Friday Conversation

While the violent drama played out on the streets of Baltimore this past week, an equally passionate debate played online in a social media community that’s become known as Black Twitter.

Jarl Mohn is just two weeks away from the anniversary of getting the top job at NPR. For this week’s Friday Conversation, he talks about his first year at the network, what he learned from running E! Entertainment television, and how he hopes to position NPR in a radically changing media landscape.

This weekend in Cleveland, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct a North Texas legend. Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble – Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, and Reese Wynans – are headed for the Rock Hall 25 years after Vaughan died in a helicopter crash.

As downtown Dallas sparks back to life, the city faces a crucial question: Tear down old buildings or save and rehab them? A task force on preservation was created after several historic buildings were demolished last fall without much warning. Katherine Seale chairs the city’s Landmark Commission and is also the head of that task force

For this week’s Friday Conversation, she talked about the task force’s new recommendations for the city. 

Note: This interview contains some graphic descriptions that may be uncomfortable. 

In 1908, a ceremonial arch lit up downtown Dallas at the corner of Main and Akard streets. It was built by the Elks Club, with a gaudy sign that proclaimed “Welcome Visitors.” It became an iconic symbol of an ambitious city. 

By 1910, it became a different kind of symbol when a mob hung the body of a black man named Allen Brooks from the arch.

The Dallas Cowboys' signing of Greg Hardy, suspended last year after a domestic violence conviction, fed a national conversation about domestic abuse. And one of the strongest voices came from a TV newsroom just down the street from KERA -- sportscaster Dale Hansen.

For the last month, the KERA series One Crisis Away: Inside a Neighborhood has illuminated the lives of folks on the financial edge in Jubilee Park.

As KERA’s Courtney Collins reported, Jubilee has seen change for the good, but there are still plenty of problems in the East Dallas neighborhood: it’s tough to find fresh food, bank accounts and decent-paying jobs.

Parts of North Texas received a half-foot of rain over the last three weeks – so it might seem a little odd to talk about drought. Still, the historic dry spell persists. 

The slide in oil prices has been good news for drivers, but it’s sent the Texas oil business into a ditch. James Osborne has been digging into the implications of the bust. He’s the energy writer for the Dallas Morning News, and he joins KERA’s vice president of news Rick Holter for this week’s Friday Conversation. 

A North Texas doctor helped spark an international discussion this week -- about peanut allergies. 

A letter from the Texas Medical Association came across the desks of KERA this week with a pretty startling headline: “The Next Disneyland Could Be Plano.” It’s a reference to the measles outbreak that’s spread to 18 states and the nation’s capital.

The Dallas Citizens Council is a group of the most powerful business leaders in town that in many ways shaped the modern city. It also became a lightning rod of criticism for people who felt powerless – for decades, this was an all-white, all-male club that epitomized the establishment.

Cindy Crain has been on the front lines fighting against homelessness for seven years. She’ll be leaving the Tarrant County Homeless Coalition (TCHC) to run the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance (MDHA), which covers Dallas and Collin counties.

Ana Zamora, a 21-year-old Dallas college student and part-time hotel receptionist, got an unexpected seat on a national stage this week. First Lady Michelle Obama invited her to her husband’s State of the Union speech in Washington, D.C. Zamora is a “dreamer." She was brought to this country from Mexico as a toddler and she’s set to graduate from Northwood University’s Cedar Hill campus this spring.

President Obama unveiled a plan last week to make two years of community college free. The student has to be in school and keep a grade-point average of 2.5 or higher. That’s big news for students, of course, and it could have a huge impact on the colleges themselves.

About 1,000 educators will descend on Dallas this weekend to attend the Extra Yard for Teachers summit.  The event is organized by the College Football Playoff Foundation as a way to boost education in advance of Monday night’s championship game. For this week’s Friday Conversation, Google education evangelist Jaime Casap sat down with KERA’s Stella Chavez to talk about his role in the summit and in classrooms.

The education nonprofit Big Thought has spent 27 years working with North Texas schools. CEO Gigi Antoni is just back from a little farther afield -- Seoul, South Korea. For this week's Friday Conversation, she's sat down with KERA’s Stephen Becker to talk about what we can learn from one of the top-rated national school systems in the world.

In 13 days, Dallas County gets a new district attorney. Susan Hawk will be the first woman in the job, and she won it last month from the first African-American D.A., Craig Watkins. She’s also the only Dallas Republican to win countywide this election year. She sat down to talk about some of her plans as the next district attorney.

This week, the city of Plano did a little myth-busting. After a contentious debate, the Plano City Council approved a measure to extend discrimination protections to people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. The city’s mayor, Harry LaRosiliere, has spent his year and a half in office busting other myths, too. He talked with KERA this week.

The month after an election is generally thought to be a political ‘quiet time.’ This year, the past few weeks in North Texas has been pretty noisy. First, Fort Worth mayor Betsy Price announced her re-election bid on KERA, and this week, the mayor of Dallas said he’ll run again. Gromer Jeffers with The Dallas Morning News sat down to talk about local politics in this week’s Friday Conversation.

The topic for this week’s Friday Conversation is the militarization of language. KERA’s vice president of news, Rick Holter, goes into the trenches with Mark Memmott, standards and practices editor for NPR.

If anyone still thinks the sports world is just about the scoreboard, they haven't been watching too closely.

Correspondent Tom Goldman chronicles the sports world for NPR.

Texas Woman’s University just inaugurated its first new chancellor and president in 14 years -- Carine Feyten. For this week’s Friday Conversation, she talks with KERA’s vice president of news, Rick Holter, about her career journey and her plans at TWU.

The 2014 elections are over. But in an interview with KERA, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price dropped a little news of her own about next year's election: She plans on running for another term.

Today’s the last day for early voting in Texas. To celebrate the big day – and preview the even bigger day next Tuesday, KERA's vice president of news Rick Holter sat down with the man known as "The Political Junkie." Ken Rudin is a former NPR political editor who now runs the Political Junkie podcast and website.

Cole Edmonson has spent the last month facing the biggest challenge of his career. He’s chief nursing officer at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, which means he oversees 1,300 nurses. One of them, Nina Pham, was declared Ebola-free and released today from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The other, Amber Vinson, has tested negative for the virus but is still being treated in Atlanta.

Edmonson sat down with KERA’s vice president of news, Rick Holter, for this week’s Friday Conversation.

Bullet trains fire up regularly between cities in Europe. In Japan, the state-of-the-art Shinkansen trains can reach 200 miles per hour. Robert Eckels, president of Texas Central Railway, is determined to bring that same bullet train to Texas. His goal: a 90-minute commute from Dallas to Houston. 

Nestled in the shiny heart of the Dallas Arts District is a throwback: St. Paul United Methodist Church. This icon of the African American community was born a century and a half ago and has just embraced a new leader – who doesn’t have the standard pastoral resume.

Richie Butler is a developer who’s closed more than a billion dollars’ worth of real estate deals. He founded a congregation called Union Cathedral, which just merged with St. Paul. And, he’s not even a Methodist. Butler sat down with KERA’s vice president of news, for this week’s Friday Conversation.

Two public radio journalists have spent more than a week picking their way from the Rio Grande to the Red River by bicycle. KUT’s Hawk Mendenhall and NPR’s John Burnett are riding through rural Texas in the name of charity: specifically a project that equips high-school students in Kenya with books… and bikes.

John took a break from the road for this week's Friday Conversation with KERA’s Rick Holter.

The private space business is booming, and Texas is a primary launch pad. For this week’s Friday Conversation, KERA’s vice president of news, Rick Holter, sits down with Ed Lu – a longtime astronaut who now has his own space company.