Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, Jelani Cobb

Summary

Podcast Summary: Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know – Episode with Jelani Cobb

Episode Details:

• Title: Jelani Cobb on the Crisis in Journalism and the Rise of Infotainment
• Host: Hasan Minhaj
• Guest: Jelani Cobb, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism
• Release Date: January 22, 2025

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Introduction: The Current State of Journalism

In this insightful episode, Hasan Minhaj engages in a profound conversation with Jelani Cobb, the esteemed Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism. Together, they delve into the tumultuous landscape of modern journalism, exploring the challenges posed by digital transformation, shifting trust dynamics, and the burgeoning influence of social media platforms like TikTok.

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1. The Decline and Evolution of Journalism

Hasan opens the discussion by painting a stark picture of journalism today. He highlights the profession's crisis stemming from mass layoffs, dwindling public trust, and the struggle to adapt to new business models and formats.

Hasan Minhaj [00:00]: "Since America's founding, journalism has been the backbone of democracy, giving voice to the voiceless and opinion columns to middle-aged white guys. But today, it's a profession in crisis."

Jelani Cobb acknowledges these challenges, noting the perpetual learning curve as journalism transitions from traditional mediums like print and radio to the digital age.

Jelani Cobb [02:27]: "As we have kind of moved from, you know, print, to radio to television, to kind of digital and all the other iterations, there's always been a kind of learning curve."

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2. TikTok as a Primary News Source

A significant portion of the conversation centers around the alarming trend of Americans, especially those under 30, sourcing their news from TikTok. Hasan expresses concern over the platform's effectiveness in delivering reliable news.

Hasan Minhaj [02:07]: "A third of adults under 30 get their news on TikTok. Does that scare you?"

Jelani responds by emphasizing the transitional phase journalism is undergoing, where traditional reporting methods are being reimagined for new platforms.

Jelani Cobb [02:28]: "There's always been a kind of learning curve, and there's always been a difficulty in translating what we learned in one medium on to the next medium."

During a live demonstration, Hasan challenges the quality of news content on TikTok, highlighting issues like sensationalism and lack of depth.

Hasan Minhaj [04:16]: "Look, I don't feel informed. I feel like I got attacked by birds."

Jelani concurs, pointing out that while some content is well-produced, much of it lacks the substance required for informed public discourse.

Jelani Cobb [04:31]: "I got a lot of really good, kind of well-produced segments on there. But also these are TikTok, you know, dispatches from traditional media organizations for the most part."

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3. Erosion of the National Masthead’s Influence

The conversation shifts to the diminishing authority of traditional journalistic institutions and the rise of individual journalist branding. Hasan critiques the shift from institutional credibility to personal clout.

Hasan Minhaj [05:16]: "There is a growing incentive to say, well, who is the writer? What is their substaff? What is their social following."

Jelani explains the underlying factors driving this change, including the unstable career paths in journalism today and the necessity for journalists to build personal brands to secure future opportunities.

Jelani Cobb [06:10]: "Now you are going to go from organization to organization to organization, likely within five years. ... you have to have a name that will translate from place to place."

Hasan further warns about the potential for "bad faith journalism," where the pursuit of personal branding overshadows unbiased reporting.

Hasan Minhaj [07:20]: "What that is doing is it's incentivizing... to build up my blue check. I feel like that's super dangerous for journalism."

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4. Objectivity Theater and Headline Analysis

One of the most compelling segments involves analyzing headlines for objectivity. Hasan introduces "Objectivity Theater," illustrating how headlines often obscure the truth through passive language.

Hasan Minhaj [13:13]: "Objectivity Theater. I've brought 100% factual headlines from the New York Times. Okay, now you explain to me what is happening here."

The duo dissects several headlines, revealing how subtle language choices can distort the perceived accountability and gravity of events.

Hasan Minhaj [14:22]: "The New York Times. Civilians killed as US Troops fire on Afghan bus."

Jelani Cobb [14:35]: "That's giving major passive. Right, right."

They conclude that such practices, while seemingly factual, undermine journalistic integrity by not explicitly attributing actions and responsibilities.

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5. The Rise of Opinion Journalism and the Hot Take Complex

Hasan addresses the surge in opinion-based journalism, likening it to the sensationalism seen in shows like ESPN's "First Take." He expresses concern over the blending of opinion with traditional news reporting.

