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- [00:00]
Samsung Voice
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Mike Pesca
Will that be cash or credit?
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Brian Reed
Credit. 4 Galaxy S25 Ultra the AI companion that does the heavy lifting. So you can do you get yours@samsung.com compatible with select apps. Requires Google Gemini account results may vary based on input. Check responses for accuracy.
- [00:31]
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- [01:04]
Mike Pesca
It's Wednesday, December 18, 2024. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. New poll out from Emerson. 41% of young voters say UnitedHealthcare CEO killing was acceptable and by the way 40% found it unacceptable. Don't worry if you were saying well 41% that's not most no acceptable assassination beat unacceptable assassination. There was a lot of don't know who's to say hard call. Never heard of UnitedHealthcare or CEOs. Oh but Luigi, they know Luigi. So assassination did beat no assassination. I do have to say only slightly among the young. Right. It was kind of a margin of victory of how much Trump beat Kamala Harris by in Wisconsin but not in Pennsylvania. The 19 to 25 year old demographic. You you might say well the young people they're struggling to afford health insurance. Let us point out that you could be on your parents health insurance until you're 26 years old. And let us also point out that the uninsurance rate for people in the 20 something age bracket is slightly higher than the country as a whole. Ever so slightly. And it's just getting worse. Except it's getting a lot better. It's 14.1% in 2023 down from 31.5% in 2009. Now today's 25 year olds don't know what it was like in 2009. That was 15 years ago. There were 10. They were on their parents health insurance as many 25 year olds are now. But still things have been getting better in terms of insurance. And we also of course know that the. The young are impassioned and idealistic and perhaps more fiery or bold. They're also wrong. I'd like to point this out. They're also very often wrong in a way that I don't think a lot of pundits point out. Especially when their opinions line up with whatever the pundits think should happen. And when the pundits have to admit, oh yeah, they, this position I have is really unpopular, they'll say, oh, but the kids believe it. Therefore in the future I'll be right. Here's a couple of examples that come to mind. Recent examples. In France, 12% of the population believe that Jews leaving would be a good thing. That's not good that it's in the low double digits. But among the young under 35, that goes up to 17%. Isn't that great? There was also a poll soon after October 7. Can the Hamas attacks and kidnappings of Israeli be justified by the grievances of the Palestinians are not justified. Now I want you to know that 73% said not justified. But among these 65 year olds it was 91% saying not justified. And it is high among the 55 year olds and the 45 year olds. But once you get down to the 18 to 24 year olds, justified beat unjustified. 60, 41 poll. But it is in line with many other polls that show the young were a little bit more Hamas than we'd like them to be. They're just silly. They're just silly sallies and silly billies right there. Or maybe we're raising a generation of moral idiots. Not, not mine. I like mine and their friends seem okay. I actually don't think that's what is going on. I think the old always despair about the young. And you know, there are some issues where the young are clearly better, but they're not so much better than the old as you may think. Take gay marriage. So only a bigot's against gay marriage. And we would think that the young would be more in favor of it. And they are. But listen to these percentages. According to the Public Religion Research Institute, they've been polling for a long time. 71% of those 18 to 29 support gay marriage. Above 65 it drops, but only to 61%. I looked at the old support for assassination among Brian Thompson. Really, really not that supported. I guess they're not on social media and didn't look at Luigi's eyebrows that much. But among 70 year olds or older, it's 11% supported. And you know, those would be the people most likely to be in hospital, by the way. It goes a little bit down when you go to 60 year olds and 50 year olds, 9% of 60 year olds, 8% of 50 year olds support the assassination. You know what I say? I say we're raising a generation of septuagenarians, right? That's what I say. So all of this I have been engaged in a little bit of explaining or excusing for some of these terrible stances of the young. They're impassioned, they're idealistic, all that. And I actually don't believe in the sincerity of what the youth always tell pollsters. I also think that the youth, they've got a lot of hormones coursing through them and their prefrontal cortices aren't fully developed. So impulse control, that might be hard. And young people do drift towards extremes. They that's how rebelliousness, a characteristic of youth, expresses itself. And fine, all those explanations I think are good explanations, but we do have to stop pointing to the opinion of the youth as more important or a harbinger of where we're going to go in the future. So this always happens in context of the youth support of socialism or the youth's desire to defund Israel. Or here was one the Economist polled the war in Ukraine soon after it broke out. And among 65 year old plus these US residents. Who do you support? Ukraine or Russia? I'm happy to support. It was 90 something percent Ukraine, like 2% Russia and a couple, I don't know, neither. But among the young, among 18 to 29, Ukraine was more supported than not. But only in the 50s, only 50 something percent of the 18 to 29 year olds were pro Ukraine. Not sure, neither. And Russia all doing quite well. Here's another one. 71% of people under 35 could not name a single Supreme Court Justice. Well, who cares, right? Those people are all old. 34% of people over 65 could name a single, at least a single Supreme Court Justice. The youth are often quite wrong. And we have to stop acting as if the youth vote or youth opinion matters much, or at least matters more than people outside that cohort. They're often, but not always, as I said before, moral idiots or just regular idiots, idiots. Let's not have a moral valence to this necessarily. But I do say we can teach them, right, we can let them lead the way, but not for many, many years, which in this case, thanks in some small part to the decision of health care executives is exactly how it's going to go on the show today. I have been listening to a podcast. Well, I was listening to the podcast of Brian Reed and maybe you have to for many years. He's one of the great podcasters working today and his new effort does what I do, looks at and wrings his hands about media. So he had one of the greatest audio journalism hits with Shit town brands of this American Life veteran. He also reported the Trojan Horse Affair and his latest project is called Question Everything so we do with and toward Brian Reed. Up next.
