Offline with Jon Favreau - Katie Couric on Sarah Palin, Disinformation, and the Future of Journalism.

Episode Date: August 21, 2022

For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

You know, one thing the internet has given us is the viral interview clip, and you were responsible for one of the first and biggest in 2008 when you sat down with Sarah Palin, who is, as of today, back in the game, back in politics. She's headed for the general election in November in Alaska for the congressional seat. In retrospect, do you think her candidacy may have laid the groundwork for the transformation of the Republican of grievance, the politics of kind of the anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism. And, you know, I've often thought if Sarah Palin had been running later, or, you know, even, you know, in 2020, or down the road, I wonder if that interview would have had as big an impact. I'm Jon Favreau. Welcome to Offline. Hey, everyone. My guest today is former Today Show host and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric.

Katie was part of one of the very first truly viral moments in American politics. Her 2008 interview with then vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. If for some reason you don't remember, it didn't go well. This was the Russia-from-my-doorstep-couldn't-name-a-newspaper interview. And with the help of the internet, the entire world knew about it. From where I sat in the Obama campaign, it seemed like Couric had ended Palin's career. But as of this week, the former governor of Alaska is headed to a November runoff election to fill her state's open congressional seat. The story of what happened in between is part of a larger story about how the internet has transformed journalism and politics,

a story to which Katie Couric has lived and covered for much of her career. Katie's one of the few journalists who remain a household name, having made stops at 60 Minutes, ABC, The Today Show, and of course, anchor of the CBS Evening News. Today, she's managing her own news outlet, Katie Couric Media, where she writes the excellent newsletter, Wake Up Call, and just released the paperback edition of her New York Times bestseller, Going There. Last year, she also served as co-chair of the Aspen Institute's Commission on Information Disorder, which came up with some excellent ideas on how to fight the spread of misinformation and disinformation online, a topic we've covered a lot on this show. Katie and I talked about all of this, and about halfway through the conversation,

she did what she always does when she comes on a Crooked Pod. She started interviewing me, which was great because she's much better at that than I am. We talked about the future of media, journalism, the Democratic and Republican parties, and democracy. Light stuff. But it was a lot of fun. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns,

please email us at offline at crooked.com. And please do rate, review, and share the show. Here's Katie Couric. Katie Couric, welcome to Offline. Thank you very much, John. It's great to be here. It's great to have you. So this is a show about how our extremely online existence has changed.

Politics, media, culture, all the ways we interact with one another. And since I have you here, I got to start with a clip that I think you will recognize. I think we might have used some of this in our trailer for this show, actually. I think I know which clip you're going to use, John, but fire away. Internet is that massive computer network, the one that's becoming really big now. What do you mean? That's big? How does one know? What do you write to it like mail? No, a lot of people use it and communicate. I guess they can communicate with NBC writers and producers. Allison, can you explain what internet is? Is that unbelievable? That was 1994.

And while everyone gets a big chuckle out of that, John, you think about how unbelievably weird that is that it was just really hitting popular culture in the early 90s. And it's even weirder, I think, to think that the iPhone came about in 2008, I believe. And so it feels it's so insane. I'm getting this, this feeling now because I am 41. My staff is mostly younger in their 20s. other day they were all talking about how there's some piece where someone was like oh you can use tiktok to search for restaurants and stuff like that and my staff is we're in our slack channel and they're like how else do people search for restaurants do they use google i'm like yeah i use google well who's not using google anymore to search for things i didn't even know you could do that on TikTok.

