📲 Social Media vs. Reality: Campus Protest Edition
The airport that's never lost luggage; Why Justin Timberlake sang 'me' as 'may'
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Good morning,
Is it a dream or is it Japan’s Kansai International Airport (KIX)? In the 30 years since its opening, the airport has NEVER lost a passenger’s bag.
And that’s despite handling between 20-30 million passengers per year. D.C.’s Reagan National and Dulles International Airports are about the same size.
A Kansai airport spokesperson said, “We don’t feel like we have been doing something special.”
🧳 US airports don’t perform well compared to other countries. Transportation Department data shows that the nine major US airlines mishandled about 6 bags for every 1,000 checked in 2023.
Hope your day is as easy as Kansai Airport’s baggage claim!
Mosheh, Jill, & Lauren
📲 SOCIAL MEDIA VS. REALITY: WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE REALLY CARE ABOUT
Arrests across US college campuses. Via: Axios
It may feel like young people are singularly focused on the conflict in the Middle East, but a recent Harvard survey finds that it’s actually pretty low on the list of issues they say are important to them.
Let’s break it down:
Dueling groups of protesters (pro-Palestine and pro-Israel) violently clashed at the University of California, Los Angeles, leading classes to be canceled yesterday. Hours earlier, police broke-up a pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli protest that had overtaken a Columbia University building, leading to over a hundred arrests.
There have been over 1,300 police arrests on at lease 40 campuses since Columbia’s initial April 18 crackdown. A number of those arrested are also NOT students.
That’s out of around 18 million college students in the US — over 70% of whom are enrolled at a public institution.
🚨 NYC Mayor Eric Adams warned yesterday that professional, outside “agitators” and anarchists had descended on Columbia University’s campus to radicalize students.
Co-opting protests: Mayor Eric Adams added, “I know that there are those who are attempting to say, ‘Well, the majority of people may have been students.’ You don’t have to be the majority to influence and co-opt an operation. That is what this is about.”
The NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism reported seeing professional organizers and anarchists infiltrating campuses.
And while it feels like young people, particularly college students, are hyper-focused on the Middle East, Harvard’s Spring 2024 Youth Poll survey paints a different picture.
How Americans under 30 feel about key issues. Via: Harvard
THE NUMBERS
The survey from March looked at Americans between ages 18 to 29. When asked what issues are most important to them, Israel/Palestine ranked 15th out of the 16 most important issues. And even more notable, student loan debt was dead last. Like Americans in other age brackets, inflation, healthcare and housing finished in the top three.
Journalist Josh Barro recently wrote that, “the disconnect between the activists and the polling data makes sense when you remember that most young people aren't in college, most college students don't attend selective institutions, and most students at selective institutions aren't camping on the quad for Gaza."
While only 38% of young Americans report following the news about the Israel-Hamas war very or somewhat closely, over half support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
That’s a five-to-one margin (51% support, 10% oppose), but those numbers slightly change with education:
Via: Harvard
GOING BACK TO CAMPUS
However, it IS important to take note of these protests. Students are challenging the practices of universities with multi-billion dollar endowments and their investments in companies that work with Israel, among other demands. Some universities are being responsive. Both Northwestern and Brown University struck agreements with protesters camped out on their lawns.
HISTORY: At Columbia, students previously took over Hamilton Hall for other civil rights and antiwar protests in 1968 and 1972.
In the 1980s, Columbia’s students protested South Africa's apartheid racial segregation policy and called on the school to sever its financial ties with companies doing business in the country. The school would divest months after students took over Hamilton Hall in 1985.
Alifa Chowdhury is a University of Michigan student organizing an encampment at the same place students marched against the Vietnam War in the ‘60s.
However, NPR notes the difference today from then is that the US doesn't have boots on the ground in Gaza and American college students aren't facing the draft.
At the same time, NYU Professor Scott Galloway and Columbia Professor Tim Naftali have each taken issue with the comparisons to the 60s, given some of the incidents of antisemitism, some anti-American & pro-terror sentiments, as well as acts of violence in recent weeks.
🗞️ DISTRUST IN THE NEWS RISES AHEAD OF ELECTION
We’re just about six months from the 2024 presidential election and Americans have little trust in the media: 83% of Americans say they are worried about how news organizations will report inaccuracies or misinformation during the election — over half report being extremely concerned.