- [08:25]
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- [09:42]
Mike Pesca
Brian Reed is one of the best podcasters in the business. His podcast S Town we could say it. We're not on the air Shit Town Top five All time. It came in for some criticism and I think that maybe sat with Brian a little bit. I'll tell you why I said that. He then did another podcast called the Trojan Horse Affair and in that telling of a hoax letter that was sent to an English school, there were moments where he began in the podcast questioning journalism, questioning aspects of separating the journalists from the story. Then he went quiet. Where was Brian? He is now out with a new show on the air where you can't say Shit town. It's on kcrw. It's called Question Everything and the Everything that's being questioned is not physics or vaccines or the effect of lead paint on children's mental development. No, it is journalism, journalism itself. Brian, welcome to the Gist.
- [10:38]
Brian Reed
Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me. Nice introduction.
- [10:41]
Mike Pesca
It's true. It's all true. I was wondering what the show was going to be. Episode one. You invited on a. An Australian journalist named Gay Alcorn. Is that her name? Yes, Great name. And she tore into you about Shittown. And I have to say two things. One, I was on your side, not hers, but then you took her side, so I felt a little abandoned. And two, I still wasn't sure where this show was going. I understand why you did episode one. Planting a flag. Question everything, even myself. Now I'm getting a sense of it. So we're going to get to where the show is going, but let's start with that. The. The criticism of Shit Town. Can you tell me, mirror back for me what Gay Alcorn and others were saying that you did wrong and what you heard me, I consider one of the five best podcasts of all time.
- [11:31]
Brian Reed
They were saying that. So, you know, Shittown is about a man named John B. McLemore, who I was reporting on for several years. And then in the midst of that process, he died. He killed himself. And at that point, I continued reporting to make a story about his life, his town, his death, why he died. Kind of a remembrance of him, but also like an investigation into who he was and a character study of sorts. And it's that decision that people were. Some people were critical of, including Gay, which is you went and made this very personal, intimate story about this man after he died, and he couldn't tell you. That was okay, basically, and for so long and still, honestly, like, I mean, you said, I took her side, but I wouldn't totally agree with that. This is not a mea culpa for S Town, but it is a, like, exercise in listening to. I think one of the things I learned, like, for a while I just kind of saw the criticism. Like, I didn't. It seems so beyond the pale or something. Like, you know, the criticism wasn't like, oh, this story was boring or poorly executed or offensive. It was, this story should never have been made. It was morally indefensible.
- [12:46]
Mike Pesca
Okay, so beyond the pale. You don't mean that the criticism was unconscionable. The criticism of the show was that the show itself was beyond the pale. It was a. How dare you make the show criticism.
- [12:57]
Brian Reed
Yes, but those kind of seeing that come in My reaction was like, really? Like, do they really believe this? That it shouldn't have been made, that it's morally reprehensible in some way? That surprised me as I told Gay. And so, yeah, I just wonder if, like, I say it in the first episode, like, it struck me a bit as clickbait. You know what I mean? That seems like a little bit exaggerated, that kind of headline or criticism.
- [13:22]
Mike Pesca
I remember I was at a journalism organization at the time where in Slack channels, this was the talk. And I was just like, are you kidding me? This is the most compelling, humane, detailed journalistic thing I've heard. The reason that everyone is having these conversations, these impassioned conversations, is because they are compelled by the storytelling. It's all true. That's an important point. Was there any criticism of any of the facts in the story?
