On the Media: September 30, 2011

Summary

On the Media: September 30, 2011 – Comprehensive Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: On the Media
• Host/Author: WNYC Studios
• Description: On the Media explores the intricacies of media production, scrutinizing threats to free speech, government transparency, and media coverage of significant events. Hosted by Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, the podcast delves into the underlying political narratives shaping what we consume.

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1. Prosecution of Muslim Students for Disrupting a Speech (00:21 – 08:11)

The episode opens with a discussion about a legal case where eleven Muslim students from the University of California, Irvine, were prosecuted for conspiring to disrupt a speech by Israel's ambassador, Michael Oren. The students, known as the "Irvine 11," faced charges of conspiracy and disturbance.

Key Points:

• Legal Justification: Tony Rikakis, the Orange County District Attorney, emphasized the "overwhelming evidence" including emails, videos, and eyewitness accounts that indicated a planned effort to prevent Oren's speech. Rikakis stated, "This was a serious challenge to freedom of speech." (01:11).

• Constitutional Debate: Gabriel Stricker questioned whether the prosecution was a form of censorship, arguing that the Constitution protects against government repression, not individual actions. Bob Garfield countered, stating, "They did make a censorship decision, regardless of who was involved." (02:08).

• Community Impact: Brooke Gladstone expressed concerns about the prosecution exacerbating community tensions, noting the long history of conflicts between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups at UCI. She argued that criminal charges kept wounds open instead of allowing the community to heal (05:14).

• Free Speech Considerations: The conversation highlighted that while the First Amendment protects speech, it does not grant the right to disrupt others' ability to speak. Brooke concluded, "There is no first amendment right to go into any public meeting and shout down the speakers." (07:32).

Notable Quotes:

• Tony Rikakis: "We just can't allow one group to stop everybody else from putting their views forward." (03:49)
• Brooke Gladstone: "They should be punished by the university. There's no need for criminal prosecution now." (07:04)

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2. Google's Handling of Offensive Search Results (08:11 – 12:11)

The discussion shifts to Google's approach in managing offensive or misleading search results, particularly concerning the website spreadingsantorum.com, which provided an obscene definition of politician Rick Santorum's name.

Key Points:

• Algorithm Adjustments: Gabriel Stricker questioned whether Google altered its search algorithms to suppress derogatory content. Bob Garfield clarified that while Google does not remove pages based on unpopularity, they acknowledge problematic results with a "house ad" expressing their disapproval (10:08).

• Transparency Measures: Google implemented messages indicating their discomfort with certain search results, encouraging users to view explanations without removing the content entirely (11:16).

• Precedent and Policy: The conversation touched on previous instances like "Google bombing," where search results were manipulated, leading Google to adjust its algorithms to prevent gaming of search outcomes (09:18 – 12:11).

Notable Quotes:

• Bob Garfield: "We don't want people gaming our search results. We want to provide the best answer for your question." (10:24)
• Gabriel Stricker: "That's something that we call a house ad." (11:53)

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3. Vladimir Putin's Return to Power and Media Control in Russia (12:24 – 19:08)

The podcast examines Russian politics, focusing on President Dmitry Medvedev's endorsement of Vladimir Putin for the 2012 presidential election and the state of media freedom in Russia.

Key Points:

• Political Maneuvering: Medvedev's endorsement signaled Putin's return to full presidential power after a period of shared leadership. This move was met with widespread applause and favorable media coverage within Russia's controlled media landscape (13:00).

• Media Suppression: Fred Weir, a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, highlighted the limited scope of dissenting voices in Russian media, noting that opposition critiques exist but have minimal impact (14:03).

• Public Perception vs. Reality: Despite controlled media and suppression of pluralism, Putin remains popular due to restored stability and economic gains from rising oil prices. However, experts express concern that centralized power could lead to stagnation and disconnect from public sentiment (17:07).

• Future Implications: There is skepticism about whether Putin will implement liberal reforms. While some believe centralized power allows for efficient governance, others fear it may lead to authoritarianism reminiscent of Soviet-style politics (18:03).

Notable Quotes:

• Fred Weir: "They don't get the signals that angry voters can deliver." (17:20)
• Bob Garfield: "If nobody's agitating for a return to Wild West democracy, do they matter?" (17:20)

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4. Satellite Sentinel Project: Monitoring Human Rights in Sudan (19:08 – 24:48)

The episode introduces the Satellite Sentinel Project, an initiative co-founded by George Clooney and John Prendergast, aimed at preventing atrocities in Sudan through real-time satellite imagery.

Key Points:

• Project Goals: The Satellite Sentinel Project seeks to deter mass atrocities by documenting troop movements and human rights violations from the sky, thereby creating accountability for potential war crimes (19:53).

• Operational Mechanics: Utilizing commercial satellites and ground reports from sources like Nathaniel Raymond's team at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the project identifies areas of concern and provides actionable intelligence to prevent violence (20:20).

• Impact and Challenges: The project successfully identified mass graves and troop mobilizations, which were reported to the UN Security Council. However, geopolitical factors, like opposition from China and Russia, hindered immediate action (23:44).

• Media Collaboration: Satellite Sentinel collaborates with journalists by providing satellite imagery and summarized eyewitness reports, enhancing journalistic investigations into human rights abuses (22:38).

Notable Quotes:

• Jonathan Hudson: "Our biggest report to date came on July 14th. We reported the first three of what we've now found are eight mass graves." (21:29)
• Ira Flatow: "We are telling the public, here's the information. Now you can see it, and you can pressure policymakers." (24:17)

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5. Pew Research Study on Local News Consumption (24:48 – 30:54)

Lee Rainey from the Pew Research Center discusses a study that analyzes how Americans consume local news across 16 different topics, challenging the notion of television's dominance.

Key Points:

• Diverse Information Sources: The study found that while TV remains the primary source for weather, traffic, and breaking news, newspapers are crucial for civic information such as local government and school activities (25:43).

• Internet's Role: The Internet emerged as the leading source for information on local businesses, restaurants, housing, schools, and jobs, particularly among individuals under 40 (28:44).

• Word of Mouth: Surprisingly, 55% of respondents relied on word of mouth for local news, ranking second only to TV. This includes information shared via social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook (29:15).

• Implications for Newspapers: Although newspapers are often regarded as primary information sources, the study revealed that 69% felt the disappearance of local newspapers would have minimal impact, highlighting a shift towards digital and interpersonal information channels (27:05).

