Josh Shepperd

Nope, I’m just spending a little bit of time there this year for work and play, after some years of having not visited it. So I was wondering what the damage was for people who live there. 

Winter Chicago

Back in Evanston, with my favorite view of the Chicago skyline.

Yes, exactly, I am alarmed for our research traditions.

New School has been one of the most important humanities and social science universities in the world for the past 70 years. The humanities are collapsing at all of the pillars, and it won't be long until less prestigious institutions feel validated to call open season upon a number of departments.

Yep

That’s two types of capitulation!

There’s a logic to media industries, and it has always included political capitulation.

Perhaps apropos. In a 1939 internal note, NBC regretted *not* censoring announcer Walter Winchell after he called Hitler a "madman".

How are video and AI shaping the pursuit of justice? Check out Seeking Justice with Video and AI, our new speaker series. Featuring leading voices from academia, law, journalism, media forensics, and human rights practice, it will explore the promises and challenges of these technologies. 1/6

Instead, in ten years 1/3 of academic budgets are gonna end up in the hands of five or six people in the world who own AI corporations. 

If universities would prioritize smaller classes and fewer bells and whistles like third-party technology contracts, a significantly bigger number of PhDs would find a position in higher education.

USAID shutdown has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health The Trump administration’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, accord...

Elon Musk and the Trump administration gleefully shutting down USAID “has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.”

People throw around terms like genocide quite freely online but it’s hard to find other words to describe this level of man-made death.

MeCCSA Policy Network Roundtable 1:Funding & governing public service media MeCCSA Policy Network + IAPMR on the future of Public Service Media Winter 2025 Roundtable 1: learning from international examples

Delighted to be presenting alongside international colleagues in the MeCCSA Policy Network "Future of Public Service Media" series. The event is apparently sold out.

Adieu, New York. See you in January.

Giant Ruth Asawa retrospective at the MoMA. Just fantastic.

College Radio Keeps Its Cool

So great to see college radio in all its glory featured in today's NYT. I interviewed for the piece (WFUV is at Fordham, WFMU is independent, formerly of Uppsala--such is the way with radio, which has more acronyms than the New Deal): www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/s...

YouTube video by LastWeekTonight Public Media: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Was thrilled to help consult for this fantastic John Oliver segment on the tragic plight of U.S. public media and why, if we hope to be a democracy, we still need public media for so many things that commercial media will never provide. Deserves a wide viewership. www.youtube.com/watch?v=yknM...

Had a great time consulting with the “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” team over the past couple months, and they kindly gave my book a shoutout during the episode.

There's a new generation of folk protest singers on TikTok Amid a 24-hour news cycle and personalized algorithms, a wave of young artists are reviving bold, plainspoken protest music that cuts through the noise.

An NPR piece on Trump-era protest songs, covering Jesse Welles, Jensen McRae and Mon Rovia.

“We’re coming for Bill Clinton” is not the threat that they think it is.

An honor to present research from my new book project @yaleisp.bsky.social yesterday! An amazing and brilliant group of scholars! Thank you!!!

“The best thing about Denver is John Denver.” - Devo live in Denver tonight

At a convening of our board of directors, CASBS fellow @sristovska.bsky.social presented on public & legal concerns about AI & deepfakes' effects on the integrity & reliability of video evidence

A new report from @visualevidencelab.bsky.social explores some of the thorny issues Sandra discussed (🧵)

I’ve worked on close to 60 grants overall in various capacities, I can’t imagine my working on any in the foreseeable future. There’s literally only one or two places to go.

A couple years ago I worked on 12 grants in my role as a task force director at the Library of Congress. This year, zero. We are going to lose a lot of our public memory. Which is at the crux of fascistic mobilization.

And uncreative politicians with conflicting interests.

Gonna erase this post - the reporting is coming in.

When I was working in DC, I learned that they do listen to the messages and take quantitative numbers about who and how many support or are against what policy. 

Tammy Baldwin in the interim.