For daily news updates and analysis, be sure to follow us on Instagram. If you are able to support independent journalism, please make a tax-deductible donation to News Not Noise here.
In honor of the holiday weekend, I wanted to leave you with something to listen to while grilling, walking, hiding from relatives, or contemplating the republic.
My guest is Julia Angwin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, founding director of the Independent Media + Audience Project at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, and co-author of the new book On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear.
Julia and Ami Fields-Meyer interviewed more than 100 dissidents and movement leaders around the world to understand what moves ordinary people to take extraordinary risks, how courage is built, and what their stories can teach the rest of us about conscience, community, and acting with purpose.
“Most people who do courageous things don’t experience themselves as heroes,” Julia says. “They just reach a point where they say: I can’t live with myself if I don’t.”
That is the heart of this conversation.
We talk about the “moral collision” that moves people to act, why courage is less a personality trait than a practice, the unglamorous power of neighborhood organizing, and the need to find what Julia calls a political home. We also get into “collective stubbornness,” which may be my new favorite phrase.
Because Julia has spent years reporting on technology, she also offers useful advice on managing your digital footprint: what apps to use, how to use them, and what to think about before you protest, organize, or put yourself on the radar. But her biggest safety tip is not something you can download. It’s people. Other people are what protect you.
So yes, this is a conversation about hard times. But it is not a doom listen. Julia says, “It’s actually quite optimistic and inspiring because it’s about agency.”
I hope you enjoy it — and buy Julia’s book here.
Barring massive breaking news, we’ll be off Monday and back in your inbox Wednesday with more News Not Noise.
Until then, I hope you have a restful, noise-free Fourth of July weekend.
Want more information?
Please share this newsletter with family, friends, and anyone who wants to get the news and turn down the noise. If you’d like to sponsor our newsletter or our Instagram content, please reach out to us at community@newsnotnoise.com.
