With the elections just around the corner, our panel of political journalists help bring you up to speed on key local and state races that affect mid-Missouri, including several statewide proposals on the ballot this year.
Panelists: Elizabeth Crisp, reporter, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Ryan Famuliner, assistant news director, KBIA Phill Brooks, director of Missouri Digital News and reporter for KMOX (joining by phone)
More and more of our shared experiences take place in the digital realm, as opposed to in person. So what impact does this have for our overall sense of community? And how might it change the way we go about life in cities and towns?
Panelists: Toni Messina, civic relations manager, City of Columbia Tyten Teegarden, mobile application developer Rich Harwood, founder and president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation(joining the program by phone)
Of the 250 top-grossing films last year, women accounted for only 5 percent of the directors, according to a recent study. While the numbers have held steady for top behind-the-scenes jobs overall (about one in five are women), the data show a significantly decreasing presence of women as film directors. So what’s going on? In advance of the Citizen Jane Film Festival in Columbia, we explore the challenges women face climbing the ranks in Hollywood and the reasons the film business remains such a male-dominated industry.
Panelists: Paula Elias, co-director of the Citizen Jane Film Festival Brenda Chapman, director of the animated films "Brave" and "The Prince of Egypt" (joining the program by phone)
As the amount of news outlets, media coverage and campaign advertising has soared, we take up a simple question: Is all that extra information making it harder for voters like you to make a good decision when it's time to go to the polls? (Or, as one of our panelists suggests, is it simply making things more interesting?) Our discussion also explores ways to better navigate the flood of election-related messaging, as well as some ideas for making election-related news coverage more useful for voters.