Notable Quotes:

• Lee Rainey: "Newspapers are the originators of more than half the new information in the community." (27:23)
• Brooke Gladstone: "It's really sad to see a bad decision become precedent for future bad decisions." (07:32)

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6. Gaming for Scientific and Personal Recovery: Foldit and SuperBetter (30:54 – 50:44)

The final segment explores the innovative use of gaming for solving complex scientific problems and aiding personal recovery through the games Foldit and SuperBetter.

a. Foldit: Crowdsourcing Protein Folding (30:54 – 38:35)

Key Points:

• Scientific Breakthrough: Foldit, an online puzzle game, enabled gamers to model the structure of an enzyme critical to understanding diseases like AIDS. Within ten days, players solved a protein structure that had stumped scientists for over a decade (32:47).

• Gameplay Mechanics: Players manipulate 3D models of proteins, optimizing their structures to achieve the most stable configurations. The game's design abstracts biochemical concepts, allowing players without scientific backgrounds to contribute effectively (34:47).

• Educational and Collaborative Aspects: Foldit fosters a community where players can collaborate, share solutions, and continuously improve upon each other's work, enhancing both scientific understanding and educational engagement (36:16).

Notable Quotes:

• Jane McGonigal: "If you know the shape of each one of the proteins, you more or less know the secret of life." (32:58)
• Jane McGonigal: "We are trying to revolutionize education in the same way." (37:35)

b. SuperBetter: Gamifying Personal Recovery (38:35 – 50:44)

Key Points:

• Personal Story: Brooke Gladstone shares her experience recovering from a traumatic brain injury, highlighting the psychological challenges of recovery, including depression and suicidal ideation (39:02).

• Game Mechanics: SuperBetter transforms the recovery process into a "recovery adventure game," where users embark on missions, identify "power-ups," defeat "bad guys," and set "epic wins." This gamification aims to foster positive emotions and social connections essential for healing (40:14).

• Community and Support: The game encourages players to involve friends and family as allies, creating a support network that mirrors multiplayer online games. For those without immediate support, an online community is available to connect with others facing similar challenges (45:01).

• Future Applications: Beyond personal recovery, SuperBetter is being tested in corporate settings to help employees achieve health goals like weight loss and smoking cessation (44:22).

Notable Quotes:

• Brooke Gladstone: "I'm either going to kill myself or I'm going to turn this into a game." (39:42)
• Brooke Gladstone: "We are trying to unlock things that games do better than anything else." (43:30)
• Jane McGonigal: "Really, it's like a life management tool." (40:54)

Interactive Segment:

• Testimonial: Alex Goldman, a producer who suffered a serious accident, shares his ordeal and expresses optimism about using SuperBetter to manage his recovery, planning to document his six-week journey on the podcast's website (45:42 – 49:27).

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Conclusion

The September 30, 2011 episode of On the Media traverses a diverse array of topics, from legal battles over free speech and the ethical responsibilities of tech giants to the evolving landscape of local news consumption and the groundbreaking intersection of gaming with science and personal health. Through in-depth discussions and expert insights, hosts Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield illuminate the multifaceted relationship between media, technology, and society.

Final Notable Moments:

• Call to Action: Listeners are encouraged to engage with ongoing projects like SuperBetter and follow personal recovery stories on the podcast's website.
• Closing Notes: The episode concludes with acknowledgments to producers and sponsors, emphasizing the collaborative effort behind the informative content.

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This summary encapsulates the essential discussions and insights from the On the Media episode, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and those interested in the interplay between media, technology, and societal issues.

Transcript

[Ira Flatow]

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[Brooke Gladstone]

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[Bob Garfield]

Tap the banner to learn more and.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply.

[Bob Garfield]

From WNYC in New York. This is ON the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Gabriel Stricker]

And I'm Bob Garfield. In the wake of last week's Palestinian bid for statehood, an 18 month old domestic dust up rears its head. In February of last year at the University of California, Irvine, a group of Muslim students protested a speech by Israel's ambassador to the US Michael Oren.

[Bob Garfield]

MICHAEL oren, Propaganda murder is not an expression of free speech.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Shut up the Irvine 11. Eight students from UC Irvine and three from UC Riverside were charged with conspiracy and disturbance of a meeting last Friday. A jury found 10 of them guilty. Tony Rikakis is the Orange County District Attorney. He said his office prosecuted the students because of overwhelming evidence. In emails, on video and from eyewitnesses.

[Bob Garfield]

It was very clear that this was not just some kind of a shout down or some sort of a spontaneous heartfelt display. This was conspiracy developed over time to shut down the Israeli ambassador from speaking. So this was a serious challenge to freedom of speech.

[Gabriel Stricker]

All right, fair enough. But there is no law that stops a citizen from depriving another citizen of freedom of speech. The Constitution protects us as citizens from the government repressing our right of expression.

[Bob Garfield]

Well, there is a California law that says that it's unlawful to disrupt a lawful meeting. In this case, sir, it was a freedom of speech issue because here it was a case of this group saying that the speaker would not be allowed to speak.

[Gabriel Stricker]

You know, I get that. But there's nothing in the Constitution that says an individual has a responsibility to let other people talk. It's annoying and it's obnoxious. But we're not talking about censorship in the strict legal sense, are we?

[Bob Garfield]

We are talking about one group of individuals determining who can speak and what can be said on a university campus. So they did, in fact, make a censorship decision. What you're saying is that the only kind of censorship that could be called censorship is if it's done by the government. And frankly, I disagree with that.

[Gabriel Stricker]

The University of California, Irvine police came to you with a complaint and then it behooves you either to pursue it or for whatever reason not to pursue it. There are a lot of speeches interrupted by protesters border to border, coast to coast, especially at universities.

[Bob Garfield]

We have evidence of a Conspiratorial, planned shutdown of the speaker or. I'm not aware of ever turning down a case where we had that kind of evidence.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Are you aware of ever prosecuting one?

[Bob Garfield]

No. I think this is probably the first case that we got with this type of evidence where it was so clear.

[Gabriel Stricker]

So that was the bridge too far for you? Not that a bunch of kids stood up at a meeting and repeatedly shouted down the speaker, but that they had planned to do it to make sure that this voice of the ambassador would be shut down?

