News – Julie Fredrickson

As I shook off my sleep this morning, I started the day with a cup of coffee (since after that tea debacles it was coffee powered our revolution) and the NPR news brief.

Their five minute top of the hour news roundups was once my favored way of staying up on national & global news. Nostalgia made me turn it on today. I wanted to feel the patriotism comes from owning one’s responsibility to be an informed citizen.

Fourth of July being Independence Day, I am excited by civic pride that comes with informed self governance. What better way to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial.

Our great American experiment celebrates 250 years of independence from Great Britain. As a singular nation state, committed self evident truths such as all men being equal in our unalienable right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

We say America is a unique and improbable miracle. And many of us remain as committed to the founding fathers’ ethos of self-governance because we are taught that we all must make sacrifices to maintain ordered liberty.

Part of my commitment to being a free American is working towards a higher standard of informed civics. So it felt appropriate to begin this important day of celebration by engaging with the issues of the moment. I hoped NPR might be a part of that.

I have always loved radio (I even worked at an infamous station as a teen). I enjoy eccentric public access Art Bell style shows, opinion shock jocks, and folksy variety shows. Yet it was National Public Radio’s news coverage that was my family’s constant companion for remaining engaged with the public discourse.

We didn’t always have the money for expensive newspapers subscriptions for newspapers like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal so I’d read at the library. But at home I could always rely on NPR.

There was a time when a public radio station, which was free for all Americans who wished to listen, was a source of national civic pride. I was taught it was our patriotic duty to be informed citizens. Plus they played great music from variety shows to classical.

So it was with some sadness that the very first story in the roundup that while the majority of Americans are proud to be an American they also believe we have shifted away from our founding ideals. Half of us don’t even know 4th of July commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence so I can’t blame anyone for having worries.

Yet, as you might expect, some of this is mere partisan politics. It will shift just as our political system has always does. The negativity need not be the focus. Even in dark times we must reach for the light.

Interestingly younger generations are more likely than older generations to say America aligns with our founding ideals. And I have to say this aligns with my personal experience.

I have been privileged to work on passing laws that reinforces our core constitutional rights alongside investing in the hard infrastructure work of developing cheaper energy. From our right to compute to the our nuclear renaissance that bloomed in one year from a single executive order, I’ve never felt as engaged with the process of building our nation.

Every day offers us a chance to celebrate our innate freedoms. And I’d like it if our public institutions felt similarly not matter who the people choose as our representatives. We have always been an imperfect nation.

The American experiment is ongoing. Our many problems are real but it is equally true that we have never been more empowered to engage with building the country you wish to see. Happy Birthday America. May we celebrate her today, tomorrow and another 250 years into the future.

I used to travel a lot. It seems like another life, but before the pandemic airports were my most important liminal space. Even as a child this was true as my father loved taking us on trips. That emotional weight meant the airport have always had significance to me. This persistent exposure to airports lead to me to developing certain affinities and aversions in my routines around travel. But the one that I liked the most was buying something at the newsstand.

There was a period as a teenager where I thought carrying both the The Economist and Rolling Stone (neither of which I read anymore) was just the height of intellectual signaling. And no place was more crucial to signal than inside an airport. I could meet someone in passing that would change my life and they needed to see immediately that I was both smart and cultured. Yes it’s embarrassing now.

But this signaling was part of a wider ritual I felt was important to ground myself. Even if I felt the unsteadiness of traveling, I could bring routine and ritual into it. I knew no matter how much I anxiety or uncertainty I felt around a given trip I could always treat myself to buying something to read from the airport newsstand.

Generally I would pick up some kind of periodical. I’d leave myself time to browse the newsstands for at least ten minutes so I could adequately cover all the weird genres. Because I grew up in a small town and not a proper city, the only newsstand I ever encountered was at the airport. There was simply no place that held as many magazines covering as many topics.

And while I had the Internet very early in my life, the actual transition away from physical publishing wasn’t as far along. It’s not that I loved magazines so much as it was the only place I could find writing that wasn’t a novel was in newsstand. Now of course I read blogs, email newsletters, forums, Subreddits and my beloved Twitter. But the memories I have of finding new worlds came from newsstands. And while I may have literally been going someplace new, it was never quite as horizon broadening as picking out what I was going to read.