A Change Of Heart? (Hour 1)

Good, good morning and welcome, welcome to Matt and Air on Air, Jane Matt and Air, Greg Bach, Calvin Butenoff.

Coming to you live from our home at Radio Park in Racine.

You can always join us, call or text.

The number is the same at 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on a live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Got a busy show for you today.

Civic Media News director, Shaly Pittman, joining us after the 9.30 news for a little recap of what happened.

Lots of things happened over the weekend.

Lots.

Lots.

So there's a lot to catch up on.

We'll do a little recap of the weekend news with Shaly Pittman right after the 9.30 news.

And hour number two, very much looking forward to this.

Brian Walsh is a writer for Vox.com.

And this is something that Greg and I have talked about off the air quite a bit about why we are so drawn to bad news.

What is it about the bad news that makes us tick?

or seek it out or respond to.

We've talked about, you know, when you go on vacation and you come back and you, it's like vacation was great.

Let me tell you how inconvenient all the things from vacation were.

Well, right.

It's like you come back with stories about what went wrong.

Yeah.

That's, I know I've done that.

My husband, we missed the ferry because my husband was late, you know, things like that.

You come back from vacation and say everything was perfect.

Okay.

Then you move on.

So what is it about bad news that we are so drawn to and it feeds us?

So we're going to talk to Brian Walsh about that in hour number two.

Also in hour number two, after the 1030 news, we lighten things up with a segment called Audio Sorbet, where we get away from the hot, heavy topics of the day and talk about lighter things.

Beautiful Saturday.

Incredible day.

Yeah.

Yes, it was.

I mean, sixties, sunny.

It was perfect.

Not only were people out raking leaves, they were out putting up Christmas decorations.

And guess who has opinions on that?

That's Gene McNair.

McNair out

there.

So we're not, Thanksgiving is two weeks away, right?

No, it's a week and a half

away.

It's a week and some change.

Week and some change.

So do you light now or do you light up after Thanksgiving?

That's a, that's a very interesting question.

I'm just curious because I saw a whole bunch of the yards all lit up this morning

when I was

coming

in

with Christmas decorations.

Yeah.

I, um, as someone who doesn't do any of the decorations, we just don't, we want to every year.

We think

about it.

We think

about it.

We have three

stockings that have been up since when we got Maybell cause there's Maybell stocking, but yeah, it's, I think that's, um,

I think that's the right time though.

We're at the right time to light them up.

Yeah

But

we'll talk more about that.

We'll kick that around for Audio Sorbet after the 10.30 news and then we'll wrap up the show as we always do with this shouldn't be a thing.

Today it's the Houston We Have a Problem edition.

Stick around for that.

Want to start off with this though from Wisconsin Public Radio, Rich Creamer has the byline, assembly to vote on bill blocking snap recipients from buying candy, soft drinks and energy drinks.

GOP supporters say it's about health Democratic opponents say it's about punishing people for living in poverty Snap government has reopened reopened last week snap benefits are supposed to start running again Perhaps with a few delays But with the government reopened and uncertainty about snap payments Republicans in Wisconsin now going to vote this week on a measure that will restrict what snap recipients can buy

Under the proposal up for the vote Wednesday in the assembly, soft drinks, candy, and energy drinks will no longer be allowed to be purchased using SNAP benefits.

Republicans say it's about improving low-income residents' health.

They say taxpayers shouldn't be paying for junk food.

Critics call it an effort to punish people living in poverty.

Yeah, I think it's more the latter than it is the former.

They don't care about health.

They don't care about nutrition.

They never did.

And I think what's difficult when we're talking about this is they're ignoring the whole food desert issue.

There aren't grocery stores in lots of parts of the state.

So you have to go to your quick trip or your gas station or whatever.

the closest approximation to a grocery store, and that's where you shop.

Jane,

I don't care about them.

They should just do what I say.

They can get to a grocery store.

There's a whole food down the street from me.

Whole

foods,

yes.

This notion of it's about the health and that they don't care.

Look, okay, nice try.

Good quote, fancy words.

If you really cared,

Like you do about education, you'd have a plan.

You'd fund it.

You'd fund things like nutrition programs.

Maybe, I don't know, like a free breakfast and lunch school programs, maybe for kids.

That's a good start.

That would be caring for children.

Yeah, maybe, I mean, I know they are not the ones who have to, who have put forth this program, but when we cancel programs that don't allow even farmers to bring their fresh fruits and vegetables to,

food pantries, even access to that is going away.

So therefore they have less choice.

And yes, there are places in the world where you can buy some groceries at gas stations and they're luckily we have places that like a little bit bigger like your quick trips.

We're getting a buckies.

I know when buckies comes around there will be wider rice, but not everyone has that choice either.

And to just summarily say no, no for this because we all of a sudden care about your nutrition.

I'm sorry, but that is a lie.

Well, if there were so many concerns about nutrition, then when Michelle Obama

was first lady and attempted to make school lunches healthier.

I believe there was some pretty strong reaction from the right about that.

Oh yeah.

Wasn't Sarah Palin handing out freedom cookies?

They had to work it around and make it from a fresh fruits and veggies program to just getting out in the world and like, you know, get your kids out for like 60 minutes a day and playing.

And let's move.

And I know that with regard to the farmers thing as I was talking about, it's a matter of there was a program.

There was an actual federal program that paid farmers to grow food and that food

then could be given two food pantries.

The Trump administration stopped that.

That's what I am talking about.

It's not a matter of prohibition or laws.

It's a matter of the program that paid our farmers because they need money.

They need help.

They need to grow food.

They need the money to do their job.

It was canceled and now that food, it can, I mean...

I'm not saying the farmers can't do it, but it was very nice that there was a program that incentivized farmers to grow that food, which gave it to our local pantries, which could feed our local people.

But that's gone.

But all of a sudden, they care about nutrition.

A USDA website about the waivers says the Trump administration is, quote, leading bold reform to strengthen integrity and restore nutritional value, unquote, within SNAP.

So far, 12 states, including Florida, Colorado, Texas, and Indiana, have applied.

