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Misinformation is often described as something that’s created and then spread, but increasingly, it’s shaped in real time through participation. In this episode of News Over Noise, Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Kate Starbird about participatory disinformation and how online audiences help produce, remix, and amplify information as it moves, blurring the line between observer and actor. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT

This month, hear PSU faculty flutist Naomi Seidman with the Penns Woods Music Festival Orchestra, led by Gerardo Edelstein, in a flute concerto by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach; two pieces by Margaret Bonds, arranged for solo piano and performed by Lara Downes: “Credo No. 2” and “Troubled Water;” And the Violin Sonata in G Minor by Laura Valbourg Aulin, played by Penn State professors James Lyon, violin and Timothy Shafer, piano.

Misinformation now moves at the speed of algorithms and with generative AI, it is getting harder to tell what is real and what is manufactured. In this episode of News Over Noise, hosts Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Sofia Rubinson, analyst at NewsGuard and senior editor of Reality Check, about how false claims spread, why AI is accelerating their reach, and what that means for public trust. From viral images and foreign disinformation campaigns to health hoaxes and AI-generated content, Rubinson breaks down how false stories move from fringe platforms into the mainstream and how NewsGuard tracks, debunks, and analyzes those narratives in real time.

As political pressure, corporate power, and platform dynamics collide, long-standing protections for free speech and a free press are being tested in new ways. In this episode of News Over Noise, hosts Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Dr. Amy Sanders, Penn State’s John and Ann Curley Chair in First Amendment Studies, about what the First Amendment really protects and how legal frameworks, business interests, and political forces are reshaping the Fourth Estate.

Young people are often described as disengaged, overwhelmed, or indifferent to the news, but those labels miss what’s actually happening. In this episode of News Over Noise, hosts Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Rachel Besharat Mann, Associate Professor of the Practice at Wesleyan University, about how adolescents and young adults navigate news in social media environments. Drawing on her research, Mann examines news avoidance, algorithmic trust, influencer culture, and the role of identity, emotion, and wellness in shaping how young people interpret information and develop early civic identities in a platform-driven media landscape.

As prediction markets move from the fringes into mainstream news coverage, questions about ethics, accountability, and public trust are becoming harder to ignore. In this episode of News Over Noise, hosts Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Judd Legum, founder and editor of Popular Information, about the growing influence of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket and what happens when the logic of gambling collides with journalism. The conversation explores the financialization of public opinion, the erosion of editorial judgment, and what’s at stake when human consequences are reduced to probabilities and payouts.

In this episode of News Over Noise, Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Timothy Richardson of PEN America about how rhetoric has shifted into action and discuss why press freedom organizations that once focused overseas are now turning their attention back home.

Local newspapers have long played a central role in how communities understand themselves, but that role is becoming harder to sustain. In this episode of News Over Noise, Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with journalist Tony Norman about the unraveling of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and what its decline reveals about the broader transformation of American journalism.