Only about 1 in 10 say they have a great deal of confidence in national or local news outlets when it comes to the 2024 election. And 81% say they are extremely or somewhat concerned the media will focus too much on division.
BEHIND THE NUMBERS
Half of Americans say they always/frequently get election news from national news outlets, however they’re not sure they can actually trust the information.
There is a growing disconnect between media organizations and communities. The US has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005.
Also, more people than ever are getting news from social media rather than traditional outlets—including from some much less trustworthy pages than Mo News 😉.
In a recent Mo News podcast interview, Vanessa Otero, CEO and founder of media watchdog Ad Fontes Media, did caution against histrionics:
“80% of Americans rarely agree on anything. I think that 80% number masks what people are talking about as ‘the media.’ That 80% is really a bunch of different things: Folks from the left are saying, yeah, the media over there on the right, I don’t trust that. Folks on the right are saying, the mainstream media over there, I don’t trust that. They’re talking about different things.””
In Mosh’s recent Tedx Talk, ‘Why The News Media Need To Earn Back Our Trust,’ he argues that the media faces an existential challenge: Earn back the audience’s trust or lose credibility forever. Take a listen:
🎶 IT’S GONNA BE MAYYYY 🎶
The investigative reporting we all are looking for: Why Justin Timberlake sang “it’s gonna be MAY” in the NSYNC song ‘It's Gonna Be Me’?!
ANSWER ABOVE: A Swedish producer liked the way it sounded. Thank you ‘Hot Ones’… The show with hot questions, and even hotter wings.
⏳ SPEED READ
🚨NATION
📌 RFK Jr. is all over conservative media. Trump’s camp is concerned (POLITICO)
📌 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will force a vote to oust Speaker Mike Johnson next week (CNN)
📌 House passes bill condemning antisemitism (ABC NEWS)
📌 Most Americans see TikTok as a Chinese influence tool, but political party plays a role in what people think (REUTERS)
📌 Fox News pulls down series as Hunter Biden threatens lawsuit (NPR)
🌎 AROUND THE WORLD
📌 Why Hamas keeps rejecting ceasefire deals (NY TIMES)
📌 Kenya floods: tourists evacuated from Maasai Mara after river bursts banks (GUARDIAN)
📌 China highway collapse sends cars plunging, leaving at least 24 dead, dozens injured (CBS NEWS)
📌 Russia shows off NATO military hardware captured in Ukraine; Moscow to beef up weapons, front line forces (CNBC)
📌 United Methodists repeal longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy (NBC NEWS)
📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH
📌 Bird flu testing shows more dairy products are safe, US FDA says (REUTERS)
📌 In surprise move, Musk axes the team building Tesla’s EV charging network (CNN)
📌 Fed holds interest rates steady, citing stalled progress on inflation (AXIOS)
📌 Science shows how a surge of anger could raise heart attack risk (NBC NEWS)
🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT
📌 Former Nickelodeon Producer Dan Schneider sues ‘Quiet on Set’ docu-series makers for defamation, calls it a ‘hit job; (USA TODAY)
📌 Travis Kelce had to take action after people kept sending ‘random s–t’ to his house (NY POST)
📌 Ryan Gosling and Mikey Day crash Emily Blunt’s ‘Fall Guy’ red carpet interview as Beavis and Butt-Head (THE WRAP)
📌 Daniel Radcliffe ‘really sad’ about J.K. Rowling’s anti-trans rhetoric (CNN)
📌 Sofia Vergara reveals the one ‘deal-breaker’ when it comes to her romantic relationships (FOX NEWS)
🗓 ON THIS DAY: MAY 2
1941: General Mills began shipping its new cereal, “Cheerioats,” to six test markets. It is later rebranded as “Cheerios.”
1997: 'Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery' premiered in theaters. Mike Myers initially wanted Jim Carrey to play Dr. Evil. But Carrey was busy shooting ‘Liar, Liar,’ so Myers ended up laying both Austin Powers and Dr. Evil.
2000: President Bill Clinton announced that GPS would be made available to the public.
2007: Soulja Boy released his song ‘Crank That (Soulja Boy).’