They do expect to have various restrictions on soda and candy in place next year.

In March, Bob Kennedy Jr.

was promoting the waivers, the bill here in Wisconsin, introduced by Representative Clint Moses, a Republican from Menominee, and State Senator Chris Cappenga, a Republican from Della Field.

I've been

saying that name wrong for months.

Look, I'm all for nutrition too and you want to strike a healthy balance, no pun intended, then you put forth dollars that help create sustainable programs which promote health nutrition for children, for adults who need it.

But just to say, we're getting rid of this because we care about you.

You don't care about it.

You don't.

Don't try to convince me you do, because you'll never do that.

Eight five five seven five two four eight four two eight five five seven five civic talking about a measure that is coming up in the Wisconsin assembly on Wednesday that will restrict snap recipients from buying candy soft drinks and energy drinks with their snap benefits.

There are some groups that are opposed to this, including let me see here.

feeding Wisconsin Milwaukee Hunger Task Force, along with associations representing grocery stores and gas stations.

Supporters include the Chiropractic Society of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Natural Pathic Doctors Association, Wisconsin Property Taxpayers Incorporated, and conservative free market advocacy groups.

It's funny though, Jane, when you like, we don't have the time to do this, but if you take a look at all those groups and you go down rabbit holes, you find out just how conservative they are and where they use their dollars.

And it's

really no, so maybe I'm surprised, surprised dentist didn't get involved either.

But it's, yeah, it's, it's funny when you read who gives the money.

A fiscal estimate from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services says the department will incur around $6 million in costs.

There it is.

In order to set up this database of soft drink and candy and soft drink products, Department of Health and Human Services says Wisconsin has three and a half positions already dedicated to investigating suspected snap fraud unknown if they would need more people to then enforce that ban.

Boy Jane, this sounds like another addition of solutions in search of a problem, but now we have

to pay.

Well, again, coming up with something and then not looking about possible consequences down the road.

Or programs that are true investments of the people's time and money to create a stronger, healthier, more productive.

population, a more productive state.

Nope, it's just, we're gonna make a big old Excel spreadsheet and you can't buy Pepsi.

Sorry.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Jean, from All Clear, joining us on the line.

Good morning, Jean.

You get the word on this before we go to break.

What'd you wanna say?

What a bunch of smacks.

I'll tell you something.

They got cruel and vindictive behaviors.

You know what?

Where did they get their nutritional degrees?

These guys make me sick.

You know, I gotta tell you, I'm getting sick of their behaviors.

They're trying to tell everybody what to do.

Meanwhile, they don't do anything for the state.

We gotta vote those people out.

I gotta say, we do not want those people that are in our government right now and our federal government making decisions.

Those Republicans

Um, support and Trump.

I mean, this is just, I can't believe it, guys.

It's like I'm in La La Land every day of all the crap that they're pulling on the people.

So I just had to have my voice heard.

Thank you for taking my call and keep up the great work, keeping us informed.

Thanks.

Thanks a

lot, Gene.

Really appreciate it.

We try.

We try.

We try.

We try our best to do it every day.

And, uh, yeah.

I just, it, it.

It's just very frustrating because they, I'll say it again, they never cared, they never cared about it.

Well, they always had a problem with people buying soda and candy and I understand the concern about using snap benefits.

I get that concern.

That's where you have a conversation.

and talk about these things.

But then to turn it around on, we're just so worried about the health.

So worried.

It's about the

children.

But as you put it in too, the bigger conversation is, well, what about these folks in cities and rural and everywhere in the state who don't have access to these grocery stores or don't have close access?

Actually, Bob Jr.

has the answer for that.

They should just take ozempics so they're not hungry.

That's true.

He literally

said

that.

He did say that

out loud.

A solution for people in food deserts is having

Better access, not better access to food, better access to big pharma medicine,

Bob Jr.

That's going to fix it.

Is there

alcohol in my coffee today?

Not yet.

When we return cows jumping over walls, oh my goodness, the beef.

Where's the beef?

It's jumping over the

walls.

It's illegally coming to this country.

All the details coming up.

Stay close.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Matt and they're on air.

Jane that they're Greg Bach.

Sweet Calbee coming to you live from our home at Radio Park in Racine.

Join us.

Call or text at 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on a live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

After the 930 News, Civic Media News director Shaly Pittman will be here to do a little recap of some of the things from the weekend that you might have missed.

Right now, I wanted to spend a little time about this when I surf.

over the weekend, sometimes I think I heard things wrong.

Yeah.

And you have to go back and listen to them like four, five, 25 times to make sure that you heard it right.

Sure.

That was kind of the case when I heard this over the weekend.

Our secretary of the treasury, Scott Neckbrace,

We're

talking to

Maria Bartiromo on Fox over the weekend about beef prices and why beef prices are still so high.

The CEO of the Omaha Steak Company that's been around for a really long time.

People have mailed me their food.

He has said last week that we are heading toward $10 a pound ground beef.

Okay,

yeah, yeah, that feels about right is where we're at.

Yep.

Yep.

Well now we know why We're having beef issues Kevin let's play that clip please from our Treasury Secretary Scott Bassent talking to Maria Bartiromo Ron Johnson's favorite person

But what is your take on what you just heard he's expecting $10 meat

Well, Maria, the beef market is a very specialized market.

It goes in long cycles.

And this is the perfect storm.

Again, something we inherited.

And there's also, because of the mass immigration, a disease that had been

We've been rid of in North America, made its way up through South America.

As these migrants, they have brought some of their cattle with them.

So part of the problem is we've had to shut the border to Mexican beef because of this disease called the screwworm.

So we're not gonna let that get into our supply chain.

And again, I don't wanna focus on one product.

It's a very important product.

And we are...

laser focused on this issue.

And the

way he's talking about it, he is laser

focused.

They were bringing cows with them.

They're bringing drugs and crime and cows.

You know, when I think of all the visuals that the Republicans provided of the caravans of immigrants that were heading towards America, I missed all the visuals of the herds of

cows they were bringing along with them.

Yeah, I'm trying to like see.

Are

you seeing pictures of them sneaking in cows?

