← The Epstein Chronicles
The Epstein Chronicles
Mega Edition: The Epstein Story Shines A Light On Why Distrust In The Media Is So High (6/1/26)
01:04:14
The Epstein scandal goes directly to the heart of why so many people no longer trust legacy media, because it exposed a brutal gap between what the public was told journalism exists to do and what major institutions actually did when power, money,...
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Tired of overpaying with DirecTV, Dish offers a reliable low price every month without surprises. Get the TV you love and start watching live sports news and the latest movies, plus your favorite streaming apps all in one place. Switch to Dish today and lock in the lowest price in satellite TV starting at $89.99 a month with our two year price guarantee. Call 888 add dish or or visit dish.com today. I decided to pull an article from way back in 2008, an article written by Landon Thomas Jr. And you might be familiar with the name because Landon Thomas Jr. Ended up leaving the Times because he accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein. Well, you'll see in this piece that he wrote pretty much a puff piece about Jeffrey Epstein right after his arrest. And it was very sympathetic in tone to Jeffrey Epstein. And I think it's important that we remember the way these newspapers were covering this case when it was happening and how it was going down. So we have context because we see it from these outlets just about in every single case, in everything that happens when they're wrong, they just move on and they act like they, they were never wrong, like they had nothing, you know, nothing to apologize for. Well, in reality, we know that they did a big disservice to the survivors in this case by covering for Jeffrey Epstein for, for so long. And we see that in this article that I'm going to read tonight. And this article is from 2008. Like I said, the author is Landon Thomas Jr. And the headline is Financier Starts Sentence and Prostitution case. Plenty wrong just with that opening headline, right? Plenty wrong right there. First of all, financier. Let's replace that with pedophile. And again, there can't. This isn't a prostitution case. Children can't be prostitutes. This is the case of a sex trafficker, a sex offender, and a very disgusting and evil man. Okay, this article was released on July 1, 2008. And now remember, the author of this article received $30,000 from Jeffrey Epstein for an outside charity, which led to him leaving the New York Times. The New York Times and him parted ways after it was revealed that he accepted this money. Now my question is how long did the Times know that he had accepted this money before they decided to part ways with him? It seems like it's a face saving move, right? A bunch of years after, etc. Etc. But that's, that's for, you know, we'll talk about that a little bit later. But onto the article. The bad news arrived by phone last week on Little St. James island, the palm fringe, Xanadu in the Caribbean, where Jeffrey E. Epstein, advisor to billionaires, lives in secluded splendor. The tone of the article right away is just gross, right? Just reading it, you could tell it's a puff piece right away. It's a pump your pump your tires kind of piece. Piece where I, you know, I'm gonna write about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, but I'm gonna put it in the best light as possible. And that's the tone it sets right away from the first paragraph. Report to the Palm Beach county jail. The caller, Mr. Epstein's lawyer, said, oh, that's a. That was a big deal, huh? Real tough sentence there. He did a real rough bid there. I mean, he might as well have been in the supermax or Guantanamo, because the bid he did was just absolutely painful for him. Right? I mean, it's not like he had access to every single thing he needed anyway. What a joke. So over the weekend, Mr. Epstein quit his pleasure dome with its staff of 70 and its flamingo stock Lagoon and. And flew to Florida. On Monday morning, he turned himself in and began serving 18 months for soliciting prostitution. And the author knows what he was really charged with. The author knows what the score is. And the author chooses to write it in a manner where it is helpful to Jeffrey Epstein's image. Even though he's going to jail. The author is trying to fluff his image, trying to pump his tires, and trying to artificially inflate Jeffrey Epstein and make it seem like what he was convicted of is just no big deal. I respect the legal process, Mr. Epstein, 55, said by phone as he prepared to leave his 78 acres island, which he calls Little St. Jeff's I will abide by this. Yeah, no shit. You're gonna abide by a buddy. What do you think you're El Patroni? You think you're Pablo Escobar? I'm gonna. I'll. I'll abide by this. Who do you think you are? It should have been a lot more. Instead you got this sweetheart deal. And then you're still so brazen and still so smug. Oh, yeah, I'll abide by this. Like you had any choice. Like it was in your control, right? At the very least, you had to get your slap on the wrist. But the thing is, this was the beginning of the downfall for Epstein. This was the first chink in his armor. And his handlers, well, they know that they couldn't protect him twice. So this was, you know, his. His one shot his one get out of jail free card. And thankfully, well, we know how things ended up. It is a stunning downfall for Mr. Epstein, who grew up in Coney island and went on to live the life of a billionaire, only to become a tabloid monument to an age of hyper wealth. Mr. Epstein owns a Boeing 727 and the largest townhouse in Manhattan. He has paid for college educations for personal employees and students from Rwanda and spent millions on a project to develop thinking and feeling computer and on music intended to alleviate depression. Oh, what a fantastic guy, huh? If you didn't know anything about Jeffrey Epstein and you're reading this in 2008, you're saying to yourself, man, this guy probably caught a bad rap, prostitution, 18 months, what the hell? Meanwhile, what he was really involved in, what he was really doing is so much more dark, so much more unnerving. And the legacy media, obviously we're talking about the Gray lady here, folks. This is the New York Times writing this puff piece. This isn't one of his friends in the local paper, right? This is the New York Times, the paper of record for the country, supposedly, the Gray Lady. And they're writing a puff piece about Jeffrey Epstein. But Mr. Epstein also paid women, some of them underage, to give him massages that ended with a sexual favor. The authorities say. Listen to the way he words this, right? He makes you think like it's no big deal. No big deal whatsoever. You know, he paid for massages that ended with a sexual favor. No detail, no context, nothing. Federal prosecutors initially threatened to bring him to trial on a variety of charges and seek the maximum penalty, 10 years in prison. After years of legal