Sunday 9/13 Discussion

 

This Sunday, Robert and Paul will host a discussion about money in politics. Specifically, the discussion is an investigation of how the influx of capital as a means of endorsing political campaigns as influenced propagation of speech and information in political campaigns.

The supporting articles will primarily focus on how things have evolved relating to money in politics, starting off with Citizens’ United:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/18/11527/citizens-united-decision-and-why-it-matters

There is also the matter of how some of the money that different groups give to politicians is used, primarily for all the political ads that come up just about everywhere:

http://www.freepress.net/resource/98449/medias-political-spin-cycle-infographic

http://journalistsresource.org/studies/politics/ads-public-opinion/negative-political-ads-effects-voters-research-roundup

With these advertisements, as well as the many speeches and debates that politicians are involved in, there’s the matter of whether or not what they’re saying is actually true or not, i.e. fact-checking:

http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/fact-checking-journalism-changing-politics/

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/factcheck-politifact-lying-politicians

With this being said, there’s a greater question to be posed: can this be fixed? Is there a way to properly bring facts back from political campaigns to the people?

http://jonathanstray.com/measuring-and-increasing-accuracy-in-journalism

Is there a means of creating an entire subsystem specifically for political campaigns that independently verifies all information from any part of the political spectrum, so as to ensure that voters can willing turn out to the polls and use the resources given to them to cast a more well-reasoned vote?

Food is likely to be Don Juan’s for Sunday’s dinner.

 

Also, please feel free to invite anyone else who would like to attend!