Politics and fear featured prominently in national news coverage during June 2016, when events included a mass shooter who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump apparently clinching the Democratic and GOP nominations for president.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln experts were among those offering insight into those events. Nearly 40 national news articles in June mentioned faculty, staff and students, including:
A lengthy June 21 article in The Atlantic that analyzed “How American Politics Went Insane.” It cited seminal research by John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, political science.
A June 13 Vox.com piece that prominently quoted political psychologist Ingrid Haas on how uncertainty and fear in the wake of the Orlando shooting could impact the gun control debate. That article also mentioned groundbreaking work on the biological underpinnings of politics by Hibbing and Kevin Smith, political science.
Social science research led by Hibbing and Smith also was cited in The New York Times June 18 in an opinion piece “Has political fear-mongering lost its appeal?”
Stephanie Bondi, educational administration, authored a June 17 column for Inside Higher Ed on how student affairs officials on campuses nationwide should respond to the Orlando shootings. She also was featured in a June 29 Student Affairs Live podcast discussion of how the shootings affect LGBT populations on campus.
Other highlights of June’s coverage:
The Farm Journal was among outlets that published an Associated Press report on a $20 million grant to boost crop productivity. The new Center for Root and Rhizobiome Innovation will be led by James Alfano, plant pathology, and Edgar Cahoon, biochemistry. Chancellor Ronnie Green also was quoted in the coverage. Maine News Online also published a story on the grant.
Deborah Bathke, National Drought Mitigation Center, was quoted in a June 20 Public News Service report on looming drought in Iowa.
A couple dozen Iowa news organizations, including Radio Iowa, the Quad City Times, the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier and the Cedar Rapids Gazette covered a call by Eric Berger, law, for the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. During a June 16 appearance in Des Moines, Berger called for U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to schedule a hearing and vote on Garland’s nomination. Berger served as a law clerk for the federal appeals court judge in 2003 and 2004. SCOTUSblog, which provides comprehensive coverage of the Supreme Court, mentioned Berger’s effort in its June 17 round-up of events relating to Garland’s nomination.
In a widely distributed June 16 story, Deseret News quoted Dawn O. Braithwaite, communication studies, in an article about the newly released Pixar movie, “Finding Dory.” Braithwaite, who studies family relationships, said the film is part of a large repertoire exploring how families can form voluntarily through ties of affection, even when people are not related by biology or law.
The Huffington Post on June 6 featured Jeff Culbertson, landscape services, in a story about how he saved his future wife’s life via CPR in 1988.
Wheeler Winston Dixon, film studies, discussed how TV affects your psyche in a June 6 Fast Company story about quitting TV. The Los Angeles Times interviewed Dixon for a June 3 report about the recent leadership shakeup at Sony Pictures.
A mobile app and software to analyze social networks, relationships and behavior, under development by Kirk Dombrowski and Bilal Khan, sociology, was covered by the Associated Press June 10. The story, which originated with the Lincoln Journal Star was carried by many outlets nationwide.
A June 22 Huffington Post article quoted Shawn Eichorst, athletics, about the university’s decision to help launch the LGBT SportSafe Inclusion program created by former Husker Eric Lueshen and others.
Agri-View, an agricultural news site, quoted Yufeng Ge, biological systems engineering, in a June 2 report about a new phenotyping tool to better identify plant characteristics.
War on the Rocks, a national web magazine devoted to foreign policy and national security, published June 9 commentary from Rupal Mehta, political science, on whether Japan should acquire nuclear arms. Mehta specializes in nuclear security issues. Although presidential candidate Donald Trump has said he’s open to the idea, Mehta concluded that a nuclear-armed Japan is “virtually unthinkable and highly undesirable.”
A June 29 Bismarck Tribune article about fishing described a project that tracks catfish in the Red River, led by Mark Pegg, natural resources.
News outlets in India reported on medical devices under development by Ben Terry, engineering, after Terry traveled to the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras on a Global Gateway grant. Terry is collaborating with researchers at the institute. On June 9, the Times of India wrote about Terry’s research that could replace ventilators with oxygen-filled microbubbles to aid breathing for people whose lungs don’t function. On June 16, the Times of India published an article about Terry’s efforts to create ingestible medical capsules that would remain in the body long enough to take readings of calorie intake, diagnose diseases and deliver drugs. The New Indian Express, in a June 22 report, described the microbubbles as an artificial lung in the peritoneal cavity, which could be used to aid soldiers in high altitudes or on the war front.
Matthew Waite, journalism, was quoted by dozens of news organizations after the FAA announced new drone regulations in late June. Waite, founder of the drone journalism laboratory, was interviewed June 21 by KJZZ, a National Public Radio station in Arizona, June 21 and by the Tampa Bay Times on June 24. He published a commentary on the new regulations on the June 21 Nieman Journalism Laboratory website. Waite also was mentioned in a June 15 Digiday article about a former student, Ben Kreimer, now a fellow at Buzzfeed’s Open Lab for Journalism, Technology and the Arts.
John West, Nebraska Center for Virology, was quoted by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette in a June 19 story about long-time federal policy restricting gay and bisexual men from donating blood. The policy, established during the 1980s AIDS crisis, recently was loosened.
Faculty, administration, student and staff appearances in the national media are logged at http://newsroom.unl.edu/inthenews/ If you have additions to this list or suggestions for national news stories, contact Leslie Reed at lreed5@unl.edu or 402-472-2059.