Actually, I asked the question and Google said what?

Yeah, even Grock said, uh, no.

Yeah, it's.

It's talking about us.

So the screwdriver the screw worm parasite outbreak That's very difficult to say near the border that has halted the US imports of Mexican cattle and ongoing debates about the rule of undocumented way now do we get?

Cattle from Mexico.

Yes, probably

yes,

but as far as them bringing undocumented folks bringing that up through Wherever they are trying to illegally enter the country.

I don't know how that works unless

There is some sort of big gate that I don't know about where all they can illegally bring cattle in.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, there are memes over the weekend, all over Twitter of cows standing on the shoulders of other cows to get over the wall.

It's pretty funny, actually.

If you listen to him talk, though, too, he's searching for things to say.

And at this point, it just becomes a.

You know, why not sprinkle some other things and they'd be like the the reason why the beef is so expensive is because the the illegal immigrants are bringing in illegal cows and they're trying to take away your second amendment rights and your jobs as well

Some

of those cows were

dressed as drag queens to Calvin I want to play one more clip as we're talking about the cost of things because another Trump administration official on MSNBC talking about

Things are great, you guys.

I don't know what everybody is complaining about.

Calvin, let's play that clip from Kevin Hassett, please, about purchasing power.

Now, inflation is still 3%.

It's still too high.

Now, oil prices, energy prices, there are certain things where they have come down.

But when you keep saying prices are falling, that's not true.

Because

inflation is

still, the 3% is on top of all the inflation we had.

during the Biden years so we got all that inflation plus an additional 3% and we should I think you should admit that.

A more a more precise way to say it though Joe is that purchasing power has gone up so real wages that's W divided by P for our technical people in the audience have gone up by about $1,200 this year so the way to think about it is that we've dug a $3,000 hole because of Biden policies and we've

you know, gained $1,200 on the way out already, which should give you a great deal of hope for the future that the wage increases that we're seeing will continue.

And even if inflation stays positive, make it so that people feel way better when they go to the grocery store and to buy a car.

You know, we've reduced the cost of buying a car with the deductibility.

I mean, there's a million things that we're doing to fix this.

But it's just kind of astonishing to me that the cost problem is somehow being blamed on us.

First of all, Jane, a million is a lot.

It is a lot.

I'd love to hear just maybe one through 12 ways, let alone a million.

I just saw a report last week that said that the average price of a car and I was $50,000.

the average price of a car.

But now it's cheaper because you just take the taxes, I

guess, and there's a...

Is that what it is?

I don't know.

I have no idea.

Just ignore the prices you're seeing at the stores, you guys.

Could you just do that?

That would take so much pressure off the Trump administration.

Let's do them all a favor.

Just say everything is...

Everything's perfect, and if it's not perfect, it's Joe Biden's fault.

That's right.

News is next.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Matt and Air on Air on the Civic Media or Radio Network.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach doctor slide on the board Coming you from our home at radio park in Racine where you can join us call or text The number is the same 855-752-4842 You can also leave a comment if you're watching in the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up next hour We're gonna talk to Brian Walsh from Vox.com.

He is a writer for Vox and he has a good news column

Yes.

Which all of us are going, really?

What good news?

What good news?

We're going to talk to him about why we are so attracted.

Why are our brains wired for bad?

Because we bad news.

Gets traction.

Bad news.

Makes you throw your pen.

Throw my pen across the room at Greg.

Bad news.

Did you guys hear that Jane threw her pen at

me?

Bad news in anger.

And throwing pens creates clicks.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

It does.

So we're going to talk about what it is about humanity.

Why it is we are so drawn to bad news instead of things to celebrate.

That's coming up after 10 o'clock right now.

Our news director for civic media, Shali Pittman is here.

She joins us every Monday.

Really feel you set her up there is like to do an update.

All the things happening.

There's a lot of stuff happens that we just can't keep up with.

I call it a fire hose.

Let's talk about what's going on in Wisconsin, Shali, as far as the school report.

That just came out.

Good morning.

Thanks for having me.

And yeah, thank you for that setup.

I used to get that comment a lot, by the way.

Why do you only do bad news?

And I'm like, these things are happening.

And well, and you

have to, I mean, as a news reporter, because you are a new news person, that is newsworthy when, you know, there's deadly accidents or deadly shootings or all of those things.

Those are newsworthy.

But again, when we look at

some media models and even influencers, outrage, fuels, clicks.

And then our algorithms continue to feed us that kind of stuff.

But where we want to come for the real news, the real stories, that's when we talk to Shaly

Pittman.

Exactly.

So let's talk about the report card on Wisconsin schools.

Yeah.

So, you know, and coming up with topics for your show, I try to pick things that lots of listeners across the state might be interested in.

And I think this is one that almost everyone can can get behind, can go and look up.

So the Department of Public Instruction, which oversees Wisconsin schools, obviously we've talked about them before and there's been a lot going on there.

But the Department of Public Instruction released school report cards last week.

Now, these are

mandated by state statute, they have to do

it every

year.

And they are exactly what they sound like.

They're report cards for every school district in Wisconsin, kind of shows you how your school's doing in comparison to other districts.

And so it uses data from previous school years.

Now, what's different this year is that it uses new ratings based on a kind of five star system of expectations.

And that's new.

They use different standards before these standards are

based on educator recommendations from earlier this summer that were then adopted and approved by DPI Superintendent Jill Underly.

So schools are scored on a variety of metrics, including for what they call priority areas, which are achievement, growth, target group outcomes, and on track to graduation, which uses things like absentee rates.

So you can go look up those numbers.

It takes a little bit to decode.

I had some reporters doing stories last week on these, and I did have to go look up how to interpret the report card.

side-by-side with specific report

cards for school

districts but you can do it and you know it is kind of fine-grained data into how you're

district is doing.

Now, there are some limitations with looking these up, and DPI itself says you should hesitate to make direct comparisons between school and district scores, comparing schools with each other, because it's not exactly one-to-one.

There are certain waiting mechanisms, which is also mandated by state statute.

So critics say you can't compare school results.