- [13:48]
Brian Reed
Not that I'm aware. Let me just think for a minute. But no, I don't think so.
- [13:51]
Mike Pesca
Was there any criticism of any of the, you know, lacking context or. If people had known this, then the. Then their conclusion about the facts would have changed.
- [14:00]
Brian Reed
There were some criticisms that were more like the story's asking you to empathize with people who hold some reprehensible views. There are racists in the story. There are white supremacists in the story. It's asking you to think of them as human. And that was hard for me, given as I'm a black person listening to this. I appreciate the artistry of the story, but it was hard for me to empathize with the humanity of some of these people who don't recognize mine. So there were some specific criticisms around that, which, frankly, was something I was expecting and trying to address in the storytelling. It wasn't fully able to.
- [14:33]
Mike Pesca
But that wasn't even Gay's criticism.
- [14:34]
Brian Reed
But no, no, that's not her criticism. So that criticism I actually engaged with. I got it, you know, in talks. When I was asked about it, I'd be like, this is something I wish I was able to fix.
- [14:42]
Mike Pesca
To be clear, Right. Isn't it there an easy answer to that?
- [14:45]
Brian Reed
To which.
- [14:45]
Mike Pesca
Which is as hard as it may be to hear this. The purpose of journalism is to show the world as it is, not as how we want it to be. These are people really express and fully representing their views. And to understand the story, you have to understand their views.
- [14:59]
Brian Reed
Totally. Yeah. I think the argument back to that is, like, the way the story's told, you are drawn in and asked to empathize with people. And I think about. I think about exactly where in the story we deploy certain information about characters, and should that be earlier and should it be later? And I do think that all that comes into play and those are editorial decisions you make.
- [15:22]
Mike Pesca
So the real criticism was, and this is my understanding of the criticism at the time and now, is that you didn't really have the right to do this because you didn't have the permission of the deceased. But I will ask you, was any living person harmed by this story? Not a listener, but living person in the real world who was part of the story, do you think?
- [15:42]
Brian Reed
Do you know, I'm not aware of anyone, like, being harmed directly. You know, there were times when, for instance, Tyler Goodson, who's probably like the, you know, the main second subject of the story, you know, I think felt. I know, felt frustrated. Like, he became well known through this story, you know, he kind of became. He became a public figure. The Daily Mail was like, walking onto his yard and trying to talk to him and then calling me from there, you know, and he didn't make a bunch of money. His life kept on with the challenges it had. And last year he actually died in, like, a really terrible incident at such a young age. So he continued to have a very difficult life. And I think he's like, what does this story do for me? At the same time, I know that he appreciated the story. He thought it, you know, represented John and his relationship well. So, you know, while I think there might be frustrations, like any direct harm, I think it reflect. To me, it reflected the reality of his situation, you know.
- [16:45]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And as another layer, the main subject, John didn't even. I mean, he told you explicitly he didn't even believe in the afterlife. So even if you believe in the afterlife or ghosts or the spirit or anything other than the legacy, he didn't. So I don't. I heard the whole interview with Gay. I thought she presented her case as carefully as she could and as fully as she could, and she did not come across as anything other than a really considered journalist. But I did not. I wouldn't say understand. I did. I in no way agreed with it. And part of it was my journalistic instincts kicking in and saying, this is what journalism is. So I'll ask you that after episode one, not just airing episode one for us to hear it, but going through all the criticism of Shittown. Have you concluded. You know, I understand what you're saying, and there were some choices along the way. I'm. That bothered me at the time, but really, this is what journalism is Is that still your understanding of Shittown?
- [17:44]
Brian Reed
Oh, yeah. I believe Shit Town is journalism now. I believe, like, I'm working on my personal working definition of journalism writ large, and I think it might be able to expand, but I absolutely think Shit Town is journalism. And it was an exercise in trying to expand it, frankly. You know, like we were innovating and experimenting and in this medium that at that time was still pretty new. And still is pretty new. You know, maybe he's a teenager now, but at the time was kind of, you know, in his toddlerhood. So, yeah, no, I. I definitely believe it's journalism.
- [18:16]
Mike Pesca
So then after episode one, I said, brian's a very interesting guy and he knows grappling questions of journalism, as am I. I wonder where he goes with this. And I've listened to three episodes since. I thought you were going to a place of criticizing objectivity, the idea of objectivity. And I think there's elements of that. But that's. Tell me if I'm wrong, that's not your main project here, as the academics say.
- [18:38]
Brian Reed
It's not my main project. It's certainly in there, you know, but my main project is. It's kind of delving. I think if I had to summarize it, like, delving into the massive deterioration of the relationship between journalists and everybody else is maybe how I'd summarize it. And I think objectivity or ideas about it and disagreements about it can be part of that, for sure. And it's like, let's just not take this for granted that this is how it has to be. Like, let's take this as a starting point as journalists, where I think our tendency is to kind of not be so introspective, plow ahead, feed the beast, do the next story. And like, yeah, people are gonna disagree with us. And like, I think. I don't know, I worry that we're, like, internalizing a little bit, that this is how it has to be, that people just don't trust us and there's nothing we can do about it. And I just, at this point at least wanna refuse to accept that. And that's kind of the promise.
- [19:29]
Mike Pesca
What can journalists do to gain back trust? Not because journalism feel journalists feel bad if they're not trusted, but because we're hurtling towards a agnostic on actual truth society. And it's supposed to be a journalist's job to keep us from that. Yeah, that's really hard.
- [19:47]
Brian Reed
And it is kind of miserable as a journalist to be operating in that situation too. But, yeah, it Has. It's important. I think it's tearing us apart in a lot of ways.
- [19:57]
Mike Pesca
So one of the things that you do as a journalist really well is you come up with turns of phrase or examples or analogies and tell me about the spoiled milk. Because I was like, that's it. That's perfect.
- [20:07]
Brian Reed
Oh, well, I stole the first part of that one from Tom Stoppard, actually.
- [20:12]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And another thing journalists do is they steal from the greats. Yes. Yeah, go ahead.
- [20:17]
Brian Reed
And then I just extended it. So I think that it's like you can never unstir the cream from the coffee. And that is from Arcadia, which is one of my favorite plays by Tom Stoppard. And it refers to chaos. Basically. They're talking about chaos and entropy. But I was just thinking about that. In the story where that appears, it refers to just what happens once lies are introduced into our information ecosystem and what can be done. And you can't really unstir the cream from the coffee, but you can maybe, like, give a warning about it, you know, but if people don't trust the person giving the warning and in fact, further believe people saying that the, you know, the creamer isn't spoiled, that's a tough situation. So I don't know. That's kind of where I got to with that.
- [21:06]
Mike Pesca
Right. The journalists used to be able to say this, don't drink this coffee. The cream is spoiled. And now the consumers, or would be consumers of the coffee are now more than ever, it seems, saying, we don't care. We can't trust you. I'm drinking this coffee with a spoiled cream. Mm. It tastes good. These other people are telling me not to drink the coffee because they want to control me, et cetera, et cetera. Where do you think it comes from or where in your. And I've heard three episodes after the first one. Where is this erosion of trust? What's the genesis of it? It has many fathers, of course, but what are some of the ones you're putting your fingers on?
- [21:42]
Brian Reed
Overall erosion of trust in institutions. I mean, you could list them. They're almost cliche at this point. But again, I think that's part of the issue, is we kind of take them as cliche rather than take them seriously. Splintering of the media ecosystem. There's not a small group of main channels through which people are getting their news. It's much more splintered tribals splintering into kind of our information and identity silos. A decimated industry, you know, another one, I think that is clear when you think about it, but maybe we don't talk about a lot is just, you know, the decimation of local news across the country is bad because there's less news about, you know, local goings on and local government. But it also atrophies media literacy. It atrophies people's ability to. It just atrophies like the amount of reporting that people are having put in front of them. And we're doing a few stories that are looking at different kind of situations locally and yeah, the effect that can have. Or even just knowing journalists, you know, in town. And like, I'm finding that that is important that we've come across a few examples of people who've just gotten to know journalists and it's changed how they think of us and the work. So I think that's part of it too.
- [22:55]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. Which gets at where journalists are drawn from. It used to be a very blue collar profession and requiring a college degree was, you know, not, not. Why would some guy who has a bottle of whiskey in his desk and yells, get me rewrite. Why does he need a college degree now? It's a job of the elite.
- [23:12]
Brian Reed
Yeah, it was a trade. Yeah. There's this guy in Alabama, so I'm doing it. We have a story that will run about these journalists who were arrested for something they reported a year ago in a small town in southern Alabama, the Atmore News. And Don Fletcher, one of the guys who was arrested, you know, he's made his whole career just working at like, local regional papers in the Southeast. He's been on a plane once, I believe in his life to Toronto to accept a journalism award for when like, he took down the local sheriff.
- [23:42]
Mike Pesca
So he's never even been north of the Mason Dixon line in the United States.
- [23:47]
Brian Reed
He just.
- [23:48]
Mike Pesca
It's Toronto. Yeah, but what of all of this? What do you think the journalists have contributed to the erosion of trust? What missteps have the journalists made along the way?
- [24:01]
Brian Reed
It's funny, I feel I don't love pontificating on all this stuff because I really think of this show as the beginning of like an investigation, you know, in real time where, like, these are the questions I'm asking. But I think that we can be really dismissive of valid criticism from all sorts of corners and that we have even kind of like truisms in our industry that are counterproductive to getting better. So like, for instance, like, you know, there's an old truism that like, if both sides are mad, then I did the right thing. I remember you know, learning that from my high school journalism teacher. And it's a way of dismissing criticism rather than, you know, assessing it on its merits and then deciding what to do with it. I find that it has been so I think we can be really like, we just have our heads up our asses a little bit, you know, um, and like, we're supposed to be serving the public and I think we have to be having a real conversation about what all. What we all want, you know, rather than just telling them this is the way it is. Listening to what people want and trying to incorporate that more. And then, you know, we've had huge mistakes and we've missed, you know, we've misreported on WMDs and just there's been massive mistakes like, as well. But I think the more Day to Day is like just a disconnection from our readers and the people who need us and our work.
- [25:24]
Mike Pesca
I think a lot of the mistakes that stick with people and drive them to embrace facts that aren't facts. And you talked about a guy who was essentially buying the stolen election theories. And that had a lot to do with the thing that unwound him was the tone of a publication. He read Tangle, Isaac Saul, he's been on the show. We've done stuff together.
- [25:46]
Brian Reed
Oh, nice.
- [25:47]
Mike Pesca
Cool. Yeah, yeah, he's great. I mean, I. By the way, I am into all the spaces you're into. I could even give you some suggestions. Have you ever heard of.
- [25:56]
Brian Reed
Please.
- [25:56]
Mike Pesca
People named Guy and Heidi Burgess?
- [25:58]
Brian Reed
No.
- [25:59]
Mike Pesca
Guy and Heidi Burgess are academics and what they study is polarization. And they look at ways to cut through polarization, mainly journalistic means. And they talk about organizations that are. There is a better angels organizations.
- [26:13]
Brian Reed
Yeah, we've been reporting with.
- [26:15]
Mike Pesca
Right. And what's interesting to me about Braver Angels is that I didn't know this. They actually. Most of these organizations, I think, that want to bring people together are either from the academy or have a generally progressive or left wing. Generally left wing orientation. They come from, you could say the right. They're Christians. They were evangelicals before they got into this space. So I don't know if you knew that, but that was very interesting.
- [26:37]
Brian Reed
Yeah, I did kind of know that. We sent. We had a stringer out at their. Their national convention, which they held in Kenosha, Wisconsin, because it's geographically in the center of where the DNC and the RNC were.
- [26:48]
Mike Pesca
Right. It's like, okay, great point, guys, but no one could get to Kenosha, Wisconsin.
- [26:52]
Brian Reed
I went to a debate of Theirs about the media, like, it was, like, resolved, the media is a threat to democracy.
- [26:58]
Mike Pesca
Was Emma Camp one of the two in that debate?
- [27:01]
Brian Reed
No, it was a bunch of people. It was like a lineup, but it was at the Comedy Cellar. It was pretty funny.
- [27:06]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Massively parallel problem solving and democracy building. This is their. This is the headline of their substack, which is called Beyond Intractability. And they always give updates of really good examples of people cutting through the. All the noise. But here's. That's a sideline, and maybe we'll cut out that recommendation, but here's what I'll say. So you talk to this guy who literally was untangled by reading Tangle, and a lot of that was about. The tone, was about not talking to people as if they're bad, bad or dumb or not even talking to them with the assumption that, well, this is some crazy stuff that Trump or his supporters are saying. And I get that, but I also get that you can say the truth without fear or favor. You could be a little bit blunt. Some of the headlines of that one documentary about mules fixing the election, some of the headlines in the mainstream press were just blunt, calling it a lie. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. And if the solution is we have to gently hold everyone by the hand to, you know, bring them, to wean them off the lies and bring them towards the truth, ever so gently, first with a dropper and then with a saucepan of milk, I don't think that's the way forward.