Hasan Minhaj [21:33]: "This is my pitch... All opinion journalism should just be in Comic Sans ms, and then regular news is Times New Roman."

Jelani Cobb [22:24]: "I would never publish anything of the caliber of Stephen A. Smith's opinions in a paper."

Jelani elaborates on this trend, attributing it to constrained news budgets that push organizations towards cheaper, faster opinion content over in-depth reporting.

Jelani Cobb [22:24]: "The reason that you see so much opinion now is that news budgets have gotten very constrained."

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6. Infotainment vs. Education: The Sesame Street Debate

The dialogue transitions to the impact of infotainment on education, with a focus on Sesame Street's role in early childhood learning. Hasan critiques the show's approach, arguing that it emphasizes entertainment over substantive learning.

Hasan Minhaj [25:09]: "Sesame Street should absolutely get its flowers. If we are to blame Sesame Street for anything, it is for the pretense that it is an ally of the classroom as a television show."

Jelani provides a nuanced perspective, acknowledging the educational value while also recognizing its limitations in replacing traditional teaching methods.

Jelani Cobb [26:56]: "Sesame street only teaches you how to watch Sesame street."

Hasan reinforces the argument by contrasting passive media consumption with active, real-world learning experiences.

Hasan Minhaj [29:30]: "Let junk be junk. And let real learning from Professor Cobb, from this amazing institution. Let real learning be real learning."

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Conclusion: Upholding Journalistic Integrity

As the episode wraps up, Jelani commends the depth and quality of the conversation, highlighting its rarity in the current media landscape.

Jelani Cobb [29:54]: "This is one of the most well-informed conversations I've ever had."

Hasan expresses gratitude for the enlightening discussion, underscoring the importance of maintaining journalistic integrity amidst evolving challenges.

Hasan Minhaj [30:23]: "I needed that. Thank you so much, man."

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Final Thoughts

This episode of Hasan Minhaj Doesn't Know offers a critical examination of journalism's current predicament, enriched by Jelani Cobb's expert insights. From the pitfalls of social media-driven news to the complexities of maintaining objectivity and the dangers of opinion-driven content, the conversation serves as a clarion call for a return to foundational journalistic principles. It underscores the necessity for integrity, ethical reporting, and the indispensable role of journalism in sustaining a healthy democracy.

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Notable Quotes:

• Hasan Minhaj [00:00]: "Journalism is a f mess now."
• Jelani Cobb [02:27]: "There's always been a kind of learning curve... in translating what we learned in one medium on to the next medium."
• Hasan Minhaj [05:16]: "There is a growing incentive to say, well, who is the writer? What is their substaff?"
• Hasan Minhaj [13:13]: "Objectivity Theater. I've brought 100% factual headlines from the New York Times."
• Hasan Minhaj [21:33]: "All opinion journalism should just be in Comic Sans ms, and then regular news is Times New Roman."
• Hasan Minhaj [25:09]: "Sesame Street does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television."

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Note: Advertisements and non-content sections from the transcript have been omitted to focus solely on the substantive discussion between Hasan Minhaj and Jelani Cobb.

Transcript

[Hasan Minhaj]

Say I sit down with you and you're writing a story about me. Sure. And you go, hey, what'd you do yesterday? And I go, you know what? I took my youngest daughter to the petting zoo and we hugged a llama. You could write a story that says, comedian has intimate encounter with llama. Technically, yeah, technically true. But you made it sound like I a llama. Journalism. Since America's founding, journalism has been the backbone of democracy, giving voice to the voiceless and opinion columns to middle aged white guys. But today, it's a profession in crisis. We've all heard about the mass layoffs and decline of public trust in journalism. What caused that lack of trust, we may never know. But as journalism gropes around for new business models and new formats, the lines between good journalism and good content certainly have been blurred. And we have gone from a nation watching Walter Cronkite report on the moon landing to a nation watching Donald J. Trump go on bussin with da boys. In short, journalism is a f mess now. To help me sort through it, I sat down with the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, Jelani Cobb, to talk about the tiktokification of news, the hot take industrial complex, and perhaps the biggest threat to our youth today, Sesame Street. This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Simplify compliance and get $1,000 [e-mail] husan that's v a n t a dot com hasan for $1,000 off. By the way, you know, this is very rare for me. I didn't know. I didn't think I'd be sitting back down with the New Yorker, but here we are.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah, okay.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, New Year, new me, Dean Cobb, turn the page.