wrangling, Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty to lesser state charges. And we know that they brought that those charges up, even with Jeffrey Epstein, to make it look like they were doing their jobs. They had no intention of ever smacking him with the federal charges. They always intended to kick this down back to the state level because they thought that it would be less hot down there, right? Less press on it, less eyes on it. Just another state, local case of some sick, you know, rich guy who got caught up in a sting, move on, forget about it. But instead, what it did is it created a lot of questions. And the local police department down there, Ryder and the rest of those guys who did incredible work, Joseph Ricari, those people did incredible work down there. And without them in the initial arrests and the initial outcry over the way things were going, this would have been buried and we would have never heard anything about it. We would have had a puff piece like this and this would have been the end of it. The beginning and the end of Jeffrey Epstein's rehabilitation and insertion back into so called polite and high society. Upon his release from jail, he must register as a sex offender wherever he goes in the United States. Well, we know that. Incorrect. He didn't have to register in New Mexico. People from all walks of life break the law, of course, but for the rich, wrapped by a cocoon of immense comfort, it can be easy to yield to temptation. Experts say it's making excuses for this guy. Making excuses. Oh, it must be such a burden to have all of that money. I wish I had that kind of burden. I mean, are you kidding me right now? Oh, because he's rich, he has such a burden. It's so tough, it's so hard because he's wrapped in an immense comfort and it can be easy to yield to temptation. Give me a break. Give me an absolute break. These people, this is how they think. This is how they, they think. This is how they're covered for in the, in the legacy media. This is what was going on for years and years and years. And you see it right here in this article. How sickening is this? A sense of entitlement sets in, says Dennis Pern, a psychologist who counsels people on matters related to extreme wealth. I mean, really counsels people on matters that have to do with extreme wealth. Get yourself an accountant and go enjoy your money. Do something good with your money, okay? Go find some people who lost their house in a fire or whatever the hell it may be, but stop being sick, disgusting bastards with it. I mean, is that too much to ask? You already have the, the world is your oyster already with your billions and billions of dollars. But you have to go about and, and conduct yourself like, like Jeffrey Epstein and hang out with people like Jeffrey Epstein. I don't understand the thought pattern behind that. I don't understand how these people think. How, how do they, how do they operate? How is it okay to be friends with somebody like Jeffrey Epstein? Unless of course, you know what he is and you accept him for that because you don't think it's wrong either. That's the only way I can see somebody still hanging out with this guy. Any normal person sees what this guy's up to or hears rumors about it,
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and they're like, are you kidding me right now?
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Hanging out with this guy? But yet all of these rich and powerful people drawn to Epstein like a moth to a flame, and this whole, giving them an out here like the psychologist says, a sense of entitlement sets in and they act like they deserve anything they want. Like they can have anything they want and they can afford it. That's not an excuse. That's not an excuse. That's like some, a trained fighter who just walks around beating people up because he can. There's no excuse for that. Just like there's no excuse for the way Jeffrey Epstein conducted himself. And there's no excuse for the people that enabled him. And there is certainly no excuse for journalists, so called journalists, who write puff pieces like this to provide cover for a man like Epstein. It's absurd. To prosecutors, Mr. Epstein is just another sex offender. He did what he did because he could and because he never dreamed he would get caught, they say Mr. Epstein's defenders counter that he has been unjustly persecuted because of his wealth and lawfully connections. To prosecutors, Mr. Epstein is just another sex offender. And that right there is the problem with all of this. In a nutshell. That right there just shows you exactly what the problem is with this case as a whole. Jeffrey Epstein was much more than just another sex offender, folks. This was a man who wielded immense power, who, who had a lot, a lot of sway with some of the most powerful people on the planet. This is more than just a sex offender. Sitting on his patio on Little St. Jeff's in the Virgin Islands several months ago, as his legal troubles deepened, Mr. Epstein gazed at the azure sea and the lush hills of St. Thomas in the distance, poked out a lunch of crab and rare steak prepared by his personal chef, and tried to explain how his life had taken such a turn. He likened himself to Gulliver, shipwrecked among the diminutive denizens of Lilliput. I mean, really, this is, this is. It's sickening to read this. It is absolutely, positively stomach turning, gut wrenching, gross to read this puff piece, the way this guy was inflating his tires. It's an embarrassment. What a puff piece. You know what this guy was just prosecuted for. You're a smart guy, Landon Thomas Jr. You, you saw what was going on. You knew the deal, and here you are writing this puff piece. You should be ashamed of yourself. Gulliver's playfulness had unintended consequences, Mr. Epstein said. That is what happens with wealth. There are unexpected burdens as well as benefits. Really, this is a burden? Look, bro, you're the one who molested these girls. You're the one who trafficked all of these girls. You're the one that was Involved in raping all of these girls. What do you mean burden? The only burden is on the survivors of your disgustingness. This is the way Jeffrey Epstein was able to conduct himself throughout high society in New York. He was so brazen. He spoke this way in interviews. How do you think he spoke at the cocktail parties? At the $25,000 per plate charity events? Jeffrey Epstein didn't conduct himself differently because, you know, he was hiding. The guy was hiding in plain sight. Everybody knew exactly what he was. And all of those enablers, all of those high crust socialites, and all of those virtue signalers and all of those wannabe social justice warriors that inhabit that scene are a bunch of frauds. Straight up frauds. Those benefits are on full display on his island, where, despite his time in jail, Mr. Epstein has commissioned the new estate. Must be nice, huh? Wonder, you know, with that 47 million that he was supposedly stole from Wexner, maybe he used that to commission his new estate. These people