Retro Report on PBS

Parents worry about the latest video games, like Fortnite. A generation ago, Dungeons and Dragons was the game that seemed like a menace. But in a surprising twist, its role-playing strategies are now seen as a counterbalance to the problem of screen addiction.

DNA information that is available on genealogy websites is doing more than satisfying curiosity. Data collected from consumer DNA tests is helping the police to close cold case files, including a long-unsolved murder from the 1980s. But their use to solve cold cases is raising new concerns about privacy protection.

The #MeToo movement is shedding renewed light on sexual harassment at work and the long history of arbitration agreements.

When N.F.L. players starting with Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest police mistreatment of African-Americans, their actions ignited an uproar over injecting politics onto the playing field. Their protest had surprising ties to the silent black-power salute by two sprinters at the 1968 Olympics.

Social media’s power over consumers is not by chance, it is by design. Theories pioneered decades ago by B.F. Skinner lie at the root of today’s multi-trillion-dollar “attention economy."

Social media’s addictive power is by design. Colin Kaepernick’s protest has ties to 1968. Women on Wall Street fought harassment decades before #MeToo.  Pythons threaten the Everglades. Andy Borowitz wants to treat political ads like cigarettes.

Andy Borowitz, the New Yorker magazine humorist, has come up with a simple solution to the political ads that litter our TV landscape. His short comedy videos cap every episode of Retro Report on PBS, a new series that shines a light on today by uncovering the past.