I didn't either. I didn't either. So this is what happens now. Now I know. But do you remember what your thoughts were about the internet back then? Well, clearly, I was clueless. And, you know, I remember people using it mostly for commerce. We had an internal computer system at NBC. And we would send top line messages

and you could use Lexix Nexus to research things. And I remember seeing more and more people using it. And then it just kind of slowly permeated the culture in everything we did. Because when I started in TV news in 1979, people were still using typewriters. There was a teletype machine in the ABC newsroom in Washington. And in my book, I write about how you had to change the purple ribbon, and they'd give you little white cotton gloves to put in the teletype machine, which honestly feels like the turn of the century stuff. And I'm not talking about 2000, I'm talking about 1900. So I mean, it was just, you know, and I think about this all the time, John, how, well, this is the right podcast to discuss this, but how the internet and technology has transformed virtually everything about life today. And, of course, I think about how it's transformed media in a way that is just astounding. Yeah, well, I was going to say, I feel like the internet

and especially social media started to transform both the business and the practice of journalism during the years that you were at CBS, the Evening News and 60 Minutes from 2006 to 2011. What did that look like from your perspective? Well, you know, it's funny because I've always tried to be fairly aware of trends and observant about the way people are using information and sharing information. So, you know, I think it was really those years that I felt like network news was going through a huge transformation, but a lot of people in network news were choosing to ignore it and hoping it would either go away or not have such a profound impact on the business. And I remember saying to the number two guy at CBS or him saying, Paul Friedman was his name, to one of my producers

after I got on Twitter in 2009. He said, I think it's beneath the anchor of the CBS Evening News to be on the Twitter. And so there was this very disdainful attitude about technology and about social media. But I was so aware that it was fundamentally transforming our industry that I did an actual online interview show called at Katie Couric, where I'd interview everyone from Mike Bloomberg about the billion Pledge to Justin Bieber to all kinds of different people where we would do these long extended interviews online, which was pretty revolutionary for a network news organization. And I also remember, John, after primaries or after conventions, networks just didn't have the real estate to really have long, informative conversations about politics.

So we started at the end of these live events saying, go to cbs.com for continuing coverage. And we would welcome people on their, really on their desktops, primarily back then, to join, you know, and I don't know how successful it was, but I was very, very aware that we needed to adapt or we were going to pretty quickly disintegrate. Right. Well, one of the ways I feel like networks, especially broadcast networks, had to adapt is the internet gave consumers a lot more choice the business model of journalism changed and so then you know we went from the age where there was three networks that delivered the news and they delivered the news that was there and they

didn't need clicks they didn't need eyeballs as much because there were only three news networks so they could focus on journalism absolutely and then And then all of a sudden now, you know, everyone can choose whatever news they want from any platform they want at any moment of the day. Like, how do you think about balancing or how journalists have had to balance over the last several years in the media industry as a whole, the need to deliver news as a product that will attract consumers and the need to deliver journalism as a public service. Well, that's a whole fascinating conversation. I just had breakfast with a friend of mine, and we were talking about morning television

and how that has had to change. Because as you said, and I've talked about this many times, there used to be three networks you would turn to, or maybe NPR, maybe your local radio station. In my case, it was WMAL growing up in Washington, D.C., or at least in the D.C. area. My parents would turn that on in the kitchen table. Every morning, my dad would get the Washington Post from our front steps and read the Post and, you know, we'd talk about what was going on that day. And now there's just such a plethora of options. It's just completely changed. And you're right, the business model. And, you know, I always found it interesting that network executives were very slow to adapt because

they didn't want to cannibalize what they were doing, right? And TV news is still very important, although, you know, people who watch it are in their 60s, not that there's anything wrong with that, but and beyond, and it's not really attracting young people. So they have a real dilemma. And I think that a lot of the network news executives not only didn't want to cannibalize the product, but they also, you know, they didn't want to impact their standing or their salaries. So these legacy brands and the people leading them had to hang on to it as long as they could.

