This week, illegal alien Jose Ibarra was convicted of the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. PBS and NPR have aired next to nothing on Riley over the last 6 months. Curtis Houck and Bill D'Agostino explain their studies of broadcast and cable news coverage of the Laken Riley trial.  AP's insensitive headline was "Man convicted of murder" of Laken Riley. The lead paragraph just said "A Venezuelan man has been convicted of murder in the killing of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, a case that fueled the national debate over immigration." There was nothing on the Laken Riley trial until it was over. There was nothing on Laken Riley’s murder on PBS over the last six months. Finally, when the trial was over, NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett gave it 31 seconds. "A Venezuelan man was convicted today," he said, and "Ibarra entered the U.S. illegally in 2022." But the same show gave ten minutes to Trump "rolling back" transgender rights.  NPR's newscasts aired no segment in the last six months on Laken Riley until after the election. When reporter Sarah Kallis talked to a Trump voter named Caden Cromer about why he voted for Trump on November 10. Kallis was callous as she said Riley was “allegedly killed by an undocumented migrant.” She concluded: “For some Trump voters like Cromer, safety and migration seem linked, and Trump has promised mass deportations. But research has shown undocumented migrants are not more likely to commit violent crimes than U.S. citizens.” Curtis Houck's study showed ABC, CBS, and NBC gave 20 minutes and 33 seconds to the Laken Reily trial over five days, which was about one-fourth of the coverage they devoted to the "garbage-gate" story against Donald Trump in the final days of the presidential campaign. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's joke about Puerto Rican being an island of garbage went on for 77 minutes of attention. Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly saying Trump was a "fascist" also became a big story, with almost 65 minutes of coverage. Bill D'Agostino's study of CNN and MSNBC found a big difference between daytime and primetime coverage of the Riley trial. CNN aired one two-minute segment on Riley in primetime, and MSNBC aired nothing in primetime. Overall, CNN aired roughly 225 minutes of Riley trial coverage, and MSNBC aired 66 minutes. But coverage of Ibarra's illegal status was a tiny percentage of the air time (three percent on CNN, two percent on MSNBC). Bill reported “the most heavily obfuscated detail was the fact that Jose Ibarra was released from federal detention into the country by the Biden administration’s Department of Homeland Security. MSNBC never bothered to inform their viewers of this ancillary detail, while CNN mentioned it just once.” While the networks energetically connect everything to Trump that's negative, they don't want to attach Biden to any of the consequences of his mass importation.  Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

China's latest AI advancements highlight the urgency for America to support its open-source community. Chinese companies, such as Alibaba, are driving innovation with projects like the Qwen 2.5-Coder, an open-source model that reportedly outperforms all global open-source models and rivals some tasks performed by the leading closed-source model, GPT-4o.These achievements stem from a sharp policy contrast. China actively subsidizes its open-source ecosystem, encouraging global collaboration and rapid innovation. It provides indirect funding and supports major open-source AI conferences. Meanwhile, U.S. politicians and policymakers are increasingly at odds with their own open-source community, creating barriers that hinder progress. If this trend continues, America risks surrendering its technological leadership to global competitors.China recognizes that its primary risk lies in losing technological primacy. America’s risk-aversion, ironically, is its biggest risk.America has long been the global leader in AI research talent and enterprise, especially in closed-source AI applications. However, the gap in open-source AI leadership is narrowing rapidly — and in some cases, even reversing.Open source plays a critical role in the diffusion of AI technology. China has recognized this and uses open-source platforms to distribute its AI infrastructure globally. In industries like manufacturing and 5G networks, U.S. policymakers understand the risks posed by China’s dominance in infrastructure. Unfortunately, they have yet to apply the same clarity and urgency to AI.Open-source AI is uniquely positioned to diffuse both American and Chinese AI models to third-party countries, fostering permission-less innovation. Startups and independent researchers, regardless of location, can build on almost one million open-source models hosted on platforms like HuggingFace. Unlike closed-source AI companies, open-source platforms eliminate many cost, communication, and regulatory barriers.This accessibility allows researchers in countries like India, Brazil, and Indonesia to use local knowledge to fine-tune and adapt open-source models for their economies.The most efficient open-source models available in the next decade may permanently determine the AI infrastructure of the world.Until recently, the American regulatory environment had been largely hostile to AI. The Biden administration’s executive order on AI focused heavily on limiting the technology’s expansion. Meanwhile, a bill that would have effectively banned open-source AI narrowly avoided becoming law after California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it.American policymakers claim strict regulations ensure ethical AI development. In reality, even moderate AI regulations have hampered U.S. companies’ ability to innovate. These rules require significant resources and talent to ensure compliance. For example, a Google engineer told Pirate Wires that “probably half of our engineering hours” are spent on diversity compliance in the Gemini model.China has a different philosophy. While it wields political power strategically, it remains conscious of the cost of overly restrictive policies. As U.S. companies self-regulate to avoid backlash, Chinese AI models are rapidly catching up. China recognizes that its primary risk lies in losing technological primacy. America’s risk-aversion, ironically, is its biggest risk.At a time when traditional AI approaches are delivering diminishing returns, open-source AI offers a critical platform for academics, startups, and independent researchers to test innovative algorithms and methods. However, open-source efforts remain significantly underfunded compared to closed-source companies.As the Trump-Vance administration seeks to unleash AI’s potential, it could draw lessons from an unusual exception to the Biden administration’s skeptical stance on open source. A July report from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration revealed overwhelming support for open-source AI in public comments. While the report stopped short of actively promoting open-source AI, it rejected proposals to restrict open-source model weights.The unpursued recommendations from the NTIA report offer valuable insights for crafting a more innovation-friendly AI policy. Embracing these options could align with the new administration’s mission to foster U.S. leadership in AI while encouraging experimentation and innovation. We simply cannot let China win.

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