(groovy upbeat music) - [Jim] They are signs of the times, at least in an election year, which is often a very good year for, well, for sign makers.

- So anything that the political strategist needs, we can more or less do.

- [Jim] He got hooked on politics and government when he was a kid, and now people across the country are reading what this grown-up St. Louisian has to say.

- I never get sick of talking about politics, myself a little bit sometimes.

(chuckles) - [Jim] What is reality is no longer just a question for philosophers.

Artificial intelligence makes finding the answer a daily challenge.

- Because people know that something might be a deepfake, they actually then stop believing in real things that actually did happen.

- [Jim] It's an election show with no candidates.

Well, except for these guys.

- [Erik] Again, it's the 19th century, so this was entertainment.

- It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) (lively jazz music continues) I am Jim Kirchherr.

Polls show that a lot of Americans are turned off by politics and politicians these days, a lot, but not all.

So we thought we would start off with Brooke Butler's story about a young man who, shall we say, has not outgrown his childlike enthusiasm for American democracy.

(alarm beeping) - [Brooke] I don't know about you, but the first thing I think about in the morning typically isn't politics, but I know someone who does.

- I never get sick of talking about politics, myself a little bit sometimes.

(laughs) - Gabe Fleisher is the 22-year-old University City native who not only wakes up with politics on his mind but shares his insights with over 47,000 others.

However, it's not just his political expertise that gets him in the headlines; it's the fact that he's been doing this since he was nine years old.

How has that evolved?

How has your interest evolved over the years?

- I mean, I think it's definitely deepened.

I think it's gotten more serious.

I think, hopefully, you know, more mature.

I started the newsletter when I was nine years old, so I could definitely kind of cringe looking back at some of the earlier editions.

- [Brooke] While most kids were struggling with multiplication tables, Gabe was already dissecting the political landscape.

Inspired by his mom to put his thoughts into writing, he started his very own newsletter initially just for his family, but as he grew, so did his subscriber list and his exposure.

Gabe has been featured in many major outlets because it's not every day that you see a pint-sized pundit.

- [Ari] Gabe, you wake up before school to put this together every day.

That seems like a lot of work day after day.

Why do you keep doing it?

- [Gabe] I find it's a lot of fun, and I love being able to inform people each and every day, and I love reading people's comments and their info, and it's very interesting.

- And I mean, how does that feel to be everybody wants to talk to you?

- I mean, it's definitely fun.

I mean, I cover politics, you know, 24/7, 365 days a year, and it definitely feels like every four years, suddenly everyone else starts paying attention, and then interest kind of increases.

So it's always fun to watch that happen kind of.

(groovy upbeat music) - [Brooke] Despite all the attention, Gabe's focus remains on one thing: bringing clear, unbiased news to his readers, even showing his commitment to factual statements in this 2017 satirical segment from "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee."

- How would you report on this interview that you're sitting through?

- Maybe, you know, like "Nice kid gets bullied for comedy."

- How about "Nice kid gets bullied for comedy by a beautiful woman?"

- That might be veering into opinions, and that might be getting a little away from fact.

- Okay, so my opinion, beautiful- - No!

- Not a fact?

(audience laughing) (both laughing) - [Brooke] In an age of polarized media and sensational headlines, he's committed to keeping "Wake Up To Politics" a trustworthy source, something he credits to growing up in the Midwest.

- So, I've lived in DC, you know, about, like, five years or so now, and there's not so many, you know, Midwesterners or Missourians or St. Louisans.

You always get, you know, somewhat of a quizzical look, like, "Oh, you're from St. Louis?

Like, there's people from there?"

And I love that.

As reporters, you always are kind of taking your personal background with you to your reporting and kind of the people you know, and the places you grew up.

So having kind of come from a place that wasn't, you know, so homogenous in a lot of different ways, I think does kind of inform, you know, my perspective as a journalist, as someone trying to kind of bring in a variety of different perspectives in my report.

(bright thoughtful music) The nice thing about writing the email newsletter, you hear from your readers all the time.

You know, all they have to do to kind of talk to me is click reply, and then it goes right to my inbox.

So, you know, you get a lot of feedback.

But you take seriously what my readers are telling me about my newsletter and about the news climate.

And a lot of it is just a reflection of how much I hear from people, how exhausted they are, how depressed they are, how much, you know, of what the news they're receiving is just so downbeat and so emotional, and just like you're saying, so dramatic, and just, you know, so many people feel like there's so many people yelling at them and trying to make them feel a certain way.

And a lot of people are just sick of it.

And a lot of people are tuning out politics as a result, even though I believe that a lot of people believe it's really important to be informed about politics.

- But more importantly for Gabe is reporting on the things that are working.

"Wake Up To Politics" reminds its readers that Congress does get stuff done, despite their reputation, passing legislation on issues that impact a critical mass of Americans, but may not be as headline-worthy for major news outlets.

Pretty impressive considering Gabe is a one-man band.

After graduating from Georgetown this past spring, "Wake Up To Politics" is no longer just a side hobby done from his bedroom.

It's his full-time gig with a paid subscription option to the newsletter that offers more insight into his reporting.

And he's open to growing his platform presence in the future, just maybe with a couple more staff members.

Do you ever get burnt out?

- I mean, you know, it can be a lot.

I mean, especially right now, you know, we're right in the heat of an election cycle.

I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't genuinely- - [Brooke] Right.

- I really do love politics.

I'm genuinely very fascinated by it.

I love learning more about it, and I love being able to kind of, in some ways, kind of teach people and just, you know, kind of inform people, and kind of- - [Brooke] Sounds like something I've heard before.

- [Gabe] I find it's a lot of fun, and I love being able to inform people each and every day.

- Does your mom still subscribe to the newsletter?

- She does.

I don't know if she reads it every morning.

But she's still a subscriber.

- (laughs) Yeah.

So while he may no longer make headlines as the pint-sized pundit, there's one thing I know for sure: Gabe Fleischer won't be hitting the snooze button anytime soon.

(bright upbeat music) The donkey and the elephant, two animals that have become iconic symbols for the Democratic and Republican parties.

But how did this happen?

Neither party chose these animals.

The symbol stuck because of insults and political cartoons.

It all started in 1828 when Democratic Andrew Jackson's opponents mocked him, calling him a jackass.

Instead of shying away, Jackson embraced it, using the donkey in his campaign.

Political cartoonists, like the famous Thomas Nast, kept the connection alive.

Meanwhile, the elephant first appeared in an 1860 newspaper supporting Abraham Lincoln, but it wasn't until 1874 that Nast really tied the elephant to the Republican Party through a powerful cartoon.

His work cemented both the donkey and the elephant as political icons.

Who knew an insult, a war phrase, and some dry humor created two animals that have become symbols of the world's most powerful political parties?

What animals would you choose to represent these parties?

- Election time is a time of winners and losers, but even before the votes are counted, there are already winners in all of this: commercial TV stations.

They're selling a lot of airtime for all those campaign ads.

Not us, of course.

You know, commercial-free does have its advantages sometimes.

But we were thinking, who else benefits from the campaign season?

Well, Ruth Ezell found one local business that doesn't take sides, just takes orders.

- [Ruth] One of the first signs we are in an election year is quite literally signs.

You'd have to be living in isolation to miss them.

So where are all these signs created?

It's possible they came from Advertisers Printing Company in Midtown St. Louis.

- Yard signs, bigger signs that you will be able to see on the side of the road that are four by eight, things like door hangers, pocket folders, anything that the political strategist needs, we can more or less do.

- [Ruth] Alex Fechner is the director of sales and marketing strategy for Advertisers Printing and part of the fourth generation of this family-owned business.

- My great-grandfather, Claude Fechner, started the business in 1922 with a couple of other partners, and I don't know what happened in the few months that they were partners, but in February of 1923, he actually decided to buy those partners out.

So the first stop here is our prepress department.

- [Ruth] In the company's early days, business was limited to printing stationery and small forms, but subsequent generations built on evolving technologies that eventually enabled Advertisers Printing to print on virtually anything and to do so on a short timeline of 24 to 48 hours.

The company's entry into printing campaign materials is relatively recent, 2011.

