#today explained

Sean Rameswaram at Vox:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced last week that it would shut down after Congress voted to claw back over $500 million of federal funding from the organization. The announcement imperils local PBS and NPR stations around the country that have provided news and educational content for kids for nearly half a century.

Amid the stripping of these federal funds, last month, the White House debuted a new educational partner at its launch event for its new Founders Museum exhibit: PragerU, a nonprofit organization that specializes in creating right-leaning educational short videos for adults and children. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon introduced the partnership, followed by PragerU CEO Marissa Streit. For the White House exhibit, PragerU created AI-generated videos of the Founding Fathers delivering patriotic accounts of the Revolution. In one, an AI-generated John Adams borrows a catchphrase from conservative pundit Ben Shapiro and tells the viewer, “Facts do not care about our feelings.”

Since its founding in 2009, PragerU has become a juggernaut in the conservative educational media space, with their videos reaching millions of followers across social media. The organization has helped launch the media careers of right-wing figures like Candace Owens. Their popular videos elevate narratives that have been sharply criticized as climate denialist, Islamophobic, and “misleading” about slavery. PragerU’s partnership with the Department of Education is not the first time the conservative content mill has partnered with the government. Over the past few years, the organization has partnered with states and superintendents throughout the country to make their educational material widely available to public school children and teachers. Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram spoke with Laura Meckler, national education writer for the Washington Post, about how PragerU partnered with states to bring its content to the classroom and if the organization is poised to fill the educational void left by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The White House may be considering using right-wing indoctrination mill PragerU to replace PBS and NPR.

From the 08.04.2025 edition of Vox's Today, Explained:

@rameswaram & @today_explained V disappointed in your coverage of opioid crisis & fact that you completely left chronic sufferers out of conversation. 2 throwaway lines & not so subtle implication that all we need is ‘lifestyle changes’, not pain pills, is *not* including us.

Chronic pain is complicated issue. But in your hurry to condemn opioids, you left out an entire population that needs them & can not get access to them now. Are you aware of rise in suicides in disability community since the crackdown on opioids began? Will you do an ep on that?

Narrowing it down to ‘Myself & my guest didn’t need them, so clearly no one does’ is insulting. I can’t imagine you meant it that way, but it’s how it sounded. I know addiction. I know chronic pain. Personally. There has to be a middle ground.

I’m not saying the practices of Purdue pharma, esp the coverup, shouldn’t be punished & regulated, ofc they absolutely should. But also drs should not be afraid to treat their patients whatever way they feel is best w/o fear of being investigated or red flagged.