On May 20, the Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, Dartmouth Civics and Dartmouth Dialogues held an event discussing journalism in the modern world with the crew of Civics 101, a New Hampshire Public Radio podcast focused on civic education and engagement.
Civics 101 co-hosts Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice and producer Christina Phillips discussed why they believe that public funding for media is important, especially in the current polarized media environment. This comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month that aims to defund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
Phillips said federal defunding threatens the show’s accessibility and independence.
“If we were no longer [broadcasted] through NHPR, and no longer through an institution that supports [independence and accessibility] and our mission to be free and independent, we can’t guarantee that we would be able to do the work we do the way we do,” Phillips said.
Capodice stressed the importance of accessibility to all, regardless of political affiliation.
“We’re there to try to take the basics of something and break it down to be as digestible as possible,” he said. “We have listeners all over the political spectrum, which is great for us.”
Capodice gave an example of how the Civics 101 podcast works, referencing a recent episode of the podcast that addressed defunding media.
“The question is, ‘Can the president [defund NPR]?’” he said. “The Constitution is very clear, and the Constitution says no. But if the president does do that, then this episode asked: ‘Why is Congress not standing up?’”
Trump’s order claimed that public broadcasters are producing “left-wing propaganda,” and should therefore be defunded. While McCarthy acknowledged that NPR listeners nationally are far more likely to be liberal than conservative, he disagreed with the characterization of their work as propaganda.
“We get pushback from across the political spectrum, which is great,” McCarthy said. “[Listeners say] ‘you’re being too conservative, you’re being too liberal’ — well at least you’re listening.”
According to Capodice, the show was conceived of as a way to improve civic engagement. He noted that Civics 101 is produced with the audience of “an American highschooler” in mind and it is widely listened to in schools.
The podcast is education-minded and the Civics 101 team also produces worksheets, lesson plans and other materials for use in classrooms. McCarthy said the state of civics education “depresses” her.
Patricia Anderson, a professor of economics who attended the event, referenced the importance of public media to her upbringing.
“I was definitely flashing back to my childhood with School House Rock on the TV and I can still sing the preamble to the Constitution,” she said. “I know how a bill becomes a law because of those cartoons.”
Despite her worries, McCarthy is optimistic there are so many “committed people” across the political spectrum working to engage young people. McCarthy said that the media must be prepared to be vulnerable with their audience today.
“I think acknowledging your fallibility to your audience is absolutely vital to gaining [the audience’s] trust and maintaining their trust,” she said.
Capodice agreed, saying that the Civics 101 crew was “lucky” to be able to be vulnerable because they act out civics-related scenarios on their show.
“We sometimes play at not knowing as much as we do or pretend that we know more than we do about a certain thing,” he said. “But we have a true luxury in our journalism that we get to admit to not knowing something, we have to question ourselves and that’s okay.”
Audience member Prescott Herzog ’25 said he learned about what it looks like to work as a journalist today.
The talk gave the audience “a broad sense of what it means to be a journalist and to try to be objective in reporting the truth in this time of polarization,” he said.
