It's Been a Minute Folgen

Colleges and universities are getting ready for a new year, but like everything else, coronavirus is complicating everything. Some are closing campus and moving online, others plan to bring students back with social distancing. Sam checks in with Tressie McMillan Cottom, associate professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, about the state of higher education and why not all colleges are created equal when it comes to prioritizing health over business. Then he chats with comedian and Desus and Mero writer Ziwe Fumudoh, whose recent interviews with white celebrities like Alison Roman and Rose McGowan have generated a lot of social media buzz for her frank questions about race. They talk about the art of the interview and her comfort with discomfort.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The newsrooms that covered the protests for racial justice are now being forced to confront racism and inequity within their own organizations. Black journalists and other journalists of color are sharing their experiences on social media and leading a public debate over what it means to be "objective," whose stories are told, and how whiteness still dictates newsroom practices, opportunities and compensation. Sam chats about this reckoning within newsrooms with The Undefeated's Soraya Nadia McDonald, Futuro Media president and founder and Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa and NPR public editor Kelly McBride. Thanks for listening to our show! We want your feedback. Please visit npr.org/ibamsurvey to submit your thoughts now.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Four months into the pandemic, it seems like we're no better off in dealing with the coronavirus. There are still so many questions and few definitive answers about how this all ends, and for a lot of us, that's turned into anger and frustration. Sam talks to comedian Laurie Kilmartin about how she used Twitter and her iPad to process her mother's illness and death from COVID-19. Then he chats with Houston bar owner Greg Perez about how he's trying to keep workers and customers safe while also keeping his business afloat. And Sam asks Dr. Olveen Carrasquillo in Miami about how to make sense of all the mixed public health messaging on the coronavirus.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy