Institutions of Democracy

Kathryn Kolbert, who joined the Annenberg Public Policy Center in 1999 and launched NPR’s Justice Talking radio program the following year, is leaving to become president of People For the American Way, a national advocacy organization dedicated to preserving constitutional liberties and promoting American values. Kolbert will assume her new duties in Washington, D.C., March

FactCheck.org, the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s popular and oft-quoted political truth squad, launched a new video report today, hosted by FactCheck reporter Emi Kolawole.  New reports will be posted each Friday morning. In addition to being available on FactCheck’s home page and to FactCheck’s 66,000 email subscribers, the report, known as “Just the Facts,” will

Many U.S. youth ages 14 to 22 expect to die before age 30, according to a new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.  About one out of 15 young people (6.7 percent) expressed such “unrealistic fatalism,” the study concludes. “I am surprised that one in 15 young Americans report they will die so

Kathleen Hall Jamieson and fellow researchers accomplished what the field of 2008 presidential contenders can only dream of: They got inside voters’ brains. The results of their study were published as an op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe the brains of 20 swing voters, the researchers measured responses to

Political Mendacity and the Rise of Media Fact-Checkers More newspapers and television stations are fact-checking the claims of politicians, and the public seems to love it, according to factchecking practitioners and two new studies released today at a conference sponsored by FactCheck.org and the Annenberg Public Policy Center. “You get 100 e-mails saying thank-you for

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Americans who live in states that hold partisan judicial elections are more cynical toward the courts than Americans who live in states that do not hold partisan elections. Partisan judicial elections foster the belief that “judges are just politicians in robes.” Partisan judicial elections also decrease public trust that state courts are

Annenberg Classroom (www.annenbergclassroom.org) has won a silver W3 award from the International Academy of Visual Arts in the education category. The W3 Award honors creative excellence in websites, web advertising and web video. More than 2,700 entries were received by the judges.

Most Americans know little about the workings of the U.S. Supreme Court, including the fact that Supreme Court rulings are final, according to a national survey conducted for the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center. The findings are being released today in advance of Constitution Day, Monday, September 17. When asked “if a person