective four walls. Local radio and television arose, following newspapers in serving audiences who understood themselves as much regionally as nationally. The multi-format, domestic model began to be overturned at the turn of the century. The Internet has become a platform for all established news media (press, television, radio) and has led to the creation of new news media forms. Social media combines personal and general information, serves as a distribution platform for stories from the other news media while delivering original content as well, and supplies content on which all news media now depend." more »

"When investigative journalist Corey G. Johnson started working at the Tampa Bay Times in 2017, he had been following national news coverage of lead poisoning the public water supply in Flint, Michigan, where he spent summers as a kid visiting family. Johnson decided to look into lead in Hillsborough County public schools and reported in 2018 that school district officials had found elevated levels on some campuses but didn’t tell families for 16 months — until he began asking parents what they knew about the tests. Amid that investigation, a source handed him a state health report showing Hillsborough had the highest number of adults diagnosed with lead poisoning of any of Florida’s 67 counties. The report pointed to an unnamed battery recycler as the key culprit. Their 18-month investigation also reveals why regulators failed to correct the problem and its impact on workers and the surrounding community." more »

"We’re also making headway on ensuring that our diplomats reflect America’s remarkable diversity, which is one of our greatest strengths, including in our diplomacy. We have our first ever chief diversity and inclusion officer, who is spearheading an effort to analyze and address the obstacles that prevent underrepresented groups from joining and advancing at State. We’ve expanded the Pickering and Rangel fellowships and created, for the first time – thanks to the support of Congress and his committee – paid internships at State, along with strong congressional input and support for all of these efforts."   This week, I had the chance to testify before Congress and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Biden administration’s proposed budget for… more »

One example of the programs available: Book Talk – Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, Tuesday, March 8, at 1 p.m. ET; Register in advance; watch on the National Archives YouTube Channel; Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the 1780s — the age of the Constitution — to investigate the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: female genius. English-born Eliza Harriot Barons O’Connor delivered a University of Pennsylvania lecture attended by George Washington as he and other Constitutional Convention delegates gathered in Philadelphia. As the first such public female lecturer, her courageous performance likely inspired the gender-neutral language of the Constitution. more »