[Bob Garfield]

I think that the planning and the intention were clear and certainly were important to the case. Yes.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Of all of the students in all of the universities who break up a meeting by doing something or another loud and obnoxious, the ones who end up getting prosecuted, 10 kids with an explicitly Muslim political agenda, did you discuss in your office whether the prosecution itself would be perceived as disproportionate administration of justice?

[Bob Garfield]

I think what we discussed concerning the political implications were that if we don't proceed on this case, that we would not be able to proceed on another future case where, say, the Muslims were shut down in their attempt to give some kind of a speech. What it comes down to is whoever the group is, it doesn't matter if it's a Muslim group or some other group. We just can't allow one group to stop everybody else from putting their views forward. If it comes to us by way of a criminal complaint. I mean, you know, I don't. If it was any other group, we'd do the same thing.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Tony, thank you very much.

[Bob Garfield]

All right. Thank you very much.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Tony Rikakis is the Orange County District Attorney. Irvin Chemerinsky is dean of the law school at University of California, Irvine. He said that even though the students clearly violated California law, he never expected this outcome.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I was very surprised when the DA decided to bring criminal charges here. You only see prosecutions if there's injury to people or property or serious risk of injury to people or property that wasn't present here.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Tony Rikakis, the DA with whom we've just spoken, says that he believes that apart from the statutes that the students violated, ultimately they were guilty of censorship, of abridging Ambassador Oren's freedom of speech. Do you buy that?

[Brooke Gladstone]

I do, but it has to be put in perspective. Ultimately, Ambassador Oren was able to deliver his entire speech. They delayed his ability to do so. But it's different than the way it was being described of abridging, keeping him from speaking. He did deliver his entire address when.

[Gabriel Stricker]

We spoke to Tony Rakakis. He said, look here, the police came to us with a case. We had video evidence, we had hundreds of eyewitnesses, and we had an email chain which proved conspiracy beyond a shadow of a doubt. And when police bring good cases to his office, his office prosecutes.

[Brooke Gladstone]

It's so overly simplistic. DAs get strong cases all the time that they choose not to prosecute. In Los Angeles, for example, the city attorney is prosecuting almost no misdemeanor offenses because of budget shortfalls. So the strength of the case is one factor any district attorney would consider. But it's not the only factor. Is it good for the community to bring the prosecution? In this instance, it clearly wasn't good for the community. There's been a long history of incidents here at UCI of tensions between pro Palestinian students and pro Israeli students. This incident was particularly explosive. It was a year and a half ago. If there hadn't been the criminal prosecution, everyone could move on beyond it. But instead, what he's done is keep open and deepen a wound in the community.

[Gabriel Stricker]

What about this? In a subsequent university sponsored event, a pro Palestinian speaker should be interrupted, shouted down, verbally abused by a group of Zionist students.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I would be taking the exact same position. They should be punished by the university. There's no need for criminal prosecution now. Of course, if this happens in the future and the DA doesn't prosecute, then there'll be claims of unequal justice, of discriminatory prosecution, and I think those would be very powerful criticisms. On the other hand, it's really sad to see a bad decision become precedent for future bad decisions.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Some have said that this prosecution in essence deprived the students of their free speech rights.

[Brooke Gladstone]

There is no first amendment right to go into any public meeting and shout down the speakers. The students could have stood outside the auditorium and held up picket signs or hand out leaflets or held their own demonstration across campus. That's what the first amendment allows them to do. That said, the question then is, what's the appropriate punishment for these students? I think the appropriate punishment was university discipline. No need for criminal prosecution, but instead, the students now are celebrated as champions for free speech.

[Gabriel Stricker]

All right, Erwin, thank you so much.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Anytime.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Erwin Jemerinsky is the dean of the law school at the University of California at Irvine. And here's another way to lodge a protest. If you Google Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, the first result you'll get is a site called spreadingsantorum.com. the site's main purpose is to provide an alternate unbelievably obscene definition for the word Santorum. Spreadingsantorum.com is the brainchild of journalist and gay rights activist Dan Savage, and it's meant to punish Rick Santorum for what Savage considers the candidate's retrograde views on homosexuality. Santorum asked Google last week to redact the site from its search results, a request the company declined. Google doesn't comment on individual cases, but we were able to get Gabriel Stricker, Google's director of global communications and public affairs, to talk to us about the site's policy on these things in general. Gabriel, welcome to on the Media.

[Bob Garfield]

Thanks for having me.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Okay, Now, I have to tell you, Gabriel, I am no fan of Rick Santorum as a candidate, but my heart breaks for him that he has to live with this. What do you say to this guy?

[Bob Garfield]

There's nothing especially new about these episodes.

[Ira Flatow]

It was widely reported years back if.

[Bob Garfield]

You did a query for Walmart, one.

[Ira Flatow]

Of the most popular results that was.

[Bob Garfield]

Coming up was a page that was.

[Ira Flatow]

Very critical of Walmart. And you know, this is really largely a function of being in the public eye.

[Gabriel Stricker]

But in the past, hasn't Google fiddled with its algorithm to deal with various kinds of abuse? For example, a few years back, if you typed in the words miserable failure in the Google search bar, you would come up with a picture of George W. Bush.

[Ira Flatow]

That's right. You're describing one of the more high.

[Bob Garfield]

Profile Google bombing episodes. And. And we made changes to our algorithms.

[Ira Flatow]

To prevent that from happening because we.

[Bob Garfield]

Don'T want people gaming our search results.

[Ira Flatow]

We want to be able to provide.

[Bob Garfield]

Results that are the best answer for your question.

[Ira Flatow]

Now, sometimes your question might lead you.

[Bob Garfield]

To a page that's in support of.

[Ira Flatow]

What you're looking for, and sometimes it.

[Bob Garfield]

Might lead you to a page against it.

[Gabriel Stricker]

I have just typed into the Google search bar the term Jew. And up comes as the second search result, Jew Watch News, which is just a over the top antisemitic site. And high up in the results are a fair number of pretty problematic results. We had heard that Google had intervened in this case because so many of the results regard the search term Jew not as a neutral noun, but as an epithet. Is it true that you fiddled here on the margins with the algorithm?

[Bob Garfield]

No, not at all.

[Ira Flatow]

We were really disturbed by the results. But let it stand.

[Bob Garfield]

The one thing that we did note.

[Ira Flatow]

And this was an early case for.

[Bob Garfield]

Us, we did provide an explanation of our search results there, where we ran.

