Rhetorical Questions

Fake. Real. Accurate. True. They're the keywords in any debate about representation, the sticky wicket famously represented by Belgian surrealist René Magritte in his painting The Treachery of Images (1929): a flat, cartoonish depiction of a tobacco pipe squats atop the deliciously polemical fiat "This is not a pipe." In this episode, Mark Johnson, from the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism, walks us through the process of representing a news story with a photograph, and Brian recalls the image of President Trump tossing rolls of paper towels to a crowd in Puerto Rico last September. This episode features the song "Oktoberfest Gaudi" by Steve Raphael. The episode illustration (Sharpie on paper towel) was drawn by Barbara Worth Ratner.

Four months after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, President Obama said that "the memories of these children demand" political action. This argument, which would become the centerpiece of Obama's campaign for gun control, raises questions of ethics and political strategy. Dr. Craig Rood, author of a forthcoming essay on the "warrant of the dead," joins us to discuss this argument and the political chasm it opened up.

In the latest installment of our series on "fake news," Lauren and I are joined by Drs. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, experts on the history and philosophy of science. Together we trace the history of objectivity, from the schools of Medieval European philosophy to the penny presses of Nineteenth Century America, and all the way up to the January 2017 Women's March on Washington. We debate whether journalistic objectivity has a future in the era of "fake news."

After being taken for fake journalists at a local campaign rally, Lauren and Brian reflect on the nature of podcasting as a popular medium, the various models from which podcasters can draw their credibility, and the tension between rigor and accessibility in academic podcasting.

In recent months Donald Trump has taken to labeling news stories and outlets that criticize him as "fake news." The term, which only a few months ago had been used to describe online hoaxes masquerading as news stories, now has become nearly impossible to define. Dr. Lauren Neefe returns to cohost, and together we make a foolhardy attempt to answer the question: what do the president's words mean?

Donald Trump claims to be not only a presidential candidate but also the leader of a historical movement to "make America great again." The day after his inauguration, however, millions marched in cities across America in order to show that Trump's movement does not speak for them. We interview participants at Atlanta's March for Social Justice and Women in order to better understand the roles of marginalization, solidarity, and persistence in rhetorical movements. Dr. Lauren Neefe cohosts.

As Barack Obama's presidency comes to an end, first drafts of his legacy are already being written. In this episode I'm joined by three scholars who are contributors to one such draft—an upcoming book called Reconsidering Obama: Reflections on Rhetoric. Professors Jennifer Mercieca, Mark McPhail, and David Frank discuss the "heroic expectations" that accompanied Obama's 2009 inauguration, his rhetoric of racial "consilience," and the haunting possibility that racism may be impervious to persuasion.

"Political correctness" has been a devil term for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, but the term's meaning is far from clear. In this episode I offer a history of political correctness, and suggest that, like every other part of Trump's campaign, his use of the term is like nothing we've seen before.

From time to time the news media call upon debate coaches to analyze the presidential debates, but always with an emphasis on what each candidate needs to do in order to score political points. In this episode we are joined by six current and former debate coaches and argumentation scholars, who lead the conversation in a very different direction. They discuss the civic virtues of the presidential debates, the challenges to moderating a good debate, and their hopes and fears for the upcoming debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

To many the goal of eliminating homelessness in the United States is hopelessly naive. But that is only because the nation has forgotten that homelessness, as we know it today, is less than 40 years old. Whitney Gent returns to share the forgotten story of the origins of homelessness.

The Michigan state legislature is currently considering a law that would fine those engaged in "aggressive panhandling." The bill's sponsor claims that there is a need to raise awareness of the dangers posed by people seeking financial assistance on the streets. But guests Whitney Gent and Melanie Loehwing reply that when it comes to people experiencing homelessness, the last thing the public needs is another lesson in fear.

Following her performance at Super Bowl 50, Beyoncé was condemned for calling attention to police brutality and invoking symbols of black liberationists. Her critics faulted her for injecting race into an event which was purportedly apolitical and post racial. But it may be that her true crime was slaying.

Four days before the 2016 Iowa Caucuses, Republicans—sans Donald Trump—got together for their seventh presidential primary debate. One of the 12 million people to tune in that night, Dr. Ryan Kennedy, believes that mathematical models can give us new insight into the candidates' debate strategies. But there may be limits to what numbers can tell us.

A pair of emails about racially insensitive Halloween costumes led to highly publicized confrontations between students and faculty at Yale. Students insisted that the university had a responsibility not only to promote learning, but also to create a safe and welcoming community. Faculty proclaimed the value of free speech. But according to the news media, who quickly jumped on the story, the conflict was just a squabble between adults and children.

When President Obama's administration finalized the Iranian nuclear accord, it was met with praise as well as skepticism. But some were more than skeptical—arguing that the very act of negotiating with Iran was in effect a surrender. The argument did not surprise Professors Robert Ivie and Oscar Giner, who just released a book arguing that US war rhetoric has always transformed outsiders into enemies, and enemies into devils. Dr. Ivie joins the show to discuss Hunt the Devil: A Demonology of US War Culture.

This past June the US Supreme Court handed down two long awaited rulings, one rejecting a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (King v. Burwell) and the other overturning state bans on same sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges). In each case, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia issued scathing dissents filled with an obscure vocabulary and bitter insults—dissents that speak to the relationship between law, rhetoric, and democratic legitimacy.

In April a video was released of ESPN reporter Britt McHenry verbally assaulting a towing company clerk in Arlington, Virginia. In the video McHenry boasted about her education, her profession, her good looks, and noted in cruel detail the clerk's corresponding deficiencies. The media jumped on the story right away, condemning and defending McHenry in turn. But no one wanted to talk about the social values invoked by McHenry, or admit that they might share in her privileges.

In January, 2015 three students at South Portland High School in Maine added the words "if you'd like to" to the morning announcement for students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, in order to clarify that the First Amendment protects the right of students to choose not to salute the flag. Neither the students nor their teachers were prepared for the controversy that followed--a controversy that taught the community more than it may have wanted to know about the persuasive force of civic rituals.

 In December, 2014, the Rolling Stone wrote two versions of a "Note to Readers" that apologized for the magazine's failure to corroborate allegations of gang rape made in a recent feature article. The first "note" was strongly criticized for casting blame on the University of Virginia student, identified as Jackie, who made the accusation. Within a day the magazine quietly revised their note, removing the most explicit condemnation of Jackie. But the second note may not have been as benign as it seemed.

In a Democratic presidential primary debate in 2007, perennial gaffe machine Joe Biden was asked, "Can you reassure voters in this country that you would have the discipline you would need on the word stage?" His unexpected response can teach us a great deal about the performance of credibility.