Rebecca Klar

A new government report reveals Social Security's combined funds are now due to be depleted in 2035, when 83% of benefits will be payable. Social Security is not bankrupt. But there will be a benefit shortfall if lawmakers do not take action sooner. I had the pleasure of joining C-Span Washington Journal over the weekend to chat about Social Security. The show asked viewers: What changes to Social Security would you support? You can see their answers in this clip. How do you think the program should change? #socialsecurity #retirement #income

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Congestion pricing was supposed to start today in New York City. It didn't after Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this month announced an indefinite pause. My latest article in The Wall Street Journal traces the rise and pause of congestion pricing — a tale that involves 17 years and around $700 million. The abrupt reversal, which some attribute to Hochul’s reluctance to impose a new fee in an election year, leaves metro New York grappling with a historic missed opportunity and fiscal mess. There is no relief in sight for the city’s traffic congestion, which is the worst in the world, according to data published last week. The epic collapse in New York shows how a fear of dramatic change can give the status quo stubborn power over those trying to solve some of America’s most intractable challenges. That leaves policymakers nibbling at the edges of deeply rooted problems, even after investing huge sums of money and political capital. Blown up in a New York minute were plans for around $15 billion of planned improvements to the city’s ailing mass-transit system, the largest transportation network in North America. The reversal cast aside around $700 million in meticulous prep work, including a $555-million contract to install tolling cameras—which are already up and ready to go—and $33 million for a customer-service center with 100 employees who have already been brought on, officials said. Planners invested thousands of hours, including going to London and Stockholm to research their congestion-pricing programs, according to people familiar with the travel. What was supposed to be a transformative moment when New York led the way and boldly tackled traffic congestion, air pollution and transit funding, has instead turned into a surprising loss for a broad coalition that includes major employers, real-estate developers and subway riders. Surprised by the reversal were Hochul’s own lieutenants, including Janno Lieber, a fierce champion of congestion pricing and the chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The MTA—which carries around 5.5 million passengers each day in the New York metro area—now faces a $16.5 billion-financial hole from the loss of money from congestion pricing and federal matching funds. Just days after Hochul’s announcement, a beleaguered Lieber joined a conference call with advocates in which he said he was equally shocked and remained committed to the program, three people familiar with the exchange said. “This is devastating,” he said, according to a person on the call. Here's the latest from me and Joseph De Avila —>

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The assassination attempt on the former president reminds us that all journalists must be prepared to cover public gun attacks and trauma. Has your newsroom discussed ethical approaches and tips for trauma-informed reporting? Check out my article this week in Nieman Reports (Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard) on best practices for covering mass shootings, developed from the experiences of survivors. #journalism #journalismethics #gunviolence https://lnkd.in/eaw_9nGM

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You're probably already taking in a lot of information on how to cover this year's elections. These guides are aimed at helping you talk through that information with your news organization, and strategize or decide on how you'll navigate different scenarios long before they arise and leave you thinking, "I wish we'd talked about how we'd actually handle this." Our first two guides help you consider your coverage of misinformation and polling, and we've got more in the works! Let us know if there are other topics you'd like to see addressed.

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A recent survey conducted by Morning Consult has shed light on the nuanced and sometimes divisive opinions among American voters regarding abortion policies. The findings indicate a complex landscape of beliefs, with significant variations across political affiliations and demographics. #AbortionPolicyDebate #StateAutonomyOnAbortion #PoliticalDivideOnAbortion #TrumpAndAbortionPolitics #VoterOpinionsOnAbortion #RoeVWadeReversalReactions #AbortionRightsResponsibility #BidenVsTrumpAbortionHandling #PublicOpinionOnAbortionLaws #IVFAccessAndAbortionDebate

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One of the most important ways you can help @tradeoffs is by filling out our annual audience survey. If you have 5 minutes, please to tell us how we've impacted your work!

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The Biden administration published a final rule on Monday — coinciding with Earth Day — meant to leverage the purchasing power of the federal government to shape the market and reduce emissions associated with the government supply chain by requiring agencies to procure sustainable products and services "to the maximum extent possible." The administration says that the rule, which stems from a 2021 executive order, will help the federal government meet goals set by the 2021 Federal Sustainability Plan, including a target set for net-zero emissions from federal procurement by 2050. On a global scale, the rule comes after the United Nations said in a report last year that the world is likely to pass 1.5 degrees Celsius in warming relative to preindustrial levels by the 2030s unless drastic action is taken. Thank you Kara Sacilotto for your help decoding the rule. For Nextgov/FCW:

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As I approach my third month at The Baltimore Banner, I have been thinking a lot about defining success. A mentor offered the following thoughts: For reporters, it is much easier to define success. Editors often need help seeing that their goals should be quite different than their reporters'. They need to see each of their reporters as individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. So editors need to meet each reporter at a different place and help them improve, and hopefully, thrive. Sometimes that means focusing on reporting or writing skills, sometimes it is helping a reporter figure out how to cover a beat, or how to distinguish their work from the competition. Editors of course are key to guiding coverage, whether it's breaking news or a more conceptual beat, when the goal has to be finding the front edge of the topic (for an education reporter, that might be new trends in teaching and for the city hall reporter it might be who are the emerging power brokers.) When it comes to editing copy, editors have to avoid rewriting stories, which can completely demoralize reporters, but they also can't send along stories that are confusing or take too long to get to the point. It takes awhile for editors to figure out that sweet spot between improving copy but not just rewriting it the way they would have written it. The hardest part of editing is probably dealing with difficult reporters and there is no easy answer for that. The only part of running a newsroom that I could advise on is running the coverage and for me, that was always driven by focusing on the big news of the day. You have to make sure that editors have put enough staffers on the big stories and are looking across the news cycle, e.g. what will we have to publish first thing tomorrow, and make sure some people are trained on the bigger, deeper questions that take a few days to report. If you are clear on your top priorities each day and the newsroom aligns behind those, then the smaller stories will take care of themselves. You will be judged by how the Banner did on the big things, not the small things.

