Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 12-08-25_MONDAY_6AM

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

Morning news, talk on the Jo County Commission resignation. I talk with former GOP chair Holli Morton and others about it. Later - how about media biased reporters RANKED by using AI? Christine Christine Czernejewski, President and CEO of MediaPedia.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Here's Bill Meyer. A delight having you here this morning. How you doing and what do you feel like talking about? Join in at 77056633, 770KMED. My email is Bill at Billmyershow.com.

What do you think is going to be going on in Josephine County? That's the question I wanted to pose to you, and what would you like to see happen. We ended up having one commissioner, Andreas Bleck, ended up resigning on Friday, a little bit later on Friday. So now I guess the question is what happens next. And in the Daily Courier, of course, they were talking about that a bit over this weekend. Critics question what he and fellow Commissioner Chris Burnett facing recall might be up to, given that the county was advertising a vacancy on the board of commissioners that seemed to suggest they might be trying to short-circuit the recall process?

Is that? Okay. So they're advertising for an opening, which means that there's talk then of appointing. Isn't that honestly what they mean? I'm surprised that the Daily Courier wouldn't kind of understand how sometimes this stuff works because now I don't know if Chris and Ron Smith are going to do anything today or not because according to the Daily Courier story late in the day the county's elected counsel Wally Hicks confirmed

BLEC's resignation by law effective immediately in that Black understood Friday was his last day, and Hicks said county personnel were busy handling the commissioner's administrative out-processing. The intrigue began Thursday, though, when the board of commissioners, all three of them at that point, announced a process to fill a vacancy on the board that at that time did not exist. Oh, okay, so that's it. And so members of the community had until 9 a.m. today to apply for the vacancy, but several hours after Bleck submitted his resignation, a 1 p.m. meeting to interview applicants was also canceled. So I guess they can't really announce an opening until there's an opening.

Well, now there's an opening. And I guess what the remaining two can now announce an opening. And I don't know if it's about short-circuiting the recall, because when they're talking about short-circuiting the recall, to me, that's implying that they're wanting to reappoint themselves. Is that what they're talking about? I don't think anyone was going in that direction, folks, just saying. But maybe the plan is to get some other people in there

and maybe have some decent people to replace the two that are taking off. How do you read that? How do you read the tea leaves in politics in Josephine County right now? That is one question I might be opposing to you this morning, all right? 7705-633-770 KMAD. Do you have an opinion on this one way or the other? It's been a lot of drama going on in Josephine County politics here in Southern Oregon in Jackson County. It's been considerably quieter for this point.

But let's, of course, I don't know. Maybe the other question I could post to you this morning is that are voters of Josephine County expecting too much from their county commission? And the reason I bring this up is that you got no money. I'm sorry. I don't think there's any other way of putting it. And I think this is also what is leading to so much of this drama in tumult is the challenge that you're a small county and a very, essentially a donor county. I mean, Jackson's a donor county too, but there's quite a bit more population,

quite a bit, and also not, I shouldn't say not as much. I mean, both counties are large physically, but Josephine County has a huge landmass to patrol and try to take care of with a very thin population once you get outside of Grants Pass. And so your tax base is a real challenge. Jackson County is a tax challenge too, but it's a big difference to have about 90 cents per thousand, what you have in Joe County, I think, for the basic one.

I'm not counting the sheriff's levy and everything else, but it's less than a buck. I remember that much. And Jackson County's basic is $2 and a penny. So Jackson County starts off with quite a bit more money per citizen to start with. And, you know, because of the population base ends up being able to be a little less drama-filled. But what do you think of this morning? Do you, would you, because you know, we're talking about who you want to see appointed. Who would you want to see appointed?

This is really what we have to talk about. I think it's where they're going to be going with the news cycle in Josephine County. 7705633-770 KMED. Anyone on your mind you'd like to see apply for the job? Let me know, okay? All right. A lot of drama also going on in Washington, D.C. over the weekend. and I wanted to share a few thoughts on that.

