You're watching Southwest Florida InFocus.

Coming up a look at changes to the state's election process.

A new law toughens restrictions on how citizens can try to amend the state constitution.

A great resume may not be enough to land the dream job.

The common mistakes job hunters should avoid when looking for a new opportunity.

And the fight for public media funding.

We talked with NPR CEO and President Katherine Maher about the impact a loss in federal support could have on stations across the country.

Hello, I'm Sandra Victorova.

Thank you for joining us.

Tougher rules are in place for getting citizen led amendment proposals onto Florida ballots.

We're talking about initiatives like those in last year's election that included failed attempts to legalize recreational marijuana and end the six week abortion ban in Florida.

Supporters say the new law aims to prevent fraud and identity theft in the system.

But as Jennifer Crawford explains, critics say the new restrictions are meant to silence the voice of the citizens.

Man.

Do you want to sign a petition for this?

Do you want to lower insurance rates for the 22 year old?

Mikayla O'Brien volunteers to collect signatures for issues she's passionate about, but says her work just got that much harder with new restrictions in place July 1st.

I only have ten days to get these petitions into the Lee County Supervisor of Elections.

Shortening the time frame a Floridian petitioner has to turn in signatures, once collected is one of several new and significant changes outlined in House Bill 1205, sponsored by Representative Jenna Persons Mullica of Fort Myers.

And we put in additional safeguards to ensure that we have integrity in the petition process.

We require every petition circulator to be registered with the state of Florida.

We require petition circulators to be U.S. citizens and residents of the state.

The bill also makes it a crime that if the petition circulator retains any of the personal identifying information on the petition and the voter that they will be held accountable.

Persons.

Mollica says the law aims to crack down on reported fraud and misconduct.

We have seen that right that power to amend the Constitution being hijacked by special interest and out-of-state fraudsters.

We saw evidence as reported by the Office of Elections Crimes and Security, that there was widespread and pervasive fraud across the state of Florida in regards to.

And then that's three and four that were on the ballot this past year.

While persons, Mollica believes this will help the petition process, corporate and governmental affairs consultant Cole Peacock fears the opposite.

I think it's going to make it almost impossible for initiatives to pass.

Co-owner of Seed and Bean Market in Fort Myers.

Peacock has worked for years with groups across Florida to get marijuana usage past.

He says it's already difficult to pass citizen led initiatives.

For instance, it took two election cycles to pass medical marijuana.

Recreational marijuana was defeated on the most recent ballot initiative because it only had 56% of the votes.

Florida requires a 60% threshold to amend the constitution.

60%.

That is a an enormous challenge.

If you look at other states, and there's only a handful of states that have the restrictions that Florida does.

Peacock believes the passage of House Bill 1205 creates more layers of bureaucracy, with a chilling effect on the voice of citizens.

What you're seeing are things put in place again to limit the success of what voters may want to see as as a law or in the Constitution of the states.

I'm not in favor of ever taking away the voice of the people or the voters.

And that essentially is what is happening right now.

Representative persons, Mollica says voters should be encouraged because she believes integrity of the petition process is being restored.

I'm Jennifer Crawford, reporting in Fort Myers for WGCU news.

So everything Now, several groups, including the League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida decides health care and Florida Right to Clean Water are suing the state over House Bill 1205.

They're seeking a court order to block the enforcement of that law.

Well, it used to be a throwback to the days of cowboys and cow towns.

And it's even been called the antique capital of Florida.

But Arcadia, one of the smaller cities in southwest Florida, had to make changes after Hurricane Ian.

You might call what's happening in this community of about 8000 in DeSoto County, a revival, as Mike Wall Chair looks at how a revamped downtown is helping to build upon its already rich history.

Arcadia refuses to languish, much less die out.

We're good old southern people here, and it's a friendly town.

The people care.

For decades, Arcadia has been home to a state championship rodeo, a legacy of its cowboy roots and downtown has been a magnet for antique lovers.

But now, live music is part of rebranding Arcadia, lowering its age appeal.

There are boutiques and specialty coffee shops and delis, a tantalizing mix for visitors.

It's more country antiques, you know.

I see a lot of cowboys right around here and, you know, some of the hats and just everybody got style around here.

This revival rises from ruins.

Hurricane Ian damaged the downtown badly.

Now owners are restoring the old brick buildings.

Arcadia even has a brewery on the side of the old bus station.

A couple who used to live in Fort Myers opened Three Trees Brewery last fall with help from local investors.