are unbelievable. The villa will occupy the island's promontory, which offers views of the Atlantic on one side and the Caribbean on the other. It will have a separate library to house Mr. Epstein's 90,000 volumes, a Japanese bath house and what he calls the Ziegfeld movie theater. Who cares? This guy was just arrested, about to go to jail for soliciting, in the words of this guy, soliciting people for prostitution. But in reality, everybody knows what he was going to jail for. Everybody who was paying attention. And don't think that this journalist wasn't paying attention. He knew the score. He knew the scope of what Epstein was up to, and he's writing this puff piece about how fantastic Jeffrey Epstein's island is. Talk about using your platform for garbage. For now, however, those visions of a private paradise have been replaced by the cold reality of a jail cell. Oh, harsh. The legal drama began in 2005 when a young woman who gave Mr. Epstein massages at his Palm beach mansion told the local police about the encounter. She was 14 at the time and was paid $200. The police submitted the results of their investigation to the state attorney, asking that Mr. Epstein be charged with sexual relations with his. Lawyers say Mr. Epstein never knew the young women were underage and point to the depositions in which the masseuse. Masseuses, several of whom have filed civil suits, admitted to lying about their age. Yeah, of course they lied. They were told to lie about their age. Well, that's been estab. That's established in Filthy Rich. We know for a fact that they were told to lie about their age and, duh, why wouldn't he want to give himself plausible deniability? I mean, it's rather obvious, right? But, you know, this article just goes on about their business. Doesn't question it doesn't, you know, bring up any counterpoint. Just keeps rolling with the narrative. In July 2005, a Florida grand jury charged Mr. Epstein with a lesser offense. Soliciting prostitution. Must be nice, isn't it? To be Jeffrey Epstein, to just live the high life. Oh, well, we'll charge you with a solicitation of prostitute soliciting, a prostitution charge. That's all. Yeah, you'll be fine. No big deal. Mr. Epstein's legal team, which would eventually include the former prosecutor, Kenneth W. Starr and the Harvard law professor, Alan M. I kept my underpants on. Dershowitz was elated Mr. Epstein would avoid prison. But then the United States Attorney's office in Miami became involved. Last summer, Mr. Epstein got an plead guilty to a charge that would require him to register as a sex offender, or the government would charge him with sexual tourism, according to people who were briefed on the discussions. Oh, sexual tourism, huh? Oh, man, you guys are really going after him, huh? No. No talk of rico. No talk of anything that's really meaningful. Now, don't get me wrong. Sexual tourism is a pretty serious charge, and it carries a, you know, I'm sure a pretty serious jail sentence. I don't know the exact term of it, but really, if you really wanted to go after him and you really wanted to threaten him and give him an ultimatum, you should have threatened him with rico. David Weinstein, an attorney in the government's Miami office, declined to discuss the specifics of the case. But he did address the subject of Mr. Epstein's means and prominent legal team and dismissed a proposal by Mr. Epstein's lawyers who opposed the application of federal statutes in the case that he be confined to his house in Palm beach for a probationary period. Oh, that's nice, huh? Well, at least they did. They didn't do that. You know, they just let him leave for 13 hours a day. It's such a joke. It's all for optics. All of this was done for optics. The ultimatum, the light jail sentence, all for optics. If they had their druthers, if they had their way, this man would have never seen a minute inside of a jail cell. In their mind, that would be an adequate resolution, Mr. Weinstein said. Our view is that that is not enough of punishment to fit the crime that occurred. Oh, you showed them, Mr. Weinstein, you really put your foot down by giving him this soft ass sentence. You're really a hero in this case, you clown. What an absolute clown. To act like, oh, yeah, well, we did the right thing here. We really threw the book at him because, you know, we wanted the punishment to fit the crime that did not turn out. Well, History is not going to judge you. Well, history is not judging you. Well, and personally, you fall right into the category of chuckleheads. The rest of the chuckleheads who have been involved in this, the rest of the morons, so called state prosecutors who look the other way and who are negligent. You are certainly one of them as well, Mr. Weinstein. Welcome to the club, you doofus. Blurred details of the case have captivated wealthy circles in Palm beach and New York and transformed Mr. Epstein, who shuns publicity and whose business depends on discretion into a figure of public ridicule. Yeah, but not by his buddies in New York wealth. Not by the upper crust of New York.
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He was welcomed right back in.
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Do you know why? Because he has money. He can use that money to help them out. And at the end of the day, once again, we understand it's all about them when it comes to these sort of people, that they're in a world of one. And that world includes themselves. He said it. Oh, this is, this is too much. He said he has been trailed by stalkers and has been become the target of lawsuits. Yeah, no shit. You were involved in a child trafficking ring, bro. Of course you're getting charged with. I mean, lawsuit slapped at you, slapped down at you. I mean, really? So again, this guy's writing it like, oh, you should feel sorry for Jeffrey Epstein. He has a real tough. Meanwhile, this guy, not a word about the survivors. Not giving the survivors equal time, right? Not covering any of the girls who Epstein was charged with assaulting. None of that. Just a puff piece for Jeffrey Epstein because Jeffrey Epstein was enriching him by giving him 30 grand on the backside. Wow, the New York Times, folks. Isn't it grand? The paper of record, the Gray lady. What a cesspool. What a joke, huh? In recent months, he said he received over a hundred letters a week asking for money or jobs as a masseuse. He recently received a package of gold tinted condoms. Oh, the humanity of, oh, poor Jeffrey Epstein. It has been a long, strange journey from Coney island where Mr. Epstein grew up in middle class surroundings. Here comes the real puff piece where they lay it on you, right? Oh, well, we. He was, you know, charged with these little, these minor Crimes, no big deal or anything. But here, let's do the. Let's jump in and let's rescue him with his whole entire sob story. And coming from nothing and becoming a millionaire and as if that shit matters. There is one thing that matters. When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein.
