Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien

APRIL 13, 2019 (3x29)

Air date: Apr 13, 2019

This week on Matter of Fact with Soledad O’Brien, we return to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. It’s one of the poorest areas in America, and has been devastated by major flooding that washed out roads and bridges leaving some residents stranded for weeks. Contributing correspondent, Joie Chen, traveled to Pine Ridge and shows us a community that’s in crisis but determined to rebuild. And journalism can be a dangerous business. Just ask Shahidul Alam. An award-winning photojournalist from Bangladesh, he was arrested last year after criticizing the government’s deadly crackdown against protestors. He was jailed for 107 days before being granted bail in November. Alam is in the U.S. where he received an award from the International Center of Photography in New York, but he’s returning to Bangladesh on Sunday. He’s due back in court on Monday and he admits he doesn’t know what fate awaits him. But Alam tells Soledad, as a journalist, he must return to stand up for freedom and the fourth estate. Plus, is man inherently good? It’s a question philosophers have been asking for centuries. With the hyper-partisanship in America, social media fueled rants, and depressing news headlines, you might think the answer is no. But Dr. Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist at Yale University, says you’d be wrong. He says our evolutionary DNA is built on love and kindness. He defends his optimism in his new book, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society and joins Soledad to discuss the evidence of positive natural selection. In our weekly segment, “we’re paying attention even if you’re too busy” you Monday is the deadline to file your tax return. This year, the IRS is expecting a record number of Americans to file for an extension. The reason? This is the first filing since President Trump’s sweeping changes to the tax code took effect. But while extensions are up, refunds are down. The IRS says the average refund is down about $30 dollars ove