In Reality

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Aug 2026

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“In Reality” debunks fake news and elevates the innovative researchers, entrepreneurs, journalists and policymakers who are fighting back against toxic misinformation. Co-hosts Joan Donovan, research director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media and Public Policy, and Eric Schurenberg, an award-winning journalist and former CEO of Fast Company, engage guests in enlightening conversations about solutions to this scourge and the path back to a shared reality.

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August 6, 202632 min

Can You Be A Journalist Without A Newsroom? Rachel Lobdell: News Creator Corps Executive Director

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg—longtime journalist and media executive, now founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.When Eric started in journalism, the enforcer of accuracy was the newsroom. Editors questioned your work. Fact checkers combed through it for errors. The organization you worked for held you accountable for its reputation. But as everyone knows, fewer people today get their news from this kind of institutional journalism. The growth in news consumption comes from so-called independent journalists—social media influencers, podcasters and Substackers, many of whom never set foot in a newsroom. In this media environment, people trust individuals more than organizations to tell them the truth.Rather than resisting this trend, today’s guest is trying to shape it. Rachel Lobdell is the executive director of News Creator Corps, which trains creators in the disciplines that professional reporters learned in the newsroom: sourcing, fact checking, public records, transparency, and ethics.This raises all kinds of questions for an institutionalist like Eric. Can news integrity be repotted outside the newsroom? Can creators maintain audience trust without pandering? And what happens to news gathering when journalists backed by newsrooms are replaced by individuals?So, let’s ask News Creator Corps’ Rachel Lobdell.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Rachel Labdell and News Creator Corps02:01 Rachel's background in traditional journalism03:30 What is News Creator Corps and its mission04:48 Training creators with no journalism background05:42 Impact of creator trust in underserved communities07:34 Different types of creators and their roles08:02 Why focus on creators without journalism training09:25 The importance of mentorship and community12:42 The NCC Collective and creator accreditation13:59 Handling monetization and ethical standards16:33 Dealing with sponsored content and disclosures18:21 Guarding against sensationalism and algorithm influence20:46 Sourcing and transparency in creator content22:50 The future of creator-driven news ecosystems27:34 Long-term vision for trustworthy information28:30 Measuring impact and community engagementWebsite - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

July 21, 202641 min

Heart vs. Head: How to Actually Get Things Done in a Diverse Democracy with the Civity Founders

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation andthe media with host Eric Schurenberg, long time journalist,now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.Over the years, he's interviewed a number of people from the so-called bridge-building community. They’ve been researchers likeMatt Levendusky of University of Pennsylvania, Journalists likeAmanda Ripley, bridge builders like Monica Guzman, allconvinced that things would be better if Americans could just stopdemonizing their neighbors. Let’s stipulate that’s a worthy goal.Still, all of these movements face a similar problem: How do youscale listening skills? How long do the effects of civilconversations across political divides actually last?I’ll put those questions to today’s guests, Malka Kopell and PalmaStrand, the founders of 13-year old Civity.org. Kopell describesher background as a community organizer, but she’s also been aprogram officer at the Hewlett Foundation and founding managingdirector of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society atStanford. Strand came to Civity after a career it law, teaching lawat Creighton University and the University of Marland andclerking for, among others, Supreme Court justice Byron White.The Civity insight is that relationships are key to building trust andtrust is fundamental to getting things done in a diverse society.Civity’s recipe is to train local leaders—from mayors to citycouncils and nonprofit directors —to build relationships beforetackling contentious issues.It sounds great, but perhaps still subject to the issues of scale andpersistence facing all bridge builders. But let’s let Civity’sfounders explain themselves why they believe their approachworks.Now, here’s Malka Kopell and Palma Strand.Chapters00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guests01:03 Main Questions About Civil Conversations02:16 Introducing Civity and Its Work03:21 Types of Leaders Trained by Civity04:40 Founders' Backgrounds and Epiphanies08:31 What Makes Civity Different from Other Approaches10:00 The 'Conversation Before the Conversation'12:46 Relationship Building in Civic and Business Spheres15:02 Addressing Scale and Reach Challenges17:39 Engaging the Middle and Open-minded Communities21:34 Storytelling Guidelines and Listening Skills23:47 Media's Role in Societal Divides26:44 Media Narratives and Real-Life Community Stories29:23 Journalistic Approaches to Divisiveness31:20 AI's Impact on Society and Connection33:49 A Simple Civic Workshop for Neighborhoods35:45 Focusing on Differences and Complexity in Conversations36:20 Micro Interactions and Building Trust in Daily Life38:36 The Power of One-on-One Conversations39:28 Optimism vs. Pessimism About Society's Future40:39 Closing Remarks and Final ThoughtsWebsite - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