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All the other shit you can leave
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at the door, one thing matters. The dude was a pedophile. End of story, end of discussion. Nothing else even needs to be said, really. Right. That puts him down at the. On the lowest levels of scumbags on earth. Okay, so all this puff piece shit about his background and, oh, Jeffrey Epstein came from a poor life and made such a great, very great money for himself and made such a way in the world and. Shut up. Shut up and kill that shit. This shit was dead in 2008, and it certainly doesn't play 12 years later in 2020. Makes you look like a fool. He taught briefly at Dalton, the Manhattan private school, and then joined Bear Stearns, becoming a derivative specialist. He struck out on his own in the 1980s. No mention of any of the investigations in the Bear Stearns. None of the drama, nothing like that. Just, you know, a regular old guy. Very good. Very, very good at what he does. Middle class guy, worked his way up. Teacher. Bear Stearns. Oh my God, he's so incredible. Talk about vomit inducing. His business is something of a mystery. Yeah, no, no shit. He says he manages money for billionaires, but the only client he is willing to disclose is Leslie H. Wexner, the founder of Limited Brands. And I always wondered why Wexner was the one that he was willing to disclose. Right. And we understand that the Wexner connection is a lot deeper than people have talked about. We understand that Wexner is a linchpin in this whole entire thing. And Wexner is a big time player within the Mega Group. And we all understand what's going on here. We understand why Wexner was out front. Right? I mean, Wexner was the face. He was the face of this whole entire thing from the, the aspect of the Mega Group. He was, you know, the contact for Epstein. And then him and Epstein became super close. That's the way I see it. That's certainly my opinion of the situation, of how it unfolded. As Mr. Epstein explains it, he provides a specialized form of super elite financial advice. Yeah, okay, let's. I'll translate that for you. A fantastic way to launder your money and wash it. That's certainly what I believe about the case. Right. These guys weren't giving Epstein his Money. He's not, you know, he's not Warren Buffett, right? He's not the oracle from Omaha. This guy isn't some stock guru, in my opinion. They were giving him this money so he could wash it and then give it back to them clean. My opinion obviously don't have any evidence to back that up. Right? But when you look at all the banks and all the wacky transfers of money that are going nowhere, that disappear in thin air, you know, come on, you don't have to be a forensic accountant to put two and two together. He counsels people on everything from taxes and trusts to prenuptial agreements and paternity suits, and even provides interior decorating tips for private jets. Boy, he's just a well versed guy, huh? Just the. Just a Swiss army knife of. Of information for the upper crust
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industry.
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Sources says he charges flat annual fees ranging from 25 million to more than 100 million. As it became clear that he was headed for jail, Mr. Epstein has tried to put on a brave face. Oh, poor Mr. Epstein. Feel bad for him, the rich guy from. From Coney island who, who is gonna go to jail now. And we should all really feel bad for him. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Everybody should have been cheering that this guy was going to jail. Unfortunately, nobody understood that he was going to get such a little slap on the wrist, Right? And certainly the survivors didn't know that he was going to get just a slap on the wrist. So, you know, it's sick. It's sick to read this and the way this is so slanted as, you know, painting him in a. A decent light because there's nothing about the man that was decent. Your body can be confined, but not your mind, he said in a recent interview by phone. Oh, yeah. What? Words of wisdom from Jeffrey Epstein. But the strains were showing. I am anxious, he said in another recent interview, referring to how inmates would treat him. I make a great effort to treat people equally, but I recognize that I might be perceived as one of the New York arrogant rich. First of all, you never treated anyone equally. You treated people like dirt. Second of all, you might be perceived as one of the New York arrogant rich. Bro, you embodied the rich New York arrogant people, okay?
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You are.
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You are the face of every one of them. Now, they might not all be running around involved in, you know, human trafficking rings and abusing children, but they're all the same, have the same mindset as you. A me first. Consolidation of power, burn everything mindset. And it's gross. It's. It's gross. And to be honest, if Jeffrey Epstein ever was served up real prison time and was ever put on in the actual yard, dude wouldn't have made it. Dude would have been killed real quick. He would have been killed by other inmates or heavily assaulted by other inmates. It has nothing to do with you being part of the New York arrogant rich. It had everything to do with your crimes. Jail will certainly be a big change. Yeah, right. No, it won't. Again, trying to pump it up. This guy's trying to pump it. Like Jeffrey Epstein's really gonna be punished. Like he's gonna be around other inmates, like he's really gonna do time. When in reality, none of that was going to occur. Mr. Epstein is a man of precise, at times unconventional habits. He starts his mornings with a secret ingredient bran muffin prepared by his chef. Really? A secret ingredient bran muffin? Give me a break. Too bad he didn't choke on it. He seems to have a germ phobia. Highly doubt that. He never wears a suit, preferring monogram sweatsuits and jeans. Yeah, he always dressed like some weird, unkept, bummy ass older dude, right? Like the dude you'd see at the park peeping on girls. Should have known by his outfits that he was a creeper. The stupid monogram shoes, the sweatpants, the popped collar. Take it easy, all right, buddy? And he rarely attends meetings. I never have to be anywhere, he tells his pilots when he cautions them to avoid flying through chancy weather. Looking back, Mr. Epstein's admits that his behavior was inappropriate. I am not blameless, he said. He said he has taken steps to make sure the same thing never happens again. Yeah, by paying everybody off. Wow. This. I mean, he didn't. Doesn't even get called out.
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Talk about.
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Look at the softball interview here. I just. I can't reiterate enough how disgusting this is that this interview is in the New York Times. This is the sort of garbage that the New York Times and the Washington Post that they love to do. This is the kind of garbage that they always do. For starters, Mr. Epstein has hired a full time male massage therapist. The man happens to be, of course, former Ultimate Fighting Champion. He has also organized what he calls a board of directors of friends to counsel him on his behavior. And we know that's a lie because the supposed masseuse is actually the bodyguard. And he organized what he calls a board of directors of friends to counsel him on his behavior. Yeah.
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Who was on that board?
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Prince Andrew, Jean Luc Brunel, Sarah Kellen, Vickers Ghislaine Maxwell, Leslie Gruff. I mean, come on, are you kidding me right now? A board of friends, huh?
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We're gonna investigate ourselves.