So it wasn't in their best interest to disrupt media, but I always felt they could have done a better job in general of kind of balancing how you develop things for new media. But I always felt they could have done a better job in general of kind of balancing how you develop things for new media, aka online, and also preserve sort of the quality of what's on television or cable. But anyway, I think that you see journalists struggling with this all the time. You see Maggie Haberman on Twitter. You see people trying to establish their presence on all these different social platforms. You see a lot of tabloid press, and it was ever thus, by the way, it was just mostly in print. But you see tabloid press ginning up controversy or, you know, kind of trying to produce outrage and to affect people viscerally in a very primal way

in terms of writing about people. So it will get clicks. You know, writing a nice story isn't very interesting to people. Writing something, talking smack about someone or embarrassing someone or making them appear to be something that is, you know, that people can feel angry about is, well, it's, you know, as Kara Swisher calls it, engagement through enragement. I mean, that pretty much sums it up. So everyone is trying to figure out how do we not only get our content out, but I think what's superseded that is how to make a name for ourselves, how to be this provocative online personality. And I think sometimes they forget the public they're serving by trying to be, you know, either outrageous or a provocateur and opinionated. So it is really kind of muddied the waters of journalism in a significant way, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, there was this debate, it was a very online debate a couple months ago about journalists openly talking about building their own brand. Right, it was with Taylor Lorenz, right?

Yes, and Maggie Haberman. And it was interesting because I do think there's this tension between trying to stand out in a very crowded field to get your work noticed and not making it about yourself, but making it about your journalism. And that's a tricky balance. That is a very tricky balance. It's hard and I don't envy those people. But you're right.

It is hard to be heard above the den. And you almost have to establish your voice, right? And for so long, journalism wasn't really about voice. It was more about reporting the news. And the editorial page was about voice, was about perspective or your POV. So now it is all kind of, I think, come together in a way that is confusing for both, I think, the consumer and for the journalists themselves. Can I ask how you have worked to develop your voice since you were, right, you were on the Today Show, you were CBS Evening News anchor, right? Like you're not supposed to really have your own voice, especially if you're the anchor of the Evening News, right? It's like very straight news delivery. But, you know, then you went on to pursue a bunch of other

projects and now you have Katie Couric Media. How did you go about sort of developing and figuring out what your voice was going to be and how you were going to differentiate yourself? my quote unquote voice at the Today Show, for lack of a better term, the hackneyed overused phrase authenticity. I think the fact that I was kind of openly flawed on camera, that I didn't understand sports and made a joke about it. And that I, you know, was very, I think, self-deprecating in situations that I think my voice was my realness, if you will, that I was basically the same person on camera as I was off. So, but I don't think I had, I really didn't express a lot of opinions. I mean, in my book, I write about interviewing David Duke and really giving him a hard time and using his words very Russert-like to come back to haunt him about anti-Semitic, anti-Asian remarks that he had made. But I wasn't really, I mean, I think I felt a moral obligation to do that. But we lived in an era back then where, you know, it was George W. Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush. And, you know, the political figures were not as

controversial or inflammatory or, you know, weren't basically telling mistruths the way the current crop of Republicans are. And so I think that when I went to Yahoo, I did a talk show, which was a lot of fun, and I had a great team, but wasn't really my cup of tea because I think afternoon programming, you know, it's much lighter and I really wanted to do some serious things. But when I went to Yahoo, I also was trying to be more of an objective journalist and, you know, do pretty much straight reporting and interviewing. But I think since I started my media company four or five years ago with my husband, I think I've given myself more permission and the climate has required it, honestly, to have more of a point of view and to be more

opinionated on things like election denial or Roe v. Wade. I have always been in favor of reproductive rights, but that's not something I could talk really openly about until I was basically became the boss of me. You know, I did a documentary on gun violence in 2016, I believe, or maybe 2015 called Under the Gun, because I was really frustrated. And it was after Sandy Hook, that that legislation didn't pass, despite the fact that at the time, 92% of Americans were in favor of stricter gun laws. So I think I have started to express myself a lot more freely than I did when I was within the confines of a media institution. And that's because I'm able to do so because what are they going to do, fire me?