July 7, 202633 min

What Really Works To Bridge Political Divides with 'Our Common Bonds' Author Matthew Levendusky

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime media executive, and now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. If you've listened to this podcast more than once, you've likely heard a recurring question: What would it take to get Americans over their political alienation? Would it help to clean up and diversify our media diets? Would it help to understand where the other side is coming from?Today's guest thinks the answer might be to emphasize all we have in common as Americans, as neighbors, as friends. More important than the theory, perhaps, is that he actually tested this hypothesis in the field. Matthew Lewandusky is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Our Common Bonds. Through a series of experiments described in the book, he tested whether reminding us of what we have in common, friendships,Sports teams, patriotism, can reduce the instinct to demonize fellow citizens. Some approaches work well, others hardly at all. His findings are especially interesting to me because they're closely related to an Alliance for Trust project in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, exploring whether shared local history can help bridge political divides. So today, as we brace for the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding.Let's dive into the power of our common bonds...Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

June 18, 202623 min

Politics Without Polarization in Iowa with Governor Candidate Rob Sand (Democrat)

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. When Eric interviewed Rob Sand last summer, his run for Iowa governor had more than a whiff of tilting at windmills. He remains the only Democrat to hold statewide elected office in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the governorship in more than 20 years and that Trump carried in 2024 by 13 points. Sand’s prospects have drastically improved. Nothing quixotic about it now. He has run a campaign that may be one of the most bi-partisan in the country, by accusing both parties as out of touch with Iowans. His Republican opponent, Zach Lahn, has vulnerabilities, including that he voted in Kansas until recently, allowing Sand’s campaign to label him a carpetbagger. Which is why we decided to encore last summer’s interview. We’ll hear how Sand plans to persuade Republicans to cross party lines and vote for him. We’ll hear what personal qualities he thinks can bridge political divides and how, in his own life, he manages to avoid being trapped in the filter bubbles that make America’s media ecosystem so toxic to civil discourse. Imagine an election in which the deciding principle isn't 'let’s choose the lesser of two evils', but rather, 'may the best man win'. What a concept. Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

May 29, 202622 min

The Delicate Art of Managing Reputation in the Age of AI with Featured's Brett Farmiloe

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. When we talk about the information ecosystem on this podcast, you tend to focus on its public-facing parts, so journalists, social media platforms, influencers. But there is another player, one that acts behind the scenes: public relations.Now, PR has always been kind of a wholesaler of information, connecting clients who can pay the PR firm to make them visible with journalists who need the content. Like everything else, PR has been turned upside down first by social media and now by AI. Today's guest is Brett Farmiloe, co-founder and CEO of Featured, which uses AI to help do what PR associates used to do and still do to some extent.Full disclosure, what brought Brett to my attention is that Featured is also the company that brought back Help A Reporter Out, known by its acronym HARO, the service that journalists of Eric's generation used religiously. Brett operates at a fascinating point in the evolution of the attention economy, where reputation once built by journalists and PR, then shaped by algorithms, is now increasingly at the mercy of what AI models say.01:40Introduction to Featured and HARO03:46Reviving HARO: Trust and Quality in PR07:11The Role of AI in PR and Media09:55Navigating Native Advertising and Content Creation12:46The Freemium Model and Revenue Generation15:39Legacy Media vs. New Media in the Information Ecosystem17:59The Importance of Sharing KnowledgeWebsite - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

May 12, 202638 min

The Way Back to Truth as We Once Knew It with 'The Future of Truth' Author Steven Rosenbaum

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. What happened to truth in the digital age and how will AI challenge it even further? Those are the questions at the heart of today's conversation. Steve Rosenbaum, Emmy award-winning filmmaker, founder of the Sustainable Media Center, and the author of the new book, The Future of Truth. The book runs through just about every institution that was once a pillar of what Jonathan Rauch calls the reality-based community. That is media, law, science, economics, medicine, and how AI is already reshaping it.Eric and Steve talk about why those institutions lost their authority and what fills the vacuum. They'll talk about a generation raised inside the social media feed on whom we've been conducting a society level experiment whose outcome we can't predict. And we'll talk about whether there is any path back to truth as we once knew it through regulation or technology or just old fashioned media literacy.Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

