Journos Stephen Jackson and Brandon R. Reynolds

Big news! JOURNOS is doing its first live show! If you're in the LA area, come out and see us Wednesday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m. at the Elysian Theater! We'll be taking the stage to make the dumb news smart and the smart news dumb.
And we won't be alone, because we'll be joined by some improviser friends — Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, Annie Savage, and Janet Varney! to create scenes out of our Live Journalism. News leads to improv, which in turn inspires the next news story. It'll be a true stream-of-consciousness experience!
Check out all the details and buy tickets here! Do not delay! We'll see you in July!
In this episode, we dive into a story about panda bear diplomacy and how the US almost lost one of our cutest assets. Then we genuflect about the possibility of having our first Millennial saint, a young man who built a website for miracles practically in the Web 1.0 days and who, after his death, may well have inspired some miracles himself.
We dig deep into issues of faith and geopolitical animal husbandry. Prepare yourself by praying (or voting) for whatever lights your candle.
 

For years, rear view mirrors have urged us to be aware that "objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." And if you think about it, that's a pretty heady statement for a piece of automotive equipment -- reminding drivers that nothing in reality is exactly what it seems.
That was certainly the case for a bunch of despondent youngsters and their families in Glasgow, Scotland, upon entering what was billed to be an interactive, mind-bending, immersive Willy Wonka experience. Instead, the tots and weary parents were faced with something much more reminiscent of a meth lab.
 
A wonka-style Fyre Fest? You better believe the comparison was drawn. 
 
Around the same time, across the pond, a larger discussion of business liability was discussed in the Supreme Court. The subject? Section 230, a "sword and shield" sort of law that protects companies like Facebook and others from liability based on what people say on their platforms, and provides them with the right to boot folks off of their platforms at their discretion. But perhaps what's most interesting about this story is its inability to be neatly placed in either a red or blue box, politically speaking. Either way, experts are saying that the Internet as we know it hinges upon the sanctity of this law.
 
So hop on in this haunted gondola ride to the twisted chocolate factory that is this episode of JOURNOS, decide for yourself if this section 230 thing should go the way of a greedy child turned into a blueberry (rolled back) or protected, like a whimsical chocolatier in a funny hat. 
 
NOTES
E! News Clip on Wonka Fest//Fyre Fest Clip//NYT on 230//NPR on 230//Solid Primer on 230//Biden and 230//HBR on 230//ScotusBlog on 230//NYT on 230...in '96!//FOSTA-SESTA
 

It's a new year, and at least one of us at JOURNOS is celebrating Dry January. But what is this strange holiday? What are its origins? And how are booze brands evolving to adapt to the selfish preferences of those who forswear drinking for an entire month?
The hard seltzer White Claw offers some answers here, as it unleashes a zero-alcohol product, turning its seltzer into ... seltzer. It is an absurd miracle of form following function.
... Much like the second story we tackled, about how the lifeforms in the emoji kingdom don't match the biodiversity of the actual world. Is this a problem for our understanding of the natural world? An impediment to modern communication? Or should we leave ecology out of emoji and just stick to the ever-useful eggplant?
We get into these topics with a surplus of sobriety. In this episode, we promise less slurring ... plus, the ability to legally drive anywhere!
NOTES
Where Dry January came from // More people gettin' dry // Who's drinking worldwide? // Is Dry January good for us? // White Claw is very proud of White Claw // The Washington Post considers the value of zero-alcohol booze // The emoji biodiversity research // Extinct emoji and endangered emoji // Emojination // What's the most popular emoji?

We're introducing a new feature here on JOURNOS: a sort of journalism detective agency. You've got a question, we do journalism on it and find the answer.
(I should say that the term "do journalism on it" has had a mixed reception.)
Our first question comes from friend and guinea pig of the show, Janet Varney, who asks a pretty simple little question: "What is consciousness?"
Brandon & Stephen hunted far and wide and interviewed a couple of experts about theories of consciousness, the hard and soft problems, whether you can communicate with people in vegetative states, and more. 
And then we talked to Janet about it and got deep on how these theories affect our view of ourselves, our world, and shine some light on what version of reality we'd all prefer.
Get ready to think about how we talk about thinking, and what we think we're talking about when we talk about what we're thinking about. It's a trip from the neurons to the stars.
NOTES
Timothy Bayne weighs in on when consciousness starts and name-calling in the field
Martin Monti talks mind-reading, vegetative states, and cloning consciousness
Finding consciousness in the brain
The juices & jolts of consciousness
Anil Seth says we create our reality
... And takes a stab at defining consciousness
... Which may be a fight against entropy
The current academic-type theories 
The recent catfight over one theory of consciousness
Some history of panpsychism
... And a little more history of panpsychism
... And more on whether consciousness might be everywhere
Orchestrated Objective Reduction Theory
... Is wet enough for quantum
You're never far from Buddhism
 

Suggested new phrase for the confusing pace of modern life: 
"It's like having chopsticks stuck in your brain."
Not, of course, the song (we would never be so basic). No — literal chopsticks, but lodged in such a way that you can still go about your business ... just, everything just seems a lot harder. One man unwittingly has become the symbol for this new symbol, a man who got chopsticks lodged in his brain ... and didn't even know it.
So begins our exploration of weird stories about bodily invasion by foreign objects, from houseflies to, ahem, "a whole coconut." 
Which of course led to the biggest invasion story of our time: artificial intelligence. In this episode, Brandon and Stephen survey the state of AI by looking at what it's doing to journalism, from clickbait to personalized news.
Will we leave it to machines to tackle the essential chopstick stories of our time? Will that free us up to work on real stuff that's not about a whole coconut that somehow found its way into somebody's ass? Will AI really be a trusty sidekick for our biggest stories? And will Angela Lansbury be the voice of the movement?
Most importantly: Why are mummies part of like the third-grade curriculum? 
As one chopstick said to another, "We're really getting up to something now!"
NOTES
Complex’s combo chopsticks/housefly story // AI usage hype // The Sports Illustrated AI shitshow, and the weird fake author profiles // What people were reading on CNN in 2022 // A big-picture look at AI and journalism // AI and media predictions // One possible model for AI journalism // Our conversation with cartoonist Ted Rall from March
 

Is the universe a simulation? If so, is there someone twisting the dials or is the universe a big computer running itself, a program that includes things like the coati and those sneakers with wheels in them?
It's a big question (the biggest, really), and in this episode we dig into it with Dr. Melvin Vopson. Melvin is an Associate Professor of Physics at the UK's University of Portsmouth, and he's made news for his work studying the nature of information and entropy. His conclusion? The way things work — from electrons on up to stars — looks suspiciously like how a computer might run things. 
It's a fascinating and controversial idea. Is information the base layer of the universe? And does this mean there's a planet full of popular, well-known fantasy characters out there somewhere?
We expel a little heat energy into the void to figure out how real Melvin Vopson's theories might be. (And how real we ourselves might be.)
NOTES
More on the simulation idea // Melvin's Second Law of Infodynamics // The implications for genetics // The Information Physics Institute