Summary

PBS NewsHour livestreams a number of events related to government and politics. When US onAir launches this spring, it’s curators will be posting these PBS NewsHour livestreams as “News” items in this and other posts. They can be viewed with each news post on a large screen computer or smartphone. They also can be found on PBS NewsHour’s YouTube channel here.

President Joe Biden will deliver his annual State of the Union address on March 7, 2024.  His speech will be livestreamed within this post, the US Presidency post and other US onAir posts.

White House aides are aiming to use the State of the Union, Biden’s largest national audience of the year, to lay out an agenda that he can quickly take out on the campaign trail – including protecting the Affordable Care Act, expanding efforts to relieve student debt and housing costs, and fiscal measures such as a 25% minimum tax for billionaires and quadrupling the stock buyback tax.

The president is expected to specifically call on Republicans and Democrats to finally act on issues he says they should be able to agree on: tackling the fentanyl crisis, increasing assistance for veterans, addressing mental health, expanding data privacy protections and searching for a cure for cancer.

Challenge:  How can US onAir help to better address the polarization, tribalism, and disunity in the US?

Issue Aircasts: One way onAir will be addressing this challenge is by facilitating people on both sides “listening” to and trying to “understand” each other and finding , with their legislators, solutions for current important and divisive issues. US onAir is supporting a “Common Ground” series of issue aircasts – livestreamed, zoom discussions.

Methodology: 

• CURATOR (student or retired person, or nonprofit member edits a post on issue with background information and possible legislative solutions. Curator puts in issue post (and US onAir first post and other relevant posts) as a News post and with Host starts a collaborative doc to storyboard and detail an aircast. Curator, during the aircasts, helps monitor the online discussion forum associated with the aircast as well as can conducts polls with the viewing audience.
• HOST (with deep knowledge of the topic & proposed legislation and trained in our Common Ground (CG) format & guidelines; invites reps or their staff to be the Guest Advocate & Opponent of pending legislation. Host also invites the public to apply to be aircast guests submitting a one minute or less video on their views on the issue and, specifically, how they the bill(s) would affect them personally based on their experience. Host sends guests an acceptance email with aircast instructions (if requested, may do a zoom with their guests prior to aircast).
• AIRCASTER  sets ups upcoming YouTube Live stream and, using Open Broadcast Software, produces the aircast and assists in post-production editing.