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Draft No. 4

Published by USC Bedrosian Center on

Anyone who reads or watches the news might feel like we are in a news assault. The news happens so fast, technology helps us disseminate and consume with speed, and media outlets are in a relatively new competition: a competition for relevancy. As “papers of record” are being attacked as “fake,” the question of how to communicate with fairness about important issues has never been more relevant.

John McPhee has had a long, storied career in writing for magazines “of record” using in-depth long-form journalism. Draft No. 4is McPhee’s 32ndbook of nonfiction. It is a series of essays on his writing process.

In today’s episode, we use McPhee’s thoughts on structure and nonfiction to discuss some of the difficulties of communicating policy and research in today’s frenetic climate of news and propaganda and anti-elitism.  Policy communication should be nuanced and deep, how can we do this in an age of immediate consumption and tribalism? How do we know what we know, and how do we tell others how we know what we know?

Anthony Orlando (@AnthonyWOrlando) and Lisa Schweitzer (@drschweitzer)join Aubrey Hicks (@AubreyHi)for this episode.

To listen to the Bedrosian Book Club discussion of Draft No. 4, click the arrow in the player on this post. Or you can download it and subscribe through ApplePodcastsSoundcloudGoogle PlayStitcher or your favorite podcasting app!

Read along with us! Let us know what you think of the book & our podcasts on Facebook or Twitter.

Links

The Epic of Gilgamesh
Evicted (book, podcast)
John Dunne, Joan Didion
The Sympathizer (book, podcast, interview), Nothing Ever Dies
Anthony Trollope

 

This podcast was produced by Aubrey Hicks and Jonathan Schwartz, recorded and mixed by The Brothers Hedden, Ryan and Corey.

Bedrosian Center