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Connections

Coming up on Connections: Thursday, May 25th

WBUR

First hour: Conservative writer urges his colleagues not to dismiss mainstream newspapers

Second hour: The story of R Community Bikes and the WNY Bike Fest

A conservative writer, Kevin Williamson, recently published a piece for National Review titled "How to Read the Newspaper." It's probably not what you think. Williamson writes that we're in a dangerous time when large swaths of the population reflexively declare any news story they don't like to be "fake news." He puts his fellow conservatives at the top of that list: "It is cheap, it is cowardly, and it is bad citizenship to simply shreik ' fake news!' every time reality forces a hard choice upon us," Williamson writes, adding that mainstream newspapers do not "traffic in fiction." But do local newspaper writers fear that a growing population rejects their work out of hand? We'll find out with our guests from the Democrat & Chronicle:

  • Meaghan McDermott
  • Justin Murphy

In our second hour: One of the great Rochester success stories is R Community Bikes, which began in a garage and grew to provide 50,000 bikes to city residents in the past decade. The man behind it is a force of nature: Dan Lill is retired, makes no money from R Community Bikes, and doesn't even ride a bicycle himself. But he's dedicated to rounding up used and damaged bikes, repairing them, and making sure his team of volunteers is ready to provide bikes on the two days per week that the facility is open. The upcoming WNY Bike Fest is raising money for R Community Bikes, and they're also focused on expanding the number of people who regularly ride in the Rochester area. Our guests:

  • Dan Lill, R Community Bikes
  • Cindy Fleischer, WNY Bike Fest
  • Leslee Schenck Trzcinski, champion bike racer
  • Jeff Wright, Genesee Regional Off-Road Cyclists
Connections
Evan Dawson is the host of "Connections with Evan Dawson." He joined WXXI in January 2014 after working at 13WHAM-TV, where he served as morning news anchor. He was hired as a reporter for 13WHAM-TV in 2003 before being promoted to anchor in 2007.