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75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Talk Cocktail

Jeff Schechtman

Jeff Schechtman talks with authors, journalists, newsmakers and opinion shapers, and sheds light on the issues of the day, from local stories to national and international headlines and ideas. jeffschechtman.substack.com

news & politics

All Episodes

21:08

Our quantified self - Or how our own data will make...

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/04/07

Today, digital privacy is on everyone's mind. We know that every time we search, use an App, make an online purchase, or even go to the doctor, more and more information is being collected about us. The degree to which we can do anything about it, or even care in this digital age, is an open question. However, what if we ourselves could access and use this information? Not to make us better consumers, but to actually make us happier. If we understand our digital footprint, will it make us

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24:35

Fear and Loathing in the Atomic Age

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/04/04

From the discovery of x rays at the turn of the century, to the tragedy of Fukushima, we’ve had 120 years of the nuclear age. Yet something that was once so modern, so cutting edge, filled with so much promise, is now viewed as a scourge upon mankind. While nuclear medicine makes life saving procedures possible, nuclear proliferation still drives international concern. While the physics of the atom tries to give us a better understanding of our past, the fear is still pervasive that the same

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29:32

An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted...

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/04/02

In Heart of Darkness, Conrad spoke of exploring up river with a “general sense of vague and oppressive wonder. Like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints of nightmare.” Paul Rosolie made a journey into his own heart of darkness, as he engaged in an extraordinary adventure into the uncharted tributaries of the Western Amazon. He writes about his experiences in Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon. Paraphrasing Conrad, Rosolie conveys the

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19:53

Self-Help That Actually Works - A True Story

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/04/02

Who among us is not multitasking? The idea of watching or working multiple screens is now a term of art. But are the pressures, demands and distractions producing an anxiety that has some long term consequences? Simply viewed, has the evolution of our brain and our central nervous system kept pace with our needs, our desires and our technology? For millennials and digital natives, it may be getting closer. For the rest of us, not so much. So is the answer to seek digital hibernation, or to

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19:49

There is no privacy! Should we just get over it?

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/04/01

Back in 1999, almost fifteen years ago, Sun Microsystems then Gadfly-in-Chief Scott McNealy made his infamous statement that “you have zero privacy anyway, get over, it.” There was a kerfuffle at the time, mostly that he had the nerve to say such a thing. Imagine, someone telling the truth. The fact is he was right then, and all the debate from time to time, about terms of service for Google or Facebook, has resulted in very little change in the private sector, with respect to online privacy

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27:14

The Road to Global Prosperity

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/31

On of the strongest arguments for globalization and free trade, is that nations that do business together don’t go to war. The corollary of that is that continued economic growth depends upon no major wars. In other words, global prosperity depends on politics. But can the two be separated. Politics impacts economic growth and in many ways, as peoples of the world seek a higher or better standard of living, economics impacts politics. We’ve created a kind of global feedback loop. The result

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21:20

Why we still need to work with our hands....

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/30

In the Netflix series House of Cards, Vice President Frank Underwood, a man dealing with and plotting the the fate of of the world, takes time out to work with his hands and craft, lay out and paint Civil War figurines. He says it's a form of relaxation. For many people, even those in high profile, high stress jobs, working with their hands, doing crafts and even cooking, fulfill a primal and important need. In a world where nothing ever seems to conclude, when the days and responsibilities and

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22:01

The Changing Face of the Business of Hollywood

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/29

When it comes to Hollywood, William Goldman certainly may have been right when he said that, “nobody knows anything.” Certainly the forces that drive Hollywood have always been somewhat mysterious. Why and how pictures get made, why some get to be hits and others misses. How some generate buzz and some actors and movies get hot, all sometimes seemsto be the stuff of movie magic. And all of this was before the digital age. Before Netflix, and Amazon and Hulu and Pirate Bay and digital prints:

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25:07

Why "the mall" in Pakistan is too important to ignore

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/28

T.S. Eliot may have had the best take on trying to understand the world when he said that, “we shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Perhaps that is even more true today, as some places in the world are ever changing and that with each visit we need to see and understand them anew. Haroon Ullah is a Pakistani American scholar and diplomat. In The Bargain from the Bazaar: A Family's Day of

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17:50

Dancing Through It

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/27

Years ago I was having dinner with a friend and a friend of hers, who was a member of the Joffrey Ballet. I asked this young woman, how is was that she became a professional ballerina? Her answer still sticks with me. She said that she started at six taking ballet classes, like every other young girl. The difference is, she never stopped. What stuck with me is the idea, and we see it in so many endeavors, that at six or seven, we already embody the passions that will guide us, the rest of our