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Everything is fine here. We're just gonna look into ourselves and I'll have a board of my friends hold me accountable. The same people that are involved in my criminal enterprise. I mean, this is an absolute joke. And the New York Times is a joke for even running this. I mean, they should be, they should be ashamed. And when I talked about paywalls earlier, and New York Times is one of the outlets that I was talking about, New York Times should. Every single article that they have about Jeffrey Epstein from here until the end of time should never, ever be behind a paywall. That should be their start, some of their penance of this case. They should be very transparent when they're covering this case and make sure that information is for anyone who stumbles upon it. Because look, look at the way they pumped this guy's tires. Look at the way he was inflated by their journalist. And we can say, you know, there's a lot of criticism for Landon Thomas Jr. Here. This is a garbage piece. But what about the editor that let this run? He certainly deserves some criticism as well, or she deserves some criticism as well because this is a straight up garbage piece. And it's just, it's ludicrous that something like this would ever be run in, in a place like the New York Times. But unfortunately we see it all of the time. The symbiotic relationship between the legacy media and the intelligence apparatus and the powerful is just, just gross to behold. And it's right there obvious for anyone paying attention what's going on on a regular basis with the legacy media and the rich and powerful and the intelligence apparatus, the way that they siphon off of each other and the way they have a parasitic relationship, it's, it's harmful to truthful news coming out and informing the population. Because right now more than ever, we need truth, we need journalistic integrity, and we need journalists that we can trust. But when you have articles like this and be it, it was in 2008, but when you have articles like this from the New York Times, you have to ask yourself what in the hell is going on? And it's not like it's a one off, right? The New York Times has been not very good when it comes to covering this Jeffrey Epstein case. Now, you know, recently, of course, they've jumped on board, right? Everybody, everybody has jumped on board. But we have to look at this cape, this case as a whole, and where it was and to where it's be where it's come. And we've got to make sure that we're keeping record of the outlets that were pumping this guy's tires because there was a lot of them. So we have to make sure that we're always aware of where we're getting our information. And even sources that have been ironclad throughout history are not as ironclad as we would believe. And unfortunately, it's up to us to vet every single thing that we hear at this point because there is hardly any truth anymore. There is hardly any outlet that goes the extra mile to make sure things are right. It's all about being first. It's not about being right. And that's a big disservice to the public and especially to the survivors in this case, because the COVID that was laid for Jeffrey Epstein for decade upon decade between his, his servants in the media and people above them in, you know, high profile positions in academia and business and politics, it just goes to show you the reach that Jeffrey Epstein had. And it should also go to show you that this man was a lot more than just another sex offender as he was referred to in this article. If you'd like to contact me, you can do that@bobby capuchirotonmail.com that's B O B B Y C A P U c c I protonmail.com you can also find me on Twitter at Bobby Capuci.
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Also be sure to check out my what's up everyone? And welcome back to the program. Like many of you out there listening to this podcast, I have a healthy distrust of the legacy media and the divisiveness that they pitch on a regular basis. Now, personally speaking, I don't watch any of those news programs that you see on tv. I don't watch Rachel Maddow, I don't watch Sean Hannity, I don't watch Tucker Carlson, I don't watch Don Lemon. I don't watch any of that crap. All of the news I get, I get from various different sources. And then you go through all of those different sources, you read the news and you figure out what's what. I don't need to have insert name here pummeling me 24 hours a day with their opinion, trying to gaslight me. But unfortunately there's a lot of our fellow countrymen who are completely addicted to this shit. I know I have people in my own family that watch the news just insistently. They just do not stop. It's like an all day affair for them. And when you have these divisive ass broadcast hosts, you have these quote, unquote, I'm using air quotes here, folks. News readers on TV who are pumping your brain full of nonsense telling you that your neighbor hates you, this one hates you, that one's the enemy that shit seeps in. And the people who watch this stuff religiously. And again, it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're talking about here, if you watch this stuff on a regular basis and you're getting these boneheaded ideas pumped into your head, well, you're going to have a certain way of looking at your neighbor, right? Or you're going to have a certain way of looking at your country as a whole. But the reality is these people, that's how they get rich. Well, you think there's money in, you know, talking about moderation. You think there's money in telling people to stop the bullshit. That's not where the money's at. And just look at even content creators, all the people out there that are trying to play on your emotions all the time and get you fired up and telling you to hate the Republicans or the Democrats or the unjabbed or the jabbed. I would be very cautious of those people. We have it bad enough with the government playing those games and the legacy media playing those games, but then you add a whole entire ass grifter class to it and you have just a Frankenstein of stupidity. And that's why I just avoid it at all costs. I prefer to read the news, I prefer to choose what outlets I'm looking at. And I don't want some dumbass sitting on a TV yapping at me all day. Because the reality is that person that's sitting up there that you're spending 25 hours a day reading or watching on TV, I mean, that person doesn't care about you. That person wants to get rich. And the more people that tune in, the better their ratings are, right? So let me get some red meat for my base. And any person that's not explaining both sides of an issue to you, especially on, in a place like Twitter, for example, if you go on someone's profile, right, you click on it and their whole timeline is just pumping nonsense propaganda for one side or the other. And they're not explaining the nuance of the issue to you, well, that person is playing on your emotions and they're probably grifting. See, these problems that we discuss, they're. They're difficult problems, right? They're not black and white issues. There's a lot of nuance, but you have these people playing their tribalistic and a lot of them are in the media. And, well, what happens is you have a whole bunch of people who don't trust you or only trust the people that are speaking inside of their bunker within the echo chamber. And that's a, that's a big problem with the, the divisiveness in society right now. So today we have an article from the Guardian headline, broken and Distrusting why Americans Are Pulling Away from the Daily News. This article was authored by Chris McGreal. Look, they say broken. I don't buy that. But distrusting 100%, who out here believes the legacy media at this point? Look, there's a reason so many of you have found your way to this podcast and others that are way bigger than my podcast and why you listen to it every day. Because you're tired of being BS'd with. You're tired of being told nonsense and you can't relate to these morons that are making millions and millions of dollars but getting up there and telling you, oh yeah, we're for the people. No, you're not. Guess what? If you've never struggled in your life, you've never went through it. Like my, my dad's funny. He