Alex Fechner said that during election years, revenue increases between 10 and 15%.

When does that process start?

When do the orders start pouring in during an election year?

- So during an election year, it's usually about two months before the actual elections happen.

Could start a little earlier, could start a little later than that, but it's very strange.

Sometimes it'll be crickets, and you're wondering, "When is this gonna hit?

Is this actually gonna happen?"

And then we'll get hit with a tidal wave of 150, 180, 200 jobs in just a matter of days.

- Despite the advent of social media in political campaigns, political scientists say good old-fashioned signage is as important as ever.

David Kimball chairs the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

- Political candidates and campaigns think they're important.

For the homeowner or property owner, it's a way to signal your political views, your political support.

- [Ruth] Has there ever been any kind of research done on the impact of signs?

- There has been, not a lot, but there's some research showing that yard signs can increase voter turnout or increase very slightly the vote share for the candidates being promoted on the signs.

A way to boost name recognition for candidates.

I mean, I think that's why it's more important in a local race where the candidates are not as well known and don't have a massive budget for TV ads and all the other social media campaigns and various other ways of promoting themselves.

(rousing orchestral music) - Have you ever wondered why we vote on a random Tuesday?

Spoiler alert: it's not because it's most convenient.

Most people are at work.

The polling places are packed.

Who has time for that?

(lively upbeat music) Turns out it actually was convenient back in 1845.

Most Americans were farmers who had to travel for hours to get to polling stations.

Congress picked Tuesday because Sunday was for church, Wednesday was market day, and farmers needed Monday to travel.

And why November?

By then, the harvest was done and the roads were still passable before winter rolled in.

And it's the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to avoid conflicts with All Saints Day and end-of-the-month business book balancing.

But now that most of us aren't farmers, why do we still vote on a Tuesday?

States like New York and Hawaii have made it a civic holiday so more people can vote.

And a group called Why Tuesday?

has been pushing for weekend voting to boost voter turnout.

Until something changes, I'll still show up to vote on a Tuesday, mainly because I like getting the stickers.

What day of the week would be most convenient for you to vote?

(light upbeat music) - We thought we came up with some pretty interesting election season stories, but then so did you.

We've been meeting with folks in our community as part of Public Media's America Amplified initiative, listening to concerns and interests.

And that's what led us in part to our next story by Veronica Mohesky.

It's about AI, artificial intelligence.

Yes, it might help us cure a disease, find solutions to vexing problems, but in the social media universe, which was already compared to a hall of funhouse mirrors, it can take distorting reality, especially in an election year, to new heights or depths.

- [Veronica] These days it's starting to seem like AI, or artificial intelligence, is all around us.

It's in your phone, your car, all around your home, and increasingly on social media.

(bright upbeat music) - So AI is pretty much everywhere.

- [Veronica] That's Dr. Ning Zhang, associate professor of computer science engineering at Washington University.

He's currently developing a tool called DeFake, which prevents unauthorized voice cloning.

Dr. Zhang says part of the reason artificial intelligence has become so pervasive is because AI software such as ChatGPT has become more accessible and easier to use.

- Especially in the past year, we're seeing more modalities.

In other words, we're seeing more sources other than text that's coming into our life, influencing us.

- [Veronica] AI images, videos, and audio have made their way into politics too.

For example, just this past year, a phone call mimicking President Joe Biden's voice told voters in New Hampshire not to vote in the state's primary, according to the Associated Press.

Dr. Zhang says robocalls like this are becoming increasingly easier to create.

- Now, with just three seconds of your voice, a powerful AI tool can often create arbitrary sentences that is spoken by you.

- And as technology gets better and better, experts say it's getting more difficult to decipher what's real or fake.

For example, this video that you're watching right now is a deepfake.

This is my voice, but the person on screen is actually my colleague, Anne-Marie Berger.

Don't worry, this is actually me now.

That deepfake video was made using a free tool, and it took less than an hour to make.

Imagine what it would look like with a little more time and money.

- In our studies, deepfakes and synthetic videos, which are created to show a person or thing, doing something or saying something that they never did or said.

- [Veronica] Washington University political science professor Christopher Lucas was one of the authors of a study on how people view AI-created deepfakes.

