News Over Noise

A special thanks to our guests:
Davey Alba is a technology reporter for Bloomberg, based in New York City, covering Big Tech and its influence. Previously, Alba reported for The New York Times on online disinformation and worked at BuzzFeed News and WIRED, covering AI and technology’s societal impact. She has received multiple journalism awards, including the 2019 Livingston Award for international reporting and a Mirror Award for journalism in peril. Her work has also been recognized by the SABEW Awards, the Online Journalism Awards, and the Deadline Club Awards. Alba has spoken at institutions such as Oxford University and the University of Florida. Originally from Manila, Philippines, she studied science writing at Columbia University and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Leon Yin is an award-winning journalist at Bloomberg News. He builds datasets and develops research methods to investigate technology's impact on society. He writes Inspect Element, a practical guide to data-driven investigations. His work quantifying Google and Amazon's self-preferencing has been cited numerously by legislators, the academy and popular media. In 2023, the series "Still Loading" received a Philip Meyer Award recognizing the best uses of social science methods in journalism. The piece was also cited by the city council of Los Angeles to outlaw digital discrimination. Leon got his start in news at The Markup, and his start in research writing Fortran scripts at NASA.

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications.

Whether your eyelids get heavy at the mere mention of an economic story or you're a seasoned economic news consumer and want to know how you can find reliable, quality reporting, this is a discussion for you. We’re going to talk with Bob Frick, Navy Federal’s Corporate Economist, about what makes for quality—and not so quality—economic reporting and how you can tell the difference. We’ll also discuss how you cut through the buzzwords and vague characterizations to get to the bottom of what’s actually going on.

Episode Extras

Special thanks to guest:

Robert Frick is Navy Federal’s Corporate Economist. In that role, he advises Navy Federal leaders on economic conditions and trends, especially those that affect Navy Federal’s 12 million members. He is frequently quoted in the press on issues including GDP, the labor market, consumer spending, and housing. Robert also has an expertise in behavioral economics and worked professionally in that area before joining Navy Federal in 2017. He was also a business and financial journalist for 30 years, having worked 15 years in daily newspaper and 15 years for Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine. He holds a BA in Journalism and an MBA from the Pennsylvania State University and has served on the Penn State College of Communications alumni advisory board as well as the Mount Nittany Conservancy Board.

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Episode Credits:

• Matt Jordan, Host
• Leah Dajches, Host
• Lindsey Whissel Fenton, Producer
• Mindy McMahon, Executive Producer
• Holly Lowe, Project Development Manager
• Clint Yoder, Audio Recordist and Audio Mix
• Kristin Bittner, Instructional Designer
• Katie O’Toole, Advisor
• Greg Petersen, Advisor
• Sydney Forde, Graduate Assistant

Leah Dajches, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar at Pennsylvania State University working on the News Literacy Initiative. Her research focuses on media representation, effects, and literacy as it relates to adolescent development and marginalized group experiences. In particular, Leah is interested in understanding the role of entertainment media and fandom in various components of identity development. Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as Health Communication, Journal of Children and Media, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, and Psychology of Popular Media, among others. When she’s not in the studio or the office, Leah enjoys playing tennis, baking gluten-free/vegan pastries, and spoiling her cats and dog.

Matt Jordan is head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University, and Director of the News Literacy Initiative. He writes and teaches classes about how today’s media systems have been altered by digital technology and what it means for democracy. He is executive producer of the documentary series HumIn Focus and author of dozens of articles and books on popular culture in America and Europe. His latest book is Danger Sound Klaxon! The Horn that Changed History.

News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost of Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications.

Social media often gets a bad rap, but it plays an undeniably critical role in today’s media landscape. With younger people increasingly opting to get their information from platforms like TikTok instead of traditional news sources, its significance is only likely to increase. On this episode of News Over Noise, we talk with journalist, activist, and social media strategist Annie Wu about the power of social media to drive the agenda when it comes to news, politics, and public opinion.

Episode Extras

Special thanks to guest:

Annie Wu is a journalist, activist, social media expert, and politics + pop culture junkie. She is currently the news editor of Feminist. She just completed her work as the Social Media Producer for John Fetterman’s successful campaign for U.S. Senate and previously worked for a non-profit, Gen-Z For Change and PA Stands Up. Annie has recently been featured in a number of publications including NBCNews and MSN.com. As a proud adopted Asian-American, her work focuses on equality, mental health, intersectionality and education.

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications.

Most of us get our information fed to us through our smartphones. Constant bombardment and easy access to headlines, video clips, and sound bites help create the illusion that we are well-informed about the goings-on of our world. But...are we? On the next News Over Noise, we’ll explore what the News Finds Me mentality is, how it impacts civic engagement, and why it might be leaving us less informed than we realize.

Episode Extras

Special thanks to guest:

Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Ph.D. serves as Distinguished Research Professor at University of Salamanca, as Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and as Senior Research Fellow at Universidad Diego Portales. His work aims to shed an empirical social scientific light over how social media, algorithms, AI, and other technologies affect society. Relying on survey, experimental, and computational methods his work seeks to clarify the way we understand some of today’s most pressing challenges for democracies.

Gil de Zúñiga is recipient of the Pennsylvania State University Medal for Outstanding achievement in Social and Behavioral Sciences, Fellow of the International Communication Association (ICA), Fellow of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), recipient of the Krieghbaum Under-40 Award at the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication (AEJMC), has been identified as one of the most prolific scholars in Political Communication and Social Media 2008/2018 (Sierra & Rodríguez-Virgili, 2020), one of the most bridging and central node Communication scholars in Latin America (Segado-Boj et al., 2021), and recognized as Thomson Reuters Clarivate Journal of Citation Reports (JCR) Highly Cited Scholar.

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Episode Credits:

• Matt Jordan, Host
• Leah Dajches, Host
• Lindsey Whissel Fenton, Producer
• Mindy McMahon, Executive Producer and Audio Recordist
• Holly Lowe, Project Development Manager
• Clint Yoder, Audio Mix
• Kristin Bittner, Instructional Designer
• Katie O’Toole, Advisor
• Greg Petersen, Advisor
• Sydney Forde, Graduate Assistant

Leah Dajches, Ph.D., is a postdoctoral scholar at Pennsylvania State University working on the News Literacy Initiative. Her research focuses on media representation, effects, and literacy as it relates to adolescent development and marginalized group experiences. In particular, Leah is interested in understanding the role of entertainment media and fandom in various components of identity development. Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as Health Communication, Journal of Children and Media, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, and Psychology of Popular Media, among others. When she’s not in the studio or the office, Leah enjoys playing tennis, baking gluten-free/vegan pastries, and spoiling her cats and dog.

Matt Jordan is head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University, and Director of the News Literacy Initiative. He writes and teaches classes about how today’s media systems have been altered by digital technology and what it means for democracy. He is executive producer of the documentary series HumIn Focus and author of dozens of articles and books on popular culture in America and Europe. His latest book is Danger Sound Klaxon! The Horn that Changed History.

News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost of Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications.

Do you feel discouraged or even defeated about the state of the world? So much so that you find yourself disengaging? What if we told you that there was another path? That there’s a form of reporting that doesn’t just tell you what's wrong in your community but actively works to empower you to help set it right? On this episode of News Over Noise, we talk with James Causey a projects reporter and columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, about solutions journalism and the potential it holds for strengthening democracy.

Episode Extras

Special thanks to guest:

James E. Causey is a projects reporter, columnist, and former editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He's also the former president of the Wisconsin Black Media Association. In 2008, Causey was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. These days, his work focuses on solutions journalism and how the media can be a tool for responding to social issues rather than just reporting on them.

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications.