Here's Where It Gets Interesting - I Pledge Allegiance to the Facts with Mosheh Oinounou

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

In this episode, Sharon and seasoned journalist and news producer, Mosheh Oinounou, dive into the world of the media and the complexities of the world around us. Sharon and Mosheh discuss who and what to trust in the media as well as how to create a game plan for consuming factual and verified information. When it comes to national and international events, there is always more than meets the eye. Join Sharon and Mosheh as they uncover how listeners can see through media nuances to the bigger picture of today’s most pressing issues. This episode is powered by an allegiance to facts! For more information on this episode including all resources and links discussed go to https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/podcast   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Before it ghosts you for another year. I got a ticket from Popeyes. Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charles Yu about a struggling Asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a crime in Chinatown. Streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Hello, friends. So happy to have you with me here today as I am chatting with my friend Moshe Winonu. Many of you probably already follow him. He has a fantastic Instagram account, which is at Moshe, which is his first name. It's M-O-S-H-E-H. He breaks down so much of what is going on in the

news. He curates headlines in a very credible way. He is a veteran reporter. I just love what he's doing. I think you're going to enjoy following him. And I think you're going to find this conversation interesting from an insider's perspective of how the news is made and also how to be a good citizen of the world. So let's dive into this conversation with Moshe Winunu. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Yay. It's so fun to chat with you today. I feel like in a lot of ways we do some of the same things. I have more whale pictures than you do. You do. In fact, I would say it's an important educational tool to remind me followers out there

do need something light and bright to mix in to the headlines on a day-to-day basis. To the doom and gloom. Sometimes you need a sunny day. All right. Introduce yourself and tell everybody what you do. Can you give us like a little brief introduction for somebody who's not currently following you? Sure. So my name is Moshe Wanunu. I am a journalist for almost 20 years, worked in a number of organizations, Fox News at Bloomberg Television, at CBS News for almost a decade. I then moved to start my own business about two years ago as a media consultant. And then about 18 months ago during COVID, took to Instagram to start to curate headlines initially for just a couple hundred friends and family, try to break down

the chaos of March 2020. And then my wife convinced me, like, you've got to go public. You've got to tell the world about what's going on and break it down. And so I have spent the past year and a half trying to curate verified, reliable news and break down the complexities of our world from COVID to BLM to the election and beyond on Instagram. I love that you talk about only discussing verified information. What does that mean? I will say that, you know, as somebody who came up through traditional national media, right? And I will begin with where I started. My first job was as a researcher for Fox News Sunday for Chris Wallace, who hosts the weekly Sunday show and interviews, policymakers, politicians, presidents. And I was his researcher. Literally, my first job was to ensure that we had all the facts going into any interview. And during that time, it was kind of the height of

the war in Iraq. And so we had Dick Cheney and Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld. And so it was my job to find out how many troops did we have? What happened in this battle? What did they say was going to happen in the war a year ago? And help to build those interviews. And so what that meant was verifying each piece of information. If the Washington Post reported it, well, what did the New York Times say? What did the Associated Press say? What is the press in the Arab world saying about it? And try to, through various sources, get to the truth. Ideally, we can then go at the people making the decisions, the CEOs and the politicians,

and say, this is what happened. This is what you said would happen. And we're working off of one set of facts. The idea that there is one set of verified facts has changed significantly. Do you agree? Absolutely. Right. There was a famous quote from a former senator from New York named Daniel Patrick Moynihan. You know, it's so funny with famous quotes. Like, you think it's his. Somebody else might have said it. But enough people have now said that he said it. So we'll give it to him.

And he said, you're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. And he said that before the Internet. And the Internet's been incredible as a resource of information, as a way to kind of democratize information available globally. What it also has meant that anyone and everyone can post what they claim is the truth. And so that is confusing for folks. I also just have seen this huge explosion in the last few years of literally fake news sites, some sponsored by governments, some just by individuals. And so oftentimes on the Instagram, people send me a link like, hey, what do you think about this story? I was like, have you noticed the URL? It's dailynewswith3s.com. That's not a...

That's fake. Oh, that's a fake site. It's made to feel real. And so someone is pushing an agenda, whether it's political or even more incredibly government agenda. Some of the text messages we were getting in the early COVID era turned out to be like Chinese information intelligence campaigns against us to kind of sow chaos in America. But yeah, we live in an era where unfortunately facts have been politicized in a way. I remember covering the McCain-Obama campaign of 2008, which felt like the most contentious election we've ever gone through. 2008, which felt like the most contentious election we've ever gone through. At least at that point, I still felt like the two of them would agree to a set of facts. And I just feel like we've seen an evolution in our politics and in our media over the last decade, and we can put

blame in a number of places for that, that has led to a reality now where a lot of folks say, I don't know who to trust anymore or what to trust anymore. So true. Because it is so easy to disseminate misinformation now. If you work for Chris Wallace as a researcher for a Sunday program, it's his name attached to that information and he needs to be able to back it up. He needs to be able to stand behind that. And today it's so easy to just make a fake profile, say whatever is rattling around inside your brain and suffer no repercussions. Yes. And by the way, you now have elected officials who used to be much more responsible in the things that they said, at least the majority of them. I mean, we've always had irresponsible leaders going back millennia, but now they're like, oh, well, you know, it felt

true. I thought it was true. Like I saw that somewhere. I liked it. So it was true. I liked it. I mean, I don't know, but you see that across the spectrum and you see folks on both extremes who are engaging in that sort of thing on social media, retweeting and using their platforms, sometimes with millions of followers, disseminate information to the point where years later, people are like, well, I thought that happened. You're like, no, that actually turned out not to be a thing. I like to say that our current standard for the quote unquote truth is I like it. And our current standard for that is a lie is I disagree. If it reinforces your opinion, you aspire to believe it.

And then when you're told it's not true, you're like, well, that doesn't matter. I still X. I still believe it. I still don't believe it. Correct. Do you feel like misinformation is a threat to democracy? Big questions. So I think that there's disinformation and misinformation, right?

And sometimes they're used interchangeably, and there's an important distinction. Disinformation, just so we can get it out of the way, is people or governments who specifically put out bad information as part of an agenda. That's disinformation. Misinformation is sometimes with an agenda, sometimes without an agenda, but just things that are not true that circulate. Is it a threat to democracy? Certainly.

Democracies are based on elections. Elections are voted on by people. People make those decisions based on the information they get. The more people who are voting based on that literally bad info, misinformation, the more in danger we are of electing folks for the wrong reasons. And so it is particularly concerning as a journalist, because I know how much time we spend to try to verify things and ensure that the viewers and the readers out there have the information that will help them live their lives, protect their family, make decisions about their

personal lives, and then make decisions about their government. And when bad information is out there, that is risky for both people's personal decision-making, you know, when it comes to their own health, where they live, their professional decisions, their financial decisions, and frankly, their decisions on the ballot box. People ask me this all the time, and I bet you get similar questions. How do I know who to trust? I see diametrically opposed things being said. I see this camp saying X and this organization saying the complete opposite, which is Y. How do I choose? What do you say to people like that? I feel for people because I know you have to live your life. You're working, you're taking care of your kids, you're taking care of your

parents. People are busy. They have to live their lives, but they also want to be informed citizens. Ultimately, they don't have the benefit of those of us in media who can read, you know, a dozen different sources. And the truth is in the shades of gray. The truth is not black. The truth is not white. Typically the truth lies somewhere in between. It's not as simple as X is evil and Y is good. Sometimes, yes, there are certain cases where Y is good and X is whatever. But for the most part, most stories lie somewhere in the middle. So how do you know who to trust? Well, the first thing I would say is follow Sharon and me on Instagram. I think that's a very good start. And by that, I mean, jokingly, but it's seriously, you find people who you feel are providing a balanced diet of information who don't have

a political agenda. And that's the first thing is when you look at the spectrum of media and individuals and social media, what is their agenda? Do they have an R after their name? Do they have a D after their name? Did they previously have an R or a D after their name? When it comes to media sources, I would say there are mainstream media organizations that have been around for a long time. For the most part, the Washington Post and the New York Times and your local news and the major networks get it right most of the time. Now, ultimately, the decisions they make, the stories they emphasize, the way they frame the story, the people they quote within the story, you might over time notice, oh, well, that was lackluster. They seem to prioritize one thing over another. But I would say if you read multiple organizations' reports from Afghanistan from a COVID situation,

you'll generally get the bigger picture of the story. Obviously inherent in any individual reporter's coverage or organization's coverage, you will be able to identify some bias. And by bias, I mean, sometimes they leave a piece of information out, not in some sort of malicious way, but just because that's the way they frame the story. They might've run out of space. I came from television. I'd give reporters a minute 15 to tell you a very complex story in 70 seconds. you can only say so much sometimes, but you try your best. So I know this is a long way of answering your question. I think, number one, find trusted sources. Number two, try to consume multiple sources on a story if you find it particularly important,

particularly those verified sources. They've been around for a while. And then, you know, if you have a little bit of extra time, partisan press, go get the conservative perspective. I dare you, spend a couple minutes in cable news primetime on the various channels, MSNBC, Fox News, et cetera. And then you might start to be able to fill in the various nuances of story and identify kind of where you stand on that story. various nuances of story and identify kind of where you stand on that story. I love the idea of creating like a framework or a scaffold for yourself of the sort of big facts around a story. Like we have been in Afghanistan for almost 20 years. Here is why we went there. You're the kind of resources we have committed to it. Here is why presidents from more than one party say we need to leave. Then you built yourself, I'm gesturing, around a framework

listeners cannot see. For those of you who are unable to see Sharon right now, she was literally drawing out scaffolding with her hands. Yes. But I think you make a very good point, which is there's some basic facts. When we got into the war, why we got into the war, the fact that since President Bush, President Obama, President Trump and now President Biden have all been trying to get out of the war for various reasons. I think then you get to the last couple of weeks and months and you might read in one story the focus on President Trump and his agreement he initially made with the Taliban. You might read another story, criticism of how President Biden might have implemented that agreement. But you start to then fill in the blanks. You're like, OK, so the agreement was signed by Trump. OK, the war has lasted 20 years. I know that now. President Biden, he's been in charge since January 20th. It was his job to then figure

out what to do with that agreement and figure out how to get out and take off your red hat or your blue hat and start to really put blinders on, and try to get a larger understanding of the story, because ultimately, half the country feels one way about politics right now, and half the country seems to feel another way about politics. And these are our fellow countrymen and citizens. And to have productive conversations with people, it's important to understand all the facts related to a story. Absolutely. Do you find it difficult to report things, discuss things that you don't agree with? My answer is no, I actually don't find that difficult in part because I, as a government teacher, I did it literally every single day for decades, but I would love to hear your answer to that question. Is it difficult for you?

For the most part, no. It's interesting. For some people, and I've seen this with former colleagues and people I've worked with at journalism organizations, various media organizations, where they did have a difficult time with it, right? And I was like, maybe this is not the business for you. Maybe you do need to go into either partisan media coverage or you need to go to advocacy for the issue that you care about. I tried to start a newspaper in fifth grade.

My father likes to tell a story about how when he gave me a couple quarters for ice cream at Baskin Robbins in Chicago when I was a five-year-old, I'd come back with the Chicago Tribune. So this has been ingrained in me for a long time. And then I went up through college. And I think starting at Fox, covering politics, I love the ability to question both sides and to call out both sides. And I find that more satisfying than pushing a specific agenda.

There are times, by the way, where like there are stories that are difficult to report, but not necessarily because of my political or personal opinions, but more just as an American or as a human, like seeing suffering, right? I agree. You know, when it's certain international stories that involves America, you know, like I'm self-critical of this country, et cetera. And so there are times I think where, yeah, certainly I feel emotional, but difficult in terms of, you know, making conscious choices when it comes to what I include in a story, what I don't include story at my time at CBS, what I tell a reporter to include, et cetera. For those parts, I'm just like, go with what you

see, go with the facts on the ground. And this is something also as a producer in New York, I'd send someone out to a story and I might be reading some stories. I'm like, oh, we should go really interview X person and focus on this aspect of the story. The reporter will call me and they're like, listen, I'm thinking around here. What those guys reported actually isn't happening. Story Y has happened. And there are people who are like, well, no, story X is on the New York times and we got to make sure to have story X. And I'm like, no reporter, we sent you there because you're a reporter. You're seeing stuff. Tell me what's actually going on. I trust your judgment. And so that at times was,

was challenging, was difficult, uh, questioned assumptions. Sometimes you went with completely contrarian story to what the rest of the press corps was covering. But what that meant is that it's my commitment and my feeling that there is this ultimate truth out there and that people will benefit from that. My allegiance is to the facts. My allegiance is not to a political party. My allegiance is not to a candidate.

Candidates are human beings. You know what I mean? I have zero candidates on a pedestal, but my allegiance is to the facts. And that's genuinely how I feel. I don't struggle on a daily basis to like rein it in. And I'll get direct messages from people who are like, why are you focusing on this story? You know, that ultimately this will be bad for candidates. I'm like, man, I don't care about X. Like, you know, at the end of the day, like I'm about accountability. A lot of folks are accustomed to only trying to read sources that reinforce their opinions and that help their team. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm on, you know, team, team America, team human beings and team truth. Amazon's Black Friday week starts November 21st with new deals added every day.

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It doesn't mean you have no feelings about something that is occurring because you can have a tremendous amount of compassion for people who are victims of a tragedy and still remain wholesale committed to the facts. Completely. And I would say that no matter what story you see happening around the world, and this is something in particular I've noticed with Afghanistan, apply the same lens you would apply to this nation to any foreign story you're seeing. So people are like, well, you know, the Afghans are saying X. I was like, well, you Afghans as Americans, did everything that your previous government, if you voted for that government or your current government, did you support that? Well, no, absolutely not. I'm not

a Biden supporter. I'm not a Trump supporter. Well, then think about every country in the world the same way. Decisions those governments make don't necessarily reflect the people. And so there's nuances there that I think people need to remind themselves of whenever they view any story, that there's victims and there's aggressors. And politicians are politicians. And politicians have an agenda. And in some countries, there's no free media to call out those politicians.

So it makes it more challenging to figure out the nuance. And just because a country had an election doesn't mean it was a free election. And so the same lens you bring in scrutiny that individuals bring to this nation, you should apply that internationally. We do, I think, tend to oversimplify international stories in a way where we are like, well, all fill in the blank. They're all a bunch of X. When in actuality, many of them live in conditions that are far less free than ours and don't have the ability to go on social media and just blast their current government and make

their positions known to Americans. There's a lot of things we take for granted in this country. We're very lucky to be in this country to live and have this freedom. Like, well, why can't they do X? Why can't they do Y? Why are the people just like abiding by Taliban rule? You're like, well, what else are they supposed to do? This is their new government. You know, you've seen a few brave pictures of protests, but ultimately protests in that country, potentially punishable by death. You know, I'm using Afghanistan here just because it's the most recent thing. People are like, well, what about all the military equipment that we left there? I was like, well, it's a complicated picture, right? Because we gave military equipment to the Afghan military. Well, why did they run?

Well, some of them weren't being paid. Some of them didn't feel like their government supported them. Some of them were corrupt. And by the way, some of them didn't exist because the government was inflating the numbers so they could get more money from the U.S. And by the way, like a lot of that military equipment was either captured by the Taliban or given up by the Afghan army, was not necessarily left by the U.S. You need to understand that it's a very complex portrait just in regards to the fights that are erupting online over the military equipment left behind and who left it and how left it. It's a complex picture. But individuals in Afghanistan, they live there, they have their own experiences with various governments, and they might say that their previous government was so corrupt that they're willing to make a bet on the Taliban,

even though to those of us watching here at home are wondering, like, how could they even, you know, consider those guys? Well, did you live under the previous regime? Did you have experiences under them? As we know here, elections are a choice. And if you're not happy with the current, sometimes you want to try something different. It's concerning, right? Because you know the opinions and you know the views

and you know the policies that the Taliban typically bring. But you also have to understand that Afghanistan is a complex country with multiple languages and multiple tribes. And every individual has their own experience. We tend to want nuance and shades of gray in America, but it's easier for us to just be like, all Afghans believe X, or all people in North Korea believe Y, or all people from Mexico or Canada or pick your country think X. And that is, that's ultimately doing a significant disservice,

not to just them, but to America. Totally. I mean, the border issues, ultimately not everyone coming across the border is Mexican. Some of them are Guatemalan, some of them are Honduran, some of them are Salvadorian. Some of them, by the way, came from other parts of the world, came into South America,

go across this area called the Darien Gap and have made their way 2,000 miles up through Central America. And by the way, they're all there for different reasons. Some are seeking asylum. Some have major issues in their country. It's poverty issues. Some don't have homes because the hurricanes last year in Central America destroyed them. Every issue we discuss and every issue we report on, do not paint it with one brush.

Because when you start to bring that magnifying scope in, you realize that every situation requires a lot of nuance and people are there for a whole variety of reasons. It's the same way you vote, right? Some person might vote because they care about issue X and some person might vote because they care about issue Y. They are voting for the same candidate, but for completely different reasons. So true. Such a good point. What are some topics that you feel like people maybe don't understand enough nuance around? You know, what's interesting is the impact technology and artificial intelligence and robots are having on the American workforce.

By that, I mean, like we're looking at the future of this country and how things are implemented and how technology is going to impact that and whether it's going to be more efficient. You know, I have a friend who actually works in self-driving cars. Folks are like, well, you know, are they safe enough yet? Yeah, I saw there was an accident with one of them. You're right. It turns out that humans driving cars have many, many more accidents than these self-driving cars.

And I know this is a very micro issue, but I just find it so fascinating because as I get into this a little bit, you discover, first of all, the government isn't quite prepared regulatory-wise to implement self-driving cars, et cetera. But more significantly, there's very interesting lobbies that are fighting for and against self-driving cars. One in particular is the trial lawyers who actually are fighting the implementation of self-driving cars because they make a lot of money off of car accidents. And so there's just an interesting, you know, a nuance there when it comes to that. I think the bigger picture there

when it comes to technology, workers, trade is, you know, a whole bunch of folks are like, you got to keep American jobs here. We can't send them abroad. And then, you know, the rest of the folks are like, no, globalization benefits all of us. And the truth lies somewhere in between, right? We've seen this fight happen over the course of the past 30 years with NAFTA, with various trade agreements, with the previous president trying to implement tariffs on China. No matter where you go in the country, you start to get micro stories of farmers in Iowa who might actually benefit from our trade ties in China. And you would say that they might be hurt by a certain policy, but they might actually benefit by a certain trade policy.

So I just feel like if folks, whether it was trade or self-driving cars or the kind of future of the workforce, realize the various countries at play here, there's a lot of nuance. And there's also various interest groups who are pushing their agendas when it comes to those types of stories. I mean, I'd be curious from your perspective domestically where you see that right now. I totally agree that people tend to black and white the economy way too significantly.

And again, this is not saying that everyone listening to this doesn't get it, but there are so many issues. One of the issues that I feel like I end up talking about frequently is about the national debt. Some people feel like, well, all debt is bad. Why don't we pay that off? Because we've been conditioned through various personal finance experts, et cetera, to be like, debt is bad. Pay off your debt, get out of credit card debt. That's how you go bankrupt, et cetera, et cetera. And they don't actually understand that we can't pay it off. It's not a bank loan. It's not just that, oh, it's so much money that we can't pay it off. I mean,

we have sold a treasury note to somebody that matures at a certain time. We're selling securities and bonds. And that is how we are largely financing our debt. And the idea that we can just be like, hey, investors, I know your entire insurance company is based on investing in our government securities in order to earn money so you can stay afloat. But we're canceling that because we're paying off the debt. Do you know what I mean? That is not how the system works at all. Again, I'm not casting aspersions on anybody. It is complicated. It's super complicated. But so often, forces at work on the economy are far more complex than people assume. They think, oh, why do we have all these labor shortages right now? Has to be unemployment benefits. Nobody wants to work anymore. And look at all these help wanted signs. It's actually about 40 steps more complicated than that. Sure. And by the way,

you've seen a whole bunch of states that have eliminated their unemployment benefits and there's still help wanted signs up because guess what? It turns out that for some employees, they were still concerned about COVID. For some employees, they weren't getting paid enough. They didn't feel respected at their previous job. For many employees, you saw a whole bunch of women in particular had to leave the workforce last year during COVID. You couldn't return. Then there's federal and state policy that we need to be considering to better help mothers out there and child care and paternity leave and maternity policies. If you look at our policies versus a lot of other Western countries, we don't provide the sort of benefits and help that other countries do to ensure that the fathers

and mothers who are taking care of their children can also enter the workforce. And so, you know, really, for a lot of folks, high taxes are tax the rich. That's what we do. Low tax, no. No taxes are good. Well, I don't know. Taxes are a really complicated thing between income taxes and sales taxes. And we have the most complicated tax code in the world. And when you actually look at our taxes, we tax much lower than most of Western Europe.

Some of those countries are up to 60%, 70% tax rates. By the way, you're approaching that in New York and California right now, but not quite. And so before you say, we got a lower tax, actually, we're pretty low with our taxes compared to a lot. We can't really go a lot lower, honestly. This is one of the lowest points our corporate tax rate has ever been. In the 1930s and 40s, top marginal tax rates for corporations were over 50%. In some eras, they were approaching 70% top marginal tax rates. Anyway, the tax code is ridiculous. I don't know anyone who thinks otherwise. I don't know anyone who's like, this is working. Accountants. Accountants love it.

Some of them do. And some of them are like, this is a hot mess inside of a dumpster fire inside of a train wreck. Okay. I have a couple more questions for you. This is one of them. Well, what do you love most about what you're doing? I love the ability to impact people with information. It's only now on Instagram where I really get to engage and see the impact and get notes from people. More significantly, and early on, and I've seen this throughout, actually most recently with Afghanistan, I was reporting things out and hearing from veterans who were trying to get their interpreters out and said, thank you for putting up that map of Kabul airport with the three gates. Like that was helpful information for helping me navigate via

WhatsApp my interpreter around the airport. And so that to me is one of the most satisfying things, which is seeing the impact and then actually being able to help people. Early on during COVID, nurses were sending me notes being like, we don't have PPE. We have no masks here. I would post the note anonymously and then get a DM from someone else who's like, I have a connection to a guy who has a hundred thousand masks. Send me that person's information. And so being able to not only report the news, but connect people and in a small way, help people to me is extremely satisfying. I love that. Okay. Here is something that I'm curious about. If you could amend the constitution, what is one amendment, the one amendment you would add, and it cannot be, I would wish for more amendments.