[Jelani Cobb]

Okay, I appreciate that. Thank you.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Listen, I'm recording. You can record as well.

[Jelani Cobb]

I appreciate your candor.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's talk about where we are in time. According to a Pew survey, it found that nearly half of Americans get their news from social media. I actually think it's higher. But a third of adults under 30 get their news on TikTok. Does that scare you?

[Jelani Cobb]

I think it challenges me, you know, because here's one thing, it terrifies me.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Dean Cobb.

[Jelani Cobb]

Sure, sure. But here's the thing. Like, as we have kind of moved from, you know, print, you know, to radio to television, to kind of digital and all the other kinds of iterations, there's always been a kind of learning curve, and there's always been a difficulty in translating what we learned in one medium on. On to the next medium.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

You know, right now, kind of Anything goes. That's because so much is in flux and we haven't figured out how these things work. I suspect that there will be a point where we figured out at least some kinds of ground rules.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's play a game right now. We're gonna Both look at TikTok under the hashtag news and see what the majority of Americans see first thing in the morning. Okay, let's check it out. Fly it in. Thank you, Scott. Okay, going to give you this point. This is Tik Tok. We have just put in news. Here we go. Donald Trump vowing to crack down on all news. Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate says that he's ready and wants to stay. Mr. Holman, your name is on this. Is this correct? Yes, I sign a member of my. You are the author of the Family Separation College Campus. You're not the author. This administration message to American that they're going to wake up after the election if Trump won and have more than 90 people discovered. We have seen one estimate that says it would cost $80 billion to deport. I don't like that. Get this out. Get this out of here. Get this out of here. I'm done. I can't. I can't do this anymore. Look, I don't feel informed. I feel like I got attacked by birds.

[Jelani Cobb]

I think we must have been on different kind of things because I got a lot of really good, kind of well produced segments on there. But Also these are TikTok, you know, dispatches from traditional media organizations for the most part.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But you didn't think. Dean Cobb, you didn't think the music and then the graphics. All that and the fact that a whole story.

[Jelani Cobb]

Sir, I have been on some sets for traditional news organizations where it felt like being locked inside of a pinball machine. I think you did excellent by saying that. The simple reason for the stereotype, however, the only person calls don't go. Only persons can you ever do.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And you're not being honest, I'm afraid. Jelani and David.

[Jelani Cobb]

What is happening here? You know?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, it felt like you were on a Japanese game show.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah, yeah. For real. And so that is probably something that has infected to a lesser degree, traditional media.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You know, we talk about the erosion of national news, but I also want to talk about the erosion of the power of the national masthead.

[Jelani Cobb]

Oh, yes.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And the fact that there used to be a time where you'd say, hey, I'm a writer for the New York Times. I'm a writer for the New Yorker. I'm a writer for One of these huge journalistic institutions. And now there is a growing incentive to say, well, who is the writer? What is their substaff? What is their social following? How do you feel about that incentive structure about your likes, your clicks, your views, clout chasing over just being a faceless masshead that just tells the story or just tells the news.

[Jelani Cobb]

So one, I think that it's not an ideal situation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

I also understand why generalists have kind of taken that direction. Because your career, it used to be that you could go to, you know, a legacy newspaper, start when you were 22 and retire when you were 62.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

Now that is not the landscape. You're going to go from organization to organization to organization, likely within five years. Yes. And as a kind of insurance card, really, you have to have a name that will translate from place to place, place to place. And so people are thinking, okay, if I'm reporting in Sacramento and now my next place, my next gig is going to be in Detroit, what can I do to ensure that at least somebody in Detroit knows who I am?

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah.

[Jelani Cobb]

And if I'm going from Detroit to Ohio, how do I make sure the people in Ohio will say, oh yeah, I like this person. I saw her do this or I saw him do that. And you know, again, not the best kind kind of incentive structure.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Well, I feel like sometimes that incentive structure can create bad faith journalism. What that is doing is it's incentivizing. Let me find a story where I dunk on something or someone and then I can become a personal brand that benefits off of that. I can take clout, likes views off of that to build up my blue check. I feel like that's super dangerous for journalism.

[Jelani Cobb]

Here's an interesting thing, right? We can go back to.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But I could be wrong, by the way. Push back if I'm wrong and you're.