When you're here and you really claim that these are my people, this is my community, belonging kind of just sticks out.

The historic Hurd Opera House was condemned after Ian, but a couple from Chicago built it back.

The people were just so generous and nice, and my wife and I decided to move here.

We decided to make a go of it here in Arcadia because we love this type of a village in this atmosphere.

Now the opera House offers youth programs, yoga and original American music acts not cover bands to attract more young people.

I think a lot of the younger families that are moving to Arcadia, they find that it's cheaper.

The community, I think, is what they're after, though when they come here, they see the small community that we have, and it's a great place to raise your kids.

The Arcadia main Street program leads the way in making the town new and vibrant.

We have fewer antiques, and so we're getting more into the newer, more upbeat things that younger, the younger crowd want to see.

We want growth, but we want managed growth.

We we don't want to change too much.

We still like our laid back lifestyle.

If people want to come into the city to see, how people act, that I advise them to do that.

They may get an attachment to it and want to stay.

I have a couple of businesses and there several other antique stores.

We're not in competition.

I'm here.

If you don't find what you want in our store, we'll send you to another one.

Arcadia says it's sharing success with the southwest part of town, a poorer neighborhood.

We've gone down there and pay some roads.

We fix some areas down there that flooding was bad.

We have resurrected their part down there, which is a really great thing.

New pioneers are taking Arcadia into the future with no thoughts of walking away.

I'm not going to turn my back.

This is the place where I feel like my grandkids can grow up.

For WGCU news, I'm Mike Walcher.

Finding a new job now can be tough.

Up next, new executive co-chair.

Strategies to bypass the.

I resume boards that can stand in the way of landing that dream job.

Congress is taking steps to try to claw back more than $1 billion it had already approved for public broadcasting.

This after President Donald Trump asked lawmakers to defund PBS and NPR stations, claiming media bias.

In June, the House of Representatives voted to eliminate the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in turn funds 1500 TV and radio stations.

That proposal now heads to the Senate.

Longtime supporters of public media are signaling their concerns, like documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, who recently spoke to CBS news.

It is the Declaration of Independence applied to the communications world.

It's a bottom up.

It's the largest network in the country.

There's 330 stations it mostly serves.

And this is where the elimination of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is so shortsighted.

It mainly serves rural areas in which the PBS signal may be the only signal they get.

They also have not only our good children's and primetime stuff.

They have classroom of the air, Continuing education, homeland security, crop reports, weather, emergency information that we're going to take away.

This seems foolhardy and seems misguided.

Joining me now is Katherine Maher, the CEO and president of NPR.

Ms. Maher thank you so much for being with us.

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much for having me.

So help us to understand how important this funding is to public media and why people should actually care about these proposed cuts.

A lot of folks may say, well, there's a lot of sources for news and entertainment and information right now.

Well, I think they'll take those as two separate questions.

Really, why is it so important that public media receives funding?

The reality is, the vast majority of public dollars is attributed to public media or appropriated to public media goes directly to local stations such as yours.

Which means that when we want coverage, for example, of what's going on in your local community, what's going on around town, what's going around on at the statehouse in times of emergency or disaster relief?

These are the sorts of things that local stations provide.

And without federal dollars to ensure that those journalists are able to continue to do their job, that broadcast towers are able to continue to operate even in rural areas or areas with challenging topography or those that are often affected, say, by major storms, which of course, in Florida is a continuous concern.

This is the sort of thing that makes it very difficult.

If you don't have federal dollars to support that.

In addition to that, the question of, well, why do we need public media when we have all these other sources of information?

I think that it is important to recognize that there is a thriving market outside of public media.

But the reality is also that that market continues to shrink for local news.

And local news is the vast majority of what public media does and does so well.

In fact, there are 20% of Americans that live today without any other source of local news in their community.

Other than public media.

And that number continues to grow as local media gets hollowed out across the nation.

If you think, in addition to that, it's often one of the only broadcast sources that is available on the ground when, say, disaster strikes.

I hate to bring up a tragedy, but of course, in this recent flooding in Texas, our local station is based out of San Antonio, based out of Austin, have been first on the ground in order to be able to respond and have leveraged the work of the Texas Newsroom, which is a collaboration of all Texas stations, to be able to ensure that that coverage is robust and meaningful, addresses national questions, but also is really serving the residents of Central Texas as they're responding.

I mean, I think we need to be very real about the risks of defunding.

I've seen estimates that say that dozens of stations is particularly on the radio side, could go out of business in the next year or two years if federal funding goes away.

