2020
February
24
Monday

Monitor Daily Podcast

February 24, 2020
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Clayton Collins
Director of Editorial Innovation

Today we look at behavior and accountability among one campaign’s backers in the presidential race and among arts-and-entertainment figures in the U.S. and in France, respect for nonhuman species, and a scan of global progress. First, a look at some quiet counternarratives.

New week, new worries? Try changing your focus.

Political potshots ring out in the United States. But hold for a moment this better-angels comment made by Elizabeth Warren at a town hall last week in Nevada: “There are a lot of good people in this government who are not political,” said the Massachusetts senator, “a lot of good people who want to get out there and do what is right.”

That can mean perspective shifts. 

Utah, for example, is about as red as states come. But it just hatched a plan to cut emissions, with an eye to both local air quality (tourism) and the global climate. “It cuts across political lines,” said the state’s speaker. “[Clean air] is not a partisan issue in our state.”

A dark populism appears to color Europe. But a stadium crowd in Münster, Germany, rose en masse to protest a fan’s racist insult of a Ghanaian player from another German team, chanting “Nazis out” as the fan was removed.

Humans seem to keep driving fellow Earth species to the brink. But a sense of shared habitat may be dawning. In northern India, farmers and shepherds have fostered a negotiated coexistence with leopards, chronicling the cats’ behavior and then modifying their own in order to limit violent encounters. 

Bhanu Sridharan wrote about the little-covered phenomenon for the nature website Mongabay. I asked her why that story resonated. “By and large,” she answered in an email, “people across rural India tend to accept wild animals as part of the landscape.” (See our similar solutions story below.) Scientific studies of such relationships, she noted, often focus only on the conflicts.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters
A supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders holds a doll of the candidate at a campaign rally in El Paso, Texas, on Feb. 22, 2020.

When those with deeply held and long-deferred political beliefs finally get momentum, how can they keep their exuberance from taking on a hard edge? A report from the campaign trail.

A very public reckoning today for Harvey Weinstein will likely ripple through private lives as well, as it prompts new discourse about how existing laws on sexual harassment and assault – often ignored – are interpreted and applied.

This next piece explores another social reckoning. Few countries elevate artists and intellectuals as much as France. At times, that esteem has appeared blind to critical faults. Our writer explores why that is – and why that’s changing.

Difference-maker

Anupam Nath
Purnima Devi Barman talks with women in Gauhati, India, about the endangered greater adjutant stork. Dr. Barman has led a community effort to protect the birds, which many villagers view as pests.

We’re not done with the topic of interspecies understanding for today. In another Indian village, here’s another shift in, yes, how another nonhuman animal is perceived.

Points of Progress

What's going right

When the Monitor first set out to track episodes of credible progress with this franchise, some editors wondered about its sustainability. Gratefully, worthy stories have kept flowing. Today’s set will take you from Maryland (commemorating black history) to Malawi (protecting elections), and beyond. 

Staff

The Monitor's View

In South Korea, the first democracy to cope with a massive outbreak of the coronavirus, President Moon Jae-in is scrambling to be seen as a trusted leader against harsh public criticism of his response. “This is an unusual emergency situation,” Mr. Moon had to explain Monday. “Instead of limiting our imagination with regard to policy, we have to make bold decisions and implement them quickly.”

In Singapore, by contrast, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has largely kept the trust of citizens in his highly centralized island state. The government, for example, helped prevent panic on social media by setting up its own WeChat platform to provide accurate information. By being transparent and instructive, it maintained credibility.

Meanwhile in China, health officials admitted Friday they had created mistrust by constantly altering the “criteria” for what is a “confirmed case” of the virus. The confession may have been an attempt to regain trust and, with it, public cooperation.

With reports of more outbreaks beyond China, leaders in many countries are desperate to keep or restore trust in order to cope with both the virus and the viral fear that has come with it. The range of responses puts a favorable spotlight on those governments that already had built up competent health systems and honest communications to meet such a challenge.

In general, examples of trusted leadership are getting harder to find, according to the latest “Trust Barometer” from communications firm Edelman.

In its latest survey of 28 countries, it found two-thirds of people do not have confidence that “our current leaders will be able to successfully address our country’s challenges.” A similar number “worry technology will make it impossible to know if what people are seeing or hearing is real.” And 57% said news media is “contaminated with untrustworthy information.”

Edelman recommends all leaders try to be ethical as they also try to be competent in solving problems. Government, for example, must reduce partisanship, address problems at the community level, and partner with the private sector. Trust “is no longer only a matter of what you do – it’s also how you do it,” the report states.

Trust in leaders and their expertise to handle a health crisis is an essential “vaccine” in controlling public fears. Governments need the traits of trust – integrity, transparency, accountability, and compassion – long before a crisis hits. Or, as China and other countries are finding, they must scramble to build up trust. As they do, fears will lessen and help end this global outbreak.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

The hatred, anger, and fear that fuel extremism can seem unstoppable. But as a community experienced when the threat of a violent demonstration loomed, there’s something more powerful: God’s limitless love, which brings healing peace to light.


A message of love

Manuel Silvestri/Reuters
A street performer performs in St. Mark's Square after the last days of Venice Carnival were canceled due to concerns around coronavirus, in Venice, Italy, Feb. 24, 2020.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Come back tomorrow. You can look at the U.S. president’s moves on the intelligence community as a hollowing out, or as a consolidation. Either way, there will be consequences. We’ll explore those.

Finally, if you’re reading this Daily on your smartphone, then you’ll want to read this: tips for setting up a shortcut from your home screen that puts you one tap from the latest Daily.

More issues

2020
February
24
Monday
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