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With the 2020 election looming, some of “we the people” ponder the public-interest protections once found in the now-defunct 1949 Fairness Doctrine. Rooted in the 1927 Radio Act, passed to manage the public’s airwaves, the Federal Communications Commission revoked it in 1987, part of the Reagan administration’s commitment to deregulation. Resuscitation efforts have failed. As competing communication channels opened, the scarcity of broadcast spectrum became moot. The concept of airwaves as a public trust fell by the wayside. Cable television and satellite signals gained ground, and the internet, with its promise of diversity, lay on the horizon. In 2011, during the Obama administration, the FCC scrapped the doctrine’s last provisions. Today, the Restore the Fairness Doctrine Act of 2019, introduced in September (U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI), languishes in committee. That’s a shame. “Although the Fairness Doctrine’s effectiveness and enforceability are debatable, it encouraged sensitivity toward programming biases and provided local communities an important tool with which to hold broadcasters accountable,” writes Victor Pickard in a 2018 article in the International Journal of Communications. Pickard is professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communications. The doctrine’s larger purpose, often overlooked, was to make sure broadcast licensees covered issues of public importance in a fair manner. A lamentable loss, given continued consolidation and the polarizing, partisan news that sprang up after the doctrine’s death. Public interest issues back in the day included workers’ rights, nuclear plant construction, even diet and health. If stations failed to seek and air opposing views, they could lose licenses or face renewal problems or be required to provide time for competing views if they hadn’t been aired. In its ruling, the FCC cited the “chilling effect” on broadcasters’ free speech. Since most violations centered on failure to air valid opposing views, some broadcasters quit airing public-interest issues, and even paid programming, that might trigger their Fairness Doctrine obligations. President Reagan vetoed the bill Congress passed to reinstate the doctrine; President George H.W. Bush’s veto threat prevented another effort. The doctrine had survived one free speech challenge in 1969 when the Supreme Court upheld its first-amendment constitutionality. In its finding, SCOTUS weighed audiences’ rights more heavily than those of broadcasters, with reasoning since questioned. In 1987, the FCC found the Fairness Doctrine violated the first amendment rights of broadcasters, though no court has addressed the constitutional question. The original doctrine’s public-interest provision has often been conflated with the equal opportunity rule, which still exists, but only for political candidates, not supporters, and with exceptions. Scheduled appearances in interviews, documentaries, and spot news coverage are exempt. This applies to a wide-range of programs, even “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert, entertainment that sometimes features candidates as guests. Without a candidate’s recognizable voice or image, the equal time rule doesn’t apply. Complaints were filed against license renewals of two Wisconsin radio stations because they failed to give equal time to supporters of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s opponent in a recall election, after the stations aired support for Walker. The FCC in 2014 dismissed those complaints: “A licensee has broad discretion—based on its right to free speech—to choose the programming that it believes serves the needs and interests of the members of its audience.” While it’s tempting to wholly blame the rise in partisan news on the doctrine’s demise, the issue is not so simple. Deregulation fueled consolidation as advances in technology changed the media-scape. Personal listening devices, for instance, made radio’s music formats less appealing and less profitable. Talk helped fill that void. The Fairness Doctrine does survive, in public discussions, though it’s often raised by conservatives as a symbol of regulatory overreach. They link it to net neutrality, the idea that internet providers should treat all data the same, rather than privilege one type of content, user, platform, website, equipment and such, over another. But this principle is irrelevant to the Fairness Doctrine. The only parallel between the two ideas, Pickard notes in an email exchange, is that “both are public interest protections that are trying to address commercial excesses in communication systems.” These days, losses in journalism and concentrated commercial media have undermined public-interest news. Policy interventions could help restore public trust. British broadcasters follow “due impartiality” rules in political coverage, Pickard notes, which sensitizes media firms and audiences to balance. What might a 21st century vision of public interest coverage look like? I posed this question to Pickard. “That news outlets should feel compelled to cover important policy issues from multiple perspectives. What, for example, Fox News is doing would not be acceptable. But it is difficult to imagine how as a society we can mandate this responsibility of highly profitable media conglomerates whose first loyalty will always be the bottom line, democracy be damned. Well-funded public alternatives may be our last, best hope.” Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia. She writes journalism and fiction from Charlottesville. In 2017, the University of New Mexico Press published Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, a book of short stories she co-edited with a colleague. The stories probe Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

Protracted effects of the pandemic are laying waste to larders in households reeling from job loss and eviction threats and, possibly, illness. State lawmakers should plow more money into providing food through federal block grants known as Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF.) Here’s another idea: Go on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) diet. Feed the family on $396 per month, the average 2019 monthly benefit for N.C. households with children. Some 29 million of all adults in the U.S., 14 percent; 18 percent in households with children, reported that households lacked sufficient food in the past seve n days, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. (Real-time data were collected December 9–21, 2020.) In North Carolina, food insecurity gnawed at 13.9 percent of adults, well above the pre-pandemic rate of 3.4 percent over the 12 months of 2019. Eighty-fo ur percent of respondents blamed money, not worries about safety or lack of transportation. Black, Latino, and Indigenous adults were twice as likely to report food worries, 24 percent and 21 percent, respectively, compared to 10 percent of White adults,. Hunger costs individuals and society. Providing resources in utero and early childhood influences health and economic outcomes later in life. Inadequate nutrition puts people at higher risk of hypertension, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, kidney disease, and hepatitis. These problems increase the risk of mortality from COVID-19. And, food-insecure adults are 50 percent more likely to show up in the ER; if admit