May 1, 202658 min

12 Years at War Against Misinformation - Renée DiResta. Author of 'Invisible Rulers'

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.If you want to understand how we got to this moment, a moment in which most Americans say they can't tell what's true online anymore, when loud minorities can manufacture the appearance of mass consensus, when we have retreated from a shared sense of facts to our own bespoke realities, let me introduce you to Renée DiResta. Renée has been a warrior for truth in these polarized times longer than almost anyone. She mapped anti-vaccine networks on Facebook in 2013. At the Stanford Internet Observatory, she exposed state-sponsored influence operations and for her trouble, she has been slandered before Congress, subpoenaed and doxed and harassed. Her book, Invisible Rulers, is an encyclopedic account of what happened to us all when the ancient human rumor mill met the modern machinery of networked propaganda. She's now a professor at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy and she's still very much in the fight. Renée and Eric talk about how ordinary people get pulled into false narratives, how it feels to be targeted by powerful people living out fake and cynical narratives, and how AI is rewriting the rules of influence. And why, despite everything, Renée hasn't given up the fight. And now here's Renée de Resta.Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

April 16, 202632 min

The Kinds of Stories that Bridge Political Divides. Melody Mohebi (Democracy 2076) & Brian Waniewski (Harmony Labs)

Welcome to In Reality, the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schoenberg, a longtime journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media. Most people think of America's political divisions as based in political ideology, red versus blue, liberal versus conservative. But what if we're misunderstanding the fault lines?Today's guests, Brian Waniewski, the CEO of Harmony Labs and Melody Mohebi of Democracy 2076, have spent the past two years collaborating on a study of how to get Americans to engage with politics. The key lever they identified wasn't policy arguments, but rather stories. Their report, The Power of Story to Grow Democracy, and we'll link to it in the show notes, analyzes hundreds of popular films and shows.It runs dozens of randomized experiences with more than 10,000 participants and what they found was striking. Americans today may seem irreconcilable, and tend to converge on what they actually want from democracy. A system that is fair, representative and effective. Where they differ is the set of values that move them towards those goals. Values that are revealed by the stories that resonate with them. Americans that prioritize particular values tend to respond to particular narratives, particular kinds of heroes, particular story arcs, particular visions of change. Now, the conclusion of this report, which Eric found very interesting as a media guy, is how we frame the news, and how we frame our telling of American history can matter more in healing divisions than arguing over facts.Dig into this more in the conversation coming up with Brian Waniewski and Melody Mohebi.Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

March 28, 202648 min

You Are Not Thinking As Clearly As You Think - with 'Good Thinking' Author David Robert Grimes

Welcome to In Reality—the podcast about truth, disinformation, and the media with Eric Schurenberg, long-time journalist and media executive, now the founder of the Alliance for Trust in Media.Here is the question of our information-saturated age: Why, when they have access to more information than ever in history, do so many people believe things that are demonstrably untrue? This is not just the gullible, not just “those people”—but also all of us who pride ourselves on thinking clearly. Today’s guest has spent his career trying to answer that question. David Robert Grimes earned his PhD as a physicist, but switched over to public health and is now an assistant professor at Trinity College School of Medicine in Dublin Ireland. But it’s his parallel career—as a science journalist and author—that brings him to In Reality.His book Good Thinking—published in the UK as The Irrational Ape—is one of the most readable guides at explaining why human reasoning fails us. In 2014 he won the John Maddox Prize for standing up for science in the face of adversity. In Grimes’ case, that included death threats and campaigns to have him fired from his university post. He kept writing anyway.In Grimes’ view the barrier is the cognitive architecture we all share—the confirmation biases, the motivated reasoning, the deep human need to protect our identity even at the cost of the truth. In this conversation we’ll dig into why people believe what they believe, what even the most respected journalism institutions get wrong, what AI means for the information ecosystem—and what we can do about it.Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com

February 26, 202638 min

In Democracy, You Can’t Avoid Conflicts. You Have To Just Do Them Better - Jonathan Stray

It’s pretty much a cliché to say that Americans live in two separate political realities. We shout at each other from our separate bunkers, unable to agree even on basic facts. One coping strategy—and maybe the default, given human nature—is to hunker down with our own tribe and demonize the other. But there are more constructive ways, and today’s guest makes a living examining those alternatives. He’s Jonathan Stray, senior scientist at University of California Berkeley’s Center for Human-Compatible AI and the creator of the excellent newsletter Better Conflict Bulletin. Jonathan studies the growing field of peace-building—that is, helping people from different factions work together. He’s involved in research about AI primed to unite people rather than divide them. Some things we learn from this conversation: About a journalistic standard called multi-partiality, a more attainable goal than impartiality. About how you might construct an algorithm that prioritizes reliable news over popular news. And why, despite the state of discord right now, there are reasons to be optimistic. Faithful listeners might recognize that we recorded this podcast about a year ago, but its relevance has only increased. We're re-posting this the day after the most divisive state of the union address Eric has ever heard. This administration will not last forever, and we will as a country need to find our way back to working together. And we can really use some of Jonathan’s optimism about our ability to do that.Website - free episode transcriptswww.in-reality.fmAlliance for Trust in Mediaalliancefortrust.comProduced by Tom Platts at Sound Sapiensoundsapien.com