I mean, I'm the boss of me and my husband, I think, is completely supportive of me when appropriate and when I feel strongly to express my point of view. You mentioned sort of where the Republican Party's gone. You know, one thing the internet has given us is the viral interview clip. And you were responsible for one of the first and biggest in 2008 when you sat down with Sarah Palin, who is, as of today, back in the game, back in politics. She's headed for the general election in November in Alaska for the congressional seat. At the time, we've talked about this before, but, you know, I was in the Obama campaign. It certainly seemed like you had ended her career and maybe McCain's campaign with that set of interviews. In retrospect,

do you think her candidacy may have laid the groundwork for the transformation of the Republican Party into the Breitbart comment section? Abso-fucking-lutely. I mean, come on. It's like, yes, she definitely sowed the seeds of this massive populist movement where it's sort of the politics of grievance, the politics of kind of the anti-elitism, anti-intellectualism. And, you know, I've often thought if Sarah Palin had been running later, or, you know, even, you know, in 2020 or down the road, I wonder if that interview would have had as big an impact. Because I think it's just so interesting for me to see what has even happened after the search of Mar-a-Lago, how the Republican Party coalesced and so quickly from Fox News to, you know, all the different

Trumpers, whether they be, you know, at the state or federal level or national level, have they so quickly coalesced around a message that the FBI was overzealous, that the DOJ has become over politicized and, you know, quickly comparing it to Hillary Clinton's emails. to delegitimize me and CBS, right, as fake news, as an agenda-driven organization. And it would have lifted Sarah Palin up. But I think it was still pretty early days of social media. And I don't think they were able to galvanize supporters quickly enough. And I just, I wonder what impact it would have, because I remember doing that interview, John, and I think we've probably even talked about this, where I tried to make sure that my questions were fair, but they were measuring her experience and her intellectual capabilities and her ability to be a critical thinker, you know, to talk about public policy. In a way, frankly, I don't think I could, you know, but she's running for vice president. And I remember wanting my questions to be smart

and good, not kind of a pop quiz, gotcha interview, but how I really just asked her questions, kind of pushed her respectfully, but tried to maintain a very non-judgmental face the whole time. Like I was extremely conscious of that because I knew that they would kill the messenger if Sarah Palin performed poorly in that interview. And I said the other day to someone at an event that I was doing for my book, you know, if Sarah Palin really understood public policy or had even gone back to Alaska and really, really learned public policy, I think she was very read in on energy issues because of Alaska. But if she had really just done an intensive year or two, almost Kennedy school-ish kind of tutorial, that she would be a real force because she was incredibly charismatic. I'm sure you guys watched the RNC speech and were like, you know. I was very nervous.

You were probably shitting yourselves a little. Yeah. No, I remember where I was sitting in the office watching the speech. She killed it. She killed it. And also thinking like that is going to resonate. I mean, we had gone through, you know, Barack Obama in Pennsylvania talking about how the right sometimes clings to their guns and religion. And he was trying to be a sociologist and an anthropologist about the Republican Party. And he was correct. Not that you shouldn't have said it, but it's correct. And when her speech basically tapped into that, that anger towards not just the

Democratic Party, but institutions writ large, the media, academia, and that had been a strand in the Republican Party for a long time. But I think that Palin's candidacy and then Trump's candidacy after her really kicked it up. And the Tea Party, the Tea Party laid the foundation, obviously, for Sarah Palin's rise to power. And I remember her making a joke about President Obama being a community organizer. Right. And comparing sort of her experience to his. And there was this snarky undertone, which, by the way, is not necessarily exclusively the province of the Republican Party.

I mean, you think about Ann Richards saying, poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth, you know, at the Democratic National Convention. So snarkiness, there's enough to go around. But it was kind of a combination of who do they think they are, right? Right. The elite, the educated, the people in positions of power. And I still think that strain is so alive and well now in 2022. I mean, I think it's sort of taken over, certainly taken over the Republican Party. It's starting to take over politics as well. I wonder how you think about journalism in that context. You know, Donald Trump, most of the Republican Party have openly declared war on the media.