ted they stay in the hospital longer. Our best hunger stabilizing policy, our only universal welfare program, is SNAP. Benefits far exceed costs: https://www.cbpp.org/research/snap-is-effective-and-efficient finds that every spent SNAP dollar feeds $1.70 into the economy. N.C. SNAP participant numbers grew by 20 percent between February (pre-pandemic) and July/August 2020. Thirty-five percent are working families, typically earning low wages in restaurants and stores. This amounts to we-the-taxpayers subsidizing private, often highly profitable, firms that pay lower-than-living wages that include no benefits. Right now, SNAP isn’t enough. Food banks are running out of food. Feeding America estimates a shortage of 6 billion to 8 billion meals over the coming year. Time to re-think TANF’s allocations to basic assistance. North Carolina in 2019 spent $564 million federal and state TANF dollars; six percent went to provide cash assistance. (Most states spent about 20 percent of TANF funds on basic assistance for families with children; funds sometimes went to unrelated budget areas.) Funds als o can support work-related services, including child care, administration, child welfare, and pre-K. When people are forced to skip medications, rent, mortgage, car, or other payments in order to buy food, more people will need Medicaid. More people will lan d in hospitals. Poorly-nourished children suffer later in life. Hunger hit me especially hard one day when a man showed up o n my doorstep and asked for a loaf of bread. “Anything,” he said. My mom grew up on a tobacco farm in South Carolina and ate oatmeal three times a day during the Great Depression, she told me, after I asked why we never ate Quaker Oats. She’d puked oatmeal too many times. That week, I put my family on the ‘poverty diet’ and wrote about the experience, donating my https://m.styleweekly.com/richmond/sharing-the-pain/Content?oid=1373441 honorarium to the food bank. My children called it the starvation diet. For us it was temporary. Hunger terrifies me, not only because of its effects, but because if we can’t fix this, who are we-the-people? Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia where she worked as an economics writer. She co-edited Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, published in 2017 by the University of New Mexico Press; the anthology probes Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. She writes for Carolina Commentary. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

Five months ago, coastal North Carolina residents sat in the crosshairs of a monster storm. Some 43 people died during and immediately after Hurricane Florence, which left $17 billion in damage. Hurricane Michael followed one month later. Three people died and millions more in damage resulted. Wilmington and many other affected communities have not fully recovered. Water damage remediation equipment churns 24-hours a day outside the 100-year-old Alton Lennon Federal Courthouse, closed indefinitely. Blue tarps dot the rooftops of a partment buildings, businesses and churches awaiting roofing crews. Power saws drone in neighborhoods where gutted homes undergo repairs. Hurricane season returns June 1, and with it the threat of new storms. Gov. Roy Cooper testified on Feb. 6before the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, to the increasingly powerful and erratic storms that have hit North Carolina in recent years. He cited the two, 500-year floods experienced in two years, and three in fewer than 20 years. Cooper described mudslides in the mountains that have damaged apple orchards and ski areas, record heat in the Piedmont that has killed poultry and damaged crops, and wildfire and flooding risks to Fort Bragg and the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point. The worst of the damage, however, has occurred in Eastern North Carolina, which faces the prospect of more storms and floods, he said. Two years after Hurricane Michael hit, Hurricane Florence “decimated coastal communities and crushed coastal tourism and fisheries.” As Florence pounded the coast for days with punishing winds, it dropped trillions of gallons of rain. Communities went under water under historic flood levels, livestock and crops drowned. Cooper told the committee, conducting month-long climate hearings, about steps taken in North Carolina to respond, with a new North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency to administer federal block grants to fund disaster recovery and plans to develop and implement strategies to protect the state from future storms. He discussed the North Carolina Flood Inundation Mapping and Alert Network that will identify areas facing the most risk during disasters and the safest places to rebuild. “But when storms are becoming more destructive, it’s not enough to pick up the pieces,” he said. “We must take action to prevent this kind of devastation in the future. I urge this Congress and all our federal partners to match the same level of determination brought to disaster recovery in our fight to reduce the effects of climate change.” Cooper got the ball rolling at the state level last year, with an executive order to achieve a 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in North Carolina by 2025. This includes increased state building efficiency and 80,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road. But states and researchers rely on federal funds to pay for scientific research and drive innovation “that can help solve our climate crisis,” he said. Federal legislation and regulation will further protect the state, plus government leadership to work on a global level to effect international solutions. TheGreen New Dealresolution proposed Feb. 7 by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (Mass.), is a beginning. It offers a framework for the kind of bold environmental change needed to combat the devastating effects of global warming. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrationrecently reported that 247 people died in 14 weather and climate disasters last year, with greater than $1 billion in losses from each event. Since 1980, there have been 241 weather and climate disasters in the United States, each with at least $1 billion in overall damages and costs. Total costs came to $1.6 trillion. In North Carolina so far, the storms exacted a price to be paid: more than $1 billion in state and federal funds for recovery efforts, and counting. How do we move forward? Government legislation and policy can either curtail or fuel climate change on a major scale, from the greenhouse emissions permitted by industry to the decision on whether there is a bus route serving your neighborhood. Call and write local, state and federal representatives to advocate for action. Attend town halls and other public meetings so the urgency of climate change remains top of mind for those who represent you. Consider a run for public office yourself. Perform an inventory of your home and an honest assessment of your life choices. From reducing the amount of red meat you consume to installing solar panels on your house, there are things you can do. Here is ahandy calculatorfrom the Nature Conservancy that can guide you on steps to take to reduce your carbon footprint. While the state continues post-disaster recovery, we must remember that the next big hurricane, fire or flood will cost more lives and destroy property. This is a fight for the future.