[Jelani Cobb]

Like, no, no, no. But I think it's good to have some context here. This journalism school was established with a bequest from Joseph Pulitzer's will, specifically because he was concerned about ethics in journalism. And you know, the school was started because a circulation war between the Pulitzer papers and the William Randolph Hearst papers pushed the country into the Spanish American war. And they both realized, like, we have control of this incredibly powerful machine. If we do the wrong thing with it, people can die. And the school was meant. The first bedrock thing that the school was supposed to do was teach ethics. Now we teach lots of other things, but our students start with ethics because the conflict in media has always been the idea of being A responsible bulwark informing the public. You know, the redoubt of democracy. Right. Or the lurid, tabloid, suggestive, exaggerated, titillating stories that can get you a lot of circulation, get you a lot of money, build a name for you, but really a kind of corrosive to the public. We've always had that conflict, that tension.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Between journalism and the business model.

[Jelani Cobb]

What digital has done is exploded. It's magnified. Everything you can do now, all kinds of reporting, all kinds of data, like we have investigations that we could never have imagined before. We also have the capacity to do the kind of dark side, terrible incentive, poorly thought out, go for the kind of most elemental ID emotions that we can think of. That kind of work exists on a bigger scale, too, for our listeners who.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Aren'T, who didn't get to read your article. I give you a lot of props for leaving Twitter.

[Jelani Cobb]

Mm. Thank you.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Can you elucidate really briefly about why you left Twitter?

[Jelani Cobb]

The most fundamental reason I left Twitter.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

Was I realized that anything and everything I did generated revenue for a entity that I thought was not informing the public, was not invested in informing the public, and a place where misinformation, disinformation could proliferate.

[Hasan Minhaj]

One of the reasons why I left Twitter, I'm clearly not as ethical and moral as you. I just felt like the place was insane. And it was really concerning to me. Now that the power of the masthead has declined and the power of the blue check has increased, I would see journalists that I respect get in full Twitter spats with other journalists with their own co workers. And I had this moment.

[Jelani Cobb]

I mean, in fairness, it happens in newsrooms too.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Totally, totally. But to broadcast it for 8 billion people in the blockchain in amber forever is wild. Cause I felt the same way about when I watched my parents fight when I was 14. Oh, my God. The people who are in charge don't have good discernment. That's what that signals to me. It signals your discernment.

[Jelani Cobb]

I think that and lack thereof. Yeah, we've been. I've had conversations, you know, off the record.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Sure.

[Jelani Cobb]

Personal conversations with journalists about exactly this thing.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

And saying that, you know, it's kind of almost like, you know, professional wrestling, you know, where it's like a complete spectacle. There's, like, nothing useful that comes out of it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Like, could you imagine if Supreme Court justices were on Twitter? Just Judge Sonia Sotomayor is like, hey, Elta, wear my goddamn bags. This is a piece of shit airline. I'd be like, judge Sotomayor do you not have a dissent to write?

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But Judge Sotomayor does feel a certain way about Delta.

[Jelani Cobb]

Sure.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Or thinks, you know, the finale of Lost wasn't great. Do we need to know this?

[Jelani Cobb]

Probably not.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah. And I think knowing those things, those little curvatures of your mind, of your ego, of your pettiness, I think create just a wrecking ball of insanity where I think the public may lose trust. When you can just see this out in the open.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. I think that one of the other things about X in particular.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

Is there are people who got book deals off of something they tweeted. There are people who had an idea and you tweet the idea out, an editor sees it and now you have an assignment.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

You build up following so that when you actually do that story, a bunch more people read it, all of those things. And people were thinking about, oh, wow, I can report on this thing, I can build a brand on this thing, I can do all these things. And they weren't necessarily thinking about the trade off, you know, what's in the fine print, you know, and the fine print is that we are on this machine that has this kind of wild, unknowable algorithm where all sorts of, like, toxic spew is just kind of flying all over the place. The worst kinds of parts of our psyches are being, you know, fed and tapped into. We're engaging in. In combat in some way.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

And so I don't think that was ever really necessarily as useful as we thought it was.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

Or at least the benefits were not.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And I hope you're not teaching your students that of like, oh, how do we engage in combat on X? Like, that's a crazy thing.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah, we don't have that class.

[Hasan Minhaj]

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[Jelani Cobb]

Okay?

[Hasan Minhaj]

These are real headlines. Okay, The New York Times. Civilians killed as US Troops fire on Afghan bus. Yeah.