So by the way, what are we, we are 28th. Where are we right now in amendments? 27. 27. 27. So this would be amendment 28. I don't know if this requires an amendment, but you would tell me this. How do we make election day a national holiday? Congress could also just do, but they, it's almost like canonizing it in the Constitution. Like you cannot mess with this. It's real hard to mess with it. Yes, it could just be something that Congress did, but also you could add it. Yeah, I'm going to go with that. I just feel like it is something that is so important. It is always disappointing to see the percent of Americans who do vote versus eligible to vote, especially compared to other

countries. You know, I guess you caught me on a special day here where I'm like, you know what, I just I feel like Election Day needs to be a holiday. And obviously ensuring that the people who are eligible to vote are voting, but like just making it more accessible than it already is. And then the other thing I would add is circle that First Amendment. It's not quite an amendment, but if I was to do anything, just circle it and recognize how special that is, even among Western democracies, to have that freedom of the press, to have that, you know, you can have your quibbles with our founders and some decisions they made, but it's pretty incredible that that is, that is the first amendment and what it has meant to the success and growth of this country. That's such a great point. And we do have quibbles with the founders. They did things that by today's standards, also even by the standards in the 1700s, that they knew were wrong and they made those choices anyway. But we also can't wholesale discount the contributions

they made. Right. That's another thing where there's shades of gray, right? The founders are bad. Some of them were slaveholders. Many of them were. Okay. And some of the decisions they made and issues they created, we're still dealing with ramifications about today absolutely but some of the foresight and decisions they did have is pretty incredible but you know to your point about some of the things they were doing at the time just how they were using the media against each other and like the fights between Jefferson and Hamilton and you're like oh my god this stuff still happens today in terms of like leaking information and putting out misinformation and yada, yada, yada. And they were doing that 230 years ago. They were, they were hiring people to write under an alias to call each other names

in newspapers. Yep. And to make up fake stories about each other in the newspaper. That was obviously how information was disseminated. And there's something to be said there, right? You know, we began this conversation talking about what media do I trust? This whole idea of objective media, like that's a 20th century phenomenon, folks. America for a long time only had partisan media. And so you would have to read both newspapers or multiple newspapers to try to get at the truth, including, you know, aliases writing oppo pieces against, you know, Alexander Hamilton and his mistress and whatnot. Yes. I mean, half the country hated Abraham Lincoln, right? We have him up. We've never

been told that. Right. Abrahamincoln is up on a pedestal in the united states and in many ways well deserved but we also forget that half the country hated him so much that they tried to assassinate him multiple times before they were successful and they also attempted to leave and make their own country because they hated him and what he represented that much some of the insults that were written about Abraham Lincoln are actually really funny. Like they thought it was a horrible insult to be like that high cheekbones lanky, you know,

like they were insulting his appearance as though high cheekbones, boy, oh, you got me. And by the way, even closer to this time period, like some 20th century presidents, like sure, Richard Nixon committed crimes, it appears, right? Yeah. Richard Nixon also gave us the EPA, you know, open relations with China and did some things that we benefit from. Like, he's not all bad, folks, right? John F. Kennedy, his family has done a very good job of elevating him, especially given the way that we lost him. At the same time, like, he was not all good in terms of his policy decisions. Whether you look at Bay of Pigs, whether you look at some personal life decisions he made, history is complex. Woodrow Wilson is a very complex individual. FDR is a complex individual. So complex. And some of these people we've literally carved into stone.

Literally are carved into stone. I mean, FDR is up there as consistently ranked as one of the top five presidents. He did a tremendous amount of good for this country. Meanwhile, he's having multiple affairs. Meanwhile, Eleanor Roosevelt barely even visits the White House. She has her apartment in New York City. Meanwhile, he's lying to people about his physical health. Meanwhile, he is interning the Japanese in internment camps. Japanese Americans, right? Japanese Americans. Yes. And by the way, the cover-up of his health, which Kennedy did as well, lying about his health, in many ways was assisted by the media at the time. Absolutely, it was. Reporters were in on it with him. Because they're standing there.