You know, critics have been vocal about the fact that there are a new kind of accountability ratings on this set of expectations.

However, you know, the EPI is also required to weight these based on the percentage of economically disadvantaged students.

And so that's

That's part of why it's hard to compare.

So, like you're saying, you can't just take the results from MPS and compare it to the school district in Bondiwell, for example, because there are differentiating factors.

Precisely.

And it might give some idea, right?

But it's, again, this is why folks have objected to it because it's hard to make apples to apples comparisons.

Right.

Here's another point about the report cards.

94% of the public school districts that were ranked are meeting or exceeding expectations.

And there was no school district in Wisconsin that received one star, which would be an F, right?

That's according to reporting from WPR.

So, you know, take it how you want, but that's an interesting kind of

note about these report cards.

If you're just joining us on matinee on air, Civic Media News director Shaly Pittman is our guest to do a little recap of some news that you might have missed over the weekend.

One of the things that I saw Shaly that kind of jumped out at me, voters are tired about school referendums.

Voters are getting exhausted with having to essentially

vote to increase their property taxes to make up for the lack of funds that they're getting from the state.

And from this report, it's like people are tired.

Yeah, well these, you know, voter attitudes on referendums or anything in there isn't explicitly mentioned in the school report cards, but I did want to kind of draw a parallel between the report cards and these because we've had some reporters again asking district officials, what do you think about this report card?

What are you pointing to in success or you know yada yada and we had one report from James Kelly out of Chippewa Falls in Eau Claire that should be running today and he he spoke with school district officials and they said look we're really grateful that

or we attribute the success of these report cards of our school district to voters who have opted to raise their own property taxes to make sure that our schools are serving our youngest members of our community.

Now, there were a number

Sorry, there was a record number of school funding referendums on the ballot last year.

That's according to data from the Wisconsin Policy Forum.

There were 241 school referenda on the ballot, both last August and November in 2024 and 103 in the spring.

And that's...

that surpasses a record set in 1998.

So school districts are asking for money from local residents, and specifically those referendums are asking voters to increase property taxes above the levy limit that's been set by the state legislature.

Voters approved about 70% of those referendums in 2024, but I wanted to kind of link this to another news item, which is the Marquette School

poll, the law school poll that was just released, I think last week or earlier this month.

You know, there's a lot in there, right?

But they also asked voters if they would be inclined to vote against a referendum, a school referendum.

And for the first time, 57% said they'd vote against the school referendum, and 43% said they'd vote for it.

So the winds might be shifting now.

We can only read so much into that.

We don't know why.

But the Marquette Law School poll has also showed that opposition to referendums has increased since 2016.

So if schools are pointing to their success, part of that is,

money

from local residents, right?

That might be forecasting something in the future.

The last thing I'll mention is that last month, DPI released data that 70% of public school districts are going to get less general school aid in the next school year.

350 million of that general aid will be diverted to voucher schools.

So, you know, just wrapping up all the headlines for

you.

Reiterate that point that you just made, Shaly.

Our public schools are going to lose out on funding because we're sending that money to a separate school system, our voucher schools.

Right?

Yes.

I

mean, I'm glad we're having this conversation because I'm seeing a lot of this, the report card story being taken out of context and using it to

lambast the school system here in Wisconsin.

And I say that because I want people to one, listen to this conversation, but also I will put in the show notes, all of the references that Shali is making, all the stories in there.

So people can really understand because when it comes to the school system, I am one of the 30% that

voted for

it.

No, no,

we voted against.

Oh, you voted

against.

Kenosha voted against an increase in our sales tax.

I voted for it, but Kenosha ultimately that measure failed.

And the fact that we're seeing people starting to say, like, I'm getting a little, it's getting me a lot.

Like you're asking me to, you know, where, where are the other resources?

And

the reason, and so.

I want people to check out the show notes on civicmedia.us.

Look at our show, look for the first hour for today.

Read these stories because a lot of people can make a lot of claims, but we need to be looking at the fact that our schools are actually doing well.

And yes, as you said,

the help coming from the increased property taxes, good, but we also need a partnership in the state.

But I just, thank you for breaking this down for us today, Shaly.

I really appreciate

that.

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.

Jack from Merrimack on the line.

Good morning, Jack.

Thanks for joining us.

What did you want to say?

Well, yeah, people need to be reminded of a few things.

Like, for instance, the last budget, the governor, line items veto,

to allow school districts, or rather allow referenda in school districts so that the schools could increase their funding as necessary up to I think it's $325 a student.

In the meantime, our wonderful legislature rammed through in their version of the budget, which was eventually signed a three

$1000 per student increase in private school welfare vouchers.

This is an absolute attempt to destroy as much as possible the funding ability of public schools.

Understand, they don't need a referendum to do that.

This was money that the legislature actually paid out of the surplus.

Of course, they didn't give any of this surplus to our public school.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Jack.

We're coming up against the clock.

So yeah, that seems pretty generous.

$3,000 per student for voucher schools and private schools.

We're going to continue our conversation with Civic Media News Director Shaly Pittman on the other side.

Stay close.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air coming to you across the Civic Media radio network.

Don't go away.

Good morning.

Welcome back to Matinair on Air.

Jane Matinair, Greg Bach, our one hour so only Calzone on the board coming to you from our studio at Radio Park in Racine.

You can join us, call or text.

at 855-752-4842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream.

Good morning, live stream on Facebook, YouTube and what used to be Twitter.

She joins us every Monday to do a little recap of the news.

Civic media news director, Shali Pittman is here.

Shali, we're going to move on to the end of the shutdown as of today.

I

mean, you guys have talked about this a lot, right?

So, you know, I just wanted to recap.

I was in Park Falls over the last week and it had me thinking about how the federal government reaches into all sorts of communities because I was walking past the Department of Forestry, which had a big closed sign in the window because of the shutdown.

Sure, sure.

And there was a sign in the window, very explicitly saying, we are shut down.

because of the lapse in government funding.

So obviously the shutdown is over.

The longest shutdown in history is over.

The deal that signed funds most federal agencies until January 30th.

The deal that signed also funds other programs through the next through the fiscal year.

