It is feared that there are no survivors after a German airliner went down in a remote area of the French Alps on Tuesday. Also, a growing number of students are pushing to create a place for female students to avoid clashes of opinion. Then, jury will hear closing arguments in the discrimination lawsuit filed by Ellen Pao against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Germanwings flight crashes in France, 150 feared dead
It is feared that there are no survivors after a German airliner went down in a remote area of the French Alps on Tuesday.
150 passengers were on board Germanwings Flight 9525 from Barcelona, Spain to Dusseldorf, Germany, and French president Francois Hollande told reporters he fears that, because of the conditions of the crash, all on board are dead.
While nationalities of many passengers on board were not immediately available, an executive for Germanwings said 67 of those on board were Germans. The plane reportedly climbed to cruising altitude at 38,000 feet after it took off at 10 a.m., but then started a descent for eight minutes before losing contact with French radar around 10:53 a.m. It is still unclear what caused the crash, but French officials say the plane’s black box has been located at the crash site. Germanwings is a budget subsidiary of Germany’s national carrier, Lufthansa.
Guests:
Jacky Rowland, senior Paris correspondent for Al Jazeera. She is reporting on the crash from the ground in France.
Michael Barr, senior instructor in the Aviation Safety Program at the Viterbi School of Engineering at USC. He’s an expert in aviation safety as well as airline crash investigation and prevention.
Angelina Jolie writes second NYT Op-ed on preventive surgery
Today, The New York Times published an Op-ed by Angelina Jolie Pitt, in which she chronicles her recent decision to remove her fallopian tubes and ovaries in a preventive surgery against ovarian cancer.
Following a double mastectomy two years ago to prevent breast cancer since Jolie’s DNA contains a mutation in the BRCA1 gene, she decided to undergo last week’s surgery (officially called a laparoscopic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy) after learning of a rise in several inflammatory markers in her annual check-up. Her goal in writing the piece is to share her story with women so that they may have more information about these cancers, various options they can seek in addressing them, and agency in their choices.
If you or someone you know has had these or similar cancers, how did you or that person deal with it? What options do women have for tackling these cancers head-on and with the support that they want and/or need?
Guests:
Sanaz Memarzadeh, M.D., Associate Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology at UCLA School of Medicine. She’s a board certified gynecologic oncologist
Marsha Wilson, Director of Communications and Advocacy Relations, Foundation for Women’s Cancer in Chicago
Are campus groups suppressing free speech?
Author Judith Shulevitz sees a troubling trend spreading across the country’s college campuses: groups designed to protect the rights of a few while suppressing the free speech of everyone else.
In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Shulevitz uses anecdotal evidence to point to the a rising oversensitivity to the issues of sexual assault victims, women and minorities. She contends that professors and students who voice an unpopular opinion run the risk of public shaming, campus protests and even dismissal.
Students at Northwestern University recently assembled in protest over an article by Professor Laura Kipnis about the sexual paranoia in daily campus life. Eric Baker, with the campus group Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault organized the protest, and penned an open letter to the professor in the school paper.
Baker isn’t calling for Kipnis to step down, but it’s likely that she’s feeling pressure from school administration. KPCC reached out to Professor Kipnis to defend the article, but the request was declined.
Today on AirTalk, we look at the power of campus groups and the impact they have on open discourse at colleges.
Do powerful campus groups prevent opposing views from being shared?
Guests:
Judith Shulevitz, NYT contributor who penned the Op-ed “In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas”
Jill Filipovic, senior political writer for cosmopolitan.com and frequent speaker and commentator on gender, political and legal issues
Erik Baker, programming chair for Men Against Rape and Sexual Assault at Northwestern University
Facebook, Twitter hit with gender discrimination suits as Ellen Pao case wraps up
Jury will hear closing arguments in the discrimination lawsuit filed by Ellen Pao against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Pao, who is seeking $16 million in lost wages and bonuses, alleges that the storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm discriminated against her and dismissed her unjustly. She claims that her dismissal stemmed from an affair she had with a married colleague, who retaliated against her at the firm after she ended it.
The case has huge implications for the Silicon Valley, where gender imbalance in the workforce has been a well-known issue. Just this week, female employees at both Facebook and Twitter filed gender discrimination suits against the two social media giants.
Are we going to see more of these types of suits in the tech world? Will they bring about a cultural change in the Valley?
Guests:
Sarah Lacy, founder and editor-in-chief of PandoDaily, a tech news site. She’s also author of the book, “Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from Global Chaos” (Wiley, 2011)
Eileen Carey, founder and CEO of Glassbreakers, a peer mentorship software company in San Francisco
Slick new public health campaign targets kid-friendly e-cigarettes
The California Department of Health’s ad campaign launched yesterday is its latest move against the e-cigarette industry. The 30-second TV spots will be broadcast through June in efforts to shed light on misleading information about the health threats linked to e-cigarettes.
A January report released by the department shows the harmful effects of the e-liquid found in e-cigarettes that is often inaccurately labeled. Not to mention the industry’s blatant advertising geared toward youth, which has seen an uptick in e-cigarette use.
Will this ad campaign deter you or someone you know from using e-cigarettes? Has using e-cigarettes helped you cut back from traditional ones?
Read the full story here
Dr. Michael Ong, professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine , UCLA
Mark Kleiman, Professor of Public Policy at UCLA School of Public Affairs and the editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis; Kleiman also does research into tax-policy impacts for tobacco maker Altria Group
Impact NFL streaming game only via Internet could have on league, major networks
For the first time in history, the NFL says it plans to broadcast one of its 2015-2016 regular season games via the Internet only, according to a source close to the situation.
The rights to the broadcast of the NFL’s Week 7 matchup between the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium will be sold to a digital distribution company, whether that be Facebook, YouTube, or someone else. Both the Jacksonville and Buffalo markets will still get the game on cable TV, but elsewhere, viewers will have to tune in to the live web stream to catch the game. The move marks a turning point for the NFL, which has relied heavily in the past on contracts with cable TV networks like CBS and Fox to broadcast its games.
Does this set a precedent for future sports broadcasts? How much does the NFL stand to gain (or lose) by broadcasting over the Internet only? What about the cable networks?
For additional content, listen to the following segment here
Guest:
Rick Burton, professor of sport management at the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics at Syracuse University
Getting the best bang for your buck with video on demand
With all of the choices that exist, picking the video on demand or streaming service that’s right for you can be a daunting (and potentially pricey) task.
With price points below $10 a month, services like Netflix and Hulu probably won’t put a noticeable dent in your bank account, but with newer services like Sony’s Playstation Vue, which starts at $50 a month, or AppleTV, which will reportedly start around $25 a month, the final bill could be as much, if not more, than what you’d pay a cable company for a TV/Internet bundle. Consumers also have to factor in the standalone price for a broadband Internet connection, since most cable companies charge higher prices for standalone services than they would if you purchased them as part of a bundle.
So how do you get the best bang for your buck when it comes to streaming services? Is there one combination of services that will satisfy most average TV viewers or does it depend more on what you watch and how often you watch it? Is there anything traditional cable companies can do to keep up with the growing number of streaming services?
For additional content, listen to the prior segment here
Guest:
Shalini Ramachandran, staff reporter for the Wall St. Journal covering streaming television and the broadband industry.