[Ira Flatow]

A message at the top of the page that said, we're disturbed by these results as well. And then it says, please read our note here. And if you click through, you'll see this explanation of how it is that we're personally disturbed by what you're seeing there.

[Bob Garfield]

But let it stand, because this is.

[Ira Flatow]

A reflection of what's out there on the Web.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Funnily enough, it appears as a paid search result. In other words, an ad. Google took out an ad on Google to say that Google is upset about what's turning up organically on Google.

[Ira Flatow]

That's right.

[Bob Garfield]

That's something that we call a house ad.

[Ira Flatow]

We don't remove a page from our.

[Bob Garfield]

Search results simply because the content is unpopular.

[Ira Flatow]

We really just want the results to.

[Bob Garfield]

Be a reflection of what's available out.

[Ira Flatow]

There on the Web.

[Gabriel Stricker]

It is what it is.

[Bob Garfield]

That's right.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Gabriel, thank you very much.

[Bob Garfield]

Thank you, Bob.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Gabriel Stricker is director of global communications and public affairs for a little outfit called Google.

[Bob Garfield]

Coming up, a new human rights effort puts eyes in the sky.

[Gabriel Stricker]

This is on the Media.

[Brooke Gladstone]

On the Media is supported by reputation.

[Bob Garfield]

With tools designed to help lawyers, doctors.

[Brooke Gladstone]

And business professionals protect and improve their online reputations. More about controlling online [e-mail] this is NPR.

[Bob Garfield]

This is on the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Gabriel Stricker]

And I'm Bob Garfield. Last Saturday, we saw Russian democracy at work.

[Jane McGonigal]

I believe it would be right for the Congress to support the candidacy of Vladimir Putin in the presidential election.

[Gabriel Stricker]

That was Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev. Medvedev at the conference of the United Russia Party endorsing Vladimir Putin as the party's nominee in the 2012 election. Putin had already been president eight years, a period of relative stability after the tumult of the Yeltsin era until constitutionally obliged to step down after two consecutive terms. Saturday's announcement was an open admission of what many had long suspected, that after four years of tandem rule with Medvedev, Putin was destined to resume full power of the country. The announcement was met with wild applause and was covered favorably on Russia's three major networks. Christian Science Monitor reporter Fred Weir has worked in Russia for more than two decades. He says that despite the chokehold on major media that has been Putin's legacy, some dissent has seeped out, mostly in a handful of opposition media outlets that remain. But it hasn't much mattered.

[Fred Weir]

There's a certain amount of criticism, but it's mostly covering the to and fro of politics, much the same way an American network would cover American politics. And no one ever steps outside the boundaries of that on state tv.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Describe for me some of the other coverage by less dominant channels.

[Fred Weir]

There are some smaller regional TV channels and there's a small network called Ren tv. And you could hear on the talk shows on Ren TV worry that this can lead to stagnation in Russia, that Putin built his power on the basis of curbing pluralism and democracy. And there's also a radio station, Eco Moskva, to which all of the liberal commentators who were forced out of the big stations in the early part of the Putin era migrated. And there's at least one opposition newspaper, Novaya Gosiata, and there you got the full bore kind of criticism. And beyond that, there is the Internet, which is completely freewheeling and open.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Did the Novaya Gazeta, or has anyone in the immense blogosphere invoked the D word?

[Fred Weir]

The D word being dictatorship?

[Gabriel Stricker]

Yeah.

[Fred Weir]

No. And they use the word regime a lot. And certainly there's vast disgust there that this is basically the end of any pretense of democracy in Russia, that the whole thing was cooked up between two guys and announced to a cheering crowd who had played no part in making that decision. And this is basically the return of Soviet style politics.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Michael Kirk Putin emerged just before the millennium, in the aftermath of the very tumultuous, chaotic, economically disastrous Yeltsin era, and was popular. He continues to be popular with the Russian electorate, does he not?

[Fred Weir]

Yes. And in fact, he moved pretty briskly to do a lot of things that restored a sense of law and order, a sense of a working state after the shambles of the Yeltsin era. And he did a lot of that on the back of effectively nationalizing the main TV channels and bringing the media under control. And he also came to power at a time that coincided with the rising global oil prices. And this is the source of more than half of the Russian government's revenues. So the huge windfall of oil profits enabled Putin to restore really strong state power, along with almost Soviet style paternalism. All that income redistribution of the Putin era probably blunted the protests. It might have been at the curbing of elections and muzzling of the media and the crackdown on civil society that also took place.

[Gabriel Stricker]

If nobody's agitating for a return to the kind of Wild west democracy of the Yeltsin era. If voices for true democracy are squelched and nobody cares, do they matter?

[Fred Weir]

As a journalist, I've always thought that it matters a lot. I'm afraid that Russian leaders increasingly live in a bubble because they've cracked down on the media and basically manipulated Russian politics so that outcomes are virtually certain. They Also, don't get the signals that angry voters can deliver.

[Gabriel Stricker]

There are journalists who are trying to render a watchdog function, and they're beaten, occasionally murdered in various ways, censored or intimidated. Can we assume that with the further ascendancy of Putin, that these problems are only going to get worse?

[Fred Weir]

It should be pointed out that an awful lot of Russian political experts are saying that Putin may well use his new lease on power to institute sweeping liberal reforms. And there is logic to it. The Russian system is dysfunctional, and no one should know that better than Russians who have seen two states of this type collapse in the last century alone. I mean, they know that when you concentrate so much power and centralize it in the hands of such a tiny number of people that no matter how powerful that system looks, it can just go poof. And Putin surely knows this. So a lot of people are hopeful that now that he's back on top and completely in charge, that he will use that new authority to do something real. I'll believe it when I see it.

[Gabriel Stricker]

All right, Fred, thank you so much.

[Fred Weir]

Thank you. It's a real pleasure.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Fred Weir is a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. He's been based in Moscow for 20 years.

[Bob Garfield]

Last October, movie star George Clooney was in the genocide ravaged country of Sudan with human rights activist John Prendergast. They wondered who was it possible to track things like troop movements and human rights violations from the sky. Within weeks, and with funding from not on Our Watch, an organization Clooney sits on the board of the Satellite Sentinel Project was launched and was photographing what was going on on the ground in Sudan. The project can capture pictures in near real time of areas of Sudan that are too remote or too dangerous for journalists to get to. The project is the first of its kind. Jonathan Hudson is director of communications for the Enough Project and the Satellite Sentinel Project.