Let me go to the phones first here, and then we'll get to some of the DC drama. Hi, good morning. This is Bill. Who's this? Holly Morton. Hey, Polly, former chair. Mention, you've been ruminating about this, too,

even though you're not the chair any longer, huh? Right, right. Yeah, of course, it's upsetting. Yeah. What do you think's going on here? You want to give us a kind of a semi-insiders look behind the veil, as it were? Well, I think what's happening, first of all,

I think something you already know is that the left is trying to undermine everything that the right does. I don't think there's anything that commissioners did in the first place that justify a recall. I think it's, you know, the minute these guys got elected, they started the process of a recall. Oh, the plan was immediate. It was kind of like Trump gets into office and then we start the impeachment.

process remember the first time around that kind of thing i was told to my face by several people that they were going to recall them long before they were ever even put into office and you know what these guys have been facing is a huge budget problem huge budget problem and so what they they felt like they needed to do is cut back the cost of staffing and in our county we have about 30 the average person makes about 30 000 it's a very poor county So when you have a bunch of department heads in the county who are making, you know, $200,000 and more on this huge PERS account, it's pretty tough on the county. It does send a wrong message, doesn't it? Well, I don't think most people realize that you have so many people that have been around a very long time with mandatory increases every year and PERS cost.

I think if the average citizen really understood what the commissioners were up against, they would have a whole different take on this recall business. But these folks are able to suggest that there's lack of transparency. And in personnel matters, you know, you really have to have lack of transparency. You're not allowed. I couldn't go online and say, hey, Bill Myers did this, Bill Myers did that. personnel matters by law are handled much differently than other things. You know, there was one incident, though, that kind of made me wonder.

Remember when a couple of the commissioners went down and fired some people in public works? That one struck me as a little bit odd as far as the procedure, though, wouldn't you think? Remember that? Yeah, I do remember it. I think that for some people, they didn't feel there was enough. transparency. And the guys that were in that department were people that have been around for a very long time. Well, what I was getting at, though, is that I'm just wondering if proper procedures really were followed in something like that, because I don't really hear about anybody just kind of walking down into the department and firing people.

Usually, it's an agenda item, and then it's voted on and then orders are given. Isn't that normally the way that kind of thing works? I think normally it is. I think in this particular case, since it was a personnel matter, they handled it differently. They handed it just to Andreas Fleck. I think that was a mistake in retrospect. It may have been a mistake ultimately in process, but it wasn't a de facto mistake. It absolutely needed to happen, in my opinion, because we've got these folks that are just making way too much money for the county.

So what they ended up doing, I think it was just. July, in July, it all broke even. It cost them money to basically buy these folks out of their positions. And most of them should have been really happy. They got pretty good severance packages. And then it took some time for the county to recover financially. And I believe that happened as of July. They were in a break-even spot and saving money like a million and a half a year.

Yeah, so you end up saving more money moving forward, even though you're enduring some pain immediately, you know, the way that works out in the buyout situation. Okay, all right. Exactly. But it came pretty early. I mean, I would have expected it may have taken a longer period of time. But as I recall, looking at the numbers, July, it was July, that it all broke even. And I looked at it and I thought, boy, that was a good business move.

I didn't see that as being a big problem because, you know, when you're heading off a cliff financially, you've got to do something. And I think Andreas is a very courageous man. That's the way I see him. You know, I've talked to him one time, had him in the studio that one time. I thought he's a pretty decent guy. He's a very decent. I think one of the challenges that people find themselves is, especially when you're working on a commission that doesn't have an administrator, right? Is there is a learning curve that you have to get up to speed really quickly, such things as open meeting laws.

in the various ways that you hire and or fire, I don't think that's something that Josephine County has been able to navigate those waters pretty cleanly lately, which has caused themselves more trouble than otherwise might have had to occur. Just thinking out loud here, a little bit. Well, and I think there are two things, technical violations and moral or ethical violations. You think so? And they've gotten themselves into some technical violations. But when you look at the actual ethical and moral issues, I wouldn't say personally, I would not say that that should amount to a recall. Yeah. Well, from the outsiders, though, this is just someone, I don't have a dog in your fight. You know that? You know, how I understand.