They're standing there watching him not be able to actually stand without assistance. He wasn't fooling the reporters. And by the way, I don't want to end here by saying, well, yet another reason not to trust the media. But all I'm saying is every person in history, and we could talk about Winston Churchill, also, you know, made some decisions that potentially led to the death of millions of

Indians because he wouldn't give them aid during World War II in terms of what his advisor advised. And there's a Malcolm Gladwell podcast that's fascinating on all this. But like all these individuals are complex. All these individuals are complex. There's nuance, there's positives, there's negatives. They're human beings just like you and me. And so all I would advise folks as they, you know, look at various stories out there is if they can, and I think if they're listening to this podcast, they're probably one of these people, try to approach stories from all sides and from all perspectives and apply the same compassion and the same nuance that you apply

to yourself on stories to any other individuals, whether they're a person seeking asylum, a foreign leader, a business CEO, et cetera. I also think it is worth pointing out in some ways, our government leaders and the media have never been more accountable than they are now. People used to be less accountable than they are now. And by the way, there's accountability now because the thing we love and the thing we hate, the internet and Twitter and social media make people accountable, right? Everybody has a phone in their hand that has a camera.

There's accountability there. I will say this though, and this is my plug and my passion for local news. There are areas of this country we now call news deserts, where because of the nature of the internet and local news not being able to survive, there's areas of this country that don't have local newspapers anymore, or might have one, and that one might have like three reporters at it. A lot of local news and media, to our own fault, failed to adapt to the internet era, gave away stuff for free for a long time, based a lot of their revenue on classified ads. Remember that? Like you sell your furniture,

sell your books. Craigslist comes out, takes that 50% for some newspapers, even more revenue away, and they never quite adapted to that. So the issue there in terms of accountability is local mayors, local politicians, local businesses who are making bad decisions, who are polluting in the area, who are committing some sort of corruption. There are less local news reporters who are able to hold them accountable. So all I would say to the listeners here, plug, is if there's a local newspaper, support it. Or a couple of people who want to start a new local newspaper if you're not happy with your newspaper, some digital online thing.

But accountability is important because without the media, there is less accountability for the people who can impact your life. And so, you know, national press is very focused on politics these days. Local press still, in some areas, is doing a great job covering the issues

in your area and they deserve your support. I so agree with that. People say like, I want to subscribe to some news organizations. Like I want to pay money. What is one you would recommend? I would always recommend a local news source because you are in some ways far more impacted by what is happening in your immediate community than you are in Washington, D.C. Absolutely. And it's not that much money. It's a couple of dollars here and there usually. I mean, they're just trying to skate by. And unfortunately, we've reached an era now where there's some huge private equity companies that own a whole bunch of them and frankly, don't care about what's going on in your community. They just want to bring some profit

from these companies. And the more you can support the local news, the more they might have an opportunity to grow beyond these guys or frankly survive and prove their worth. And so that to me is hugely important. It's one of the first places I turn on a story. Local news who know the community, who can call out falsehoods circulating on social media, kind of your first line of information and first line of defense against bad information.

I love it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. I think people are absolutely gonna love hearing from you and they're absolutely going to love following you. Tell people one more time where they can find you on Instagram. Sure, just my first name at M-O-S-H-E-H. Go ahead over to the

Instagram stories, follow, DM me, say hello. Trying to keep up with all of them to the extent that I can. And I try to give you a mix, a couple dozen stories a day impacting your world. And by the way, follow me and feel free to send links to stories that are impacting you. Some of the best and most interesting topics have come to me because a whole bunch of folks have emailed me like, hey, what do you know about what's going on in X? And I'm like, I don't know much, but I will dig into it for you because clearly there's interest.

So it's a two-way street. Yay. Okay. Well, I will keep following you and I am so grateful for the work you're doing and so grateful for your time today. Thank you so much, Sharon. I just want to say one thing.

I thank you. And we didn't quite get into this, but one of the reasons I went to Washington and really got into journalism was because of my high school government teachers at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, Dan Larson and Andrew Kameen, who I think Dan just graduated. I still call him Mr. Larson, even though it's been 20 years. Kameen is still there. I was at Mali United Nations, but ultimately they were my American government and comparative government teachers and were extremely inspirational and reinforced to me, like, as a young kid,

I need to go to Washington and see about this government and see the impact that can have on this nation. So kudos to you and the incredible work that you do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much.

I cannot wait to have another mind-blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.