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Common Ground with Jane Whitney

Explore the country's most provocative issues and ideas in COMMON GROUND WITH JANE WHITNEY. Hosted by former NBC News correspondent and talk show host Jane Whitney, this series provides viewers with a trustworthy analysis of the obstacles we face as a society today. This program features 13 hour-long episodes focused on engaging discussions that offer a wealth of ideas with varying perspectives and takeaways.

Common Ground with Jane Whitney  
  • Presidential Politics: Surviving The Cycle
    Sunday, December 22
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    The legitimacy of American elections was unchallenged for so long that they came to be accepted as political bedrock, certain to survive even the most severe earthquakes. But as the country approaches the first presidential election post January 6, the most serious insurrection since the Civil War, the foundation of the entire American electoral experiment is in danger of collapse. Candidates regularly challenge the results in courts, supposedly impartial election officials proudly declare their biases and millions of Americans dismiss the certified outcomes. In this episode, Common Ground with Jane Whitney's panel discusses the fate of the electoral system, the future of the two-party system, the national malaise that has left millions at both ends of the political spectrum feeling disenfranchised and the elevation of performative politics that threatens to sweep aside our constitutional guarantees.
  • Women's Rights: Life After Dobbs
    Tuesday, December 24
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    A century after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, women's rights remain the nexus of contentious debate with many advocates convinced that women are under renewed assault. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, an all-star panel discusses the current status of women and what feminism means to a new generation of rights crusaders. But a special focus of the forum will be how the Dobbs Decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion regulation to elected officials, has changed life for the majority of Americans and transformed the country's politics.
  • Youth Activism: Tomorrow's Protest Today
    Sunday, December 29
    11:03 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    "The future of the world belongs to the youth of the world," the Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann said, "and it is from the youth and not from the old that the fire of life will warm and enlighten the world. " The generations just beginning their journey through adulthood grew up with an unprecedented series of apocryphal crises. But rather than despair, a few have started movements that are 'warming' the world, in Mann's proverbial phrase. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, young people leading our journey into the future talk about their visions and how they crashed through the limitations imposed by conventional wisdom to build movements that are powering change all around us.
  • Culture War: America's Blood Sport
    Tuesday, December 31
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    The poisonous cocktail of social polarization - a culture war that infuses everything from how we educate our children to how we see our place in history - is ripping apart the shared American identity that made the country a 'melting pot' and fueled its post-war growth into a superpower. One after another, leaders inflame passions by drawing indelible identity lines in the cultural sands, provoking calls for 'national divorce' and turning even minor questions of how we live together into what amounts to a life and death blood sport. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, a diverse panel discusses how usurping racial, religious, sexual and cultural identities for partisan gain pours salt into our national wounds, provokes violence and threatens our democracy.
  • Reality Bites Back: America's Trip Down Fantasy
    Sunday, January 5
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    Roger Ailes built Fox News into television's most powerful channel by his skillful adaptation of the aphorism, "if you tell them what to think, you lose them. If you tell them what to feel, they're yours." The replacement of reason with emotion, a favored trick of conjurers and con men that's as old as Mark Antony's eulogy for Julius Caesar, has created a new reality and battered America's democratic guardrails. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, a diverse panel from across the political spectrum discusses how the country, which once elevated science into the unofficial national religion, came to accept the parasitic oxymoron of "alternate facts" and how so many of us have come to live in an impenetrable bubble that elevates ill-considered opinion into intractable certitude.
  • The American Dream: Wake Up Call?
    Tuesday, January 7
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    While the pandemic crushed dreams, shuttered businesses, closed schools and left millions jobless, the wealthy reaped a bonanza and watched their net worth more than double. They became richer while the poor got poorer. Already at historic heights before the pandemic, wealth inequality by many measures now is worse than during the Gilded Age, dividing the country into haves and have-nots. And that endangers us all by cutting social mobility, killing dreams, reducing opportunity, increasing crime and empowering authoritarians. In this episode, Common Ground with Jane Whitney examines the consequences of the stark cleavage, the values that drive economic policy and the connections between our political and economic crises.
  • Democracy In Color
    Sunday, January 12
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    Although race and identity always have shaped U.S. politics, they reemerged seven years ago in what was supposed to be Obama's post-racial America with new intensity, a political pivot and the unapologetic driver of Donald Trump's unexpected victory. But the re-energized racial forces that propelled Trump to the White House did not spring out of a vacuum. The crowd-pleasing candidate merely marshaled spirits unleashed half a century ago in what was a culmination of the so-called "Southern strategy," the Republicans' effort to push race and identity to the political forefront. In this show, a panel of nationally known voices from across the political and racial spectrums examines the role of race in American politics and how identity issues continue to shape our daily lives.
  • Our Better Angels: Thought Royalty
    Tuesday, January 14
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    The pride and spirit of the proverbial "Shining City On A Hill,' in Ronald Reagan's illuminating phrase, has been battered by an unprecedented confluence of overlapping crises that have created a collective anxiety as oppressive as rancid smoke. But even as the stature of political leaders seems to diminish in the face of our growing challenges, a few voices ring out above the maddening cacophony and summon our 'better angels.' They offer the calming reassurance that America has weathered such storms before and will prevail again. In this episode, Common Ground with Jane Whitney assembles a series of one-on-one conversations with influential thinkers and public policy experts who have studied how the country has survived its most challenging moments and whose voices ring out with the moral clarity that inspires a broad cross section of Americans.
  • Sunday, January 19
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    No description available.
  • Adversity: Anxiety's Rx
    Tuesday, January 21
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    We're living in an era when optimism, inspiration and hope are as rare - and as luminescent - as multi-carat emeralds. The "sledgehammer effect" wrought by a historic number of overlapping crises -from the pandemic to recession, partisan toxicity to climate change - has helped spawn a mental health epidemic marked by surging incidence of depression, suicide and addiction. In a show designed to provide an antidote to that omnipresent anxiety and to celebrate the indomitable human spirit, Common Ground with Jane Whitney profiles those who have overcome adversity and trauma through grit, resilience and determination.
  • Sunday, January 26
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    No description available.
  • Back to Tomorrow: The Best of the Best
    Tuesday, January 28
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    The past is but a springboard for the future - at least for Common Ground with Jane Whitney. In an era whose drumbeat is a barrage of polarized verbal assaults, this forum spotlights how the series builds bridges across our political chasms and finds common ground on the critical issues that affect Americans' daily lives. Whether it is the threat to our democracy, the Supreme Court's politicization, the vitriol that characterizes social media, the scourge of racism or the doomsday threat of climate change, this episode features moments from last season showing how our panelists found ways to talk to each other, share their insights, fears and feelings and how all of us can come together to make progress on the country's most debilitating problems.
  • Sunday, February 2
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    No description available.
  • Presidential Politics: Surviving The Cycle
    Tuesday, February 4
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    The legitimacy of American elections was unchallenged for so long that they came to be accepted as political bedrock, certain to survive even the most severe earthquakes. But as the country approaches the first presidential election post January 6, the most serious insurrection since the Civil War, the foundation of the entire American electoral experiment is in danger of collapse. Candidates regularly challenge the results in courts, supposedly impartial election officials proudly declare their biases and millions of Americans dismiss the certified outcomes. In this episode, Common Ground with Jane Whitney's panel discusses the fate of the electoral system, the future of the two-party system, the national malaise that has left millions at both ends of the political spectrum feeling disenfranchised and the elevation of performative politics that threatens to sweep aside our constitutional guarantees.
  • Sunday, February 9
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    No description available.
  • Youth Activism: Tomorrow's Protest Today
    Tuesday, February 11
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    "The future of the world belongs to the youth of the world," the Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann said, "and it is from the youth and not from the old that the fire of life will warm and enlighten the world. " The generations just beginning their journey through adulthood grew up with an unprecedented series of apocryphal crises. But rather than despair, a few have started movements that are 'warming' the world, in Mann's proverbial phrase. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, young people leading our journey into the future talk about their visions and how they crashed through the limitations imposed by conventional wisdom to build movements that are powering change all around us.
  • Reality Bites Back: America's Trip Down Fantasy
    Tuesday, February 18
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    Roger Ailes built Fox News into television's most powerful channel by his skillful adaptation of the aphorism, "if you tell them what to think, you lose them. If you tell them what to feel, they're yours." The replacement of reason with emotion, a favored trick of conjurers and con men that's as old as Mark Antony's eulogy for Julius Caesar, has created a new reality and battered America's democratic guardrails. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, a diverse panel from across the political spectrum discusses how the country, which once elevated science into the unofficial national religion, came to accept the parasitic oxymoron of "alternate facts" and how so many of us have come to live in an impenetrable bubble that elevates ill-considered opinion into intractable certitude.
  • Democracy In Color
    Tuesday, February 25
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    Although race and identity always have shaped U.S. politics, they reemerged seven years ago in what was supposed to be Obama's post-racial America with new intensity, a political pivot and the unapologetic driver of Donald Trump's unexpected victory. But the re-energized racial forces that propelled Trump to the White House did not spring out of a vacuum. The crowd-pleasing candidate merely marshaled spirits unleashed half a century ago in what was a culmination of the so-called "Southern strategy," the Republicans' effort to push race and identity to the political forefront. In this show, a panel of nationally known voices from across the political and racial spectrums examines the role of race in American politics and how identity issues continue to shape our daily lives.