So I'm looking at this. And from the outside, it looked like there was an attempt to take Michael Sellers and in, not I want to say improperly, but sort of unofficially. elevate him to like a Danny Jordan kind of thing. Is that a fair opinion from the outside, you know, looking in? I think that is a fair opinion. But I will say this about Michael Sellers. Michael Sellers is brilliant. Oh, I know he's a smart guy.

I know. I've been around him and talk with him. He's scary smart. I mean, he's smart when he was Herman Berchiger's chief of staff back in the day in the state Senate, you know? Right. And so he's a brilliant guy. He was my vice chair for years, and I was always blown away by his poor intelligence and his morality.

I mean, he's just a good man. But the problem that you're facing, though, Holly, I think, and this is where I think the rubber meets the road when it comes to recall stuff, the people voted not to have an administrator, right? The people voted on that before. They turned that down. They turned down that charter change and all the rest of it. Well, it was a little bigger thing than just an administrator. And the five, and having five commissioners. And cutting up the part-time.

And, I mean, it was quite a, quite a bigger thing. Now, that was a big thing that the Democrats wanted, though. Democrats really wanted that. We know that. Okay. Right. And they wanted commissioners in districts rather than all three serving at large, which is the way it is right now.

Same in Jackson County. Well, what's happening now is we've got a gigantic power play going on in Josephine County. Okay. And what is that power play? You're not in the Republican Party hierarchy right now. So what are the competing factors then or factions? Well, it's basically a conservative, I believe. It's the fight against the conservative.

Excuse me. Everybody wants to be in power. And the way it had it worked is that the department had been, had been the deep after your power players. They had a lot of money, and they were making a lot, and they were in power. Okay, so the inmates were in charge of the, the inmates were in charge of the asylum of Josephine County, right? Okay, the lifers, the people that didn't care whether or not who got elected next time, right? So when the commissioners came in and started calling the shot, that pretty much upset the power brokerage in our,

county. The commissioner started calling the shot, this person's going to go, that person's going to go. They started trying to bring the budget under control. And that's, of course, not the way you're supposed to run Josephine County, according to the unofficial power structure that you mentioned. Is that kind of what you're alluding to? Well, I think things in government often don't run like a business. I can tell you that. I know just coming into the Republican Party, I am a businesswoman by trade. And so when I came in, I started running the party like a business. And I got myself at a little trouble in that way. People wanted to run, you know, they, they wanted to run like a party with all the party rules. And I had to learn. Well, you know, I can't say it's all that different

when you're a county commissioner in one respect, because you can come in as a business person. And I know that, especially we Republicans as a rule tenant, oh, boy, it's a business person going in and you're coming in there. We're going to run it like a business. The problem is that the government isn't a business. The government's the only business that you're forced to do business with here in Southern Oregon. So there are some different rules that I think have turned around and bitten some of the commissioners over time. Well, it's true. And the fact of the matter is that when you are a business person, you come into the government position,

and it's just you're living in anesthetical land. All of a sudden, you're thinking, well, how do you solve these problems under this particular set of rules? Yeah, yeah, I get that. By the way, former Republican Party chair, Holly Morton with me in this one. I'm glad you called Holly because I haven't really talked much about it. I mean kind of staying out of this situation of in Joe County because there was so much, it was all spinning behind the scenes. And now it's starting to kind of break out here with this recall.

We'll move forward. And I guess what, now, yesterday was the deadline for Barnett to quit, right? Wasn't that the deal or is today the deadline? I forget. Today's the deadline. I think midnight tonight would be the last time. Andreas decided that he wanted to, he wanted to pullback. Okay.