[Jelani Cobb]

Passive voice.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, yeah. Who shot at the bus?

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah, passive voice there.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Why are they doing that?

[Jelani Cobb]

That's giving major. Passive voice.

[Hasan Minhaj]

That's giving major passive. Right, right. What it should say is, US Troops. US Troops fire on bus, killing innocent Afghan civilians.

[Jelani Cobb]

US Troops fire on bus, comma, civilians killed or civilians killed by US Troops in, you know, bus, you know, exchange, whatever. Um, yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Car hits crowd after white nationalist rally in Charlottesville ends in violence. So the car was racist.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. No, the car did not hit the crowd. You know, and so, you know, that is kind of soft pedaling, you know, what actually happened. I can see there are a couple of things. If you don't know who was driving the car.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

And you don't know if this was a person who had a seizure and it happened to be that this rally was going on.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Totally.

[Jelani Cobb]

You don't know what the, like, why this incident happened.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

So you don't want to say something that attributes blame in a moment like this sometimes when news is breaking. But the car didn't hit the crowd.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

You know, like as if it just has volition in its own right and decided to do this.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Let's look at the third example. Explosion, Gosne say was airstrike leaves many casualties in dense neighborhood.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. So if there's an explosion, and I've been in situations like this, there's an explosion. Some people say it's an airstrike, other people are saying that it's a gas leak and you have to put together a headline. You have, you know, five minutes to make this decision.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Right.

[Jelani Cobb]

If that were, you know, if I were in that case, I would simply say explosion. You come back to whether it was an airstrike or whether it was a gas pipe or whatever, car bomb, whatever the thing was. You put out the thing. There is an explosion. People have been killed more. You know, this is a developing story.

[Hasan Minhaj]

But it feels factually true, but emotionally dishonest. That's the problem.

[Jelani Cobb]

It feels like you're soft pedaling.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was objectivity theater. You know, we're seeing that right now currently with Gaza coverage. And this was concerning. Back in April, there was a memo leaked at the New York Times. The editors had instructed Journalists to avoid terms like genocide, ethnic cleansing, and to not say occupied territory when describing Palestinian land. What was your reaction when you heard that?

[Jelani Cobb]

So I think that there's been. First, I didn't see that particular memo.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Sure.

[Jelani Cobb]

But I think that there's been a kind of left hand, right hand phenomenon. Not just at the New York Times with a lot of news.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Sure. Yeah. This may be a symptom of a larger problem.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. Some of it is a kind of instinctive, I don't know. This conflict is, you know, very complicated, intractable. Anything I say could make me lose my job.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

I'm going to give the most bland possible assessment that I can get away with in this case. And also I'm not going to say anything about Palestinians. Like, that's kind of. I've seen that, you know, kind of in operation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Sure.

[Jelani Cobb]

The other part of it, I think has been that the reason I said this kind of left hand, right hand thing is that what does left hand, right hand mean? That sometimes one part of a news organization will be doing one type of coverage.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it.

[Jelani Cobb]

And another part of that same news organization will be doing a different type of coverage.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Got it.

[Jelani Cobb]

And so for all of the headlines that we saw from the New York Times, you know, that were kind of rounding down to the least offensive kind of category, especially as it relates to Gaza. The coverage on the other side on their podcast, the Daily, has been very different in its tone and tenor. And then the New York Times Magazine has published Ronan Bergman's work, who has been an Israeli journalist who's been intensely critical of Israel's policy policies in, you know, the west bank and in Gaza, you know, just laying out what's happened. And I'll say this because, you know, I'm dean of a journalism school and I've beeni've interacted with journalists across a wide array of things. Sometimes these are just very complicated situations that people have to make a decision on in a snap. And it comes out in a way that might not even be the best way. That journalist or that editor might say the next morning, I didn't get it that time. Sometimes there's a kind of institutional default where it is like wherever it is, that we are not going to offend this particular group of people. Whether that's an intentional decision, whether that's an implicit kind of bias, that happens too. And all kinds of organizations.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I hear what you're saying, which is a decision has to be made. Like this is the speed and velocity of information and necessary information that has to get out to the general public. But oftentimes there's not. By the time those plastic bottles are put into the ocean per se, there isn't systems put in place to go, hey, we gotta clean up some of those plastic bottles that we accidentally, maybe not even on purpose, dumped into the ocean. Because new information has to come out today. That makes me disenfranchised with the news. It makes me super because I'm like, they can get it wrong. They meaning any news organization. And there is no justice for this.

