Hey friend,
Cyril Focht stops by The Kennel to discuss his run for Congress this year, which came to an abrupt halt after Lore Ann Bergman snagged the Democratic Party nomination in the August primary election. We recorded this interview on Tuesday, August 27th.
Bergman’s victory was quite a surprise, as Focht had raised the most money compared to his other opponents—over $60,000 in self-funding, as well as small and large individual contributions—and even picked up an endorsement from the Middle TN DSA.
Bergman, on the other hand, managed to grab the nomination with no fundraising entirely. This November, she will take on Republican incumbent John Rose, who’s amassed over $1,000,000 for the upcoming election. I’m certainly going to reach out to Bergman to chat with her about her candidacy.
In the meantime, there’s still much to discuss with Focht here. We briefly discuss the result of the August primary election and what led to it, but we move into a broader exploration of what a reinvigorated public media network should look like in the United States, and how social media and podcasting should be treated in such reforms.
While Focht focused on artificial intelligence in completing his Computational Media masters degree at UC Santa Cruz, our chat illuminates that the Tennessee Tech professor has given a lot of thought to the ways in which the state can involve itself in fixing our declining media environment.
You can keep up with Focht’s work on his Instagram and TikTok (@vote4focht), though there won’t be much new content posted on there for now. He’s also planning to put out more content on his YouTube channel, so subscribe to that to be notified when he’s got new stuff to share with you there.
Thank you for watching or listening, and thank you to the Honors College at MTSU for giving me the academic space to pursue my podcasting endeavors!
Correction made on Tuesday, September 10th: Description was updated to include date of recording.
Cyril Focht