And it was just to give, you know, to give the county basically time to heal and to move forward. He did what he felt like he needed to do for the county. And he's, you know, he's a very courageous and good man. Okay, so there's been no, as far as you know, there's been no interviewing going on when it comes to somebody wanting to be an appointed county commissioner, right? Has there been any interviewing done at this point that you're aware of that you heard about? Not yet. That'll be this week. But what will happen, I think they have until today for everybody to put their hat in the ring.

And I imagine what will happen is what I call the Losers Club, all the people that can't get elected in a regular election, they have been facilitated. to now possibly be commissioners by the fact that they were able to recall others. All right. Call is a whole different, a whole different matter. It's not like an election where people all get to win in. All right. Now, the part that I didn't think was realistic is what the Daily Courier termed this, short-circuiting the recall.

I think what it is is just somebody resigns and then they probably appoint one, and then another person resigns, and then they appoint the next one. Isn't that really what's going to happen? You got a two? Yes. That's the way it works. And so what, you know, they had a, they had their great game plan. Everybody's putting together their game plan to come out with the best possible structure that they think serves the county.

And, you know, that's what's happening. Now, we'll see how people, what people do. You know, I think the party will get behind Chris Barnett if he decides to go ahead and fight this out. I think the Republican Party will likely get behind Chris Barnett. He's a good man. and um you know and try to try to keep him from being recalled but you know my opinion is okay is that is that realistic though the only reason i bring this up is that the whole purpose of a recall vote and a recall vote would be happening what in january if that ends up being the case and so

it's going to be a thin thin election right so what they've done is this has been a perfectly choreographed recall of course it is Of course it has. And so when the ballots come out, it'll be between Christmas and New Year's. Exactly. When everyone is paying attention to politics, right? Right. So whoever choreographed is, I take my hat off to them.

Yeah, you've got to tip your hat to them. It's a pretty good strategy. You do it at this time of year for sure. Okay. All right. Holly, I appreciate the call. I really do. Anything else you want to add before you take off?

Like I said, you're a pretty good sounding board of this. kind of stuff behind the scenes uh well thank you bill for for hearing it out and you know just this county needs to pray we need to take a look at things we need to be realistic about our budget um we need to we need to respect elections and not use recalls uh to establish our governance well i'll be the first to agree with you on that uh i'm not a fan of recalls in general course. I disagreed with you on the recall of the mayor back at the time, you know, a few years ago. And that was one of the few times you and I've disagreed on something. But, well, the recall of the mayor actually wasn't a Republican Party thing. It was billed as that, and we did get behind it.

I just, in retrospect, I would say that was a mistake that I made. Not that she should have, should not have been recalled. I would have liked to see her recall. I think she was not the right person at the right time. I think recalls themselves are catastrophic. Well, you know how it goes, though, Holly? It's like if you're going to kill the king or queen, you've got to kill the king or queen, right? Don't leave him wounded. That kind of thing. And I don't know, I don't know if the recall people are able to kill the kings this time or not. Well, I guess they, one took himself out of commission. But anyway, I appreciate the call. Thanks so much. All right. Be well. Thank you. 7705-633. A little bit of open phone time here. This is the Bill of my

show. When you call Fontana roofing, our singular focus is a focus. You have questions. We have answered. Hello, you've reached Montana roofing. How may I help you? Yes, we install a plethora of roof. Your body and paint, and I'm on KMED. 632. I appreciate you being here. Talking about what is next in the Josephine County political realm, the arena. We had a commissioner quit Friday. Another one that has to decide whether he's going to quit today, whether or not there's going to be a recall or not, or they just take themselves out and what is going on? I wanted to get your opinion on it since this is the big political news in Southern Oregon right now. Hi, good morning, Brian. How are you this morning? What's on your mind, huh? Go ahead. Well, yes, I just wanted to add

a little bit from what Holly was talking about. I have spent eight Saturday mornings at the grower's market with my tent and my tables and things, giving people information about the truth of the recall and what they're saying. And the other guys are across the way there that are trying to get as many signatures as can to recall Chris and Andreas. The number, they have two huge lies that they have been saying to people to gather their signatures for months now. What's that?