From my perspective, that is a tragedy, not just for the ability of those folks to be able to have access to critical information about their communities and about the nation, but also for the rest of America to be able to hear directly from those places and those communities.

Miss Moore, for decades we've been hearing, you know, lawmakers complain that NPR is left leaning and that public dollars shouldn't go to support an entity that has a bias one way or the other.

One of your former senior editors also alleged liberal bias at NPR.

Are these fair criticisms?

I think it is always important for any media organization to take on any criticism of bias and to examine it and to reflect on it, and then to think about what we do with it.

We recognize that people have different political views.

They have different life experiences based on where they live in the country, different needs for their news.

And I think it's an obligation of us at NPR to serve all of those needs, whether you're coming from a red state or a blue state, whether you live in a city or if you live in rural America, it's important for us to be able to make sure there's something in our broadcast that is relevant to you.

So absolutely, I am always looking at this.

I believe that success is a condition that we achieve when we are trusted by the broad representative, experience of Americans.

And so that's something that we have prioritized under my leadership, is making sure that we're really taking a close look at that.

Do I believe that we are politically biased or partizan in some sort of way?

No, I do not.

And I think it's important that I that we say that very clearly, we do not favor a political party.

That is not the job of a news organization.

We are a nonpartisan media organization.

And yet, at the same time, we have to make sure that all of our programing cultural, political and otherwise really does represent the full experience of the American electorate.

Miss Moore, if I can end with this, about whether you're concerned about the future of media in general and this relationship with the white House, just to name a few issues.

For instance, the FCC investigating ABC, CBS, and NBC news, the Associated Press going to court after the Trump administration restricted some of its access in response to its decision not to rename the Gulf of Mexico, is that, as President Trump had decreed?

Are you concerned?

Are you optimistic about the future of media?

Well, I'm always optimistic about the spirit of the media because it is as American as it gets, right?

Our rights to free speech.

It's the First Amendment.

It is the amendment from and the right from which all of our other rights flow.

And I know that that is such a core value of our nation.

And I know that the journalists and the media organizations that do the work of that function of accountability, that fourth estate function of providing a vital service to our nation will never give up on that work.

And so I appreciate you.

I appreciate everyone who does this work as a, as a journalist in, in our nation.

That said, I do think this is a concerning time relative to this, this administration's support of those rights.

I think we've seen that in a number of reports around settlements, for litigation.

We've seen that in the way that the media itself has been a target and politicized for its reporting.

I am deeply concerned about what that says, relative to the commitment that we have as a country to this fundamental right, to this constitutional right, and as an organization that works in this space as an independent member of the press.

I know that NPR and I know that PBS, have remained very committed to these values.

It's part of why we've taken on the president's executive order with litigation that is about our First Amendment rights.

That is in court.

That is, that is does push back against accusations of viewpoint discrimination.

This is a critical thing for, I think, all Americans to care about.

It's a constitutional right.

It's an American value, and it's something that we need to stand up for even when we disagree with reporting, even when we disagree with one another.

This is foundational to who we are as a nation.

Miss Ma, we thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

The Senate has until July 18th to vote on the public media funding clawback.

If Congress doesn't approve it, public media will be funded for the next two years.

It is a challenging job market for recent college graduates.

The unemployment rate for the first three months of 2025 has increased to 5.8%.

Employers that might want to hire are facing economic uncertainty, propelled by U.S. tariff policy.

Then there's the explosion of artificial intelligence, which can perform some of the work typically tackled by entry level employees.

Employers insist that there is a labor shortage, but some young jobseekers are struggling to find employment opportunities.

So today, some help for job seekers.

Ethan Evans, a career consultant, says mistakes in the resume could cost job seekers that opportunity that they want.

Ethan has reviewed more than 10,000 resumes as a vice president at companies like Amazon.

Ethan, welcome.

Thank you, Sandra, it's a pleasure to be here and have the opportunity to talk to you and help students.

So I'm excited because you're going to walk us through some of the top mistakes that people make on those resumes.

So let's start with the first one, which is this idea of trying to beat these AI resume filters.

I think a lot of us think if you don't put the exact right words on there, you're going to get filtered out.

No one will ever know anything about you and the fact that you want the job.

That's right.

Most companies now do use larger companies anyway.

Use a resume filter, because they're getting so many applications in hard times, it's very common for a company to get several hundred applications, and they try to use automation to get that down to the 5 or 10 they want to look at.

