Why Should I Trust You?

Researcher and author Renée DiResta has spent years studying how influence works online, including the power dynamics that determine which voices get heard and which ones have influence.
In a new report she co-authored, DiResta not only digs into the transformation from old media to new, but also examines how institutions need to rethink their approach to communication. Which brings us to a bigger question: What happens when institutional authority itself is no longer enough to earn people’s attention or trust?
The old system, in which institutions such as universities, government agencies, think tanks, and nonprofits could rely on mainstream media gatekeepers to relay their insights and messages, has been upended. Today, as influence and attention have shifted toward individual creators, online communities, and influencers, those same institutions (along with their expertise) must find ways to enter these new arenas or risk becoming irrelevant.
In this episode, DiResta wrestles with how institutions can make headway and rebuild trust in this new world while staying true to their core missions.

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guest:
Renée DiResta is an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where she studies influence, propaganda, online information systems and institutional resilience. She previously served as research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Her latest work, co-authored for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, examines how institutions must adapt to a radically changed media environment—and rethink how they earn attention, influence and legitimacy.
Link to the report:
https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/nonprofit-organizations-how-to-engage-social-media-new-media-strategy

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Today we ask: When it comes to spending taxpayer dollars on scientific research, how much should elected politicians decide what gets funded,  and how much should be decided by scientists and those who lead our health agencies? 
Where should the line be between supporting the best scientific questions and the ones that our elected leaders think are best?

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. 2001 to 2009, he served as science advisor to the Republican leadership on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he was responsible for negotiating budgets for the NIH and several of the other health agencies.
Michael Green, a population health researcher and a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His work includes examining how people's experiences of unfair treatment in health care affect their health. Michael is one of the researchers who filed a class-action lawsuit this month alleging the NIH is using keyword searches to flag grants for things like DEI and gender, and to cut or force changes to those grants. 

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This year is shaping up to be the worst in three decades for measles cases. The biggest case count is in Pennsylvania, home to the country’s largest outbreak right now. At its center is Lancaster County and its large Amish community.
As you're likely aware, the outbreak has also become a political fight, with Governor Josh Shapiro and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly clashing, even over how many deaths to count.
So what is that fight obscuring about what’s actually happening on the ground? And, widening out, what does this year’s rise in measles across the country portend? And finally, how can public health reach low-vaccination populations and help protect them during outbreaks like these?
Today, we hear from Roberta Devers, a traditional midwife and Kennedy supporter caring for Amish families at the heart of the outbreak who now believes everyone who can should be vaccinated; The Atlantic’s Tom Bartlett, who has been reporting from the Amish community and spoke with a family whose infant died; immunologist Michael Mina, who has worked with vaccine-hesitant families; and Katherine Wells, the Lubbock public health director who led the response to last year’s Texas outbreak.
What can we learn when we get past politics and listen to the people working on the front lines of these outbreaks?
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Tom Bartlett, staff writer The Atlantic; has interviewed parents of children who have died from or with measles. 
Roberta Devers, home birth midwife, serves Lancaster County Amish families
Katherine Wells, director Lubbock, Texas Health Department
Dr. Michael Mina, physician, epidemiologist, immunologist, trains healthcare providers who work with vaccine hesitant populations, Chief Medical Officer, Invivyd.

Reading:
"The Measles-Stricken Mother Who Lost Her Newborn Son" by Tom Bartlett
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/08/pennsylvania-measles-infant-death-family/688469/?gift=_5-xEWgGoCTqSjqIeVMUqmJTBAkpC8ldBZ3MpQ9PSu4

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AI’s story feels like it's gotten a lot scarier. Some people in the tech world building AI now say it poses a meaningful risk of catastrophic harm, or even human extinction. Others insist this kind of “doomerism” is wildly exaggerated—that the warnings amount to crying wolf, and that the real danger is slowing down and ceding our advantage to China.
What we do know is that the claims are enormous, sometimes even hard to fully believe or trust, the stakes range from disruptive to potentially existential, and nobody knows what comes next.
So rather than hearing from the people building the technology or the politicians reacting to the warnings, we gathered voices from the human sciences and professions. We’re joined by Stephen Witt, a journalist who has spent years covering AI; Jennifer Reich, a sociologist who studies how people navigate risk and uncertainty; and Rachael Bedard, a physician and New York Times contributor currently focused on deciphering this AI moment.
In an era of collapsed trust, how do we process what we’re hearing from tech giants, naysayers, and politicians? How do we make decisions when the experts themselves disagree about the risks? How much uncertainty—and risk—are we willing to accept? And ultimately, will America’s mistrust of institutions and big business be our armor, or our undoing?

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Stephen Witt, tech journalist, author of The Thinking Machine, recent opinion piece in the NYT titled "This is Really Bad": https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/opinion/ai-safety-threat-technology.htmlhttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757558/the-thinking-machine-by-stephen-witt/
Jennifer Reich, sociologist, author, University of Colorado -- Denver. Author, Calling The Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines.: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1803zjf
Rachael Bedard, physician, contributing opinion writer to The New York Times, and The New Yorker, The Atlantic and New York. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/14/facing-omicron-relapse/
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Charles Eisenstein was a senior adviser and speechwriter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign and an early architect of the ideas that would help shape MAHA.
In a wide-ranging interview, Eisenstein talks about his heartbreak over how that campaign evolved and, in the wake of Kennedy’s speech at last week’s Republican midterm convention, how he views the possibility of a Kennedy presidential run in 2028. In that speech, the HHS Secretary said the foundational values of the Democratic Party he grew up in had “found a new home” in the Republican Party.
Eisenstein discusses his original vision for Kennedy’s candidacy: leading a movement that would rise above party fights and political divisions. We talk about whether the growing concern over AI could become an issue that finally brings people together across the political divide. What types of candidates does he see succeeding in this moment?
And ultimately, does Eisenstein still recognize the movement he helped imagine?

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (seeing patients)

Guest:
Charles Eisenstein, former speechwriter and senior adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's 2024 Presidential campaign; author, philosopher, strategist. www.charleseisenstein.org

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