So SNAP, WIC, the Department of Ag, Congress, and Veterans Affairs are funded through next September.

The shutdown includes, or the deal includes back pay for federal workers.

One note, I don't know if, I always watch the air traffic controllers and what they're doing when we're in shutdown time because they carry a unique amount of leverage.

Last time they sued the government to get overtime and other compensation.

And so even though that overtime has been promised, that back pay,

If we're following the model that happened in 2019, then we might see some more news headlines coming out of that.

We don't know yet though.

I just I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I just want to say I find it interesting that during a government shutdown, what we consider critical.

in order to keep things moving.

I don't understand why we didn't pay our air traffic controllers and not our Congress people during the shutdown.

When we're talking about who is critical in order to keep things going, I think, I don't know, call me crazy.

Air traffic controllers would have been my pick over the Congressman, but that's just me.

Anyway, sorry, Shalie, continue.

There's a story from NPR that interviewed a controller in...

in the interview.

And by the way, Wisconsin's own Sean Duffy, Secretary of Transportation, right, was speaking earlier during the shutdown about, you know, you can't call out sick, right, and telling controllers that they can't do that.

Questioning their patriotism, Sean Duffy was.

But there was a controller who NPR spoke with who said that he had just gotten, or they had just gotten the check, right, right before this shutdown from

the

last

time

the government shut down what

better late than never folks

It's a good story.

So anyway, obviously, Democrats were holding out for a health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

They didn't get those, but there's another vote in December.

I also noted, and I don't know if you've talked about this, the deal that signed makes it illegal for federal prosecutors to search senators phone records without notice, right?

And it provides a financial penalty.

Yes, we did.

Financial penalty also applies to Wisconsin's own

or, you know, Wisconsin and Ron Johnson was one of those eight Republican senators

that would apply.

I called and left him a message about that,

actually.

I've been in Park Falls, Jane.

Nothing happens in- Nothing happens in Perkfold.

That's not true.

We love it there.

We love it there.

We do love Perkfold.

The many Wisconsin's, right?

Yes.

And then it also reverses the 2018 Farmville loophole for cannabis and hemp, which I know you did talk about,

and

I'm glad you talked about it.

Now, that'll happen a year from now, right?

But that's another thing that they slipped in there without telling anybody that this was going to be part of this deal.

And there's a lot of anger now directed at the Democrats who voted in favor of this measure because either they knew that piece was in there about this hemp measure or they didn't read it.

And that's not a good look either.

Yeah, I mean you can understand the criticism of where we are.

You walk down State Street and there are a lot of dispensaries and it's sort of a wild west.

That's according to a city attorney in La Crosse, right?

But if your answer is guardrails, which is, you know, limiting the sale to people over 21, many communities across Wisconsin are already doing that.

So,

you know, they're obviously

legislative bodies get to do what legislative bodies do but you know this is an unregulated industry and

which is generating quite a bit of profits and just call me crazy but I think that there are other entities in Wisconsin that would like to get a share of those profits and that's what this is about that's just me.

That's just me.

Well,

this is federal, right?

But in Wisconsin, right?

We'll see what happens next fall.

But it does mirror the other kind of banning of other things that you can inhale, right?

Which is in Wisconsin, which is nicotine, right?

Yeah.

It's become harder to find those as well.

I don't know.

I just wanted to round up the shutdown for you.

You already did that, but appreciate

it.

Yeah.

And I just want to mention really quick to Hubertus State Representative Jim Peeve.

Piva Varchek, gosh, that's a hard name to say.

Piva Varchek is trying to put forth legislation that will kind of codify the language of the federal into the state.

So it's like once and for all.

And he has no love, no sympathy, no anything for that industry.

And we talked about that last week with Erin Kelly.

She's going to be back.

She'll be back.

And thank you very much, though, Shaly, for bringing up the roundup on the, especially on the shutdown.

Civic Media's news director, Shaly Pittman joins us every Monday for a recap.

Thank you, my friend.

We will see you next week.

News is coming up next.

Stay with us.

You're listening to Matinair on Air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning and welcome welcome to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach Calvin Butenoff coming to you live from our studio at Radio Park in Racine you can always join us call or text

The number is the same at 855-752-4842.

You can also leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Our next guest is a senior editorial director at Vox.

He oversees the climate teams, also the unexplainable and gray area podcasts.

He's also the editor of Vox's future perfect section and writes the good news.

newsletter.

Brian Walsh is joining us.

Good morning, Brian.

Thanks so much for making time for us.

How are you this morning?

Oh, I'm great.

Thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Brian, we saw this article that you did and we talk a lot about this.

We've talked about this off the air and about why we are so drawn as a human species to bad news.

We are just, there is something within us that that's what generates clicks.

We have entire

media ecosystems that are that are based on creating outrage and it works.

What is it about bad news that we love so much?

You know, I think what it is about bad news is that we it starts with a few levels.

One is inside us.

You know, I think human beings maybe go all the way back in evolution here.

We are almost trained to identify threats, identify bad things because for a very long time.

we live in an environment where something bad could have very catastrophic consequences for you quite immediately.

And so if you weren't pegged to that, if you weren't looking for that, you might not last very long.

So you have that to begin with.

And then I think, you know, when it comes to the audience more on a whole, I think this has been something demonstrated, like you can literally see studies that say if you give people.

A headline is positive if you give people a headline that's negative they're more likely to click on the negative I think hitting into that physiological reaction almost in fact like we really know that's the case it activates us and we see that in our social media we say that in our in our media and then the media itself you know responds to that I think for one thing we do respond to what the audience does and so

If the audience is more likely to respond to bad news, that's something we're likely to report to.

But also, it's something we're trained to do as well.

Like we are out there looking for what's going wrong in the world.

If anything, that's a definition of news.

It's what's going on in the world that's going badly.

So put all that together and you have a self-reinforcing ecosystem that just emphasizes the negative and really especially ignores longer term under the radar positive trends just because

They're not changing much from day to day, so they're not really activating us.

And we end up missing them because they're not getting reported on and they're not getting read about.