One, that Chris Barnett completely destroyed our library system. He was not even a commissioner when that stuff went down with the library. Well, you know how it goes, though? People can lie in politics. You do know that. Well, yes, but I think they should be held accountable and they should be exposed for their lies. Number two, the 4-H. Now, they're saying, you know, for the last month, that he destroyed the 4-H.

I was in the commissioner's meeting when John West and Herman Burgizer cut the funding for 4-H because there isn't hardly any kids left at that time a year ago. Well, it's because the kids ended up being told they couldn't wear. They couldn't do the, was it, faithful farmer thing with the crosses. And the woke 4-H of the United States out here on the West Coast in Oregon with Oregon State University wouldn't permit that. They wouldn't let it happen. So they quit. They moved on.

They did something different, didn't they? Yes, well, OSU, or, yeah, OSU was running 4-H, and they wanted 300 grand more than the 300 grand they were getting all year, when, in fact, I can't remember the numbers, but five years ago, there was many, many hundreds of kids in 4-H, and when they pulled their money from them, there was like 60. Yeah, there wasn't much. Okay, I know there wasn't much going on there. So I guess the point is, where do you want to see it go at this point? At all this point, it said that may be all true, but there's either going to be one commissioner recalled, but one way or another is probably going to be two replaced. So what do you think? Well, I think that there is a huge agenda that they don't want to talk about at all, these people gathering signatures.

Indivisible is deeply involved in this. Matt Spurlock is the leader here. Okay, that may be true. What do you want to see happen? I want to see it remain conservative. Their goal is to change Josephine County, and for that matter, Jackson County, into Salem. That is their ultimate goal. Okay.

I appreciate the call. And that's the fight that's going on. I appreciate that. Let me go to – well, I'll tell you what, you know, if you're on hold, give me just a moment. Let me just take a quick news break, and I'll get to all your calls if you're on hold. I will do this. Okay. This is the Bill Maier's show.

If you love decorating 1-680-5875. Call Charisse like I did or visit their showroom off Biddle Road in Metford, NoWirensnow.com. Restrictions apply. Call for details. Internet and cell phone service not provided by Dish. Good morning. This is News Talk 1063, KMED. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. Steve and Sunny Valley, you wanted to talk about what's happening in Joe County, too. Go ahead. Take it away. Yeah, I think this all stems from the recall on John West, which was fomented by John Recio on his website. Well, John Riesio, we recently had to pay John West $437,000 for slandering it. But that news never gets out.

This entire recall is based on lies and smears, and it needs to be on. They were trying to say that Black had an unfair interest in the airport because he wanted to make it longer. Well, they wanted to make it longer for a decade. Yeah. And because Black is a pilot and has a few planes out there, well, it's just. for him personally. See, the leap of logic then goes to, well, since he has a plane, obviously, he's trying to feather his own nest, right? That kind of thing.

That sort of thought. So when they got rid of West, they put in black, and that was just what they needed, because you don't reward bad behavior. These recalls are bad behavior, and they're trying to get their commies in there, whether or not commies, they're just extremely leftist. but because they can't get elected in an election on a it's not a special election because they're all you know if it's low if it's low if it's low if it's low turnout they can win their genet can win if it's not forget about it okay right all right Steve I appreciate the call thanks for making it all right I'll grab another quick one and then we're going to be talking media bias from a different angle hi good morning how you know Chris yeah good morning bill what's up

You know, the Tom Holman, you know, getting all these people out, well, there isn't a way for us to call a citizenry to call in and report people. We should be able to do that. I ran across someone on Facebook to selling a truck in California in Delhide, near Merstead County. And he says, you know, they don't want to be, these greasy Mexicans don't want to be citizens. They're illegals here. and he says he's from Los Mochi's Sinaloa, puts it right on his Facebook page. He doesn't say he's from here. Okay.