[Ira Flatow]

The Satellite Sentinel Project's principal aims are to prevent a return to full scale war between Sudan and South Sudan and also to deter mass atrocities by creating liabilities for those who might commit war crimes. If you do commit mass atrocities, will document that and make it public and you could wind up standing trial for those war crimes.

[Bob Garfield]

So how does it work? Where does it get its information?

[Ira Flatow]

So I track down and interview confidential sources on the ground and feed these on the ground reports from eyewitnesses to Nathaniel Raymond and his team. They call themselves Spy Kids at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. And then that team uses commercial satellites and they tell the cameras what areas of interest to shoot on a daily.

[Bob Garfield]

Bas These are Harvard undergrads and Harvard grads. I'm still wondering what exactly it is they're seeing that says, uh, oh, something bad is afoot down there.

[Ira Flatow]

A good case example is one of our most recent reports showed a massive wall of armor, and it was headed toward a rebel stronghold in a place called Kermuk. We saw close air support from six attack helicopters. We saw infantry troop carriers, we saw mobile artillery. And we were able to give advance warning to the citizens of Kermuk.

[Bob Garfield]

So in that case, you were actually able, possibly to prevent a fair number of deaths. In other cases, you are able to track from the sky atrocities that may have already occurred and been unreported. Right?

[Ira Flatow]

Yeah. Our biggest report to date came on July 14th. We reported the first three of what we've now found are eight mass graves.

[Bob Garfield]

And you also check out burn patterns on the ground.

[Ira Flatow]

We looked, for example, at evidence of looting and raising. Our satellite saw a third of the civilian infrastructure in the town of Abye was burned to the ground.

[Bob Garfield]

I also read that you pick up clues about roads being improved. Roads that are improved, that are not oil related, suggest that it's the military at work.

[Ira Flatow]

The only reason to improve a road in these remote rural areas of Sudan is either if you're drilling for oil and there was no oil drilling in the area, or if you're preparing a road for what we call a tank run, an invasion. They were actually paving the roads and building them up to become all weather roads. And that allowed us to correctly predict one month in advance exactly how. How Sudan would invade Abye a month later.

[Bob Garfield]

You're assembling evidence for war trials, but you're also assisting journalists.

[Ira Flatow]

One thing we do is provide journalists with satellite imagery as well as summaries of our eyewitness reports. And we also work with people on the ground of the Nuba Mountains who are gathering information and helping them, training them how to work with journalists who might come in.

[Bob Garfield]

You have different standards for how you handle information than, say, the New York Times does. Right.

[Ira Flatow]

For example, the New York Times ran this story showing a girl who was a bombing survivor. And they gave her name at her age and her home village and a lot of other identifying information about her. We interviewed that same girl. We thought that for reasons of security, there was no reason to actually give the details about her actual name. The New York Times, you know, they are being true to journalistic standards. It's just that we actually are gathering evidence to a standard that could one day be introduced at a war crimes trial. In the Hague.

[Bob Garfield]

Are you close to assembling enough evidence to bring a trial there?

[Ira Flatow]

We have already submitted to the UN Security Council and to the International Criminal Court evidence of the government of Sudan's war crimes. And we've also submitted evidence of mass killings and mass graves.

[Bob Garfield]

Are they acting it?

[Ira Flatow]

About five hours after we released our July 14 report finding the first three of the mass graves, the UN Security Council went into closed session, and the U.S. the UK and France were pressing for action, and that was blocked largely by China and Russia.

[Bob Garfield]

Tell me how you make use of media to get your messages out.

[Ira Flatow]

In the case of the looting of Abye, we were able within hours to issue press releases, and we got hundreds of major media mentions in print, broadcast, and online media. The point is not that, you know, we're telling President Obama or the UN Security Council things that they don't already know through their satellite, but we're telling you, the public, here's the information. Now you can see it, and you can pressure policymakers around the globe to respond more quickly and effectively.

[Bob Garfield]

Jonathan, thank you very much.

[Ira Flatow]

Thank you, Brooke.

[Bob Garfield]

Jonathan Hudson is director of communications for the Enough Project and the Satellite Sentinel Project. For two generations, studies have consistently shown TV news to be America's number one source of local information. But now a new Pew study paints a far more nuanced picture of our local information ecosyste. Pew broke down local news into specific topics, from politics to restaurants. And researchers found evidence of TV's dominance in only 3 of 16 weather, breaking news, and traffic. Lee Rainey, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, co authored the study. Lee, welcome back to on the Media.

[Lee Rainey]

Hi, Brooke. Thanks for having me.

[Bob Garfield]

The big innovation here is you divided local news into these 16 different topics. Zoning, local art, scene, government. What difference did that approach make?

[Lee Rainey]

Previous studies had tended to ask a single question, where do you get local news? And people would say either television or newspapers. But when you unpack the idea of news, it turns out that the ecosystem delivers different results depending on the topic that you're seeking. So, for instance, the most popular topics, weather, traffic, breaking news, are pretty well covered by television. And people say television is a source that they rely upon for those things. Newspapers are really important for civic kinds of news. What the government is doing, what the school board is doing, what's going on at local schools, what's happening in neighborhoods. But those are topics that are not as popular as the things that TV covers. And when we ask just a direct question, if your local newspaper vanished from the scene, would it have a major impact on your ability to get local information, A minor impact or no impact? 69% said it would have a minor or no impact on their ability to get information.

[Bob Garfield]

But newspapers and newspaper websites ranked first are tied for first as the source people relied on for 11 of the 16 key topics that you examined, right?

[Lee Rainey]

That's right. That's the paradox of our finding. Newspapers in the imagination of people is a primary source for lots of things necessarily fit very high, but on particular topics, they matter a lot.

[Bob Garfield]

Why did you ask that question? How important would it be to you if your newspaper disappeared?

[Lee Rainey]

There are two reasons we asked that question. The first is that newspapers are under financial stress. The other reason that we asked it is that some research by our colleagues in this study and in the past, the center for Excellence in Journalism studied the role of news newspapers in information ecosystem and found that if you actually take newspapers out of the mix, the amount of raw material there is for community information diminishes. The PEJ studied Baltimore and found that the newspaper was the originator of more than half the new information in the community on any given small time period, and that it was the raw material around which community conversation, community events, community activities, and politics were discussed.

[Bob Garfield]

In most previous studies, people count newspaper websites as the Internet, but in yours, newspaper websites were counted as newspapers, which seems to make sense.