- We expected that we would find that you could convince anyone that anything happened with a deepfake.

That we could make this sort of scandalous video of someone and convince them that the political candidate of their party or something was doing something or saying something awful, right?

And then suddenly they wouldn't support that person anymore.

And what we found was sort of different.

We found that you could just as easily convince someone of something that didn't happen by just lying about it in text.

- [Veronica] But Dr. Lucas says deepfakes are changing the way people view media in general.

- Because people know that something might be a deepfake, they actually then stop believing in real things that actually did happen.

And they kind of discount a true story because they're able to tell themselves, "Oh, I think that might be a deepfake, actually."

- [Veronica] And partisanship affects whether someone believes misinformation is real.

- If I see a scandalous video of my political candidate of choice and it really happened, I'm more easily convinced that it was a deepfake 'cause I don't wanna believe it was true.

Whereas if it's the other party's candidate, that's not the case.

- [Veronica] And even politicians have been sharing AI-generated content.

Former President Donald Trump made headlines when he shared AI-generated images of pop star Taylor Swift and her fans on the social media app Truth Social.

But not all deepfakes and AI images are made to deceive people.

- So in our paper we studied also what we called cheap fakes, which were fakes that are not actually intending to pass themselves as sort of real authentic media, right?

So for instance, there's that...

I dunno if you saw the video that both Musk and Trump shared of them both dancing?

You know, so that's a case where they would be using this AI-generated media, but without even attempting to use it to pass off fake things.

- AI can actually help combat misinformation too.

It's already being used on social media apps to flag AI images and false information.

But besides cheap fakes, AI is becoming extremely hard to spot in any media.

But our experts have some tips.

Dr. Ning Zhang says, for audio, first check if what the voice is saying actually makes sense, next, pay attention to the tone.

- Even if you might be describing a dangerous situation, oftentimes we would have panic, we would have fear in our voice, but AI would have a sort of calming tone to it, and the words would come out very steadily.

If we do AI right, AI can model this too, but at least the current state of art hasn't got there yet.

- [Veronica] For deepfakes, watch the movement.

- AI is not very good at having a consistent capture of the geometry of the face on every single frame when we turn.

So when it patch a different face on us, it'll patch the different locations.

- [Veronica] For AI images, focus on the details like hands and faces.

Zoom in if you can and see if anything looks off.

(bell dings) And because AI can now create photorealistic images, Dr. Zhang says it's important to crosscheck those with other sources.

The biggest thing you can do to prevent being fooled by misinformation or deepfakes is to increase your digital literacy and political knowledge.

- And then think about, you know, "What was the source here?

Can I actually read that article?

Did that person who shared this article, is what they said about it an accurate summary of what's in it?

Are there sources?

Is this a reliable source?

Is this story appearing in other reliable sources?"

All of those are kind of good, I think, habits of digital hygiene that we could all practice and do a little better.

(light thoughtful music) - Wait, before you repost that video, let's make sure you're not sharing some real fake news.

Let's sift through the nonsense.

(funky upbeat music) S is for stop, take a breath.

If that headline's got you fired up, it might be playing you.

So pause before you rage share.

I is for investigate the source.

Who's feeding you this info?

Open a couple tabs, and let's do some detective work.

F is for find verified coverage.

Look, your cousin's Facebook post isn't the final word.

Google News, Google Fact Check, these are your new friends.

And if it's a suspicious photo, time to catfish it.

(buzzer buzzes) T is for trace the claim, find out where it came from.

Was it edited, cropped, or just ripped out of context?

Don't let your timeline become a twisted game of telephone.

So remember, before you share that wild headline or viral video, sift through the facts.

Otherwise, you might just be sharing some grade-A internet bologna, and nobody wants to be a bologna dealer, right?

(light pop-rock music) - Finally, this week in history, 166 years ago, Alton, Illinois, was in the news.

Two US Senate candidates were facing off for the last time.

One of them was one of the most prominent and powerful politicians in the country.

And the other was a guy named Abraham Lincoln.

(dramatic orchestral music) On October 15th, 1858, Alton, Illinois, hosted the seventh and final Lincoln-Douglas debate.

