Robert Scott is the Regional Administrator of the Great Lakes Region of the federal Small Business Administration (SBA) and he is on a mission. Scott recently toured some of the areas of his region facing some of the greatest economic stagnation to spread the word about some of the benefits of the Small Business Administration. He is responsible for the rustbelt in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. He oversees the delivery of the agency’s financial assistance, technical...
Aug 08, 2018•35 min
Covering this White House and this President is a 24 hour job, says Gregory Korte, award-winning Washington correspondent for USA Today. He says that this President is more complicated in many ways from any other President in history. In part, Korte claims, because most traditional ways of handling issues and procedures are turned on their head. This President often eschews the analytical approach to problem solving but instead governs “from his gut.” He often bypasses staff to make decisions ba...
Aug 01, 2018•36 min
Russia is trying to elevate its power in Europe and on the world stage and Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin is manipulating the United States and other countries in the process, according to professor, author and expert on Russia Dr. Steven Miner. To gain prestige and power, Putin is wanting to split the NATO alliance as well as disrupt and denigrate European and American politics and democracies, says Dr. Miner. Disruption plays into Putin’s plans. President Donald Trump gave the appearance of ai...
Jul 25, 2018•55 min
Last year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spent nearly $5.5 billion dollars on contracts related to small businesses. Some $2.7 billion or 16.5 percent of total procurements involved direct contracts between small businesses and NASA. Another $2.8 of contracts were subcontracts with small businesses -- contracts between small business and large prime contractors servicing NASA. Even though those numbers are impressive, NASA wants to expand its small business contracting...
Jul 18, 2018•32 min
In November 2017, Errin Whack was appointed to be the Race and Ethnicity Writer for the Associated Press. She works closely with the Race and Ethnicity team dedicated to covering “race, culture and politics” in a changing and volatile America. The Associated Press says it has developed a team that can focus on the complicated issues of race and provide rapid responses to racial issues developing across the country. “America is currently hyper-racial,” Whack says. She thinks, therefore, that stor...
Jul 11, 2018•35 min
A producer works behind-the-scenes and in the control room helping to write and direct the way the news is presented by the talent. It is an important and vital role to the delivery of broadcast news but it’s a role that is little understood. A producer helps gathers the news, write it and sits in the control room advising the talent during the news delivery. A producer and the news anchor must have a symbiotic relationship. It is like an intense plutonic professional relationship, according to ...
Jul 04, 2018•37 min
Editorial cartoonists, in the heyday of newspapers, were plentiful. Now the group is down to only 50 nationwide and that number is being threatened by slow extinction. One of the survivors, however, is prize winning cartoonist, columnist, editor and author Jack Ohman of the “Sacramento Bee. “ Currently, his cartoons are syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group. Previously, his work appeared in 200 newspapers through Tribune Content Agency, and he was, at age 19, the youngest editorial car...
Jun 27, 2018•35 min
Since 2014, the faculty and staff of the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine have been developing a new medical school curriculum called the “Pathways to Health and Wellness Curriculum.” Its design is revolutionary and may lead the way for other medical schools to follow. Come August, gone will be the big auditorium lectures. Instead, greater emphasis will be placed on individual and independent studies through the use of a “flipped classroom approach.” “Students will learn ...
Jun 20, 2018
The meeting in Singapore between President Donald Trump and N. Korean leader Kim Jong Un was most assuredly historic. It was the first time that a N. Korean leader had met face-to-face with a sitting U.S. President. But, was the meeting substantive and did it produce any lasting results? That is the question politicians, journalists, and analysts are asking as President Trump wings his way back to Washington. The first reviews are tepid, according to TIME Washington correspondent Philip Elliott,...
Jun 13, 2018•1 hr
As we feel racial tension from the White House and hear immigration horror stories from President Donald Trump’s Administration, it is refreshing to have a true scholar publish a book that is well researched and has an optimistic slant on the same issues. That is what Dr. Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute and former executive vice-president of the Wilson Center has done in his new book: “Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together.” Dr. S...