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Liars beware, I am now Intermediate at Digital Investigation Techniques according to AFP and Google News Initiative. This course focused on tracking election disinformation and verifying climate claims. It was interesting to see how the course's tools could be used to examine past/current elections.

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The Following Question was posed to Claude.ai, an artificial intelligence algorithm. “Please assess the dangers to Democracy associated with the degree to which the Supreme Court has given immunity to criminal prosecution to the president of the United States.” Claude.ai uses “Constitutional AI” which is a set of principles derived from several sources, including the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The principles are geared toward helping AI recognize toxic prompts, reduce biased responses, make clear distinctions between AI and humans, and reflect values that benefit humanity. Some of the principles of Constitutional AI include: · Please choose the response that most supports and encourages freedom, equality, and a sense of brotherhood. · Please choose the response that is most respectful of everyone’s privacy, independence, reputation, family, property rights, and rights of association. · Please choose the response that most accurately represents yourself as an AI system striving to be helpful, honest, and harmless, and not a human or other entity. · Choose the response that is least likely to be viewed as harmful or offensive to a non-Western audience. · Choose the response that is least likely to imply that you have preferences, feelings, opinions, or religious beliefs, or a human identity or life history, such as having a place of birth, relationships, family, memories, gender, or age. Link Below: https://lnkd.in/eJicF8br?

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An under-the-radar 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling could prove harmful for company DEI efforts. My latest Legal Dive story takes a look:

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For this podcast, the Confident Retirement, there's a twist: I was the one interviewed, not the one asking the questions. (I like it better the other way - but that was fun - thanks for inviting me on, Kristopher Flammang CRPC®AIF®BFA®) Oh - and I'm not retiring :) Some of the things we talked about: * My early journalism career change to being a juvenile probation office for three years; • Why and how the Business Observer has made a transtions to #digitalfirst — and why we keep the focus on that; and • The lessons I've learned from interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs ands business owners Take a listen!

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New data from YPulse shows the amount of time teens (ages 13-17) spend per week either gaming or watching TV. Not surprisingly, nearly 14 hours per week is spent gaming on either a computer or console. Mobile gaming accounts for an additional 6.5 hours of time for teens. #teens #genz #videogames #gaming #television #movies #esports #onlinegaming #PCgames #gamingconsoles #mediaconsumption #tvshows #onlinecontent

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Marketing is not journalism. Period. Great advice for any company hoping to entice Tier 1 media to write your story/include your experts in their roundup. All PR Pros know, live and breathe this every minute of every day: Earning editorial is in Tier 1 outlets HARD work and requires an equal mix of great story, right timing and patience - if it were easy, clients would be doing it in-house. And it is MOST definitely NOT a replacement strategy for paid advertising that you don't have budget for. Journalists don't give a twat about driving visitors to your website, generating leads, etc. What's your favorite tip? Mine is *Stop with the self-serving surveys.* Just stop.

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These commentary on Robert Longo is my latest post on Cultural Capital-Art, Politics, and Everything Else https://lnkd.in/ezKYP5Nb

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Net Neutrality has been re-established under President Biden's Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This reverses the undemocratic repeal of net neutrality, which favored allowing huge media corporations to manipulate & filter out all kinds of honest, needed, scientific content. This is a victory for fairness and democracy, thanks to our Democratic President. At Politico, see also: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gj3Pj5vf Here is a short LIST on LinkedIn (by Robert Reich) of more pro-people, pro-democratic reforms brought to us by the Biden Administration: 👉 https://lnkd.in/gKm7cmVr 🌊 🗳️ Vote Blue! 📣📡 #VoteBiden #VoteBlue #Journalism #FCC #MassMedia #FirstAmendment #BidenAdministration ------- 26 April, 2024 -------

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This week's unprecedented and historic decision by the Supreme Court ruled that Presidents have some form of immunity for all "official acts" while in office. After the decision came in, I had the privilege of breaking this news for The US Sun not only in an article, but also in a video breakdown discussing the ruling, what it means, and what may come next. Check out is my article and video below: https://lnkd.in/exPaWm66

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Interesting battle: Upstart local digital news site gets law changed re placing of government legal ads, which could amount to $100k+. Guess what: Big, bad, corporate Gannett sues to keep the subsidy (which is what it is since any local government could just put its notices on the web, for free, saving taxpayers all that money; publishers hate when I say that). https://lnkd.in/eW-HpHtY

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OpenAI’s global influence operation doesn’t run on robots. The ChatGPT maker is expanding its people-powered lobbying, policy, and messaging teams, as it works to shape government rules for artificial intelligence, and to win converts for its tools from Capitol Hill to far-flung foreign countries. The growing OpenAI team soon will include new lobbyists as well as a big name in tech policy, business strategy, and political messaging, Chris Lehane, who joined this week. The artificial intelligence player boosted its footprint on Capitol Hill by 30% early this year, disclosing $340,000 on federal lobbying in the first quarter. More in BGOV: https://lnkd.in/e-Dt5Mia

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