America is the world leader for incarcerating its people. The Prison Policy Initiative estimated that in 2018, the United States had over 2.3 million people incarcerated in state prison, local jails, federal prisons, youth correctional facilities, immigration detention camps, territorial prisons, Indian Country and U.S. military prisons; out of a population of 324.2 million. The United States incarcerates more of its people than any nation in the world, according to The World Prison Brief. The Prison Policy Initiative reports that one in five prisoners in American jails and prisons have been convicted of drug-related crimes. Behind these disheartening numbers are more disheartening statistics: racial disparities, according to The Sentencing Project, are stunning when it comes to incarceration. Black Americans are more than five times more likely than whites to be imprisoned. Daryl Atkinson, an attorney and Co-Director of Forward Justice, is a black American who was incarcerated for a non-violent drug crime in 1996. Atkinson says, “America is a nation that is founded on values like liberty, equal opportunity, and redemption for all human beings’ rights and that all people have the right to inalienable rights.” He goes on to say “the way our criminal justice system is operating is contrary to liberty, opportunity and the pursuit of happiness.” He was incarcerated in Alabama where he was subject to a 10-year sentence of which 40 months were mandatory. Recently, USA TODAY reported Alabama was cited by the U.S. Department of Justice for deadly brutality in the men’s prison and put state officials on notice for flagrant “disregard” for inmate safety and the constitutional rights of people in prison. Atkinson was incarcerated at St. Clair Correctional Facility, which was 170 percent over capacity; 60 percent of inmates were serving life without parole During Atkinson’s incarceration at St. Clair Correctional Facility, he met a jailhouse lawyer named James McConico. McConico challenged him and 40 others to learn the 10 Amendments, the Bill of Rights and Alabama rules of evidence and criminal and civil procedure. Atkinson did the research, was released and is now a practicing attorney. The question of punishment or rehabilitation hangs over prisoners across the nation. When prisoners are released from prison, they are stripped of basic rights as American citizens. Without family support most people end up back in prison and lose the sense of self-worth. They are denied student aid, a driver’s license, admittance to college or even a job. Because of his drug conviction, Atkinson was denied federal financial student aid, admittance to college and several law schools, as well as several jobs. Fortunately, Atkinson had the support of his wife and family and was able to earn associate, bachelors and law degrees. In 2014, as a result of his hard work and success, Atkinson was recognized and rewarded by working in the Obama administration as Champion of Change for removing barriers for people with criminal records and other issues facing incarnated people. When asked what public policy changes he would recommend to move from punishment to rehabilitation; Atkinson stated the following for inside and outside of prison. Internally End solitary confinement, which denies acerbates human dignity; he argues the “deprivation of liberty is the punishment”, and any additional measures like solitary confinement are overkill and do more harm than good. Robust identification of people’s mental health issues so they can be placed in therapeutic rehabilitation. Offer vocational and educational opportunities to rehabilitate and prepare inmates for their return to society as productive law-abiding citizens or residents. The NC Department of Public Safety calculates approximately 37,000 inmates will be released into society. Externally There is a need to shrink the prison population, modify and reclassify the bail system, which as currently constructed acts as ransom for poor people. Opening up opportunities for people who have done their time and paid their debt to society by removing barriers to employment, housing and education. Create a hiring initiative providing opportunities for inmates who completed their sentence. Advocating that money should be taken out of prison and re-invested into the communities that have been most harmed by criminal activity. Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at New York University, said: “The notion that you need huge amounts of incarceration to control the crime rate doesn’t seem to be supported.’”North Carolina would do well to consider the recommendations submitted by an attorney of the state, a person who has suffered the demeaning aspects of prison and who has dedicated his life to make the prison system a rehabilitation process as opposed to demeaning and cruel punishment exemplified by the Alabama system. Passing of North Carolina Senate Bill 562 would give prisoners with non-violent felony convictions and 10 years of good behavior, a second chance. This bill would be a step towards rehabilitation for North Carolina inmates.