If you're just joining us, Brian Walsh is our guest.

He's the senior editorial director for vox.com.

And we're just talking about what it is about humanity that we love bad news so much.

We were joking before we came on the air, Brian, about if you go on vacation and you come back and you say our vacation was perfect.

That's the end of the story.

You know, right?

It's

you want to tell the story about we couldn't find where to drop off the car.

So we missed the ferry and we were five hours late, right?

Those are the things that we share.

Those are the things that make stories.

Exactly.

I mean, like think of it like airplane, airplane travel, right?

I mean, it's not much of a story.

If you got in the airplane, it took off.

It landed.

You got there more or less on time.

Right.

It's a story if it goes bad, if it gets delayed.

And it's obviously

Horribly so or if something goes wrong, of course, that's a great example of something that has improved quite a lot and to be not necessarily The getting there on time part but definitely the safety part I mean air travel is so much much more safer than it used to be a few decades ago But again, that's not something we really think about right just sort of notice when it's going wrong We notice when it's going catastrophically wrong, but we don't notice the day in day out Hey, wow, I can get in the plane and travel across the country in the same day and be totally fine

I also feel like that

that type of situation is also connective tissue for people because if I say, if I'm sitting at a coffee table with you, Brian, and I say, I had a terrible flight, then you can say, oh my God, me too.

I was the, and then all of a sudden it's a 45 minute conversation on how flights are, how our flights were terrible, how things have changed, how everything is bad.

And I remember the old days and like that, but

And as you said, if I just said, oh, I went to Toronto last week, the flight was good, Toronto is beautiful, had some poutine, had some sushi, came home.

Then it's like 45 minutes of silence, because what are we gonna talk about next?

And do you feel like that translates to the news because that's who we are as people, or is the news, or how we gather information from say, whether it's traditional news sources or from online, it has influenced us in how we communicate with each other.

Well, first of all, I hope you had the poutine and the sushi in separate deals.

Don't tell me what's handled in my life, Brian.

I would not dare to tell anyone in Wisconsin or Canada how to shake the poutine.

But I think, you know, I do think there's there's an element here where you identify something which is commiseration.

And that is definitely true that we human beings like we like to sort of

reinforce each other's negative stories.

In fact, in some ways, that's probably like a social bonding thing.

I'm from Philadelphia, and so I'm a big Philadelphia Eagles fan.

You have an amazing ability to, even when things are good and you're winning to find many, many, many terrible things about that.

I'm sure other sports fans have the same experience, but we're just particularly known for it.

But I also think when it comes to the sort of media ecosystem we're talking about, new kinds of media, social media especially, that's

Really has a negative inflection and that's because I think you have a really tight feedback between People who are putting out stuff seeing what the reaction is and then shaping themselves to fit it Yes, you know other media companies like myself like box others, you know, we sort of learned from that to a certain extent But really in social media you see it, you know, you get the feedback right away and there's a easy way to sort of get people's attention by either saying something is awful or going after someone

And just even though like no one likes actually being in that negative mindset, I think it's not a pleasant one.

For some reason, it's something we can't seem to break out of, in part because we get a lot of reinforcement on the side that it's actually working.

Right, exactly.

So if I'm a social media influencer, and I come out with a negative story, and that generates a whole, a whole bunch of clicks for me, I'm going to give you more of that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And you will see that and you will benefit from it and it will just keep going and going.

And the problem is then it becomes almost like a downward spiral race to the bottom in terms of who can have the more negative attitude towards something who can be nastier online.

And next thing you know, you basically have the social media ecosystem that we all love and enjoy today.

Yeah.

And I think there's also another component to that that it's not new, but it's so much more...

I don't know what the exact word to use would be, but it's not just about reading the news story or watching the video, but now I Joe everybody can throw my comment into the vacuum that

is

this this this video this social media platform and and

You know, we don't want to just throw those comments in for the moment and for we want people to click like the comment We want people to say you're wrong.

So I can say well, you're stupid and it doesn't help any it doesn't it never helps the conversation

circular argument

Yeah, and and so like it just feeds more and more to this thing of like and of course Brian I'm right.

Of course my comments are right You talk about a Phil the Eagles Milwaukee Brewers fans are very good at looking at the bestest

situations and saying, how will we mess this up?

And all of my opinions are right.

But I think that's another aspect too.

It's not just the, it's not just the negative news story or as you put in the article, the bias towards negative news stories, but it's the fact that now we can become our own little pundits and reinforce that and keep that inner rage going.

And I asked the question to all of you, any listeners to Brian, to Jane, to Calvin, what does that help us as a people, as a human?

When we do things like that, I don't think it's much, but it's where we're at.

Yeah, I don't think it helps much at all really.

I mean, it doesn't help in the sense of, let's say you actually want to change something for the better.

I think there is a general sense, oh, you know, I have to highlight how bad things are before that can really make that change.

And yeah, that's necessary to a certain extent, but.

especially when you're dealing with, say, really long-term difficult problems, like climate change, for instance, there's an exhaustion that can set in with that kind of relentless negativity or, you know, do monitoring that actually I think works against the idea of bringing people together to create positive change over the longer term.

And so you end up with a situation where you're complaining about everything.

It's not getting better because you've actually created an environment where you make it hard for positive change to happen and then things keep getting worse and in some ways your expectations are met.

But the problem is you still are in a world where we could be making better change and yet we hold ourselves back because we literally can't even recognize when good things are happening.

Yeah.

And I think the other problem too is that like, if I'm sitting in, and what you just said too is if I sit down and I look at your comments, like you, Brian Walsh commenting negative things, if that's what you're doing, if I say, well, here are some great programs you can do, most likely you're going to say to me, well, that's not going to work.

It's not, I'm, it's not going to create a situation.

As you said, Jane, a circular conversation where if I try to give you, here are some great options.

Here are people you can call.

Here's a new story that might give you a different, a different side of it.

Most likely when you go that deep in you're not looking for answers or a conversation You're just looking for people to make

your

point to make your point for people to Directly criticize you or to directly agree with you.