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18:12

Portrait of an Artist as a Dead Man

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/25

William James talked about “the bitch goddess success,” and the strange sacrifices that it takes from us. Today, the same might be said of the pursuit of fame. Whether it’s thousands of “Likes” on Facebook, millions of Twitter followers, ones own reality show, or simply 24/7 adulation, today fame is both the holy grail and the ultimate aphrodisiac. But think how sad it would be to achieve fame, only after you're gone. The idea of posthumous success is what drives Richard Vetere new novel The

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31:37

Three Young Americans Imprisoned in Iran

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/25

Ever since the Iranian hostage crisis in November of 1979, political and diplomatic relations between the US and Iran have been irreparably ruptured. Thirty years later, three young Americans would be hiking near the Iraq / Iran border. They would be captured, accused of espionage, transferred to Iran's most notorious prison and held, sometimes for long periods in solitary confinement. Their story is a cautionary reminder of the complexities of politics in the Middle East and most importantly of

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18:27

Why General Relativity still matters

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/22

We all know the equation E=MC2. We’ve all read about Einstein's theory of general relativity. But how many of us know what it means, how it came to be and how relevant it might be today, one-hundred years after it was put forth. Much has been written about Einstein, but Pedro Ferreira in The Perfect Theory: A Century of Geniuses and the Battle over General Relativity gives us a real biography of general relativity and explains why we should still care. My conversation with Pedro Ferreira:

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25:03

The Birth of Right and Left

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/21

Today, virtually everything in society has become atomized by the left/right, red/blue debate. Whether it’s culture, entertainment, politics, sports, science and health, all are shaped by how we see the liberal vs. conservative divide. But rarely do we stop to try and understand the roots of all of this. Where did these terms come from, who were their intellectual fathers and how has their meaning morphed over decades and even centuries? Conservative political analyst, and journalist Yuval

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25:38

No One Has the Time

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/20

We all intuitively know that the greatest gift we can get today, is the gift of time. We just don’t have enough. The pressures and stresses of work, parenthood, family and personal commitments pull us in multiple directions, all the time. The technology that was supposed to free us up and make us more efficient, has become a kind of parolee ankle bracelet tying us down even more. Societal expectations of what it means to be a good parent or to lean in at work, add yet another layer to the

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29:46

The Looming Generational Showdown

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/19

We spend a lot of time talking about technological change. The impact that everything from our phones and the Internet to self driving cars are having on the way we live. The fact is, the single greatest factor in changing the way we live, may be the demographic changes shifting right in our neighborhoods and workplaces. Boomers are, not so gracefully, aging out and retiring. Millennials are trying to find and take their place in the world and, as many of the ads during the

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25:38

How well do we handle feedback?

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/17

Someone once referred to advice, as sanctioned nagging. It’s cute, but the fact is that we get advice all the time. Some of it is valuable, much of it useless. But do we miss the value of the good advice by our defensiveness, by our pre programmed fight or flight response and simply our reflexive shutting down in the face of criticism? Performance reviews, student conferences, even the old standby the report card, are all part of our feedback loop. It’s all around us. Those giving the feedback

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32:54

This Bud's for you..The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/14

In this age of startups, creative destruction, public companies and activist investors, it's hard to imagine the idea of creating a huge industrial empire, run by successive generations of family Few empires exemplify this better than the history of Anheuser-Busch. From its Germanic roots in St. Louis, it’s a story of all that is American culture, good and bad. Ambition, philandering divorce, substance abuse, violence, family feuds, all washed down with a beer. It’s a saga of an American family

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25:55

The Vatican: One Year After Francis

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/12

Winston Churchill one refereed to the former Soviet Union as an enigma, wrapped in "a riddle, surrounded by mystery." Much the same might be said about the Vatican. A large bureaucracy, competing political interests, the potential and reality of scandal and cover up. John Thavis, has spent almost 30 years covering the Vatican. He walked the hallowed halls, was one of the "boys on the bus" on the papal plane and understands both the human and spiritual side of this seemingly monolithic and often

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29:21

Joe McGinniss, RIP

Talk Cocktail ·

2014/03/12

As a 26 year old reporter covering the Nixon campaign in l968, Joe McGinniss would go on to write one of the seminal works of political reporting. The Selling of the President 1968 would portray the next level of media in politics. If the televised Nixon/Kennedy debate set the stage, the 1968 Nixon campaign and the work of a young Roger Ailes, as reported by McGinniss', would be main event. McGinness would go on to write about many other controversial characters, both in the annals of politics and

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1,369 results

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