You know, Trump called journalists enemy of the people. People like Ron DeSantis regularly bar journalists from political events. They don't give interviews to mainstream outlets anymore. I can't imagine the next Republican ticket sitting down with the anchor of CBS Evening News or ABC or NBC or CNN like Palin did with you. What should journalists do about that? How do you cover politics fairly when one political party is at war with your profession? Well, it's a conundrum, to say the least. And I saw very clearly as Donald Trump started saying fake news, fake news, what he was up to. You know, he is, in a way, he's kind of a brilliant marketer. He can zero in on weakness and vulnerability and just like hit it with a poison dart.

And I think the media has been in general, probably more progressive than conservative. The vast majority of media, let's just be honest. Uh, and I think that people who are attracted to traditional media want to write wrongs. They want to expose wrongs. They want to expose

wrongdoing. They want to, I think, speak truth to power and all that. And so I think the media has always been on a little shaky ground with conservatives. And I think by completely delegitimizing the media, he was able to remove the partial guard rails of a democracy, right? And so it's very tricky when a huge percentage of Republicans still believe the election was rigged. I don't know what the latest polls say, John, but earlier this summer, wasn't it like 74% of Republicans don't think that Joe Biden was legitimately elected president of the United States?

Now, this is despite the fact that how many courts have heard cases around this, 21 or something? Yeah, it's pretty. I mean, so how do you wrap your head around this? And I was talking to a friend who started out in the business with me, one of my best friends, Wendy Walker, this morning, and we were just saying, we've never seen anything like this. Now, this is, I haven't looked at how many people won their primaries who were supported by Donald Trump. And I don't want to date this podcast too much, but you probably know.

I mean, look what happened to Liz Cheney. Look what, I mean, so many election deniers, you know, won their primaries. And it's like, what? So you have this truth decay going on and living in a post-factual world. And then you have this huge divide of mostly journalists who live in New York, Washington,

right, maybe Chicago, LA, some, Austin, perhaps, but really Washington and New York are still the power centers for journalists. So how do we bridge this divide? It is a really tough question, one that I know President Obama talked about at Stanford about disinformation. I was a co-chair of a commission with the Aspen Institute on disinformation. I don't know. I mean, I do think that reporters need to get into the heartland more. We have to be more proximate to Americans who are really struggling, who are watching Fox News 24-7, who I think are being brainwashed by the commentary on Fox News, you know, and they could argue people are being brainwashed by MSNBC,

you know, or CNN. But I do think there's a difference. Well, here's how I think about it as a Democrat and a liberal. I think that you're correct. So, first of all, on the right, we have an extremely powerful right wing propaganda media machine that is very much aligned with and in sync with the Republican Party itself. And obviously, the Murdoch empire is the most prominent example. We see it not just in the United States, but everywhere there is a Murdoch empire throughout the world. Right wing authoritarian governments are on the rise and the Murdoch empire has helped it. But now because of the internet, there's also podcast hosts in YouTube and all these other platforms where the rights propaganda is quite powerful and influential. On the left, I think you're correct that most journalists, if you gave them truth serum,

would say that they probably have pretty liberal values. They overcorrect for having those liberal values by wanting to make sure that people know they are not partisan Democrats. And in fact, sometimes are tougher on Democrats in the news because while they personally might have liberal values, they want to make sure that people think they're objective, right? So therefore you have the right-wing media in lockstep with the Republican party trying to help Republicans get elected. And on the left, you have a right wing media in lockstep with the Republican Party trying to help Republicans get elected. And on the left, you have a bunch of mainstream journalists who may have like liberal values, but are just trying to do their jobs. And look, as a Democrat, I want a press that is independent and objective. I don't expect reporters to like help elect Democrats, right?

Like that's not that's not my expectations. I don't think they should be on the team. But I the reason we started Crooked Media is I do think that if you're going to have a Republican media propaganda machine that powerful, we need to be giving people good information on the left. Right. Do you think mainstream media helped Barack Obama get elected, though? I think that the way I think not because the mainstream media was like secretly liberal and a bunch of Democrats pulling for Obama. I think his story and his charisma were very attractive to reporters. And I think that very much helped. I think that helped him not only with the press, but I think that's what helped him with a lot of people in the country. Right. Like a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama was elected president United States and won over more non-college educated white voters than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden did. And so I think there is something about his – Also, his pure intellect, I think, was also very appealing to journalists. I mean, and by the way, I admire John McCain as well.