- The debates took place in front of City Hall, which used to be kind of back here.

- [Jim] That's SIU Edwardsville history professor Erik Alexander.

- And so the crowds would've been around here, and yeah, the city- - And a big crowd.

- Anywhere from six to 10,000 people.

- Wow!

All seven debates drew huge crowds.

In St. Louis, a steamboat advertised a round trip to Alton that day, for it said, "All those desirous to hear those two champions in the politics of Illinois."

There's a lot of contrast here.

So Stephen Douglas is known as the Little Giant.

He was not a tall man.

- [Erik] Lincoln's about a foot taller.

Douglas is maybe 5'4", 5'5".

- [Jim] Yeah.

- And Lincoln is, you know, 6'4", 6'5" in that range.

- [Jim] And a contrast of styles in terms of personalities?

- Absolutely.

Right.

Though, I think, ironically, at the time of the debates, it was Douglas who was arguably the most famous political figure in the United States.

And then you had Lincoln, who, outside of Illinois, was not particularly well known.

- [Jim] Now, this was not the kind of candidate debates we're used to: the back-and-forth, questions, answers, rebuttals.

In these debates, the first candidate, and who went first switched from city to city, would speak for one hour.

The next candidate spoke for an hour and a half, and then the first candidate would get a half hour to wrap things up.

And with thousands of people, you wonder how many in this crowd heard any of it.

But then many perhaps simply came to see as much as to hear.

- Again, it's the 19th century, so this was entertainment.

This kind of debate didn't really happen that often.

So it was unique.

And then the fact that they're arguing about what were the most important issues of the day.

(light contemplative music) - The issue, of course, was slavery, or rather the expansion of slavery into new states.

Douglas, the Democrat, favored letting voters in each state decide the issue.

Lincoln, a member of the newly formed Republican Party, was opposed to having any more slave states.

And while this was just one Senate race, it was a national story.

And because of new technologies and innovations, the news was spreading fast.

At every debate, newspapermen used shorthand to transcribe what they were hearing.

They handed their notes to be taken by train to Chicago.

They were translated along the way into the written word and, upon arrival, set in type for the newspaper and telegraphed to papers in Eastern cities.

So this is like a media event?

- Yes, it is.

Absolutely.

- I don't know if we can say there was any media event quite like this before.

- I don't think so.

You really are seeing people figure out how to use the media, even manipulate the media.

So, one of the interesting things about these debates is that, as famous as they are, Lincoln and Douglas didn't actually say a lot that was new.

They were kind of repeating the standard stump speeches for their party.

But what was new is that they knew they were talking to a larger audience.

So Lincoln realized, "I'm not just talking to fellow Republicans in Alton or fellow Republicans in Illinois.

I'm talking to Republicans in Michigan and Wisconsin and New York and the Northeast."

And that helped bring his name, make him a household name that he had not been before.

- Lincoln is not an abolitionist.

- Right.

- But he's also being charged with maybe being too pro-African American.

- Douglas routinely accused Lincoln of being, as you said, an abolitionist, of being a radical who was in favor of racial equality.

Lincoln knew that the audiences he was playing to were not in favor of those ideas.

One thing I think it's hard for my students to understand, and I think hard for Americans in the 21st century to understand, is that it was possible to be simultaneously anti-slavery, believe that slavery was morally wrong, but also to be anti-Black, to not believe in racial equality.

So he's making this distinction: "I believe slavery is wrong.

I believe people should be entitled to earn what they work for, but that doesn't mean I believe in equality."

And so that was one of the constant back and forths of these debates.

- US senators at the time were elected by state legislatures, not by popular vote, and Douglas was reelected to the Senate.

But Lincoln was now a national figure.

He went on a speaking tour, distributed copies of the debates, and in 1860 he ran for president, defeating, among others, Stephen A. Douglas.

And we know what happened after that.

Events that were being set in motion in the country and in Alton, Illinois, 166 years ago this week in St. Louis history.

(bright horn music) (lively jazz music) And that's our "Living St. Louis" election show.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we'll see you next time.

(lively jazz music) (lively jazz music continues) (lively jazz music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.