Jun 06, 2018•41 min
For 25 years, Stephen Crowley was one of two “New York Times” (NYT) photographers stationed in Washington to cover the White House, the President, and Congress. Being a politically-minded guy since childhood, Crowley says that covering politics was never boring and in fact, it often was exciting. He says that covering politics is a lot like shooting athletic events…there are always surprises, successes and failures. There are stars and also-rans. Each personality is different and it reflects in ...
May 30, 2018•38 min
Medical historian Jacqueline H. Wolf, a professor at Ohio University, has just authored a new book tracing the history of the use of Cesarean Section baby deliveries in the United States noting a definite upward trend in the 21st Century. The book, “Cesarean Section: An American History of Risk, Technology, and Consequence,” explores the history of the C-Section from the 19th century until today. Wolf tells Spectrum podcast that Cesarean births rose in the United States by 455 percent from 4.5 p...
May 23, 2018•48 min
As if the tangled and muddled web of potential Russian collusion and conspiracy with Americans to interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election was not confusing enough, we now have the activities of President Trump’s former attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen to further complicate matters. Philip Ewing, security editor for National Public Radio (NPR) in Washington, has been following the Cohen situation as it unfolds. He notes there are three main elements. First, what documents should be turned o...
May 16, 2018•55 min
Investigative journalism is not the sole province of only big-city newspapers like the “New York Times” or the “Washington Post.” Instead, it is starting to flourish at the grassroots level through the assistance of the Institute for Non-Profit News (INN), a collective of over 100 non-profit news organizations across the country. The groups are committed to transparency in government and to hold public officials accountable. Affiliates across the country pay INN “a small fee each month in exchan...
May 09, 2018•40 min
Andrew Revkin has spent his professional career covering environmental issues and writing about them contemporaneously. However, his most recent book, just published in May 2018, tracks climate change by looking at 100 historical events that help explain today’s climate debate. The book is “Weather: An Illustrated History: From Cloud Atlases to Climate Change” published by Sterling and it is co-authored by Revkin’s wife, Lisa Mechaley. He goes back to pre-history and brings the important climate...
May 02, 2018•48 min
Journalist Leo Mirani has spent his life in big cities. He worked for the Guardian in Mumbai, India – a city with a metropolitan population of over 22 million people. And, he now lives in London with a population of about 9.8 million people. His whole life has been spent in large cities and metropolitan areas. He, however, has been curious about what small towns might be like and small cities in the United States. So, he came to America on a paid sabbatical to spend 70 days traveling the heartla...
Apr 25, 2018•40 min
Dr. Steve Crocker was there for the birth of the Internet. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was part of the group that developed the protocols for the ARPANET. That was the foundation for today's Internet. It was originally designed to share data and scientific research; however, it quickly morphed into a system used by millions of people for both productive and nefarious reasons. He helped formulate the Network Working Group, the forerunner of the modern Internet Engineering Task Force. He...
Apr 18, 2018•43 min
The term “liberal” seems to be fading from the political lexicon. Instead, daily, we, as voters, are bombarded with the term “progressive.” We constantly hear of progressive versus mainstream candidates. It was really apparent in the 2016 primary with Sen. Bernie Sanders challenging Hillary Clinton. But “progressivism” also has seemed to invade state elections and grassroots politics. For example, in Ohio’s Democratic Gubernatorial Primary, political rebel Dennis Kucinich is calling himself a pr...
Apr 11, 2018•37 min
Artificial Intelligence quickly is becoming a greater part of our lives. Algorithms already trace our digital footprints and routinely send us targeted advertising and social media content compatible with our views. AI checks our credit scores and approves/disapproves us for loans and mortgages. It also is being used to predict behaviors – especially by law enforcement and criminal justice systems. But, is it biased and does it racially profile? Randy Rieland, is an award-winning journalist and ...
Apr 04, 2018•32 min
The serious side of Dr. Michael E. Mann approaches his battle with the climate change deniers in the Trump Administration with scholarly excellence. But, the author side of Dr. Mann approaches the same topic with science, satire and cartoons. Dr. Mann is one of the world’s foremost authorities on climate change and its impacts. He is an award-winning scholar. He is a Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the Department of Geosciences ...