Carolina Commentary launched two years ago, the vision of former Asheville Citizen-Times Publisher Virgil Smith. This not-for-profit platform was inspired by Smith’s work as a member of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation board of trustees and by a friend who said she felt he was being called to bring facts and balanced analysis to the forefront regarding issues dividing North Carolina and the nation.He brought in three former Citizen-Times editorial page editors to help with the effort: Jim Buchanan, Joy Franklin and Julie Martin. We agreed from the beginning that we wanted to provide commentary promoting collaborative and realistic approaches to solving public policy issues. We also agreed that every commentary would follow these editorial standards: Integrity:We commit to the highest standards in professionalism, intellectual honesty and transparency. We will be balanced, accurate and fair in our commentary. Quality: We will provide content that is thorough, fresh and innovative. Diversity: Our content will reflect the communities we serve, responsive to a diverse public. Service:Our content will be free from outside influence, political pressure or economic interests. Commentary: We will comment on issues of public interest. Our first commentary spoke to the crisis of deportation of undocumented parents of American-born children.Since then, we have published 67 commentaries and built a following: 9,974 subscribers who receive a posting notification on the second and fourth Wednesdays of every month via email. When news events merit, we provide additional commentaries. As journalism has continued its historic, tectonic shift with dwindling resources, we have pitched in to help those serving on the frontlines. Online and print news media statewide have picked up our commentaries (provided free of charge) and published them. We show our readers why they should care about specific threats to North Carolina’s system of democracy, its economy and justice for all. Our particular public policy topics of public policy interest include the environment, education, immigration and health care. Our writers are moderate progressives who hope to promote thoughtful debate that renounces ideology in favor of dialogue based on facts. Guest commentators have included academics and former/current newspaper columnists: DeWayne Wickham, founding dean of Morgan State University’s School of Global Journalism & Communication. For 30 years he was a columnist for USA TODAY and GANNETT Samuel P. Martin, publisher of The Birmingham Times Leslie Winner, former executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and former N.C. senator Christopher Cooper, professor and department head of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University Antionette Kerr, syndicated columnist, news contributor & nonprofit consultant Jason Giersch, assistant professor, political science & public administration, UNC Charlotte W. Noah Reynolds, member of the Monument Study Committee on the North Carolina Historical Commission North Carolina news organizations are invited to pick up and publish Carolina Commentary editorials (guidelineshere). They also are invited to email their editorials to commentary@carolinacommentary.com for publication on the website. Readers who aren’t already subscribers are invited to sign up for our free commentarieshere. You will receive an email notification twice a month when commentaries are available on this site. We also want to hear from you. Join the discussion, using the comment function at the bottom of this page. We’ll keep writing and growing.

Take a bill from your wallet or purse. If it’s a $1, you can probably buy a convenience store coffee. A $5 might get you lunch, a sawbuck can purchase half a tank of gas, and so on. But take a moment to consider what you’re holding in your hand. You might say it’s a piece of paper. (Technically it’s a mix of cotton and linen, but whatever). But it’s not a piece of paper. It’s an act of faith. That’s the reason that bill is worth something. In reality it is just a piece of paper, but it’s a piece of paper backed up by the United States government. That means you can expect to work and be paid in a currency that will be universally accepted for goods and services. The reason that works is that we’re all in on it. We have faith the government represents us all, and that, despite a sometimes patchy record, it will enforce the rules (laws) that we, collectively, have agreed upon through those we elected to represent us. That’s the way the founding fathers set things up. We’d just disentangled ourselves from King George III and the rule of a man. A nation of laws, not men, was the formula to ensure we wouldn’t find ourselves ruled by the whims of a single individual. Today that formula, and our faith in it, is being tested. The founding fathers established a system of checks and balances, one that specifically delegated to Congress the power to impeach a president whose actions could be construed to constitute “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The transcript, released by the White House, of President Trump’s telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the face of it, implies just such “high crimes and misdemeanors.” President Trump personally ordered his staff to freeze more than $391 million in aid to Ukraine in the days before his phone call with Zelensky, administration officials have said. Then, according to the transcript, Trump asks Zelensky to do him a favor by investigating Hunter Biden, the son of his potential rival in the 2020 election. Yet, despite the appearance of a quid pro quo, we have a President who has essentially declared that Congress has no authority to investigate whether he has committed an impeachable crime. University of North Carolina Law professor Michael Gerhardt, who wrote a book on impeachment, told an L.A. Times reporter, “For a president to urge a foreign leader to investigate a political rival is a clear instance of impeachable misconduct. The framers believed such self-dealing was the essence of corruption and invented impeachment to get rid of it.” Congress not only has a right, it has an obligation to determine whether the evidence is sufficient to justify articles of impeachment. But Trump has called that Congress, composed of the elected representatives of the American people, a “kangaroo court” and refused to cooperate in any way with the impeachment inquiry. Being President doesn’t place Trump above the law or allow him to defy the branch of government the Constitution charged with the responsibility of holding him accountable. This same President, snatching a term Joseph Stalin used to describe political rivals, calls the media the “enemy of the people” and all news except that favorable to him “fake news.” He does this in an attempt to undermine the free press, which the framers of our system of laws considered so essential to a functioning democracy that they protected it in the First Amendment to the Constitution. He undercuts the bureaucracy that supports our system of government by calling it the “deep state,” implying some sort of dark conspiracy with no evidence to justify such reckless and disrespectful condemnation. Trump’s self-serving, heedless and increasingly rash behavior undermines faith in our nation at home and abroad. It is the kind of behavior the rule of law is intended to protect us from. It’s a breach of faith. As we said at the outset, without faith, money is only a piece of paper. The same can be said of our Constitution.