Now, what do you mean those greasy Mexicans? I don't like that kind of reference, though. Well, illegal. Okay. Someone being here illegally doesn't make him a greasy Mexican, though. That's, you know. They used to have the Bristero program. They need the institute programs like that.

They need to get rid of them out of Amy's Kitchen, Delaware. real vineyards, Harry and David, they need to have the ice up here, but they need to have them in Northern California, too. They need to get these people out of our country. Okay, well, there is a push comes to shove happening right now between the Trump administration and the state of Oregon. I'll talk more about that story a little while, okay? Chris, appreciate the call. Thanks for that. I just don't like to do bigoted things. That's all. I bigoted talk. I watch that stuff, folks, okay? All right, bias in media. What if there was a site that could actually help you understand who's been naughty and who's been not so naughty? I'll talk with

Christine Sernusky, Senevsky, about that here in just a minute from Mediopedia. It's a very interesting place. Dusty's Transmissions is proud to be Santa's helper this year for toys for this is the Bill Meyer Show on 1063 KMED. An interesting site has opened up here and I wanted to talk with Christine Senorjevsky about that. She's the president and CEO of Mediapedia. And welcome for the show, Christine. It's a pleasure having you on this early Monday. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. It is amazing that when people talk about bias in media, because everybody has bias. It is a human nature. We all tell stories from a point of view. And if you're a journalist, you're going to start talking and telling a story from a particular

point of view. And I don't think you could avoid politics, but people are supposedly trying. but you're actually trying to rank the reporters themselves on media bias using AI. Isn't that the case? Tell us how Mediapedia works. Yeah, a couple things to that. One is, you're right. Everyone has bias that's normal. It's part of being human because we all come at life through looking at things with a different lens.

We all have different backgrounds and different experiences that shape us. And journalists are certainly no different. the problem occurs in journalism when reporters purport to be objective and we know in reality they're not. I'm sure this probably happens to your listeners if they're reading a story and anything from USA Today to the Oregonian where you're halfway through a story and you realize that one side of the story gets more coverage than the other. And it's really infuriating and that's why, in part, why Americans trust in news is at an all-time low. So that's where Mediopedia steps in.

It's a new platform called Mediapedia.org, where you can go to our website, search a reporter's name, and we have a proprietary model that has analyzed a reporter's body of work, and through that come up with a media bias rating. and it will show just how far left or right or possibly center that that writer's, that reporter's story or body of work slants. So that's one thing. And then the second thing is it's almost like an encyclopedia where you can learn everything from where a reporter has worked in the past to whether or not they've made a political donation. The whole goal is to give more information and transparency to news consumers so they can navigate this very complex media

environment that we're in. Yeah, I'm on the website, and it's quite interesting because not only are, you are actually kind of a news outlet yourself, right? You do have the latest from the various wires, which are on the front page, right? Right now, we are, because it's a beta model that we have, we are rating legacy media outlets first. Yes, you will see a lot of stories from the wire because that's what we've started out. rating. But in the future, we will have media outlets rated from right-leaning,

that are right-leaning, left-leaning, local, all of that. So we have a lot, we have our work cut out for us, that's for sure. But we really hope that this will be a site that people can engage with and that it's accessible to them so that they can make better sense of the bias behind the bylines. They have, or you should say, I should say, Mediopedia.orgia. ORG has several, several pages of so-called mainstream journalists. It's interesting to look at where the ratings are because the vast majority are moderate left. There are a handful of strong lefts and a handful of centers. In fact, I'm seeing here, what is it?