[Jelani Cobb]

So in theory, that's what we talk about. The second story. Your second story is supposed to be better than your first story. It's supposed to be. The second story is supposed to happen in the timeframe where you reflect upon, you know, the headline where we made it seem like the car just of its own will, you know, turned itself on and plowed into the. Yeah, that doesn't fly. Like, this is a person who has white supremacist sympathies who got behind the wheel in the midst of this, plowed the car into this crowd and killed someone. And so in theory, that's supposed to be the metabolism that we operate under.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I wasn't familiar with the second story.

[Jelani Cobb]

No, it's a concept like your second story. And so. But also by that same notion, you know, we're supposed to be as news organizations, as journalists, we're supposed to be an external check on power. That's why the Constitution protects us in the First Amendment. But we also need external checks and we also need to have the kind of humility that's required to actually look and say, have we served everyone to the best of our ability in the way that we follow this story? And there, you know, there's a wide variety in terms of how conscientious news organizations are about that.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I have friends that work in journalism and they say that the majority of traffic, and again, this is digital traffic, is for op ed journalism.

[Jelani Cobb]

Sure.

[Hasan Minhaj]

More than kind of the front page journalism. Do you find that concerning? That this is the Stephen A. Smithification of journalism. Hasan Minhaj doesn't know when to stop making basketball analogies. The hot take industrial complex.

[Jelani Cobb]

Oh, wow.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Cause when I watch First Take, I know what it is.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. I know.

[Hasan Minhaj]

First take.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You know what I mean? But I know what it is. I know that Steven's going to piss me off.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

JJ's going to reel me in and skip Bayless is going to needlessly hate on LeBron.

[Jelani Cobb]

I would just say I would never publish anything of the caliber of Stephen A. Smith's opinions in a paper. But that's neither here nor there.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Don't say that, Dean Cobb. Yeah, no, this man is driven.

[Jelani Cobb]

I mean, yeah, no, that's neither here nor there. But, you know, for the basic level of it, you know what's happened, the reason that you see so much opinion now is that news budgets have gotten very constrained. Not a surprise. And you know, reporting is expensive, especially foreign reporting. You have to fly people places and you have to give them housing and you have to, you know, provide for all the stuff that goes into producing a story. And you know, that's expensive opinion. It's cheap, it's fast, it's plentiful, and people will read it.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You know, I have a pitch on this. How to fix this whole thing. Because people conflate opinion with page one journalism, right? This is my pitch. And take this. You don't even need to credit me. All opinion journalism should just be in Comic Sans ms, and then regular news is Times New Roman.

[Jelani Cobb]

That's an idea.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Do you know what I mean?

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah, I mean, I think we can kind of clearly label opinion at the beginning.

[Hasan Minhaj]

That's not working. It's too regal, right? It's too regal.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah.

[Hasan Minhaj]

You know, it's worth a try. Yeah. If you just saw Thomas Friedman articles in Comic Sans ms, you'd be like, got it. Understood. He's joking. Have you read Neil Postman's book, Amusing Ourselves to Death?

[Jelani Cobb]

I have not.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Come. Dean Cobb.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yes. No way.

[Hasan Minhaj]

No way. No way. Are you familiar kind of with Postman's work?

[Jelani Cobb]

A little bit.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Okay. Over 40 years ago. It was written in 1985. It was specifically about television and media and its influence on educating the public. This is a great book. There's two passages that I think about a lot when it comes to journalism, informing the public and infotainment. Postman writes, television is at its most trivial and therefore most dangerous when its aspirations are high, when it presents itself as a carrier of important cultural conversations. The irony here is that this is what intellectuals and critics are constantly urging television to do. And to me, this so speaks to the problem of infotainment. There is this desire from the writer class to be like, this movie is education. This TV show will inform you. By the way, I had this with Patriot act, my show. I had to entertain you, to teach you. Nobody cares about the protests in Sudan. That's why I had to have a David Guetta led show. People are like, oh, there's purple lights. Maybe I should think about Sudan. But the very idea That I have to entertain you in order to inform you means in and of itself. The necessary condition is entertainment and it should only be seen as such.