The recent announcement that Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey-based hedge fund, won the bankruptcy court auction to buy McClatchy Newspapers is momentous news for North Carolinians. McClatchy owns three newspapers in North Carolina, including the two most important when it comes to covering public policy issues of statewide importance. McClatchy bought the Raleigh-based News & Observer in 1995 and acquired the Charlotte Observer in 2006 when it bought the Knight Ridder chain. It also owns The Herald-Sun in Durham. All three will now be owned by Chatham. Undoubtedly, the sale of McClatchy Newspapers to a hedge fund is not what the thousands of employees and the McClatchy family envisioned for this iconic employer. In the early 70’s it was common place to see Eleanor McClatchy, the matriarch of the family and the company, walking the halls in her unassuming way as she greeted employees by name. In the early days McClatchy owned three newspapers all named “Bee.” The newspapers and several radio and television stations were located in Sacramento, Modesto and Fresno. These were the days when media companies were permitted to own multi-media operations in the same market. The McClatchy company was well known for treating its people well and was a place with long tenured employees highlighted by the large membership in the 25-year club. The company was generous in the communities, with venues such as McClatchy High School, McClatchy Park bearing the name of the family and the company. Eleanor McClatchy was a generous sponsor of the Music Circus, a theatrical and musical venue and so much more. The company took a turn towards corporate in the mid 70’s with the hiring of North Carolinian Erwin Potts as the director of newspaper operations. He later became the first non-McClatchy family member to serve as CEO of the company, from 1989 to 1996. Potts is credited with leading the growth years of McClatchy into a national media company. In 2006, McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt and the Board of Directors made a dramatic decision under pressure from investors to purchase the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, an award-winning company with 84 Pulitzers. The purchase by the smaller McClatchy newspaper company for $4.5 billion in cash and stock was viewed as a great move by many journalists. But it was questioned by newspaper business leaders. Many in the industry would argue this was the beginning of the end for McClatchy. The company took on massive debt and made a bet that the future was bright for the newspaper industry. In fact, newspapers have been battered by the generational change towards technology and readers’ desire for immediacy coupled with fleeing advertisers who moved from print to digital and direct contact with their customers. The purchase of McClatchy by Chatham Asset Management signals a new and uncertain future for the proud company. Like newsrooms across the state, those at the Charlotte Observer and the News & Observer have already been cut to the bone. Chances are, the cuts will continue under Chatham’s ownership, further diminishing North Carolinians’ access to news about state and local governments they need to be informed participants in the democratic process. In 2016, Chatham acquired two-thirds ownership of Postmedia, the largest newspaper chain in Canada, and the publisher of the Vancouver Sun. Current and former employees told the New York Times that “the company has cut its work force, shuttered papers across Canada, reduced salaries and benefits, and centralized editorial operations in a way that has made parts of its 106 newspapers into clones of one another.” Postmedia’s chief executive, Andrew MacLeod, told the New York Times that Chatham isn’t involved in the day-to-day operation of the business, and that the cost cuts were “natural outcomes of a legacy business that’s been in structural decline.” He said Chatham was one of the few financial players willing to take a risk on a newspaper business. It’s hard to argue with that rationale. In less than a lifetime, the industry has changed dramatically from the days when highly profitable family-owned newspapers, like those owned by the McClatchy’s, took great pride in their watchdog role and willingly expended their resources to produce great and important stories. In a new book titled “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy,” Margaret Sullivan quotes a PEN America study, “As local journalism declines, government officials conduct themselves with less integrity, efficiency and effectiveness and corporate malfeasance goes unchecked…” Another result, according to the PEN study, is that citizens are less likely to vote, are less politically informed and are less likely to run for office. We can only wait to see how the new owner of three of North Carolina’s most important newspapers discharges the responsibility the First Amendment guarantee of a free press carries with it. But it is a sobering time as the restructuring continues of an industry that, like public education, is critical to our ability as North Carolinians and Americans to govern ourselves. Joy Franklin is a journalist and writer who served as editorial page editor of the Asheville Citizen-Times for 10 years. Prior to that she served as executive editor of the Times-News in Hendersonville., N.C. Franklin writes for Carolina Commentary. Virgil L. Smith formerly served as president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times and Vice President for Human Resources for the Gannett Company. Smith worked for McClatchy Newspapers for twenty years in Sacramento and Fresno, CA. He is the principal for the Smith Edwards Group and writes for Carolina Commentary.

Misguided and shortsighted political sparring and foot-dragging over expanded unemployment insurance (UI) will continue as long as elected officials fail to recognize the hidden costs of joblessness, which far exceed payouts. One dollar of unemployment compensation returns $1.90 to the economy because it gooses demand for goods and services at times when consumer spending plunges. People who live paycheck to paycheck, as half of American workers do, spend more of their pay than wealthy people do. Voters should choose candidates who recognize and acknowledge the devastation joblessness brings to workers and families, candidates who are willing to strengthen UI benefits, one of the few benefits available to workers in non-union states. Unemployment compensation was established by the Social Security Act of 1935, as the U.S. crawled out of the debilitating Great Depression. It’s designed to give people without paychecks time to find new jobs without starving or going broke. Boosted by stimulus checks and expanded UI, consumer spending jumped from minus 12.9 percent in April 2020 to 8.2 percent in May; in June and July, as benefits dwindled or expired, spending dropped to 6.2 percent and 1.9 percent respectively. North Carolina’s July 2020 unemployment rate was 8.5 percent. Some jobs, especially in the service sector, won’t bounce back. Especially if Covid rates spike again. During the Great Recession, from 2008 to 2012, unemployment compensation fended off