That's how you exist It's not about and that's why when people ask that like they'll ask questions of well, what do you think of?

this topic, I say, are you really interested in an answer or do you just want to argue with me?

Because if you just want to argue, I don't, I'm not going to do this.

But if you want to have a conversation, that's great.

But I find that a lot of people just don't even want the conversation because climate change, way too nuanced.

Exactly.

If you're just joining us on mat and air on air, our guest is Brian Walsh.

He's the senior editorial director at Vox.

He oversees the climate teams.

Also is the editor of Vox's future perfect section.

And Brian writes the good news newsletter.

And we're going to get to that in just a little bit.

But right now we are talking about what it is about bad news that we seem to love so much.

And we've seen.

entire media ecosystems based on outrage and continuing the outrage and feeding us the outrage and we seem to like it.

Yes.

To our own

detriment.

Regardless of the side on which you fall, whether it's politically or socially, we can all find our

own places that can confirm our biases and say, see, I'm right.

It's really, I mean, Brian, I mean, it's really just, I want to be right.

I want so desperately to be right.

And please let me be right.

And I'll go anywhere I can to be right.

And I found this thing that made me right.

I'm right.

Exactly.

I think what you end up happening is that you, you actually aren't right often.

I mean, especially if you're talking about how the world really is.

And a lot of that has to do with

Do you have a sense of history?

Do you understand where things used to be?

Because if we're saying like something is bad or it's getting worse, we have to compare it to something else.

And so, you know, we sort of, I think, forget in some ways how actually bad things used to be in very basic ways in this country, around the world, in the not too distant past.

I mean, things as simple as like, how long did you live?

What was the chance of dying in violence?

Were you getting a disease and dying of that?

What were the levels of education?

How common was democracy?

All these things that go back 100 years, you have a world that if you looked at it through the eyes of now, you'd think, this is bad.

I could die of infection because I don't have antibiotics.

They haven't been invented yet.

Same thing with a lot of vaccines.

Much the world was not.

remotely free.

We've got social change, all these kind of things that happen.

And something here is also like a bit of a baseline shift, because once a positive change happens, especially in the background, we kind of just take it for granted, stop appreciating it, and no longer take it into our calculations of how good the world is.

That's such a good point, Brian.

It really is.

We

just accept that as the norm then, right?

If something is good, then that's just, that's the baseline.

Yeah.

And I would say it says something about when people are trying to, and talking about the history of it all, is taking that history and trying to disappear to say, everything's fine now.

It's never been bad.

We're good.

Be appreciative.

Don't look backwards because that didn't exist.

It's all a lie.

It doesn't help us appreciate what we have.

We're to continue our conversation with Brian Walsh from Vox.com.

Stay with us.

You are listening to Matt Nair on air.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

We will be right back.

Good morning and welcome back to Matt Nair on air Jane Matt Nair Greg box sweet Cal B on the board committee from our studio at Radio Park in Racine join us at 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook YouTube and what used to be Twitter coming up after the 10 30 news a segment we call audio Sorbet where we get away from the news do a little cleansing collective breath

Talk about sillier, lighter things.

Good news.

Good news.

So we don't all crack up all the time.

Our guest is Brian Walsh from vox.com and he has a great article called, We're all drawn to bad news.

Here is how to fight it.

I guess, Brian, what you just heard, our little audio sorbet segment, that's one way that we try to fight it and find something amusing or lighthearted or silly to talk about for a change.

I think that's a great way to do.

I mean, I think, you know, it's funny, like I'm literally someone who has spent 20 or four or five years now as a professional journalist.

And I've seen, you know, I mentioned social media, like in some ways, all of us are involved in the process of this now.

And I have to say, maybe sometimes it's good to tune out.

I mean, it's not exactly in my self interest, I have to say.

Right.

And yet when you really think about it, I mean, you know, there's something weird about the fact that

The news stays always the same, you know, what would I mean like there's always about the same amount of it?

And while surely there are very important things that happen and less important things, I don't think people have to get really locked into everything all the time, especially if it has a really negative impact on their mood.

I really think like even though I think it's part of being a good citizen, it's good to step back.

It's good to, you know, to encourage other parts of your life.

You will be better off for it.

So.

You know, you could read less news, not on box.com, but otherwise.

And you're the other ones to subscribe to Vox.

You include this statistic in your article, the fact that three million people flew in and out of US airports and none of them died in an accident.

That's not news, while a single crash most definitely is.

Right.

We don't hear that every day.

Day 427 of no fatal crashes.

We don't do that.

No, we don't.

And that's, that really falls down to the media.

I mean, we, it's not something we report on the, you know, the term, what is it?

A dog bites man story.

What that means basically is like, yeah, no kidding that there's actually zero surprise in that.

So why would a report on it?

Well, we've not gotten to a point where the fact that planes are flying all the time, incredibly safe is a dog bites man story.

So why would you report on it?

But there's a lot of other things like that too.

I think, you know, the fact that we've seen child mortality around the world.

declined so sharply over the last 25 years, the fact that we've seen, you know, global poverty fall as well.

The fact that even here in this country, like we continue to see economic growth, I mean, it has a lot of imperfections, but it's a system that in some ways has been working better, I think, than we realize.

But again, like, we're not looking at the stuff that is just like 2% better, 2% better, 2% better every year.

We're looking for the things that are surprising, those are the things that get your attention.

And often surprising and bad, that's like gold when it comes to getting eyeballs.

I think another thing too, you spoke about when we came, when we came back was, you know, the taking in all of the information as much as, and the three of us, our, our business is being educated on what's going on and for us, Wisconsin and the world for you, it's all over the world.

But I think that also there's a cache now that if you're, if, if you're not up to every single new story, you somehow can be seen as

ill-informed when it's almost impossible because there's too much news.

People have lives and you should give yourself grace and saying, all right, here are the things that I believe in or here are the things that I really want to be involved in.

Be up to speed on that, but there's no special jacket you're given for knowing all the news all the time and having a nuanced opinion.

So give yourself a little break on maybe not knowing some things because it's okay.

You can find it out, but it's not.

necessary to be cool.

You mean I'm not gonna get a pin?