 

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  • Climate: Minutes to Midnight?
    Tuesday, December 17
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    "We're the first generation to feel the sting of climate change and we're the last that can do something about it," has become something of a cliche, a summary of the existential threat posed by global warming. As climate change moves from an imminent peril to a deadly reality for vast swaths of the country, a panel of nationally recognized groundbreakers discusses the gaping dichotomy between what scientists say needs to be done to moderate an impending disaster and the political reality of what is possible. A broad ranging discussion of the science, economics and politics swirling around the apocalyptic headlines, the panel examines what state and local communities are doing to mitigate Washington's stasis, what might break the logjam, how the issues play in national, state and local elections and the role of private citizens and companies.
  • Back to Tomorrow: The Best of the Best
    Sunday, December 15
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    The past is but a springboard for the future - at least for Common Ground with Jane Whitney. In an era whose drumbeat is a barrage of polarized verbal assaults, this forum spotlights how the series builds bridges across our political chasms and finds common ground on the critical issues that affect Americans' daily lives. Whether it is the threat to our democracy, the Supreme Court's politicization, the vitriol that characterizes social media, the scourge of racism or the doomsday threat of climate change, this episode features moments from last season showing how our panelists found ways to talk to each other, share their insights, fears and feelings and how all of us can come together to make progress on the country's most debilitating problems.
  • Democracy In Danger: Tipping Point
    Tuesday, December 10
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    When the Soviet Union dissolved, the triumph of liberal democracy seemed so complete that some historians declared the moment "the end of history." Three decades later, history is continuing apace and the fight to sustain democracy is this century's preeminent political challenge, dominating headlines at home and abroad and once again raising the specter of nuclear Armageddon. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, a panel of A-listers discusses the life and death battle between autocracy and democracy and the future of constitutional government both in America and around the world.
  • Adversity: Anxiety's Rx
    Sunday, December 8
    11:01 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    We're living in an era when optimism, inspiration and hope are as rare - and as luminescent - as multi-carat emeralds. The "sledgehammer effect" wrought by a historic number of overlapping crises -from the pandemic to recession, partisan toxicity to climate change - has helped spawn a mental health epidemic marked by surging incidence of depression, suicide and addiction. In a show designed to provide an antidote to that omnipresent anxiety and to celebrate the indomitable human spirit, Common Ground with Jane Whitney profiles those who have overcome adversity and trauma through grit, resilience and determination.
  • Scotus: Flash Point
    Tuesday, December 3
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    Once the most admired and most trusted government institution in the country, the Supreme Court now is the point of the political spear, a partisan telltale that cleaves the country into warring camps: Conservatives, who spent a generation campaigning to reform the court, celebrate the new majority for shattering liberal precedents and hail it for goring a woke government's orthodoxies; liberals vilify it as corrupt, a blunderbuss in the right's effort to remake the country in its nationalist image. And even many centrists say the court is out of step with public opinion and mainstream legal theory. That has given new impetus to efforts to "remake" the court, threatening its very survival in its current form. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, a panel of legal scholars from across the political spectrum discusses the swirling controversy enveloping SCOTUS and the burgeoning efforts to reform the court in what is billed as an effort to save it from itself.
  • Our Better Angels: Thought Royalty
    Sunday, December 1
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    The pride and spirit of the proverbial "Shining City On A Hill,' in Ronald Reagan's illuminating phrase, has been battered by an unprecedented confluence of overlapping crises that have created a collective anxiety as oppressive as rancid smoke. But even as the stature of political leaders seems to diminish in the face of our growing challenges, a few voices ring out above the maddening cacophony and summon our 'better angels.' They offer the calming reassurance that America has weathered such storms before and will prevail again. In this episode, Common Ground with Jane Whitney assembles a series of one-on-one conversations with influential thinkers and public policy experts who have studied how the country has survived its most challenging moments and whose voices ring out with the moral clarity that inspires a broad cross section of Americans.
  • Silver Linings Playbook
    Tuesday, November 26
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    How to save democracy? What each one of us can do to fight Climate Change. How Racism shapes our country. America's place in the world? How the pandemic forced us to reimagine our hopes and dreams and reassess our priorities as individuals and as a nation? These are some of the conundrums debated on this Common Ground dbonus show, a compilation of last season's programs. It features a gaggle of headline grabbing celebrities, leaders, historians and nationally prominent voices, including Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, John Lithgow, Secretary John Kerry, Frank Luntz, Katharine Hayhoe, Richard Haas and David Ignatius, among others. Guests: Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, John Lithgow, Secretary John Kerry, Frank Luntz.
