Saudi Arabia’s first fashion week

Source: NPR

Headline reads:

Saudi Arabia’s First Arab Fashion Week Kicks Off, Beyond Fashionably Late

This headline covers the Who:Saudi Arabia, What:Fashion Week, When:Fashionably Late (being the present), Where:Saudi Arabia,

Saudi Arabia is known as a very conservative country, so I was shocked to see that they had their first Fashion Week, recently.

Fashion Week revolves around the expression of clothing which, in Saudi Arabia, has been blocked by the government to be mainly black modest clothing.

Though, Saudi Arabia did stick to its true nature and ran on “AT,” better known as Arab Time, and launched two weeks after the planned date, due to logistical reasons.

Senator Jeff Flake’s twitter and the day to day life of a US Senator

Recently, following an episode of NPR’s This American Life on the Senator Jeff Flake’s attempt to pass a bill through Congress, I have decided to follow the man on Twitter.

The man is a United State’s Senator and provides a window into a congressman’s view on the world and day to day life.

Flake’s tweets mostly pertain to US politics, but also offer a personal insight into what he does for fun as well.

Recently the Senator made a speech to Congress condemning the President’s actions in perpetuating the “fake news” attack on journalism. In it he compares Trump’s assault on the media to Stalin’s, and blames him for third world Dictators adopting the technique. Coming from a Republican, the statements are hard hitting and poignant.

Crossing the Line

This past weekend during the NBA All-Star game, new broke out about LeBron James and Fox News political analyst, Laura Ingraham having a very heated disputed over President Trump.

NPR had a strong lede that helped describe what had happened over the weekend.

“Journalist Laura Ingraham sought to rebuke the Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James for “talking politics” during a recent interview — something the Fox News host believes is out of bounds for an athlete”.

The lede gets straight to the point and briefly describes the situation. The main headline also draws you in by giving Ingraham’s opinion on James’ thoughts.

With this being one of the most talked about stories over the weekend, it was a very quick google result that contained many images.

This American Life’s investigation into the supposed immigration crisis

NPR has a unique quality compared to other news organizations. It is publicly funded which allows it far more room to do interesting stories that might not be competitive in the news market, but provides important information that may not get reported.

This American Life has been a radio show since 1995, but is highly prevalent among the most popular podcasts today. It is a personal favorite of mine.

Recently TAL did a story called “Our Town” about immigration, taking a deep dive into a small town that has been heavily affected by the “immigration crisis.” The story takes place in two parts, and analyzes all perspectives of those affected from illegal immigrants to politicians and everyone in between.

The story took eight months to collect and write and is accompanied by a data analysis of the affected area.

With so much talk about illegal immigration by politicians nowadays, hearing what the truth of the situation is, by those who are actually affected, provides an interesting perspective.

Keeping America honest: NPR fact checks State of the Union Address

Fact checking is an important mechanism for holding accountable those in authority, especially so in an era built on “fake news.” NPR took at look at Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address and found the data to back up, or disprove claims made at the speech.

One of the first disputed claims came as Trump offered his sympathies to those affected by the season’s hurricanes. While the words are sweet, FEMA the executive branch organization that takes care of disaster relief, recently announced it would be halting direct aid to the affected regions, but would still provide help to nonprofit groups in the area. An update came the next day that the decision by FEMA had been reversed.

Claims of a 2.4 million increase in jobs “since the election” made by trump were corroborated by NPR. However, while the 2.4 million jobs added show a continuing uptrend in the economy, it is a smaller increase than the previous years 2.7 million under Obama.

Tax cuts would provide “tremendous relief for the middle class” according to Trump. However data has shown that the majority of the tax benefits will be reaped by the top 20 and top 1% seeing 65% of the savings and 20% respectively.

Now more than ever is keeping an eye on what is true and what is false an importance to Democracy. Luckily there are still a few devoted to the cause of keeping authority honest.