This does lead students to, and recent graduates to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to get through this filter.

A better strategy is any possible way to get around a filter like that, which most commonly means knowing someone and getting a referral or, being referred to the hiring manager.

And that way you bypass the filter.

So what most people are doing is they're putting a lot of keywords on their resume that say they know certain technologies, or they've used certain tools, or they have precise experience with this kind of marketing or that kind of law, and they're putting that all up at the top.

If their resume does happen to pass through the automatic filter because it has all the right words on it, then a very ugly resume at the top is all of this list of what I call alphabet soup is what gets into the hands of the interviewer, and that may be very unfriendly to them and not look very professional.

So what I do advise is if you feel you need to add a lot of keywords, put those at the end of your resume so that when your resume does get through the system, if it does, then the human who is going to hire you still sees a nice professional resume with a skills section at the end that may contain all these keywords.

So I just I've read your incredible article in Business Insider, and one of the things that stood out to me was this idea of a lot of us mistakenly highlight the role that we had at our previous positions instead of the results.

Explain to me why that is such a critical mistake.

Yeah, absolutely.

So the single most common thing I see in resumes, I've reviewed both when I was hiring and now as a coach, when I'm helping people write them, is we automatically talk about what we've done.

But we don't often connect that to why it mattered.

So if you can connect what you did to how it helped your last company succeed, that makes you seem like more of a problem solver.

One way I summarize this is if you write down what you did, the work you did, it makes you a doer, a very, you know, lower level sort of commodity employee.

Whereas if you write down what it accomplished, it makes you more of a leader and more of a problem solver.

Once a candidate comes up with that perfect resume, I assume you would say that's just sort of the beginning of the process, right?

I know a lot of young people in my own life.

They send out the resume and that's the end of it.

Know what should happen right away after you send out that resume?

Yeah.

Well, I would say it's not only, after you send out the resume, but before I read some research from Forbes magazine in 2023 that said 80% of positions are not even posted, so the company fills them internally or fills them through referrals.

They never go up on a job board or on a website.

So while it is great to have a good resume, it's also true that nearly 80% of jobs come from having a reference.

It can feel very satisfying, or like you're doing a lot of work to find a job.

To go website to website and fill out the forms and submit your resume.

But those only account for about 20% of the people who are actually hired, at least in the professional world.

It's much better to get some kind of connection to a few jobs than to submit hundreds of resumes through different websites.

Ethan, we have learned so much.

Thank you so much for your time.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Sandra, it's really been a pleasure.

Thank you.

Coming up, a new robot service is rolling out across the Fgcu campus to make sure students can focus on their studies instead of their hungry stomachs.

Food delivery companies like Grubhub, DoorDash and UberEats have changed the way we get meals to our homes and offices.

Now, one company is changing how they transport some of that food to customers on the Fgcu campus.

As Dana Harpster shows us, a new robotics service is rolling out the concierge treatment for students.

Starship Technologies delivery robots we deliver on Fgcu campus.

Students can use the Grubhub app and order food from various vendors and basically deliver almost anywhere on campus.

In an initiative started by student government last year, Fgcu has unveiled a fleet of robots that deliver food on campus robot water, navigating sidewalks and even crossing streets to get to their destinations.

It's all done through the Grubhub app.

Starship technologies Bob member explains.

They're in a study hall.

If they're in a class getting help, they can order straight to the building, straight to their their dorm and get the food delivered right away.

Representatives of student government attended a recent demonstration.

Gianna Homa is student body president.

It'll elevate the student experience by just adding a new convenience factor to the overall mix.

I've got the Grubhub app already and I can see myself using it very soon or whenever I'm in my office studying in the library, hanging out somewhere on campus, and I don't want to go all the way to the student union or wherever else to order food.

I can just have it come to me, which I think is really great.

Food can be ordered from several on campus restaurants and takes about the same delivery time than any Grubhub order might.

The robots travel at an average walking speed of about four miles per hour.

Besides effortless food delivery, there's another perk for students who use the robots during the next year.

Delivery is free.

We're kind of giving that money that was put in through students, back to students, through, this initiative years ago.

For WGCU news, this is Dayna Harpster.

Trading in puppy playtime for extra naps next week.

Is your pet going through a midlife crisis?

A vet shares what pet owners can do to help their furry friends live longer, happier lives.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Don't forget to like and subscribe to our WGCU news YouTube channel where you can find all of our stories and those extended interviews.

We hope you have a great day and we'll see you next week.