But I think, you know, Barack Obama is almost too cerebral at times. I'm sure you all were like, dumb it down, will you? But I do think his kind of his understanding of public policy and his ability to really think deeply about many of these issues was also attractive to people covering him. Yes. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. And I think he had, look, I was saying this to some friends of mine the other day. I think he had two distinct qualities. One, which is because of his intellect, because of his rhetoric, because of how he could think, it was very attractive to more elite voters, journalists, people on the coast. But also, he was very normal. He and Michelle were very normal. They remember what he used to talk about, what it was like to still have student loans to pay off when he was running. He was not very rich when he was running for office. He didn't speak like people who are spending a lot of humor came through on the trail. And I think those qualities probably endeared him to more people in the country than people who are just on the coasts, even though he was seen in the press as more cerebral. What do you think? I know this is your show, but I'm curious, John, what do you think created such a backlash? Do you ascribe to the theory that Donald Trump's rise was a direct result from Barack Obama's success?

I think it was part of it. I think that the answer has always been a bit more complicated than it was either just racism or either just economic resentment, right? Some people say it's either racial resentment or it's economic resentment. And I think that the truth is that it's a mix of both. I think there are a lot of people in this country who, you know, due to massive inequality generated by globalization over the last several decades are living in places where they don't feel like they can get ahead. Right. And they are feeling left behind.

And I think one thing that getting back to the show here, one thing the internet has done is if you live in those places and you turn on your TV or you look on your phone or you look on your computer screen, what you see are a lot of people on the coasts living large and living wonderful lives and they're celebrities and they're artists and they're musicians and they're journalists and they're all having a great time and you're having a tough time is because immigrants are stealing your job and there's affirmative action and there's Democrats that are giving welfare to people who don't deserve it, then you are going to be more likely to resent people who do not look like you and do not come from where you come from. And that is what right-wing populists have done, not just in the United States, but all around the world and what they're doing very successfully here.

And so, yeah, part of your resentment is driven by xenophobia and racism. And part of it stems from the fact that you are living in a community that has genuinely been left behind by larger economic forces. And I think resentment is such a powerful emotion to tap into. And I don't know if you've ever felt resentful, but I remember feeling resentful in my life in my 20s and seeing someone drive a Mercedes and thinking, I'll never be able to drive a nice car like that. And that feeling of, it's very corrosive. And I don't know, you can really marinate in that

feeling. So I think they've so successfully done that. But I think there's real reasons to be resentful. As you said, with income inequality is insane in this country. I think a lot of people have felt like they've been left behind by the American dream. And, you know, for all the things you mentioned, John, globalization, and, you know, decline in manufacturing and all these towns. And I did an hour documentary as part of a series called America Inside Out for Nat Geo. And, you know, I went to some of these communities like Erie, Pennsylvania, and and Nebraska and also the demise of unions in this country and people, you know,. And they seem to have lost their ability to at least give the appearance that they really care about the problems of these struggling populations. And why is that? And I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's the last question I'm going to ask.

Katie, look, every time we have you on, my favorite part of the interview is when you start interviewing that's that's my favorite well i i'm really i'm genuinely frustrated by the democratic party's inability to kind of tap into these things and and why well so you know we were just talking about sort of people who feel left behind and i think one of the great frustrations among progressives is that when that conversation comes up, it's automatically about white people who've been left behind in communities across the country. And it is true that there are a lot of white people brown Americans are living in communities that have also been left behind. I'm doing a set of focus groups for another podcast I do called The Wilderness about the Democratic Party. And I just came from Atlanta and I did a focus group of, um, of working class black voters in Atlanta. And the anger and resentment I heard towards the Democratic Party from those voters was more intense than I had ever imagined. Really? It was. Yeah, it was. Look, we knew Trump was racist because he was honest about it. But what has Joe Biden done? Well, why are we still having the problems that we have right now? And it's all so much of it is economic in nature, not just economic, but problems that really personally affect someone's life.