[Lee Rainey]

What we wanted to do in this survey is have people think about the source of the information. If it came from a newspaper or newspaper website, we wanted to give credit to that legacy organization for producing that information, no matter what platform people used. And so for us, the Internet category only consisted of people who said they relied on search engines, on specialty websites, on social media, and other sort of local websites that only existed in the web environment.

[Bob Garfield]

And how popular was the digital space? Did it win out for any of these 16 categories?

[Lee Rainey]

Oh, yes. The Internet itself was the most relied upon source for five of the subjects that we asked about. It's very popular for getting information about local businesses, for local restaurants, for housing, for schools, and for jobs. And one of the most striking things that we saw is that if you're under age 40, you're much more likely to say the Internet is a primary source for you than if you are over age 40.

[Bob Garfield]

And in the there is nothing new under the sun category, word of mouth ranks as the second most popular source of local news, right behind TV.

[Lee Rainey]

74% said on a weekly basis they used local TV to get some local news. 55%, the second highest ranking, went to word of mouth. And that's when people said, I rely on my friends, I go to my neighbors, I go to trusted colleagues.

[Bob Garfield]

Word of mouth is not limited to words shared across the backyard fence. You're talking about Twitter and Facebook, one to one communication on every platform.

[Lee Rainey]

That's right. When a person's at the other end of the exchange, no matter what way they did that, if they mentioned a person as the source of the information, we scored it as a word of mouth activity.

[Bob Garfield]

So what do these results suggest about future results?

[Lee Rainey]

One of the most interesting things mobile users and people who actually participate in the news, people who have actively used social media platforms to contribute to news, to comment on news, to post pictures or videos. Both of those audience, the participators and the mobile folks, are way more into local news than everybody else in all of its forms. Encouraging news as conversation, encouraging people contributing their own stories to news operations and doing it in real time in the mobile environment. Both those things might have a significant payoff both to the audience and maybe even the business of news organizations.

[Bob Garfield]

Lee, thank you very much.

[Lee Rainey]

Thanks, Brooke.

[Bob Garfield]

Lee Rainey is the director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project.

[Gabriel Stricker]

Coming up, gamers crack the code of organic chemistry and possibly the psychology of physical recovery.

[Bob Garfield]

This is on the Media.

[Brooke Gladstone]

On the Media is supported by Reputation.com with tools designed to help lawyers, doctors and business professionals protect and improve their online reputations. More about controlling online [e-mail] support for on the Media also comes from constant contact, committed to success for small businesses and Nonprofits. [e-mail] Local the Doris Duke foundation for Islamic Art, seeking to improve Americans understanding.

[Bob Garfield]

Of Muslim arts and cultures and the.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Robert Wood Johnson foundation, providing resources to improve the quality of healthcare [e-mail] consumer this is NPR.

[Gabriel Stricker]

This is on the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

[Bob Garfield]

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last New Year's we devoted the show to gaming. We wondered if all those millions of hours spent in virtual worlds could have any substantive impact on the real one. Well, an article published in a recent issue of the journal Structural and Molecular Biology may have one answer. Using a game available to anyone online called Foldit, gamers successfully built a model of an enzyme crucial to understanding how many diseases, such as aids, do their damage. Solving the crystal structure of the MPMV retroviral protease has stumped scientists for more than 10 years. But the puzzle was solved by crowdsourced gamers in only 10 days. Zarin Popovich is One of the conceptual designers of the game, Foldit, he says it's like a very complex jigsaw puzzle or a kind of three dimensional Tetris. Professor Popovich, welcome to the show.

[Jane McGonigal]

Thanks for having me.

[Bob Garfield]

Assume I am woefully ignorant of the significance of protein folding. That is what the gamers figured out. This enzyme, how it folded, right?

[Jane McGonigal]

Right. If you know the shape of each one of the proteins, you more or less know the secret of life. And pretty much everything that's done in living organisms is done by proteins. This goes from digesting your food to moving your muscles, to defending against viruses and diseases. And everything is done through the way that the shape of protein interacts with shapes of other molecules.

[Bob Garfield]

Like keys in locks.

[Jane McGonigal]

Yeah, very much so.

[Bob Garfield]

So figuring out how this enzyme folded, why is it a big deal?

[Jane McGonigal]

Each virus has a whole bunch of proteins. A lot of them are on the surface. And how these surface proteins interact with other things is exactly how virus does its damage. Imagine if you had another jigsaw puzzle shape that you can attach to that protein on a virus. All of a sudden you can possibly neutralize that virus and it could no longer be attacking live cells.

[Bob Garfield]

I thought that was how protease inhibitors work, that we already knew how the AIDS virus folded.

[Jane McGonigal]

They know how some types of AIDS virus folded. They don't know all the proteins on the entire AIDS virus. And this particular virus is different than the human virus. This is a monkey virus that they're looking for. Because the more you understand how any one of the HIV viruses interacts and does its damage, the more likely you will create a universal drug that can prevent not just the virus, but its mutations as well.

[Bob Garfield]

If I were playing this game, what would I be looking at? Some sort of 3D model, like one of those IQ tests? I would have to try folding things in different ways or imagine how they would look when they were folded. I mean, how is this undertaking different from regular research? What are they seeing?

[Jane McGonigal]

Think of a necklace. And it's a necklace that instead of having beads, it has a whole bunch of these strange looking shapes on it, which are basically amino acids. And now you ask the question, what's the tightest possible way I can pack this necklace into smallest amount of space that turns out to be energetically the most stable shape of the protein. So what we're trying to do is move different parts of this necklace in such a way that you can pack it better. You have rubber bands and all sorts of tools with which you can do more and more of these manipulations and then there are also these superpower things you can apply, like wiggle and shake, which can sort of refine the protein even better.

[Bob Garfield]

Is this a visual spatial exercise, or do you have to understand that these are molecular structures that you are working together?

[Jane McGonigal]

You don't need to know any chemistry. And in fact, what we have done is encased the relevant biochemistry into the rules of the game. If you know the rules of the game, you know you can play and be highly effective.

[Bob Garfield]

Some time ago, we spoke to Jane McGonigal, and she says that there's a kind of game personality that enables people to focus incredibly hard for many, many hours and fail in a game and learn from their failures without being traumatized by them in a way that we can't do in real life. Are those the kinds of people who play your game?

