As we hit episode 7 which is the average number of episodes a new Podcast has before it's creators give up on it, Stephen looks at a newspaper article and deconstructs the holes in its logic and sources.    Lots of media on all sides are at this game. Hopefully this episode will help people to think critically when reading the news and always be wondering who the "experts" that journalists citing are and how robust their expertise actually is.    The article is here for listeners to look at whilst listening https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/08/meghan-claims-archie-highlight-colourism-problem-uk

The UK governments proposal to give health service workers a 1% pay rise, the reaction to it and how it highlights working class peoples unfortunate penchant for holding each other back instead of raising each other up and how to be more positive towards your peers  

A brief riff on Shamima Begums UK citizenship being revoked and why that's not necessarily great going forward.    Also Mr Potato head losing his Mr: completely boring and not actually what happened but important in terms of the reaction to it  and how we can frame the conversation to make it more solution based. 

This episode is a little bit of a rant brought on by lockdown blues. Laying out yet again the need for better conversation and a little less sanctimony and fleshing out why something that seems as innocuous as poor discussion brings about real world danger.

We hear terms like anti vaxxer and covidiot being thrown around quite a lot at the moment. Is that fair? Or is that person just a little unsure of a new vaccine? Are they suffering through lack of access to medical care due to covid restrictions? Can we try to understand each other a little better and have a better conversation than just hurling accusations? Listen and maybe it will improve your conversations with people that think differently than you do

Why calls to force the media to only print facts, whilst sounding very noble is actually very scary

An introductory episode to the new podcast "Just below the surface" where we learn that just a shallow dive into a topic could be enough to understand ourselves and others better in the modern world of information and argument overload via traditional and social media

trailer for the Just below the surface podcast