Meredith McRaw at the Wall Street Journal is like a negative two. So that's a center, just a little bit slightly left to center. That's what you mean by that score. But then you could have, let's see what's another one. Oh, a negative 33, Christina Peterson at the Wall Street Journal's, a same outlet, minus 33, hard lefty, right? That's how this ends up working, and you can end up scoring the reporters when you look at articles. Isn't that the case? Yeah, that's absolutely correct.

And the way we've done it is every reporter, their body of work goes through an eight-point model or eight criteria. that determine what the bias is. So that could be everything from, does that story use more left-leaning sources versus right? Does it give more space to someone on the right than it does the left? So there, as I said, eight different measurements that determine that bias rating. And we have a lot of confidence in it because it is a model that we've developed, you know, with the help of AI, that enables us to measure a reporter's bias objective.

Now, my question would be, I'm going through the pages of the journalists who have been rated so far. I haven't found anyone leaning right, rather, in the mainstream. Well, that's because we are starting with legacy media, and I think we all know that's where bias lies. And it's pretty stunning when you look at it. You know, I think news consumers are pretty sophisticated, and they realize that media has a left-leaning bias. but when you actually see it in front of you, and yes, by and large, almost everyone has a left-leaning bias from the legacy media outlets that we've rated. It's actually stunning to really see it. How long do you think it'll take before you start, you know, rating into the maybe alternate media?

Because I imagine it takes a time to do this. I mean, how do you do it? Do you just take their stories and pour it into your particular AI algorithm? I mean, how does that actually work? What do you do? Yeah, no, that's right. I mean, it is poured into an AI model, and then the media bias is generated from that. But we do have to analyze a huge number of reporters, a large number of stories.

So, you know, we're still experimenting with the model, but we're pretty confident that by early next year we'll have a significant number of reporters and media outlets rated. Yeah, I was terming your website, Who's Notty and Who's Nice or Just Who's Notty and On. Or Who's Notty and Not and Honest? Maybe that's about it. There you go. There's always been a part of me that says, you know, instead of trying to pretend to be straight down the middle,

that maybe just people came out and were honest about themselves. I remember that newspapers used to do that back in the day. It's like you knew as an example. A lot of times in your town you would have the one paper that was, Okay, this was the businessman's paper, and then there's the other one that was the voice of labor, let's say, and it was more of the left-wing union back paper, you know, that kind of thing. And why did that go away? I'm just kind of curious with people who just be kind of honest about their point of view and bias. Yeah, no, that's a really great point.

And that's part of our point, too, is that as we said earlier in this conversation, biases, everyone has it. The problem is when people aren't honest about it. And, you know, journalism back in the 1800s, you know, you had yellow journalism and muckraking and people, reporters were proud of their bias. They owned it. And then we went through this period where it became more corporatized and institutionalized. And then there was the, you know, existence of journalism schools. And all of that is fine and good.

But the bias bleeds into the stories. and when we pretend that it's not there, that leads to an erosion of trust in journalism. And we don't want that. You know, people want to have confidence in the news that they're reading. And they're pretty good at spotting lies and bias. So I think if there was more accountability and transparency about bias, we'd see that restoration of trust in the fourth estate. It's the rare person, I think, that's actually able to be of one bias and then write kind of well, really take on both sides.

Matt Taibi is one of those journalists that I always thought was kind of like, all right, yeah, I know this guy's a lefty, but he seems to be fair about things. Yes, that's great. I fully agree. Yeah, Barry Weiss is one of them. And now we see, you know, she's been rewarded handsomely, as she should be, through a, you know, top position at CBS, and she's doing amazing things with the free press because she's honest about her reporting.

and where she does have bias, she's, you know, open about that as well. So I think journalists like that are the way of the future and the path towards restoring credibility. Yeah, at least, okay, I'm just sticking with my label. My label is I'm a hard lefty, let's say, right? Okay, but at least you just wear it instead of trying to hide it. I think that given that there is such competition within the media these days, it would certainly be a help. It would help us.