- [28:24]
Brian Reed
I don't want that to be necessarily. But what if it is just to push back a little bit, like, what I took from that story about Tangle, or. One of the things I took was what helped was that just the, you know, the presentation of the reporting specifically about that lie, but also the overall, like, experience that that man Dick had with Tangle and reading it, it gave him room to admit that he was duped. And I think that is actually a pretty big thing to ask of people or, or just to acknowledge that that's what we need people to do, you know, who are believing these lies. They need. We need them to admit that they were duped. And I don't know, I just hadn't really thought of that so deeply, like, or so specifically, I guess, until I heard that story. But, like, you know, even other reporting I've done with, you know, there's a. There's a. A woman I've been talking to for a long time who very much believed that the election was stolen. She was actually like very in the thick of stop the steal in 2020 and 2021 and filed lawsuits and was just in that world. And she's now on the other side of it after a very long and tortuous process where she understands that the election was not stolen and in fact, she was kind of taken advantage of by people in certain respects. But something I've gotten from talking to her is how hard it's been to her whole community, her whole life is people who believe this and to like stand up and say this isn't true. It isn't that easy. Like she's had to basically like swear off a bunch of friendships, family. She's moved. Like it's not. So it is a big truth and reconciliation issue, actually.
- [30:06]
Mike Pesca
And we'll be back in a minute with more for Brian Reed and this we can call the pushback section of the show.
- [30:21]
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- [31:23]
Mike Pesca
We're back with Brian Reed talking about his show Question Everything. And you know, if if the question of Question Everything is how to get news consumers, potential news consumers, to trust the facts, it strikes me that one of the things that could get in the way of them trusting journalistic institutions is not to have our most important journalistic institution talk about their immutable characteristics as a problem. White supremacy not as a theory, but a fact. Whiteness as an ongoing societal problem. And of course, there is a way to talk about whiteness theory that doesn't seem quite so offensive.
- [32:03]
Brian Reed
Of course, there are legal concepts of whiteness that existed and stuff like that. Yeah.
- [32:07]
Mike Pesca
Oh, yeah, right. How the Irish became white and how then, you know, and Italians became white and Jews became white. That's all very interesting anthropologically, but I think that there was a time, and it wasn't just in 2020, it was before 2020, where the major emphasis of much of the news was to tell white people that whiteness is a problem, to tell them that the founding of their country was more based on racism than was based on a love of freedom. Right. And when the most important journalistic organization in America. Many resources behind getting that idea taught in school. Yeah, you're gonna have a big erosion in trust. I just think you're gonna turn off people. I mean, I don't know. You know, we could debate the 1619 project forever, but I think that had it.
- [32:53]
Brian Reed
Funny, I don't hear people mentioning that as much. I know there's a. There is backlash to it, but when I just talk to, like, regular people about the trust, that's not one that comes up as much for me. Hunter Biden's laptop, you hear all the time. But I also feel like it's people who already were there, and they use that retroactively as another data point, you know, as well.
- [33:11]
Mike Pesca
Well, another one came up in episode two, where I think it was Ira or someone said, you know, because of lack of trust, how many people died from COVID Yeah, and that's true. The answer is probably, you know, over 10,000. Like, not of people 50 and over in the high 90s got a dose. And of the people 65 and over in the high 90s or mid 90s got two doses. But, yeah, many, many people did not get all the doses they should have got from the vaccine because of misinformation. But then a little later on, Zoe said, and people are very upset about being lied to, about their kids being able to go to school. So that. That you made the choice to put that in there. But I think that that was another major erosion of trust.
- [33:57]
Brian Reed
Yeah, I do think.
- [33:59]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And I think that there are a lot of.
- [34:00]
Brian Reed
And there hasn't been a big reckoning, you know, kind of just not in the media with the coverage at all. I mean, everybody wants to just, like, not think about COVID any. Like, I think what you're saying, and I hear you, it's like we just move on from these things. I think that's also what I'm saying, too. Like, it's like we just move on from these things that are a Big deal. Where we were really supposed to rise to the occasion, you know, for people, and we didn't quite. And then we just kind of move on and like, yeah, you learn the truth and kind of like the truth gets pieced together after and like dribs and drabs a little bit, and it never kind of just congeals together as like, this is how we could have been better. This is what we got wrong. You know what I mean? This is why we understand why you're upset. There's not as much of a process for that.
- [34:43]
Mike Pesca
Did you read Jeff Gerth's piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about the Mueller report?
