Am I a propagandist?

A truth teller.

An influencer?

There's probably no more contested profession in the world today than mine, journalism.

I'm Brian Reed, and on my show, Question Everything,

we dive head first into the conflicts we're all facing over truth and who gets to tell it.

Listen now to Question Everything, part of the NPR Podcast Network.

Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Jack Spear. President Donald Trump has signed an

executive order to begin dismantling the Department of Education. On the campaign trail,

Trump continually derided the department as wasteful and influenced by liberal ideology.

He's proposed turning over at least some of the agency's responsibilities to the states.

He reiterated that point at today's White House signing ceremony.

We're going to be returning education very simply back to the states where it belongs,

and this is a very popular thing to do, but much more

importantly, it's a common sense thing to do, and it's going to work.

Not entirely clear, though, is how it would work.

Also not clear is whether Trump has the authority to actually dismantle the Department of

Education created by Congress in 1979.

We take an act of Congress to shudder it.

The White House says the department won't completely close right away, continuing to oversee

things like federal student loans and Pell Grants. A federal judge says the government provided

a woefully insufficient response to his prior orders in a case over the Alien Enemies Act. Judge James

...