What gave you the idea to start this? Because you actually, you know, you're the president and CEO of all of this, or did somebody else started? And they said, hey, I'm going to hire you, Christine, you know, to run this. How do that work? So our founder, John Tillman, has started numerous organizations, all with the idea of opening opportunity and creating more freedom and liberty environment. And this was one of his ideas.

And a few years ago, when he first mentioned it, I was immediately interested in it because one, I have a journalism background, and two, there's no product like this on the market. Nowhere can you go and find out everything about a journalist like you can with IMDB, with movies. I don't know if you've ever gone to that site. It's a lot of fun, right? You can type in your favorite actor or a movie and learn a lot about it. Or another site I like is Balladipedia, where you can learn everything from your local city councilman to your U.S. senator. And that information is so powerful.

And so I was intrigued by the concepts, and we got the funding for it a little over a year and a half ago, and now we're off to the races. Yeah, it's mediapedia.org. Christine, now, is this something where, is it monetized or is it run strictly by donations? How does it actually work? I don't know if it's all advertising or not. It's by donations. We're a nonprofit, and that is in part because we won't.

want everyday citizens to be able to go and find this information and to be able to empower themselves when they're reading the news. So yeah, we welcome donations from anyone. And again, you know, we really do want to see the fourth state become more credible again. And we all rely on the news for information to make decisions from the minute to the major. So, you know, anyone who's interested in having that accountability back, we appreciate their support. Christine, have you had any of the reporters push back against the rating that you've given them? Not yet, although I certainly do anticipate that in the future. But I think because, you know, our ratings are still fledgling,

we're still trying to create a significant body of rated reporters that we haven't had any pushback yet. Actually, the reporters that we have engaged with on this, they've all been really supportive. I think they, too, want to see credibility and trust in their profession that they absolutely should want to. So they're actually, they've been excited about it. Do you happen to know what is the hardest left-leaning reporter on the stable or in the stable so far at mediapedia.org? You asked that because we haven't, we don't have that yet, but in the future, we will. release monthly scorecards and on that then you'll really see who's on the naughty and nice list because we will let's who's got the most biased reporting of that month and it'll kind

of be like a credit score where you you know reporters themselves can go back and check on their score on a monthly basis and see whether or not their rating has taken a dip or improved or gotten back to gotten to center so we will be releasing that information in the future. Do you have a beat on what might be the most biased report or what kind of, not the most biased reporting, but what story is having the most biased approach being put on it? And any thoughts on that of all the issues out there these days? I was kind of wondering it was maybe the immigration and the ice crackdowns in various cities if there's bias in that or not. That's a big one. And I should also point out that every week we have a column in which we analyze the way in which

the media has reported on big stories like immigration, like the economy. That's called our bias of the weak column. And so you can take a look at our website and look at those columns. But it is pretty shocking to see how different the coverage is between administrations. You know, a lot of things that would get a pass in the Biden administration are heavily scrutinized in the Trump administration. And, you know, we all know that the media missed a lot of big stories during the Biden administration. Well, including him being infirm. Right.

That being a really big one. One of the biggest misses in my opinion. I've had the journalistic malpractice. So there's a lot of a lot to work with for sure. We're having fun with this, too. It is kind of fun to be a media critic and look at the different. and coverage. But again, all this goes back to saying that we want good journalism to thrive. Christine Sernajevsky. She's the president and CEO of Mediapedia. Mediapedia.org.

You know, maybe there's just going to be like a big bell or gong if you ever get someone that's like minus 40 to the left, right? Gong, gong, gong, gong, gong, gong, you know, when you get to that point. I can't wait to hear who that is. Yes, that's a great idea. We'll include that. Thanks so much. Thanks for sharing about this. And the site's up there. People can get in there and log in, sign up, all the other things. And I appreciate you coming on telling us about it. Okay. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me on.

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