[Jelani Cobb]

I don't know. I don't agree.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I mean, do you, do you believe that it's making us feel smarter without actually making us smarter?

[Jelani Cobb]

No. The reason I say that is let's think about the teachers who actually had an impact on us. You know, those are people who certainly had a mastery of their subject matter.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Correct.

[Jelani Cobb]

Who understood things. They also understood how to engage people.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Irl, though. Irl. There's this passage about Sesame street that I love people and Sesame street should absolutely get its flowers. 55 years salute. If we are to blame Sesame street for anything, it is for the pretense that it is an ally of the classroom as a television show and a good one. Sesame street does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television. I love this so much. I have a six year old, I have a four year old. One of my children has to get tutoring for reading. All we watch is the PBS kids app Fuck Cocomelon. Respectfully, okay? But my little guy will watch. And as you know, in Sesame street, their programming is what we need to teach you one through 10. And we need to teach you the letters, the word of the day, the letter of the day and the number of the day. All Sesame street has done is taught him how to watch Sesame street well, and it's a relatively good program, but it will never replace his tutor at school that physically teaches him how to read. Big Bird will never teach him how to read, but his teacher and my teacher, Mrs. Ledington, when I was in first grade taught me how to read. And I think we have over indexed the power of, of infotainment of a vox video or of a news article.

[Jelani Cobb]

I'll put my cards on the table and tell you that I'm very good friends with the founder of Sesame Street. And so I'm not a completely objective person. But I will say this. The thing that I think that's interesting is that that's kind of a half argument.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

It's like Sesame street only teaches you how to, you know, like to watch Sesame street.

[Hasan Minhaj]

And it's entertaining.

[Jelani Cobb]

But if like a kid goes off and does something violent, then it's like, oh, all the violence they've absorbed on television has predisposed them to behave this way. So if it's educational, we're going like, oh, this is probably not making any difference. But if it's deleterious then it's like, oh, it probably is being absorbed. And for that matter, like a lot of the kind of values and the kinds of, like, now people are into social emotional learning, which is saying that you have to actually kind of prepare the whole person as opposed to simply the kind of rudiments of how many numbers do you know, how many words do you know? And so on. And if you were looking at the social emotional side of it, then that might be a whole other element, which is probably what I got. What I got from cpsame street was probably more about values than it was about particular, like numbers or Cookie Monster or like any of those kinds of things.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yeah, I agree with that. What I got from Sesame street and the reason why we still watch it, I'm a huge fan, would love to be on it. I think it's great, comforting television. Here's what Postman is arguing and what I agree with, let junk be junk. And let real learning from Professor Cobb, from this amazing institution. Let real learning be real learning. In other words, let TV be tv and don't make it more than that. And make reading books, reading books. I truly believe this, and I know you feel this. But when you deal with your students, you cannot tweet, you cannot substack, and you cannot podcast your way into understanding things. I mean, look at this amazing set that we have here. I can watch as many youtubes as I want about how to make film and video and television. But there is no better teacher going out and doing it than physically understanding the weight of that C stand, how much those sandbags weigh. What is three point lighting? Why we have to hand you a napkin? Because the shine on this part, it can only be lived. And what I love about books, asking someone out on a date, making sweet love with your beloved. Any of these things must be learned in real time. They are practical things. They are not kind of intellectual things to be discerned or critiqued through the screen. Am I thinking about this the right way?

[Jelani Cobb]

I 100% agree with you. Okay, the thing that we do here is exactly that. You know, the first week that our students arrive, we turn them loose on the city to report. And the goal is for them to make mistakes, you know? Now let's go back and see exactly which mistakes you made. And that's where the learning actually starts. So I entirely agree with you.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Yes.

[Jelani Cobb]

But listen, I have to tell you this, and I'm not saying this just to blow smoke. I don't believe in blowing smoke. But, like, this is one of the most well informed conversations I've ever had. And I've had conversations with a lot of journalists who have not been as insightful or, you know, as well educated on the particulars of journalism as, you know, as you've been in this conversation.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Dean Cobb, high praise. I can't top that. Thank you, man.

[Jelani Cobb]

Thank you. Oh, man, thank you.

[Hasan Minhaj]

I needed that.

[Jelani Cobb]

Yeah. No, no, no, for real, this morning.

[Hasan Minhaj]

Your boy needed that. Thank you so much, man.

[Jelani Cobb]

Thank you.

[Hasan Minhaj]

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