You'll get

there's no pin.

I'll give you a fine.

I'll give you a pin.

Fine.

I'm bringing up the pin.

All right, fine.

Brian

Walsh.

A tote bag

or

something.

No, no, no.

A tote.

I love it.

You can put in tote bag.

I know.

I know too much news totes.

That would be great.

Brian Walsh, senior editorial director at Vox.

We're talking about why we're so drawn to bad news.

You are doing a good news column.

Brian, what are some of the things we can look forward to about reading about on the good side of life?

Yes, well, I mean, it really varies from there's a lot of you that's in really amazing stories around medical research that you hear about really exciting things and something like being able to gene edit infants to cure diseases.

So I love to focus on that.

I really love when I'm sort of doing something that's a bit of a narrative violation.

So a piece I did a while back was on how violent crime around the US was actually declining incredibly quickly in most places.

In fact, in cities like Philadelphia, where I come from,

It was on a track to be a record low.

And then now we're seeing that globally as well.

So I kind of mix and match between really interesting scientific advances.

I think people should know about that will actually improve their lives one day.

And then sometimes bigger global ones.

A piece I did most recently, I thought, frankly, was pretty interesting was about washing machines.

And the fact that when you go back, like again, about 100 years, when people said laundry day, that actually meant a whole day.

Yeah.

That's what you'd have to do.

Yeah.

Eating the water doing the wash putting out there so forth ended up to hours of work now something like I think 85% of Americans have a wash machine the ones who don't probably the laundromat That's a lot of time you get back It's almost like it's a time machine and half a billion.

Yeah, sorry half of the world actually does not have that right now They'd love to have those things.

So it's it's it's stuff like that I just want to say one other thing which is talking about the news The kind of work that you two do is actually really important here because one thing I think is that's helpful to

get a better sense of the world is actually pay more attention to what's happening in your local area.

In fact, there's always this big division between you might ask Americans like, uh, what are you, you know, is violent crime getting worse in the country?

They'll say, yes, definitely.

But if you ask them about their own town, often they have a much more accurate picture of it.

And I

think, you know, one issue here is like, we've gotten so nationalized around our attention and media that that gives us a much more work.

the impression of what's going on, whereas we do know and can know more about what's happening to our neighbors or our town, our cities.

And I think we should pay more attention to that, actually.

Brian Walsh is the senior editorial director at Vox.

You can find him and read his column about good news.

It will

be at the show

notes.

At Vox.com.

Thank you so much for your time, Brian.

Really, really appreciate it.

Thank you very

much.

Stay with us, news is next, and then audio Sorbet, we're talking outside Christmas lights that's coming up.

You're listening to Matt Nair on air on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning and welcome back to Matt and air on air Jane Matt and air Greg Bach Resident young person Calvin on the board coming to you from her studio at radio park in Racine You can join us call or text the number is the same at 855

7524842.

Leave a comment if you're watching on the live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and what used to be Twitter.

Thanks again to Brian Walsh from box.com for joining us.

Very interesting conversation about what is it about us as humans that we're so attracted to bad news.

And it's a great conversation.

If you weren't able to catch it, you can always go back to our website at civicmedia.us.

At the very top, it says shows.

Click on that.

Go down to Matt and Aaron here.

Click on that.

And that will take you to an archive of about two months worth of previous programs.

So listen to that conversation with Brian Walsh.

It was pretty interesting.

Absolutely.

This is the portion of the program that we call Audio Sorbet, where we lighten things up, get away from the news.

We essentially

Clean your ears with fun.

Here is today's audio sorbet question.

It was a beautiful, beautiful Saturday, at least in southeastern Wisconsin.

A lot of people were out raking.

A lot of people were out putting up those Christmas lights.

Yeah, they were.

Outside Christmas lights, it's a thing.

They're here.

Here is the question.

Do you light them up now?

Now that they're outside and they're all ready to go, do you light them up now?

Or do you wait until after Thanksgiving, which is next Thursday?

Yeah.

So it's not, you wouldn't have to wait that long.

I saw a whole bunch of places all lit up when I drove in this morning.

Some really impressive displays,

actually.

Yeah, there are some areas around Southeast Wisconsin that have their own.

I think I actually live near a neighborhood that's called Christmas.

It said Christmas Lane under their street sign.

So I'm like, ooh.

A lot of pressure.

But I, you know, I'm.

Well, you don't do lights.

Yeah, I know.

I think this year I'm gonna try to do it and I said I said I was gonna do it last year and then I said the year before that and then I think I said the year before that is I just want to get some red and green lights for the outside lamps.

Perfect.

I don't want

to get up on the

roof and put up lights.

Although I do.

Okay, so really quick.

I have a neighbor who does something really cool and they have to be available and if they are, I think I might buy them.

They have

permanent lights on their house that look like the same idea as Christmas lights.

They go along the roof line and then the house line.

and they change colors.

So they can have whatever they want.

So it could be

orange for Halloween.

Exactly.

And it's changeable,

it

seems.

And that way I would totally do something like that.

That way you could have lights all the time and you could do it for whatever you like.

And I think that's a really neat idea.

Although

they look professionally installed because they're not hanging.

They look attached.

And that's when you lose me.

As soon as I have to be on a ladder for more than 45 seconds to 90 seconds.

Not happening.

No, thank you.

You need

to ask your neighbor.

I need to say hello.

I'm

your neighbor because I've never talked to them

that would be a good start Start there.

Hello.

I'm your neighbor and by the way, how did you do that thing with the lights on your house?

Yeah, they also have a camper so I feel like they have money So I'm like maybe it's like very expensive 8

5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 the audio survey question for today You got your outside lights up.

Do you wait to light them up until after Thanksgiving?

Are they on right now?

855-752-4842.

Brett from Brown Deer is on the line.

Good morning, Brett.

Thanks for joining us.

What's your position on Christmas lights outside?

Good

morning.

Yeah, I'm pretty staunch.

I love Thanksgiving.

We do the whole Thanksgiving.

I cook the turkey and everything, but we will not put up any Christmas stuff until the next day.

Okay, that's just a rule.

It's