approximately 1.4 million foreclosures, and an additional 18 percent shortfall in gross domestic product (GDP), according to the Center for American Progress. Economic research into joblessness reveals less obvious but equally troubling costs to individuals and society. Unemployment affects physical and psychological health; it can even take years off your life. People without paychecks may need Supplemental Nutritional Assistance well beyond the federal SNAP benefit levels; the jobless may lose health insurance, and forgo medical care. This swells Medicaid rolls, even as North Carolina legislators refuse to expand eligibility, forcing more patients to seek emergency care. As unemployment drags on, workers stop saving or raid retirement funds. This robs their future spending ability. Their skills deteriorate. This hurts not only future employment, but also re-employment wages, which may be 5 to 15 percent less than workers who did not lose their jobs. Unemployment demoralizes people and affects future planning. Workers may fail to invest in training or education that might improve prospects. They may forgo investments in children’s education, which deprives the next generation of talents and skills necessary to maintain a strong stable economy. And some unemployment compensation ends up as taxes, contributing to state revenues, which states desperately need, since they must balance budgets. The Economic Policy Institute reports that despite August gains of 1.4 million jobs, the U.S. is still 11.9 million jobs shy of February 2020 employment levels. Without additional federal aid to avoid layoffs, North Carolina could lose another 156,500 state and local government jobs. N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper’s buy-in to Trump’s offer of $300 per week of unemployment compensation, for three weeks, may be better than nothing, but by the time you read this, it’s probably run out. Likewise, the General Assembly recently ratified a $50 per week increase in UI, but did not approve Cooper’s proposal to extend benefits to 24 weeks and raise the maximum benefit to $500 per week. Unable to weather months without income, or pay rent, many businesses, especially small ones, will close for good. Meanwhile, mortgage delinquencies and evictions are rising. Despite an eviction moratorium, payments will eventually come due. The money is still owed. And by mid-August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 46 percent of North Carolina’s unemployed had been without work for 15 to 26 weeks. Support candidates who will advocate for increases in N.C.’s weekly benefit calculation, allowable maximum benefits, and duration. Without adequate compensation for those who are out of work, through no fault of their own, people without paychecks impose future costs on everyone. Note: At press time, additional virus aid had failed to pass the U.S. Senate. Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia where she worked as an economics writer. She co-edited Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, published in 2017 by the University of New Mexico Press; the anthology probes Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. She writes for Carolina Commentary. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com.

Evaluating policy costs and benefits not only confuses voters, but also the policymakers who craft those policies. Well-meaning elected officials often champion what seem like prudent actions, though unintended consequences may cost taxpayers and society much more. North Carolina’s failure to expand Medicaid and restore decent unemployment benefits are useful examples. Voters should carefully weigh the full benefits and costs when marking ballots on Nov. 3. (Another good example is Trump’s 2017 co rporate tax cuts that purported to “pay for themselves” but failed to create promised growth, driving up fiscal deficits.) In considering, and rejecting, Medicaid expansion, N.C.’s legislators perhaps did not know they were indirectly causing deaths. The poor and uninsured forgo preventive care, which may worsen chronic conditions such as cardiovascular problems or dia betes. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a D.C.-based research center, estimates that 1,400 North Carolinians between the ages of 55 and 65 died due to unaffordable care between 2014 and 2017. At the polls, think about those deaths. Evidence from the 39 states and the District of Columbia that have widened eligibility demonstrates the benefits of improved access to care. Positive effects also include greater financial security and employment gains. Add to those benefits the taxpayer dollars saved through reduced costs for uncompensated care and the expansion looks like a spending win. It would also help rural hospitals, which are closing at alarming rates. Health Affairs reports that the expansion covers childless adults earning less than $17,236, and helped cut rural hospitals’ uncompensated care costs. That stabilizes finances. The federal government pays 67 percent of N.C. Medicaid costs now; after expansion the share would rise to 90 percent. The federal match offsets much of the cost, according to the N.C. Justice Center’s Budget and Tax Center. A healthier population with better financial and job prospects means that taxpayer-funded state agencies will save money. Higher reimbursement rates, fewer uncompensated mental health services, and direct payments for service and treatment for the incarcerated are a few of those savings. When people lack insurance, they forgo medical care, which drives up treatment costs because it sends them to emergency rooms and possibly hospital beds, more expensive than getting regular checkups. In North Carolina, the General Assembly has rejected federal dollars for expansion since 2013, according to the N.C. Justice Center. Some 194,000 state residents make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to receive a subsidy. Seven rural hospitals have closed since 2013; others struggle financially. Uninsurance disproportionately burdens people of color. Another interesting benefit: In Medicaid expansion states, private insurance premium rates are 7 percent lower, on average. North Carolina is practicing a false economy in failing to expan d Medicaid and bolster unemployment benefits (see our September 20 Commentary.) Both policies would deliver benefits. There’s more. At the federal level, the U.S. economy would recover more quickly under a “blue wave,” according to Moody’s Analytics, because the plan front-loads investments in people—spending on infrastructure, education, healthcare, and other social programs, which brings full employment back more quickly, post-pandemic; it also channels money to those who need money at a time when we need spending. Spending makes up 70 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. In a recession, increased personal spending lifts all boats. “Trump’s economic policy, such as it is, improves the lot of rich people , who have a low ‘propensity to consume,’” says Greensboro-based economist Andy Br od. “There’s nothing wrong with saving, but spending is what drives the economy.” One more consideration: Economic recessions over the past 50 years have fallen under Republican administrations, though President Obama inherited the financial-crisis fallout, the 2007-2009 recession. Republicans spend as freely as Democrats do, notes economist Nouriel Roubini, but won’t raise taxes to pay for it. Betty Joyce Nash reported for the Hendersonville Times-News and the Greensboro News & Record before moving to Virginia where she worked as an economics writer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. She co-edited Lock & Load: Armed Fiction, published in 2017 by the University of New Mexico Press; the anthology probes Americans’ complicated relationship to firearms. Betty Joyce Nash writes for Carolina Commentary. For more information, see www.bettyjoycenash.com

