A few weeks ago, Meta was in trouble. 47 states plus several U.S. territories were suing the company in federal court for knowingly harming kids with its apps, Instagram and Facebook. Several of the states were in the middle of a trial in California; damaging information was coming out about Meta; execs were being grilled on the stand; there was talk of CEO Mark Zuckerberg having to testify, and damages as high as $1.4 trillion. The company had already lost two major trials over child safety this year. The wind seemed to be at the states’ backs.

And then they settled. Without even finishing their case in court. Meta didn’t have to admit any wrongdoing.

Why? Why did the states give in? The evidence against Meta was damning. Why didn’t the states take the company to task and force a verdict?

Brian calls up the man who led the negotiations with Meta for the states, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, to ask him why he and his colleagues gave in.

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And subscribe to our newsletter please!

Guests:

• Jonathan Skrmetti, Attorney General of Tennessee

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Today we’re excited to share a special episode of Reaching Out, a new podcast from Futuro and KCRW.

Hailed by Ira Glass as the “best new show I’ve heard in years,” Reaching Out is a story about fathers, sons, and the distance between. The story begins on the eve of twin brothers’ Sayre and Connor’s 30th birthday, when they set out to find the biological father who abandoned them before they were born.

Their search pulls them through desert raves, drunken nightclubs, and across borders of time and language, forcing the brothers to confront the truths they’ve hidden from each other and themselves. And it’s not long before the twins discover that their birth father is closer than they ever could have imagined.

Follow Reaching Out on your favorite podcast app. New episodes drop every week.

When Florida reporter Kate Payne stumbled across a local news site called The South Florida Standard, something about it felt off. She’d never heard of the outlet before and didn’t know any of the journalists who were listed on its staff, even though their bios touted long careers in Florida journalism. The articles the site was publishing seemed like very normal local news stories, but they were often plagiarizing the reporting of other Florida news outlets. The coverage didn’t have any obvious political agenda or bias. And Kate couldn’t see a way the site was making any money; there were no ads or ways to subscribe.

What was going on here?

After Kate told Question Everything producer Zach St. Louis about this, he got sucked into the mystery – and ended up solving it. A bizarre whodunnit for our AI age.

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And subscribe to our newsletter please!

Kate Payne reported a version of this story for The Florida Trib, which you can read here.

Jeremy Carrasco is director of Riddance and the creator of JeremyFindsAI.

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What would it take to actually fix America’s broken journalism industry? Using rural North Carolina as a petri dish, the podcast Scene on Radio spent their latest season, called “The News”, diagnosing how American journalism is failing the public: collapsing local newsrooms, corporate consolidation, an information crisis nobody seems able to solve.

In the final episode of “The News”, host John Biewen and co-host Chenjerai Kumanyika turn to solutions: how can good journalism survive, and what is the vision for a new age of robust, public interest journalism?

You can hear the full season of Scene on Radio wherever you get your podcasts.

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

Guests:

• John Biewen, co-host of Scene on Radio
• Chenjerai Kumanyika , co-host of Scene on Radio
• Les High, Founder and publisher of The Border Belt Independent
• Victor Pickard, co-director of the Media, Inequality & Change (MIC) Center at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication

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Local reporters from around the country tell stories of using the experiences of their neighbors to confront people in power.

Guests:

• Anna Wolfe with Mississippi Today
• Lisa Halverstadt with Voice of San Diego
• Alissa Zhu with The Baltimore Banner
• Tony Plohetski with The Austin American-Statesman and KVUE Austin

Lisa is a part of the Homelessness Beat Reporters Collective, which recently produced a guide on how to responsibly cover homelessness. That guide can be found here.

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

This episode was originally published on June 26th, 2024.

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How one of the most accomplished reporters of our time, Barton Gellman, lost his confidence in journalism.

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

This episode was originally published on September 26th, 2024. You can listen to our follow up episode with Barton Gellman - He Quit Journalism to Fight Authoritarianism. How’s That Going?

Guests:

• Barton Gellman

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Over the past few months, we’ve been closely covering the major lawsuits against Meta over the ways its apps have hurt young people.

This week, we’re sharing a special episode of "Left To Their Own Devices", a Peabody-nominated series hosted by Gen Z reporter and tech-safety advocate Ava Smithing.

Recorded live on stage shortly after the recent jury verdicts against Meta and YouTube, Ava interviews NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of the wildly influential "The Anxious Generation", about his ideas for how to keep kids safe from social media -- some of which Ava doesn't buy into.

It’s a timely conversation as courts and policymakers continue to grapple with how to hold tech companies accountable, and force them to make their products safer for young people.

Guests:

• Ava Smithing, Left to Their Own Devices host
• Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation

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Just hours after we dropped last week’s episode on New Mexico’s landmark trial against Meta, Judge Bryan Biedsheid issued his ruling on what changes the company would have to make to Facebook and Instagram to better protect kids.

He ordered Meta to pay New Mexico $567 million, on top of the earlier $375 million jury penalty. He also mandated that Meta make unprecedented changes to its platforms, including limiting how long teens can use its apps and preventing their accounts from being recommended to adult strangers. This decision could become a blueprint for other states as they bring their own suits against Meta.

But the judge rejected some of the state’s biggest demands, forcing him to wade into a thicket of questions about privacy, free speech, child safety, and the limits of what one court can do. Brian talks to Question Everything producer Zach St. Louis, one of the only reporters at phase two of the trial in Santa Fe, about the ruling.

If you haven’t already, listen first to our other episodes about the New Mexico v Meta case, which led to this consequential decision – The Sting That Exposed How Meta Endangers Kids and We Went to the Trial That Could Force Meta to Change its Ways

Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. Follow us on Instagram: @questionverything.podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.

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