- [34:48]
Brian Reed
No.
- [34:48]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, it was long, but basically, when Mueller didn't find that there was collusion or knowing coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, he didn't find it because it wasn't there. It got played as well. He did find it, but couldn't charge it or it really was there, but Mueller was too cautious. No, he. He didn't find it. The truth of that is there was no coordination, explicit coordination between Trump and the Russians. And I don't think. I think most partisans just don't believe that. I think if you say that, you'll get a massive amount of pushback. And it's pretty divided. And the kind of people who we want to trust the media on vaccines or not drinking spoiled milk, that sticks in their brains.
- [35:36]
Brian Reed
Yeah, yeah. And so you put it in the Columbia Journalism Review. You put it in the Columbia Journalism Review. Yeah. That's how we deal with it.
- [35:44]
Mike Pesca
Hey, look, Eric Rempel had a very long piece or a series of pieces in the Washington Post. These are major publications. They're not like they don't exist. They just haven't been absorbed into journalism proper. And I'm mostly banging on about the ones, the things that are sins of the left. There are many more sins of the right, but I come from the left or I come from the place of liberalism. And it was. It's just been shocking to me over the years, the things that media got wrong and reckons with in a kind of very well, we don't want to really, we won't not acknowledge it, but the, the ratio of the acknowledgement and the grappling versus the tonnage of reporting the first time is a gigantic ratio. It's infantastic.
- [36:29]
Brian Reed
So brass tacks, like, what do you think it would look like to really reckon with it in a way that would solve this problem we're talking about, which is the deterioration.
- [36:39]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I think front page of The New York Times is important again and again and again. I think calling out exaggerations that are currently going on or went on on MSNBC is important. I think that our journalism schools, and they're not going to do this because they don't agree with me, should essentially expunge the very prominent voices who say things like, we shouldn't be covering flaws of Kamala Harris because Trump is such a threat, or Jeff Jarvis said that we shouldn't do interviews with Kamala Harris. And what Jay Rosen says, along with Margaret Sullivan, that coverage of Biden's decline was poor journalism. I mean, they were saying this before he dropped out. It was. It was illegitimate and improper journalism to cover Biden's decline because Trump was the bigger threat. I mean, to me, this discredits someone from ever having a prominent place in a journalism school. But these are just some reforms that I think maybe would go far in a way that people would just kind of imbibe, but not really. I don't think people would read.
- [37:52]
Brian Reed
I don't know how much journalism schools matter. Yeah, I don't know how much they matter in this. In this, you know, situation they churn out.
- [38:00]
Mike Pesca
I mean, we. We talked about where journalists come from. And journalism schools, quite sadly, are a de facto crediting institution that the big outlets require at this point. Did you go pretty much? No, I didn't, because I predated that. Did you go? No, no. But it is true. And many of our friends who work in media will say, I felt like I had to go because to make that jump from whatever smaller outlet to the Wall Street Journal of the New York Times required a journalism degree.
- [38:29]
Brian Reed
Yeah, yeah.
- [38:30]
Mike Pesca
And journalism schools are also. They're teaching people, but they're also validating a mindset or a philosophy. And we could get into objectivity. But I think that. I think that the jettisoning of the goal of objectivity is a pretty bad thing if we're also trying to be the guardians of facts. Like, you can't do both. I don't think you can't say there is no objective reality. It's only what you make of it and quote Foucault and also say, but listen to us, because we are the fact people.
- [39:02]
Brian Reed
I don't think people are saying there is no objective reality. People are saying there is no objective person. Possibly. I don't know. Even Isaac Saul, to me, what he's doing in the Tangle newsletter is leaning really hard into a bunch of very traditional journalistic principles, which is like accountability, transparency, accuracy, fairness. But Then he's really jettisoning objectivity. He's doing this big essay at the end of every newsletter saying, this is how I think about this. And that is what seems to be like, that combination seems to be resonating with people. Like, I wonder personally if I'm not saying to not strive for impartiality or to, you know, when there's not a clear reality, like not a clear, when you don't know, for instance, what happened. Not letting like multiple truth claims exist, you know, in a story or whatever. But I do wonder if objectivity has been held up as the most important journalistic principle among them. And it might be like much lower on the list, I think. Like, I looked back at. Did you ever read, did you ever get given that book by Jonathan Kern, sound reporting at npr? Yes, yes, that was what I was given my first week.
- [40:16]
Mike Pesca
I might have been in it. I don't know.