[Jane McGonigal]

Many of the people that play our game have actually never really liked games until they found Foldit. And part of the reason for that is that it has this objective of actually helping humanity. And that's what pulled them on originally. They started playing it and it's like, oh, wow.

[Bob Garfield]

But that's what Jane McGonagall says, that everybody has a role and they're glad to be moving towards a common purpose.

[Jane McGonigal]

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, basically our task was to cast the widest possible net and see how many of those people become really interested in this kind of endeavor.

[Bob Garfield]

Tell me about the incentive structure.

[Jane McGonigal]

Originally we had scoring, and then it became obvious that people have different types of gameplay. For example, some people really love to start from scratch and develop the game and just have their name singularly on that solution. Other people were very, very good at taking other people's solutions and evolving them into better solutions. If you play the game for a while, you become highly ranked on the overall ranking, all protein folders. There are also groups you can be very good at organizing the group. For example, we have some groups that have players playing in states, and when these guys go to sleep, the Australians take on the protein and work on it.

[Bob Garfield]

What project do you have in the works that you're most excited about right now?

[Jane McGonigal]

One of the key aspects of Foldit was this ability to develop experts. One thing that came to us is that, well, this really is education in a nutshell. So why can we not revolutionize education in the same way? We lose so many people in elementary school and middle school that just conclude that math and science is not for them. We can make a game that automatically adapts to every student, such that not only are they more Proficient at math and science, but they actually like it and have fun with it just like they do with games.

[Bob Garfield]

You're working on a project to figure out how kids brains fold.

[Jane McGonigal]

Yeah, we're trying to discover the space of all possible confusions that kids can have on these concepts and then figure out how to uniquely present material in the game that adapts to every kid and make sure that light bulb lights up in their brain and they suddenly get it. Oh, this is fun. This is easy.

[Bob Garfield]

Zorin, thank you very much.

[Jane McGonigal]

You're welcome.

[Bob Garfield]

Zorin Popovich is one of the conceptual designers of the game Foldit. On that New Year's video game show I mentioned earlier, we played excerpts from a talk by game designer Jane McGonigal. A couple of years ago. She suffered a traumatic brain injury. In the headaches, vertigo and nausea it left behind. She couldn't work, she couldn't think, she couldn't stand it. Here, in a recent talk, she picks up the story.

[Brooke Gladstone]

So my doctor told me that in order to get better, it would take about a month. And there were all these things I couldn't do because it would slow the healing process. No reading, no writing, no video games, no computer time, no running, and no caffeine. So in other words, no reason to be living. It is kind of funny, but in all seriousness, suicidal ideation is very common in people with traumatic brain injuries. It's part of the trauma. And it actually happened to me. My brain started telling me in all seriousness that, Jane, you want to die. 30 days passed and I had not gotten any better. I was more depressed, anxious and lonely than I'd ever been. My doctor told me that these emotions were actually slowing the healing process. The brain cannot heal without positive emotion. So that's when I said to myself, I'm either going to kill myself or I'm going to turn this into a game.

[Bob Garfield]

Jane McGonigal told us that's how she came up with a game called Super Better.

[Brooke Gladstone]

It seemed to me that all of my research showing that games help us provoke positive emotion could be really useful during this recovery process. So I actually invented the game to heal my own traumatic brain injury.

[Bob Garfield]

How does it work?

[Brooke Gladstone]

Well, think of it as a kind of a recovery adventure game. Then we take you on a series of seven missions to identify your power ups. So these are things that you can do every day to feel stronger or feel better. We identified the bad guys, which are things you need to avoid, that you want to vanquish so that eventually, eventually they can't harm you anymore. We help you pick allies, so close friends and family members that you want to go on this adventure with you. And then we help you think about an epic win. So what would be a really positive outcome? Not just getting back to normal, but something at the end of it that would be even better than normal. That would feel like a real accomplishment. And once you've identified all of that, you build a secret headquarters where your friends and family can help you overcome the challenge and battle the bad guys. Collect your power ups, go on quests, take some of this helplessness or hopelessness out of what can be a really difficult process. How do you play so super better? Isn't a video game where you have an avatar and you're in a virtual world? We are more like a social media platform, more like Twitter or Facebook. It just so happens that what you're doing in this social media environment is are very playful or as we would say, very gameful. They're really focused around challenges and missions. Instead of a status update from your friend, you might get a quest from your friend. So it's less like a video game and more like a life management tool.

[Bob Garfield]

So what specifically were some of your goals, your enemies, and your quest?

[Brooke Gladstone]

When I first hit my head, I was actually in the middle of writing my book, and I was terrified that I would never finish it. So one of my first epic wins that I set for myself was just to be able to sit down and write for an hour. Later on, as I started to get better, I set more fun and ambitious epic wins. One was to go to a Lady Gaga concert, which seemed really impossible at the time because loud music or bright lights or crowded spaces were triggering really terrible symptoms. And then, of course, my bad guys, for a mild traumatic brain injury, you have things like the bright lights, caffeine or alcohol. Physical activity can really bring on symptoms. And so I would just track over time how much exposure I was able to have, but vanquish them if I suddenly felt strong enough to be around them or do them again. The power ups were really great because sometimes when you're sick or injured, it feels like you can't do anything at all. But I was able to come up with things like cuddling my dog, listening to a power song, you know, picking a song that makes you feel like you can take on the world.

[Bob Garfield]

Like, what?

[Brooke Gladstone]

This is somewhat embarrassing. I mean, of course, Lady Gaga songs, but I was really into this song called Bad Day by DAV Daniel Powder.

[Lee Rainey]

Cause you had a bad day, you take your one down, you sing a sad song just to turn it around.

[Brooke Gladstone]

I had many bad days in a row, but I listened to that song to kind of get perspective.

[Bob Garfield]

How is this different from self quantifying, just counting up how many minutes you can take an activity that you couldn't take before and positive thinking. I mean, what is it in the game mechanics that makes this different from that?

[Brooke Gladstone]

We're really trying to unlock a couple of things that games do better than anything else. And you know, the first is the power of positive emotion. There's been a ton of research in the health field showing that if you can have three positive emotions for every one negative emotion on a daily basis, that it actually radically improves your ability to recover from any illness or injury. Also, social connections. If you can feel really connected to at least two to three people, that is better for your health than quitting a pack a day cigarette habit. It's better for your health than going from obese to non obese. And these are things that games do really well, connect you with people who can become allies or unleash positive emotions like curiosity, surprise, awe and wonder.