Bob Smith kicks puppies. There, you heard it once. Believe it? No? How about if you heard it 20 times? OK, you tell yourself, that’s 20 times from one source. You ask yourself if the source is trustworthy. Then it’s repeated from 20 other sources, say via a retweet or Facebook share. Maybe a couple of news outlets pick it up and repeat it, using the lazy but legally defensible practice of “we don’t necessarily believe Bob’s a puppy-kicked, we’re just sharing what was said.” Suddenly you’re seeing it all over the place; it’s only natural to think maybe there’s something to it. It burrows into your head that this Bob Smith fellow is a practiced and enthusiastic puppy-kicker and thus an irredeemably horrible human being. And you probably have questions. Why would he do such a thing? Why doesn’t anybody stop him? Who’s Bob Smith? He’s a fiction, an example, of how disinformation spreads. There are plenty more examples, sadly, in real life. How’d we get here? Part of the problem is that, once upon a time, major news outlets served as gatekeepers, filtering out nonsense stories before they reached readers. With the end of the Fairness Doctrine, rise of cable news and then the flood of social media, that gat e has been breached. Part of the problem can be found by looking in the mirror. It’s said that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can put its shoes on. (Ironically, that quote is often misattributed to Mark Twain or Winston Churchill, but in fact was apparently around well before either were born). Research published in Science magazine back in 2018 bore this out by looking at rumor cascades on Twitter from 2006 to 2017. It found false news reached between 1,000 and 100,000 people, whereas the truth lagged behind, being diffused to around 1,000 people. It is convenient to think robots repeating false information are to blame, but the writers found “contrary to conventional wisdom, robots accelerated the spread of true and false news at the same rate, implying that false news spreads more than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it.” Thing is, it doesn’t take much source material to spread falsehoods. The top falsehood in quite some time is “The Big Lie,’’ repeated almost daily or hourly by former President Donald Trump, claiming the 2020 election was rigged and stolen (even before it h appened). After Trump’s Twitter account, and some accounts of key allies, were suspended, online misinformation dropped by a whopping 73% in a week, according to the research firm Zignal Labs. But the misinformation mill is quite robust, and new claims sprout daily, particularly regarding the election. One meme that has taken hold is that the there was evidence of fraud, but 60-some judges refused to hear it. In fact, the cases usually dealt with sta nding or harm; to keep with the puppy analogy, Trump was filing suit because someone kicked his puppy. The judges, in essence, said “you don’t own a puppy, hit the road.’’ Still, editors and political scientists across North Carolina are doubtlessly having to grapple with the “refused to be heard’’ argument. It’s a classic piece if misinformation, containing a kernel of truth wrapped in layers of falsehoods. Misinformation is a more critical issue than ever before. After all, we’re in a raging pandemic. Misinformation can literally kill you. That fact is more trouble in a time when powerful tech companies have no w, reluctantly, been forced into the role of gatekeeper. The far preferable option is that we choose to be better consumers of information. Regarding COVID-19, that information can be confusing and hard to find. That’s understandable, as it’s an entirely new dragon we’re trying to slay, and while we’ve learned a lot, there are still an awful lot of questions. Regarding politics, not so much. A grain of salt is the order of the day when you hear Bob Smith kicks puppies, one time or 200. As Georgia Elections Director Chris Harvey, a former homicide detective, put it after state officials were swamped with death threats regarding the “stolen’’ election there, put it to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Bill Torpy: “People ask the difference between working homicides and elections. “In homicide, you occasionally come across remorse.”

The world’s two leading economic nations are moving toward a potentially devastating confrontation over the Island of Taiwan. China considers Taiwan to be part of China, whereas Taiwan sees itself to be an independent nation. The United States has a military commitment to defend Taiwan based on the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which provides a legal basis for the unofficial relationship between the two countries, and commits the U.S. to assist Taiwan in maintaining its defensive capability. On May 10th, Rep. Ken Buck, (R-Colo.) introduced a resolution to reaffirm U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s continued peace and their mutual strategic interests. “We cannot allow China’s dangerous threats against the people of Taiwan to go unnoticed… and the U.S. must hold the Chinese government accountable,” Buck said. A recent Pew Research Centre survey this year found nine in 10 Americans viewed China as a competitor or an enemy while a majority were in favor of pressuring Beijing on human rights and economic issues. Meanwhile, a growing number of Chinese have expressed dissatisfaction over what they perceive as US efforts to prevent China’s rise as an economic, military and technological powerhouse, according to Maria Siow of the South China Morning Post. For 20 years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has provided Congress with an annual report on military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC). These reports have assessed the contours of China’s national strategy, its approach to security and military affairs, and potential changes in the PRC’s armed forces over the next 20 years, among other matters. The most recent report says that China’s strategy aims to achieve “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by 2049. The goal is framed as a strategy to place China in a position of strength, prosperity and leadership on the world stage. The strategy has three key prongs; to advance overall development and economic growth, to strengthen its armed forces and to take a more active role in global affairs. This sounds much like the historical strategy of the United States. North Carolina is a significant contributor to America’s