- [40:18]
Brian Reed
I was given that my first week as a Crock Fellow. And you know, I look back at it a couple years when I was writing the Trojan Horse Affair, actually I.
- [40:25]
Mike Pesca
Pulled it out and our listeners should understand that the Crock Fellows was the, the plastic footwear funded scholarship. No KROC Foundation. And so like promising young kids, you're Brian Reeds of the war worlds, would be sucked into npr. And then they were given this book by an NPR journalist and producer, was there a long time and had a lot of respect in the institution, basically wrote the book on how to do NPR journalism.
- [40:48]
Brian Reed
It's like the NPR sanctioned like manual for how to make radio. Yeah, that was my journalism school. So I pulled it out like when we were writing the Trojan Horse Affair, Hamza, my co reporter and I just to be like, because I was reporting that story with this guy, Hamza Syed, who was mid career, had been a doctor, was shifting to be a journalist. It was the first story he'd ever done. So I was in this experience of reporting side by side with someone who was doing everything for the first time. He was in an investigative journalism program, graduate program at the time. And I was just trying to think back how did I learn this stuff? Just as I was seeing him learn it. And I pulled that book out and in an early page it says something to the effect of there is no accusation that stings a journalist greater than an accusation of bias. Like bias is the worst thing you could do as a journalist. And looking at that all those years later, I have no memory of reading that. That didn't land with me at all at the time. But Years later. Like really, that's the worst thing we could do as journalists? I don't know. Do you think that. Well, no, just like getting something totally factually wrong, I think would be way worse. That could really like affect someone's life. Then an accusation of bias is the worst.
- [42:00]
Mike Pesca
Actual libel or slander, probably worse and more actionable. But okay. But I think that bias is bad. As opposed to a more postmodern idea of. Since we all have bias, let us jettison the idea that we have this North Star of doing our work and constructing our journalism. Let's jettison that idea of humility and thinking we might not be coming in with the right answers. You know, writing the story or reporting the story with the outcome in mind, as opposed to letting the process and your open mindedness guide you. That's much better. This to have objectivity as an ideal.
- [42:44]
Brian Reed
Yeah, to me it's like, I don't know that I just were. I don't know. This is still something I'm working out on the show. But I wonder if we've all been trained, and by we all, I mean like everybody, but also journalists specifically, to just view news first and foremost on this left to right spectrum. Like that's the most important spectrum on which to view the news and information we're getting. And I just don't think it's the most important. I think it's become the most important because it's how we've all been trained, largely from cable news over the last 30 or four years. But I just think there are maybe more productive ways to assess news and information. Is this reporting or commentary? Is this sourced or is this pontification? And I think those are things we never talk about. Basically when assessing news, it has become that the first and topmost thing that you'll level at somebody is an accusation of bias. But really it's like, is this reported out? Is what I want to know first? Then is this biased? That's kind of where my head's at on it. I don't know. Even when I find myself in spaces that are pretty polarized in either direction, talking to somebody who I'm talking to a lot of people about their media diets or what they think of the press and what they think of covers these days, and when they do talk to me about it in this very left, right bias kind of way, honestly, it just gets me kind of sad. It's just I actually don't think it's a sad way to view the world. I don't think it's like a accurate way to view the world. I don't think it's a helpful way to or productive way to view the world. I don't think it's an accurate way to view journalists either. Like, I'm not saying bias isn't there, but I do think, like there's an interest in fact finding there's an interest in holding power to account. I believe that, like, it really reduces all of us in a way that just makes me sad. And the more we can kind of like push against that, I think that's my instinct, you know.
- [44:42]
Mike Pesca
Brian Reed is and was the reporter behind the Trojan Horse Affair and Shit Town and his new podcast from kcrw, also available in a newsletter form, is called Question Everything. Brian, thank you for taking all of my questions, which actually turned out to be lengthy statements quite often.
- [45:02]
Brian Reed
This is great, Mike, thanks.
- [45:03]
Mike Pesca
So that was Brian Reed, who I very much like, and he's thinking hard about these issues. But then I heard a show after one of the first few that aired and I really begged his indulgence and I called him back because I had to talk about it. It was about eating the dogs and eating the cats and the idea that perhaps the proper way to cover this was as an impending genocidal race war. That tag on interview will be played on tomorrow's gist. And that's it for today's show. The quaint Mallards produce the gist. They're Cory Wara and senior producer Joel Patterson. Leo Baums, the intern Michelle Peskis, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. Improve GPRU do Peru. Thanks for listening.