[Bob Garfield]

When do you plan to make Superbetter publicly available?

[Brooke Gladstone]

We've just started a clinical trial with Ohio State University Medical center for the traumatic brain injury aspect of the game and we've started a private game with the company Zappos, the online retailer where they're going to have all 5,000 employees play for goals like losing weight, getting in shape and quitting smoking. And we hope to launch early 2012, but you can sign up now and we're sort of rolling people in based on the challenge they're facing as we get the content ready for them.

[Bob Garfield]

What if you have an injury or a problem you want to recover from, but you don't have any friends or family?

[Brooke Gladstone]

It works really well with just one ally and there are a number of people play testing it now with just one or two allies. If there's nobody that you feel comfortable inviting to play, we also have an online community where you can reach out to other people who are facing the same challenge or maybe have successfully met the same epic win that you're going for. And so you can invite them to be an ally for you.

[Bob Garfield]

You know, when we read about Super Better, it made us think immediately of our producer Alex Goldman, who suffered a pretty serious injury earlier this year. I want to bring Alex in. Alex, welcome back to the show. You made a brief appearance last week.

[Lee Rainey]

Thanks, Brooke.

[Bob Garfield]

Describe your hideous accident.

[Lee Rainey]

I was riding my bike and I was run over by a car and I sustained multiple Fractures. I sustained a compound fracture, which at the time I didn't realize meant that the bone was sticking out of my leg. I had one surgery in which they put what's called an external fixator. That's kind of like scaffolding that's screwed directly into the bones in my leg.

[Bob Garfield]

Your leg was entirely bolted to a contraption for weeks.

[Lee Rainey]

It was about three weeks. It was pretty awful. And now I have a plate on my shin and a pin in my fibula. And I've been walking since the end of July, but I still experience a lot of pain when I walk. And it swells every afternoon unless I wear what's called a compression hose, which is basically like a long stocking instead of a sock.

[Bob Garfield]

And you've been really down.

[Lee Rainey]

It's changed pretty much every aspect of the way I live my life. It's made it much more difficult to do simple things. I can't really. I limp when I walk. I certainly can't run and I can't ride my bike anymore, which is really probably the hardest thing for me.

[Bob Garfield]

So it seems like Alex is a perfect candidate for super better, right?

[Brooke Gladstone]

Yeah, it sounds like it. I'm so sorry, Alex, that. That is the case.

[Bob Garfield]

So where do you think he would be once he followed your six week timeline?

[Brooke Gladstone]

The one thing that we've definitely seen about this game is that the thing it does most powerfully is take out some of the anxiety, the depression or frustration that you feel. And once those out of the way, then it really does become possible to tackle the challenge head on, faster, and sort of with more courage. Hopefully Alex will be surprised at how strong you are and how much better you can get.

[Lee Rainey]

I'm curious, what kind of goal do you think I could set for myself? Because I thought about this a little bit in terms of the parameters of the game, and I'm kind of coming up empty. I'm not sure exactly what kind of goal I could set for myself that.

[Bob Garfield]

Would constitute an epic win.

[Lee Rainey]

Right.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Some people start with really small epic wins, something they want to do in the next 24 hours. Other people set epic wins that. That could take months. And it doesn't necessarily have to be related to getting better per se. Some people choose epic wins of just going someplace they've never been before. The key is not to just pick something clinical like, I want to be able to walk for 30 minutes, you know, without pain. Although you could if that were really exciting to you. But maybe it's walk for 30 minutes to this amazing place that I've been dying to go to, and my friends will meet me there and we'll totally celebrate. Something that has a little bit of a kick to it like that.

[Bob Garfield]

You played around a little in the game today, didn't you?

[Lee Rainey]

Yeah, I tried it out. And one of the first things you do is you set a secret identity. And when I thought of what kind of secret identity I wanted, I immediately thought of Omar Little from the Wire. But then I realized he doesn't really have any allies.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Oh, no, Omar had allies, sort of. I mean, they all wound up dead, but, you know.

[Lee Rainey]

Yeah, I guess that's true. And, you know, in the latter half of the series, he even sort of wanders around with a broken leg after jumping out a window. So I felt a bit. A lot of kinship toward him when I was.

[Bob Garfield]

So, Alex, are you game?

[Lee Rainey]

I'm definitely game. I'm actually going to be trying it out over the next six weeks and I'm going to be blogging about it on the onthemedia website. So if you want to see my goals and my secret identity, you want to see my secret lair, you can come to the OnTheMedia website, click on blog at the top and you'll be able to see some of the stuff that I've been working on.

[Bob Garfield]

Jane, do you think you might be able to come back at the end of six weeks and talk to Alex about it again?

[Brooke Gladstone]

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That would be great.

[Bob Garfield]

Thank you so much. And you too, Alex.

[Lee Rainey]

Thank you.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Good luck, Alex. I'm totally here as your ally.

[Bob Garfield]

That's pretty cool.

[Lee Rainey]

Yeah, that is cool.

[Bob Garfield]

I'd take her up on that.

[Lee Rainey]

I definitely will.

[Bob Garfield]

Shane McGonigal is a designer of Super Better and the author of Reality Is why Games Make Us Better and How they Can Change the World.

[Jane McGonigal]

I was born, baby.

[Gabriel Stricker]

I was born. Just be a drag Just be a queen don't be a drag Just be.

[Ira Flatow]

A queen don't be a drag Just be a queen.

[Gabriel Stricker]

That's it for this week's show on the Media was produced by Jamie York, Alex Goldman, BJ Vogt, Sara Abdurhan, Chris Neary, and Laura Mayer, with more help from Doug Anderson and Gianna Palmer and and edited by Brooke. Our technical director is Jennifer Munson. Our engineer this week was Dylan Keith.

[Bob Garfield]

Hatia Rogers is our senior producer. Ellen Horn is WNYC's senior director of national programs. Bassist composer Ben Allison wrote. Our theme on the Media is produced by WNYC and distributed by npr. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

[Gabriel Stricker]

And I'm Bob Garfield.

[Brooke Gladstone]

Support for on the Media comes from.

[Bob Garfield]

The Ford foundation, the Jane Marcher foundation, the Overbrook foundation, and the listeners of WNYC Radio.

[Jane McGonigal]

This is npr.

[Ira Flatow]

This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by a mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.