  • The American Dream: Wake Up Call?
    Sunday, November 24
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    While the pandemic crushed dreams, shuttered businesses, closed schools and left millions jobless, the wealthy reaped a bonanza and watched their net worth more than double. They became richer while the poor got poorer. Already at historic heights before the pandemic, wealth inequality by many measures now is worse than during the Gilded Age, dividing the country into haves and have-nots. And that endangers us all by cutting social mobility, killing dreams, reducing opportunity, increasing crime and empowering authoritarians. In this episode, Common Ground with Jane Whitney examines the consequences of the stark cleavage, the values that drive economic policy and the connections between our political and economic crises.
  • Finale: Love & Polarized Politics
    Tuesday, November 19
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    When the Democratic Spinmeister James Carville was coupled on television with Republican Strategist Mary Matalin, it often seemed like the opening salvo of The War of The Worlds, two bitterly opposed foes from different universes lobbing shells at each other. But off the air, they somehow made it as a couple and remained married. These days the delicate dance of relationships, romance and love often is dashed on the shoals of America's bitter partisan divide. As a result, experts say, there is less tolerance for crossing political lines than for interracial and interfaith unions. On this edition, Common Ground will feature what often seems politically and personally impossible - supposedly incompatible couples like iconic conservative attorney Ted Olson and his liberal Democrat wife Lady Booth and TV commentators Jon Avlon and his wife Margaret Hoover, a scion of Republican royalty - to explore how they've found common ground and a happy ending on the home front.
  • Culture War: America's Blood Sport
    Sunday, November 17
    11:01 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    The poisonous cocktail of social polarization - a culture war that infuses everything from how we educate our children to how we see our place in history - is ripping apart the shared American identity that made the country a 'melting pot' and fueled its post-war growth into a superpower. One after another, leaders inflame passions by drawing indelible identity lines in the cultural sands, provoking calls for 'national divorce' and turning even minor questions of how we live together into what amounts to a life and death blood sport. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, a diverse panel discusses how usurping racial, religious, sexual and cultural identities for partisan gain pours salt into our national wounds, provokes violence and threatens our democracy.
  • A Tale of Two Economies - How Wealth Inequality is Making America Poor
    Tuesday, November 12
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    While the pandemic crushed the dreams of millions, shuttering businesses and schools and leaving millions jobless, the wealthy reaped a bonanza and watched their net worth more than double. They became richer while the poor got poorer. Already at historic heights before the pandemic, wealth inequality by many measures now is worse than during the Gilded Age and divides the country into the haves and the have-nots. And that endangers us all by cutting social mobility, increasing crime and empowering authoritarians. In the eleventh show of the season, Common Ground will examine the consequences of this cleavage, the values that drive economic policy and the connections between our political and economic crises. Guest: Mark Cuban.
  • Women's Rights: Life After Dobbs
    Sunday, November 10
    11:01 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    A century after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote, women's rights remain the nexus of contentious debate with many advocates convinced that women are under renewed assault. In this episode of Common Ground with Jane Whitney, an all-star panel discusses the current status of women and what feminism means to a new generation of rights crusaders. But a special focus of the forum will be how the Dobbs Decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion regulation to elected officials, has changed life for the majority of Americans and transformed the country's politics.
  • Is The World Getting Worse - Or Better
    Tuesday, November 5
    3:00 am on UEN-TV 9.1
    2016 officially was named The Worst Year Ever. Then came 2017. And 2018 and, finally, last year. That was the worst. Or so we thought until this year. It's become more than a meme that the world is getting worse, going to hell in a handbasket. And yet, year by year statistics show life is improving for most people around the world. More of us live better than ever before - even if few of us believe the good news. The disconnect between the spreading sunlight of progress and most people's growing gloom is creating a toxic political environment and undermines democratic norms, paving the way for autocracy and plutocracy. In its tenth forum, Common Ground will explore the schism between the way we are and how we think of the world. Guest: Steven Pinker.
  • Climate: Minutes to Midnight?
    Sunday, November 3
    11:00 pm on UEN-TV 9.1
    "We're the first generation to feel the sting of climate change and we're the last that can do something about it," has become something of a cliche, a summary of the existential threat posed by global warming. As climate change moves from an imminent peril to a deadly reality for vast swaths of the country, a panel of nationally recognized groundbreakers discusses the gaping dichotomy between what scientists say needs to be done to moderate an impending disaster and the political reality of what is possible. A broad ranging discussion of the science, economics and politics swirling around the apocalyptic headlines, the panel examines what state and local communities are doing to mitigate Washington's stasis, what might break the logjam, how the issues play in national, state and local elections and the role of private citizens and companies.