calls it old poor. We're old poor. There's going to be a lot of new poor people now, and they're not going to know how to deal with it. But we're old poor, you know, on a play on the generational wealth. And there's going to be a lot of people that are really going to be in for a surprise. This might just be another negative news story. And if it is, there is evidence that many of you will turn away in despair. Look, there is a lot of that, too. There are a lot of people who tune out the bad news these days because there's so much of it. And if you just pound yourself and inundate yourself with all of this bad news on a regular basis, it's bad for your psyche, especially if there's nothing you can do about it. I know me personally, that's the worst for me. When you have an issue and you're helpless to deal with it, say somebody's sick in your family or. That's the worst feeling for me in the whole world. Being unable to act, being inable to help, or being unable to do something to fix the situation is just the worst for me. And I'm sure a lot of people feel like that when they turn on the tv and they see these issues that they have no control over. The Reuters Institute revealed last month that 42% of Americans actively avoid the news, at least some of the time because it grinds them down or they just don't believe it. 15% said they disconnected from news coverage altogether. In other countries such as the UK and Brazil, the numbers selectively avoiding it were even higher. Look, I get it. This has been a wild run we've been on folks since this pandemic has started especially this has been a wild ass run and people's mental state is not good. When you put, when you, when you put people locked up in their house by themselves and they can't go see their family members who are dying, they can't go out and be a productive member of society because society is stopped. Shit's going to be bad for some people. Some people were already on the brink. Some people were on the edge and this was the little shove that they might have needed to really put them into a, a manic state almost. In the United States, those who self identify on the right are four of are far more likely to avoid news because they think it is untrustworthy or biased. But those on the left are more likely to feel overwhelmed, carry feelings of powerlessness or worry that the news might create arguments. The Institute said. Oh, I don't believe that. Let's not act like people on the left aren't out here actively looking for arguments. You know, there's a whole ass like litany of check marks you have to check or you're going to be attacked by the so called left. And when I say the so called left, I don't mean real leftists. I'm talking about the, the loud voices on the left that are no different than the loud voices on the right. They're just pumping out a different message. But it's the same core concept, right? Hate your neighbor. They're wrong. We're right. Follow us. The Reuters Institute said that alongside the rising number of people avoiding the news is a drop in trust and reporting in the US to the lowest point yet recorded at just 26% of the population. Well that's your fault, meaning the legacy media's fault. When they're out here and they're talking about Bill Richardson going over to Russia as a representative of the United States of America and there's not even a byline that he's being credibly accused as a rapist, then that tells you everything you need to know about the legacy media. And look, my gripes are legit for those of you who have been following this podcast, you know the deal. I've laid out my issues with the legacy media time and time again for three years now, so this isn't something new for me. But these people, nobody trusts them, and that's because they're busy playing politics. All of these activist journalists out there stuff that we're tired of it. You can have an opinion, but save it for your opinion piece. How about you just tell us the news? Is that too difficult? What it really comes down to, folks, is all of these college educated jackanapes that run around and spit the news at you. They feel like you're dumber than them and that they have to not only tell you the news, but they have to tell you how to think as well. And I've always found that super offensive. And I know a lot of other people do as well. And this is again, another reason why, why people are going to alternative media, listening to podcasts, you know, whatever it might be, because there's no trust left in the legacy media. And they did it to themselves. All of this rang true to Amanda Ripley, a former Time journalist and author of High Conflict, why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. She confessed in a Washington Post column that she was embarrassed as a reporter to admit that she has been actively avoiding the news for years. Ripley said it left her. Left her so drained that I couldn't write. I mean, guys, I'm not trying to be heartless here, but your job as a journalist or as a person in the media is to do exactly that. You have to follow the news, even if you don't like it. I mean, you think it's enjoyable talking about the things we talk about here on a regular basis and for peanuts on the dollar compared to what these rich ass journalists are making. So please miss me with that. The problem is these journalists, a lot of them anyway, are activists. And while that might ring and play well and, and check out with your base, remember, the loudest amongst us on both sides is just a small percentage. And then the rest of us who are in the middle or leaning one way or the other, left, right, whatever, we just want real news and we want to stop fighting with each other. But there's a big push every time someone, you know, tries to mend the fences, somebody tries to, you know, bridge the divide, all of a sudden the attack dogs show up. Oh, you're hurting the cause or. And I'm really, really tired of it. And guess what? I know a lot of you out there, especially Listening to this podcast, you all feel the same way and you're tired of the bs, you're tired of the histrionics, and you want these people to just do their job, politicians and journalists. So she rationed her consumption, cutting out television news altogether and waiting until later in the day to read the papers. But it kept, it kept coming at her on her phone and social media. Look, you're not. I, I know they're trying to set it up here for us to feel bad for this woman who is a reporter here, but I'm sorry, I don't. You chose to be a journalist. What, what did you think it was going to be all rosy? Your job is to bring the harshness of the world to the rest of us and to hold people in power to account. Not to do hit political hit jobs, not to come through and, and push your own political agendas and every piece you write because people are tired of it. And guess what? It's not just me telling you that. Take a look at the numbers. How many newspapers are closing per week? How many of these newsrooms are getting a shake up? Look at what Gannett's doing with the opinion pieces. That's because people are tired of being preached to. Just because you went to NYU or Harvard or Yale doesn't make you smarter than anybody else. What that says to me is that you were just privileged enough to be in the position to go to a school like that doesn't make you any better than anybody else. And frankly, if you take a look at the work that the, the legacy media has done at, say, the last 10 years, I would be embarrassed to call myself a journalist. My pronouns are not journalist. If you look at the Reuters data and extrapolate it out, we can estimate that roughly 100 million American adults are not getting their news, their news needs met. Ripley said that's one of the first true things they've said in this article. And again, that's where people like me and other podcast hosts and other alternative media comes in. The results, said the Reuters Institute, is that Americans are backing away. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, consumption of traditional media, TV and print, declined further, with online and social consumption not making up the gap, it said. And yet major long standing news organizations are skeptical because their audience numbers just keep growing. Professor Emily Bell, founding director of the TOW center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, said that while there are short term peaks and troughs in engagement with the news around major events, the long term trend is up. Well, yeah, that's because you guys have gaslit a whole entire generation to think that everything you say is, you know, word bond. But the reality is all the stuff that they're talking about is all based on red meat and divisiveness. Bell said that in recent years, the total story read by Americans has grown to be much larger than she would have ever imagined. So I start from this position of is this really happening? People say, I'm sick of the news, I'm actually taking steps to avoid it, or I'm not paying attention to it. While one has to take them at their word, statistically I would like to see a bit more evidence it's actually true, she said. And I'm using that, that tone of voice because that's how I imagine her speaking down to the rest of us. Oh, I don't know if I trust you if you watch the news or not. And this tone right here, how she's speaking is one of the major reasons why people are turning away the condescending attitude, no self reflection and certainly never a oh, I was wrong moment. They, they never do that, right? It's always someone else's fault. The Guardians audience figures reflect those doubts. Readership in the US rose sharply through the first months of the COVID pandemic, fell back a little, and then spiked to a new high during the 2020 presidential election. It again peaked after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March. But the Guardian's US long term trend is up, and even when readership falls back, it remains significantly higher than before the pandemic. Bell also pointed out that although younger people may be turning away from traditional news sources, that doesn't necessarily mean they're turning away from the news again. They are not. And even older folks are turning away from traditional news, searching out something better, something that fits more with their views on life. Podcasting has an incredibly strong young audience. This is a long form storytelling format which really appeals to the under 25s, which I don't think anybody could have predicted. Well, she's not wrong about the long form storytelling format. We've been telling a story basically for three years here on this podcast, connecting the dots. So there's no doubt that people are looking for something different. A couple of years ago, I was teaching a group of undergraduates and they were largely uninterested in the basic output of the New York Times. But if you mentioned Michael, Michael, Barbara and the daily podcast, the New York Times Daily Podcast, they got incredibly overexcited. She said, well, a lot of times what's happening is the people can Relate to what these podcast hosts are talking about. And when the podcast hosts are normal people especially, it's more relatable because we're coming from the same place, right? We, you know, I'm, I'm not out here. My audience isn't the educated Harvard class. That's not who I'm talking to. My, you know, I, I speak from my own experiences, from my own life experiences, and if that resonates, great. But a lot of these people, these journalists especially, they don't do that, right? There's no back and forth with their audience. There's no answering emails from their audience. You can't directly speak to these newsreaders for the most part. Go up, try and go and talk to Tucker Carlson on the street and see how that works out for you. Now flip the script and try it with your favorite podcast host and see how quick they stop and talk to you in the middle of the street or wherever you are. Because for the most part, when we're talking about podcasts, especially indie podcasts, us hosts are just normal folks like you going through the, Going through it the same way you are. It's possible Americans say they're turning away from some news because so much more is coming at them, but at the same time, they still consume more than they ever did. Still, Americans exhausted by it all, may be increasingly likely to retreat between big stories. It is also possible that people say they are turning away from some news because so much more is coming at them, but at the same time, they still consume more than they ever did. Well, yeah, it's just not coming from traditional sources anymore, that's all. And that's what the panic's about. The market is shifting, and the powers that be, they know that they don't control the market where it's going, and they're freaking out about it. Ripley said that she had been inundated with messages from Americans both in and out of the news business who feel as she does about what seems to be a relentless barrage of negativity. Many of them said heartbreaking things. Somebody said, I felt like my brain was broken. She said, look, you can search out bad news or you can look for good news. Nobody says you have to be completely locked into the media cycle every single day. It's okay to, you know, disconnect. And I, frankly, I would highly, highly recommend that get outside, go on a hike, go camping, spend time with your family, stop watching the news. It is absolutely mind melting. One of the biggest issues we've ever had is that oblong box that sits in the corner of most people's room with all of those brainwash experts on it all day pumping BS into your ears. Particularly with the pandemic, there has been a lot of unsettling, nerve wracking news. You can't avoid it. It creeps into every crevice of your life. It's invasive in a way that it wasn't even 10 years ago. Bell, who sits on the Guardian Media Group's commercial board, agreed. The sense of being overwhelmed, particularly with troubling and bad news, is very real. It's exhausting, she said. People feel for their own mental stability that there are a certain number of things about which you can't do very much on a daily basis where opting out of the news might be something that is very appealing. Look, people don't want to feel helpless. They do not want to feel helpless and they don't want to be talked down to either. That's a big problem with the media. But when you feel helpless about something, like I was just saying, it's one of the worst things in the whole entire world, one of the worst states to be in, at least in my opinion, Bell said that part of the problem is how news now comes at us. Three decades ago, Americans would read about the the Rwandan genocide in the daily newspaper dropped on their doorstep or heard about it on radio and television and then turned the page or listened to the next news item. Perhaps they would have read about it again the next day. The news cycle is 24 hours now and again with the TVs going 24 hours and the news stations on. It's bad for people's mental health. And a lot of these crazies we see out there that end up going out and shooting places up, how many of them have been wound up by rhetoric they heard on tv? Look at the dude who went and shot up the Senate baseball game, James Hodgkinson. Dude was all wrapped up on wacky ass political rhetoric. Dude who went into Buffalo flip side of that wacky nonsensical white replacement theory and all this other these grifters talk about on a regular basis to make their bank accounts fatter. All of that rhetoric is disastrous. It's all dangerous. And the people that are spitting it, they should be real, real ashamed of themselves. The way that we have designed our news communications infrastructure is to be absolutely relentless, she said. If I read one story about somebody being made ill or dying, possibly because they have had to have a COVID vaccine, I get 50 stories about people dying from every single news outlet in the world. So the overwhelming impression you could get is that something bad was happening with vaccines. Even though it wasn't, and even though every single story was more or less accurate, it was only representing a tiny bit of what was happening in the real world. Look, I'm not getting into any of that stuff, ever. Some dumbass sitting here in his studio telling you about your health. Yeah, that's gonna track. Well, that's a good idea. And all of these people out here that have been giving health advice throughout this whole entire pandemic, go get effed, bro. I'm