Viewpoints Radio
Award-winning reporting on current issues featuring America's leading experts.
Parenting in the online era can be quite confusing. At what age should you let your kid have a Facebook or Snapchat account? How closely should you monitor what they view on the internet? We speak with Julianna Miner, author of Raising a Screen Smart Kid: Embrace the Good and Avoid the Bad in the Digital Age, to get the inside scoop on teaching kids how to …
We cover the Norco shootout of 1980 – an extravagant bank robbery by five heavily armed criminals ending in multiple lives lost, several wounded and a police helicopter shot down from the sky. We speak with author, Peter Houlahan about that fateful day and how it forever changed police response to organized crime.
Student loan debt is set to skyrocket to two trillion dollars by 2022. We talk to students about their differing perspectives on financial aid and debt. We also speak with Mike Bartini, the director of student aid at Bowdoin College, about how important it is that students and families take time to focus on the financials of higher education before …
Author Jared Yates Sexton shares memories from his own turbulent childhood and accounts as a journalist and connects it to the larger discussion around the phenomenon of toxic masculinity in the U.S. What exactly is toxic masculinity and how is it affecting men and youth?
If you came upon a rundown, roach-infested bunkhouse in the heartland of America, full of middle-aged and elderly men in poor health who worked all day at a job for little pay and had been for decades, you might think you had time traveled back to the 19th century. We talk to an author who writes about this very situation where mentally challenged men were …
Elisabeth Moss stars in the new indie movie, Her Smell directed by Alex Ross Perry. The film follows Moss as she plays the chaotic role of fictional punk rocker, Becky Something, who is mentally unstable, addicted to drugs and clawing to get her life together.
Recess helps kids unwind during the school day, but it’s much more than just a time to exercise. We talk to two recess “specialists” about the mental as well as the physical benefits of recess, and learn about some recess activities that help a child be more creative, more social as well as more physically active.
Hearing voices in your head comes with an unfortunate stereotype that you must be mentally ill. However, experts tell us the “voices in your head” can be used to talk to, and about, yourself in a healthy, productive way. In fact, most people hear voices in their head and already use inner speech on a daily basis. We discuss tips and techniques to use …
On April 20, 1999, Sue Klebold’s son and his friend went into Columbine High School and committed one of the largest mass shootings in US history. Over the last 18 years, Klebold has been forced to cope with this horrible tragedy while managing anxiety attacks and being blamed by so many. Klebold talks about her story and the mental health messages she wants …
The hustle and bustle of the world can overwhelm us all from time to time. Expert Marc Lesser talks about how we can embrace mindfulness to relieve anxiety, enhance our empathy and become better collaborators and leaders in our lives.
The Harry Potter series is full of creatures and storylines that parallel real-life adversities like depression, PTSD and grief in a heightened reality. Dr. Janina Scarlet says these stories are so powerful that she uses them to help people cope in real-life therapy sessions.
Grief is an innate part of human life, but how we process that grief varies from person to person. Tom Malmquist knows too much about grief after he lost his partner shortly after the birth of their first child. Malmquist put his experiences into his novel, In Every Moment We Are Still Alive, to help others in similar situations feel less alone.
Early January has long been a time for people to hit the reset button and try to refocus their energy and attention for the year ahead. We talk to two experts about how to overcome anxiety to feel happier and more at ease, despite the chaos of our everyday life.
As the year draws to a close, it’s the time on the calendar when we take a look back at who we lost this year. One such cultural giant was Anthony Bourdain, the famed chef and author turned travel documentarian.
We all sleep, it’s human evolution. But the amount of sleep we get and the quality of that sleep can vary greatly. We talk to Matthew Walker, a professor at California-Berkeley, who says sleep in the single biggest thing we can do to help our physical and mental health both in the short-term and long-term.
In the social media era, the techniques bullies use are getting more public and crueler. We look at bullying, the shame it can cause, and how it can stick with us for life.
It can easy to get the blues, especially with all of the division and turmoil in the world. But author Kate Davies has a different way of look at the world: one that can make us more hopeful, positive, and willing to pitch in and help. She calls it intrinsic hope, and it may be just what we all need this holiday season.
Ann Hood was a Beatles fan all her life. Then, tragedy struck and she found herself unable to listen to the band at all. She tells the true story of how she re-gained her love for the iconic group, and how she channeled her story into a work of fiction pleasing multiple generations of readers.
Body image, food addiction, societal pressure, and obesity can be tricky problems to talk about. Author Kristan Higgins tries to do just that in her novel Good Luck With That. She talks about her experiences, her research, and how we can approach discussing these pressing, but difficult, issues.
If you’ve had to speak in public, you know the nerves that come with public speaking. So you probably also know the pain of umming, uhhing, or misspeaking. We explore where these vocal blunders come from and what they might mean.
One morning without warning, Giulia Lukach experienced a psychotic break. We talk to her husband Mark about Gulia’s journey, his own experience as a caregiver, and how they overcame three stints in a psych ward.
We grow up with visions of creative genius: the divine power to create stories from whole cloth and write symphonic masterpieces. But is that how it really works? We look at the creative process, and why it may not be as romantic as some of us imagine.
We’ve all been in the position at some time in another where we have to give a presentation at school or at work, and often times, it can make us incredibly nervous. We discuss this fear and tips for overcoming it and delivering the best speech possible.
A new documentary from HBO, Come Inside My Mind, explores the life of actor Robin Williams as told by his friends and family. The documentary is cleverly narrated by the actor himself using audio from earlier interviews.
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