defense strategy according to The North Carolina Military Affairs Commission (NCM AC). With Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine and Army bases in the state. The largest base is Fort Bragg, with over 65,000 service members and civilian employees. It is the largest U.S. Army installation in terms of population in the nation and it is home to the Army’s Rapid Response Force, consisting of Special Operations and Airborne Forces, Joint Special Operations Command and U.S. Army Special Operations Command, the U.S. Army Forces Command and the U.S. Army Reserve Command. The United States has maintained a stellar military operation, which many have called the best military in history. With an all-volunteer military and state of the art technology, the United States has led the world with a motto of “Peace Through Strength” coined by then President Ronald Reagan. Former President Reagan’s foreign policy, known as the Reagan Doctrine was the support of freedom for people around the world. During his tenure, Reagan’s administration grew the U.S. Army by two divisions in addition to developing new weapon systems including the Strategic Defense Initiative, branded as “Star Wars” to defend against nuclear attack. The United States has for the most part maintained an effective and mobile military that has fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and has American soldiers positioned in countries around the world. In January 2020, former President Trump’s military budget was $740 billion, an increase of $100 billion over former President Obama’s 2017 budget. Approximately 15% of America’s discretionary spending goes to defense. The United States spends more than the top 10 nations in the world on its military. Those nations include China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korean and Brazil combined, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. There is nothing we Americans value more than our freedom and we are willing to pay for it, with treasure and lives if necessary. As we look to the future, Americans must keep in mind the ever growing economic and military power of China. The Chinese are known for playing the long game and are projected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2028, according to a report published by CNBC. As tensions rise between China and the United States, North Carolinians will be at the forefront for military readiness as the competition between the two superpowers intensifies in the coming years. Virgil L. Smith formerly served as president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times and Vice President for Human Resources for the Gannett Company. He is the principal for the Smith Edwards Group and writes for Carolina Commentary.

Here’s a little tale of our times: On July 5 in East Hartford, Conn., the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team took the field for a match against Mexico. Before the game started, Pete DuPré, a WWII veteran, played the national anthem on a harmonica. Some members of the U.S. squad turned their backs on DuPré while he played. The outrage meter cranked up to 11 almost immediately, with videos posted to YouTube and various sites condemning the action, led by a Facebook page called Hold the Line, which captioned the scene as “A DISGRACE TO AMERICA! … Who agrees we need to keep the woke OUT of the Olympics??? #HoldTheLine.” Cable TV picked it up, and it was soon a story almost impossible to avoid across social media. Until it turned out to not be true. What actually happened is the soccer squad already had a deep and warm relationship with DuPré. Some had met him on a trip to Normandy beaches in 2019; he’d played the anthem for them that year before the final World Cup game, and after the incident in July of this year, they signed a game ball for him and individually thanked him. The reason some turned their backs on him was so they could face the flag, which is what one is supposed to do during the anthem. There was a tidal wave of outrage for a day, a few fact-checkers weighed in with the real story, and a few of the places pushing the wrong story backed off, sort of. The prize-winning comment on cable was the sentiment that it was sad people would believe the tale to be true but understandable since such tales were so widespread. Wonder who’s spreading such misinformation in the first place? where you’d get such a presumption in the first place? It’s a real head-scratcher. There’s a tale like this Every. Single. Day. Some are annoying, some are downright dangerous, such as the deluge of COVID misinformation we’ve seen since we first heard that word. Some narratives say it’s a hoax, some dwell on where it started, some say the pandemic really isn’t that severe, a lot of those folks would’ve died anyway, some dismiss the death rate as really not very high. Four or five million dead worldwide doesn’t look that serious when you realize there are 7 billion people on the planet. Heck, there were 97 people on the Hindenburg and only 35 died, so what’s all the fuss? Well, here’s part of the deal: Somebody has to clean up after all that manure, and it’s usually a reporter. Reporters are busy people. Checking this stuff out is time-consuming, and every minute spent figuring out Bat Boy doesn’t really exist is a minute spent not covering city hall or Congress or the next war we appear to be blundering into. Further, the correction isn’t what most people hear. It’s the initial accusation that burrows into the mind. Some of this misinformation is innocent. Some is plain old mean-spiritedness. And some is sinister, sown by actors intent on turning us against one another and destabilizing our very democracy. We don’t appear to have any good solutions here in the U.S. It might not hurt to turn to Finland for a helpful strategy. While we’re mud-wrestling over what to teach in public schools, there’s a lesson we could learn from that Nordic country, which has been teaching children for more than a decade how to spot misinformation and propaganda from kindergarten on up. There’s a reason Finland did this. Its people were overwhelmed with online trolls raising hysteria about the real Finland being destroyed by immigrants, its heritage in peril, that it should exit the EU, etc. etc. Divisive stuff, that did its job of dividing. As with our social media, a lot of the trolling online originated in Russia, as does a lot of the trolling in the United States. Unlike the United States, Finland shares 832 miles of border with Russia, and Russia has a habit of destabilizing neighbors and driving tanks across those borders. Thus, the response to educate its citizens, which seems to be working well. It’s an example we should at least study. The amount of effort debunking malicious nonsense is wildly disproportional to the effort needed to spread the lies in the first place. Reporters can’t do it alone. They need help. And America can only work if it has an informed citizenry. As the saying goes, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” Incidentally, look that up and you’ll see it attributed to Mark Twain. There’s no proof he ever said it. Pays to do a little research. Jim Buchanan is a longtime mountain journalist