Mar 28, 2018•26 min
In the early 1970s, Madeline Carvalho Lanciani traveled from suburban Dayton, Ohio to New York City as a young woman with dreams of being an opera singer. After many twists and turns in life, she now owns the famous Duane Park Patisserie in the fashionable Tribeca District. She is famous for her baking, her creativity and for her tenacity. March is National Women’s History Month and the theme this year is NEVERTHELESS SHE PERSISTED: Honoring Women Who Fight All Forms of Discrimination Against Wo...
Mar 21, 2018•27 min
“Fake News” is a term that does not have one definite meaning. Its definition is fluid depending on who is using it to describe news coverage, says an assembled team of experts. Spectrum brought together a veteran journalist, a scholar in the fields of communication and education, and a media executive with 30 years of experience in public broadcasting to dissect the topic of “Fake News” and what it means. Allison Hunter is currently the Editor-In-Chief of WOUB News. Over her career she has had ...
Mar 14, 2018•57 min
This month the civil war in Syria will enter its eighth year of fighting. More than 400,000 have been killed, nearly 1 million injured and over one-third of the nation’s infrastructure has been destroyed, says Dr. Bassam Haddad, an expert on Syria. Millions have been displaced from their homes and other countries have felt the glut of millions of Syrian refugees fleeing the fighting. What started as an internal civil war in 2011 against the dictatorship of President Bashar a-Assad has become a c...
Mar 07, 2018•46 min
Students of color, students who don’t know English well and LGBTQ students are “vastly over-represented among students who face school disciplinary actions,” says Dr. Lisa Harrison and Dr. Theda Gibbs-Grey of the Patton College of Education at Ohio University. This has led Dr. Harrison and Dr. Gibbs-Grey to launch a research study called “Black Girls Matter: Exploring the School Experiences of Middle School Black Girls Who Have Experienced School Suspensions.” Discipline rates of Black girls far...
Feb 28, 2018•39 min
Russia intended to support candidates against Hillary Clinton- the object of Vladimir Putin’s hatred, says expert on Russia, Dr. Steven Miner, scholar, author and professor in the Contemporary History Institute of Ohio University. Russia also intended to disrupt American politics and social systems leading up to and after the 2016 Presidential Election, says Miner after perusing the 35 pages of indictments filed February 16 by United States Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Russians intended t...
Feb 21, 2018•39 min
Often Appalachian natives decry the “drive by journalists” from big cities that come to small Appalachia towns just to capture pictures and depictions of poverty, unemployment, drug addiction and squalid and trashy living conditions. They come, stay for a day or two, take pictures of the most decrepit conditions and human devastation, conduct a few interviews and then leave painting the whole region with the same brush of destitution. The same criticisms have been levied by some against the rece...
Feb 14, 2018•37 min
The news in Washington D.C. regarding the investigation of the Trump campaign for possible conspiracy with Russians in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice on the part of the President is roiling. According to Philip Ewing, National Security Editor for National Public Radio (NPR), the news comes at such a rapid pace that all journalists are scrambling to keep up with the latest developments and skirmishes. Ewing, in this edition of “Spectrum,” attempts to bring us up-to-date on ...
Feb 07, 2018•45 min
The days of video or computer games being just for the entertainment of a small segment of our population are over. The gaming industry is exploding and developing beyond the confines of simple games into applications for healthcare, rehabilitation, education and even finance. The business of gaming is worth over a $100 billion globally per year. Games bring in more money that music and movies combined, says Chris Volpe, entrepreneur and CEO of Multivarious Games headquartered in Columbus, Ohio....
Jan 31, 2018•42 min
Some observers characterize politics as a game…a sport where there are game plans, strategies, and winners and losers on almost a daily basis. And, often the news media cover politics as if it were a sporting competition with play-by-play descriptions and color analysis. Such was the case during the most recent three-day federal shutdown over the spending resolution– a battle between Democrats and Republicans and a battle between the White House and the Senate. Terminology mimicked sports covera...
Jan 24, 2018•42 min
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by news daily pouring out of Washington D.C. and the White House that you find confusing, depressing or just plain outrageous? Do you think that our democracy is in jeopardy by threats being made by the President and other governmental officials against free speech and civil liberties? Do you begin or end your day full of anger or rage at what our government has become? Do you feel frustrated thinking, as an individual, that you can do nothing to counteract the tide ...
Jan 17, 2018•35 min