so tired of it. The loud voices on both sides. Oh, the jab, though. The unjabbed. Oh, Claw schwab. Oh, you're gonna have nothing and be happy about it. Shut up. Just shut up. Molly Bingham, the founder of OR Media, which reports on global efforts to create a more sustainable future, sees an additional problem in a loss of confidence and how news is covered. Well, that's because they lie to you on a regular basis. That's why there's no confidence. These dudes are out here pumping all kinds of garbage. Lies every single day and lies that are demonstrably provable lies. As the Reuters Institute noted, there are Americans on the right who don't trust much of the media because it doesn't reflect their political beliefs. And so they turn away or stick with sources that tell them what they want to hear. Hell, hold on a minute here. Are we going to be for real about that? Or maybe it has. Maybe it has something to do with people don't want to be called names, derided, called enemies of the state, terrorists. So maybe that's why people aren't tuning into your station or reading your newspaper. When you automatically chop off 50% of the people who are going to consume your content, you, my friend, have no one to blame but yourself when fails. And that's exactly what goes on. I mean, come on, let's be real. How many of these agitators, let's. Let's call them what they are. These agitators on the news stations are sitting here and dividing people. Oh, you're deplorable. Or you're a. A shitlib or. It's ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous. But can you blame people if they don't want to tune in to Don Lemon or Tucker Carlson? If they have different political views, they feel like they're being attacked. Right? And for me, that's. That's just weird on its face anyway. It's like a bunch of raccoons standing around a trash can and asking why everybody's attacking their trash. Well, because it's trash. That's why we're attacking it. But Bingham, who made a well received documentary about armed resistance in Iraq, sees a wider credibility problem. There is massive simplification if you look at the current conflict in Ukraine and the way the American media has cast it in a narrative we're all very comfortable with, of good of good Ukrainians resisting bad Russians. But there's also this sort of cognitive dissonance because when Iraqis were opposing the presence of foreign troops in their country, they were terrorists, they were very bad, she said. I think that very simple storytel story lines are alienating because they don't reflect our experience of the world. And that is where the podcasting and long form comes in, where they just scratch the surface with we spend countless hours on a topic and we try and pull that curtain back and get to the bottom of it as well we can. And the idea is to have as much context as possible, right? But when you're talking about these legacy media outlets, it's become a whole different thing. It's become let's score political points for whatever party we align with and let's carry water no matter what, when in reality it should be all guns blazing on all these politicians. One of the answers said Ripley is solutions based journalism, and she has some of her own I've spent a lot of time talking to people who study what humans need to thrive in an information saturated environment. There were three ingredients that were missing and those are hope, agency, and dignity. Those are things I find every time I go out in the field reporting terrible tragedies. But I didn't always include them in the piece. She said, well, I'll never do that, folks. Sorry, you're always going to get the raw here. I believe that all of you are capable of dealing with it. One thing that I could say about this audience is that you're some of the most intelligent people I've ever dealt with. That's for damn sure. From the emails I get and from the back and forth I have with you. I learn as much from you folks in emails and conversations on Twitter and elsewhere as I'm sure you learn from me. And people just want to relate to the people that are talking to them. They don't want to be, you know, talked down at or told, hey, I want you to do this or you need to think like that. And for me, you know, that's never my deal. My format here is I open the door. And if you choose to walk through it, then that's great. If not, we'll move on to the next story. But the legacy media, they just pound you down and then they try and make you feel bad if you don't think like them. All of which raises a hoary old question that has stalked newsrooms for years. Do readers, listeners and viewers really want positive stories? Bell is skeptical. We often say if only journalists would write more good news stories. This is a horrible thing to say, but people tend not to read the good news. She said. I think that's a bit of bs. I think you got to have a good mixture, right? And that's why we do the that's Wild series and we talk about some of the lesser, you know, heavy, deep topics that we do. You got to find that, that balance, right? You have to find the balance. And I think you owe that to your listeners or your viewers or whatever to make sure that you're not having a stale, you know, content shipped to them. Make sure that you're switching it up as much as possible. But if every time I turn on the TV and all you're doing is talking about Nancy Pelosi, well, I really don't want to hear about it anymore. I'm tired of it. For instance, you could look at some of the progress that has been made against climate goals. Now, it's not thoroughly good news, but still progress has been made. If you write a fairly long considered piece about that, it tends to get fairly low traffic. If you have a piece saying Britain is going to go to 40 Celsius, 104 Fahrenheit next week, everybody is going to read that piece. Well, that's because there's a lot of people who believe in all of the stuff the media tells them and they feel like they're having their confirmation bias scratched. Oh, look, my worldview is right. And everybody does that, right? They search out the news that fits with their worldview. They go with what's comfortable. And that's why I advise doing the opposite. Go against the grain. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Read news from outlets that you don't like or agree with. Read it all, then make your own decisions. Ripley acknowledges the problem. I think there's some truth to it, but I don't think it's the whole story. Increasingly, stories that are hopeful, surprising, generate curiosity. Those stories go viral. Stories that offer hope, agency and dignity feel like breaking news right now because we are so overwhelmed with the opposite. Well, look, that definitely is the case. We're up against it, folks. You know, I'm not going to sugarcoat. Things are not good. We ain't done yet, though. What? We're beaten. The party's over. We should just roll over and say, to hell with it. Not me. So for me, it starts with personal responsibility, with who I'm voting for. And I am not voting for not one of these incumbents on the ticket here in Nevada. Not one single person who is holding office right now has done a good enough job to earn my vote. So I will be voting all of the incumbents out. And I think that it all starts at a local level.
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Right?
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We need to hold these people responsible. And if they don't meet up with the ideals that we think our politicians should have, if they're lying, smarmy sons of bitches, divisive, all they do is talk about this one or that one and don't provide any solutions to our problems. Those people should be jettisoned. The question is, will that happen? Because there's a lot of people who have retreated to their bunkers, folks, and who want nothing to do with anything. Not inside their echo chamber. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode. Hope that all of you are having a great Sunday, and I hope that all of you have had a great weekend. If you'd like to contact me, you can do that@bobby capuchirotonmail.com that's B O B B Y C A P U c c I@protonmail.com. you can also find me on Twitter at bo b b y underscore cap ucci. The link that we discussed can be found in the description box.