Right. Like they talk, you know, talked about gun violence in Atlanta, talked about potholes and the roads and the infrastructure being broken. Talk about how 725 minimum wage isn't even close to being able to rent an apartment in Atlanta. And when they look at the news and they look at politics, what do they see? They see people yelling at each other on television and they see the January 6th hearings, which, you know, they think that January 6th was awful. But does that really relate to my life? They see all these news about Donald Trump's investigations, which again, do they think Trump's bad? Yeah, of course. Do they think he's probably

broke the law? Yeah, of course. But like, why is the media just talking about that all the time? So they don't when they turn on the news, and now they also sort of conflate the media and politics as one. All they see is a lot of people, journalists and politicians talking about problems that don't seem to matter to their lives and they don't see anything getting done. And for Republicans, that works because they can gin up resentment and grievance and basically say to people, you're right, the institutions are broken, so burn down the institutions and vote for us because we'll burn down the institutions. That's what Donald Trump was all about. Democrats are the party where we have to get people to have faith in institutions.

But to get people to have faith in institutions, we have to show that those institutions can work and can deliver for ordinary people in this country. And why aren't they? And why aren't they? And we have because because because look at how look at how hard it was for Joe Biden to do and the Democrats to pass what they've passed, even though they have a majority and they're controlling all three houses, because we have a Republican Party that knows it is easier to burn down the barn, to break everything, to make sure that you don't work with the other party to do something, because then you can gin up that grievance.

Thank you, Mitch McConnell. But what about like state? Did you find that those people in the focus group, were they talking about local politicians as well? Because some of those problems are really local problems, and they're done by may Kemp, the governor of Georgia at all, very mad at him. But they said, what happened to Stacey? I thought Stacey Abrams was going to, we voted for her once, we got to vote for her again. I thought she was going to go fix it. Is she going to get in there and just do what all the other politicians do and then not actually fix anything? Like people are so hungry and desperate for progress that they can feel and touch and see in their own lives. But they're also doubtful and skeptical

and bordering on cynical that politics is the route to bring about that progress because they keep getting let down and nothing ever changes. And are some of those Democrats, are they angry enough to support candidates who want to burn everything down? Yeah, I think so. Really? Look, I think part of the Trump candidacy came from that on the right. I think I would not say that Bernie Sanders is someone who wanted to burn everything down. I think he's very constructive and has been constructive with the Democrats. But I think that populist anger that he showed on the campaign trail is also one reason why

Bernie did quite well with working class people of all races, because he spoke every brown, Asian, who are not just college educated and on the coasts, what they are saying and what they are asking for and what they are afraid of and what they need. So-called kitchen table. Kitchen table, though, you know, it's interesting, too, because, you know, in all these focus groups, and I talked to these kinds of voters, like I said, across all races all over the country, kitchen table economic issues, but also now, you know, not being able to get an abortion affects people's lives in a very personal way. A mass shooting in your community affects people's lives in a very personal way, right? So it doesn't just have to be economic issues. These so-called social and cultural issues really come into play here when it affects your life. But political debates that are about politicians and yelling at each other, that feels distant from people.

But also about sort of, you know, that's so interesting to me because when you think about the threat to our democracy that this rhetoric is posing, I guess that's almost like it's almost too nebulous in some ways for people to really appreciate and understand. But it is so, so critically important and so gargantuan in terms of issues, you know, and you're right, I guess they always say people vote, you know, their pocketbook, but our very way of life and our system of government is really in danger in such a significant way. And I guess it's frustrating for me that people, yes, and I'm one to talk, you know, I'm sitting in my house in East Hampton, you know, and I've been incredibly fortunate. And, you know, I'm definitely sort of the top tier economically, to say the least. But,

you know, how can it be communicated that our democracy is at risk? And, you know, now at the state and local level, you've got all these election officials being put in place who could basically ignore the will of the people in these elections. And it's insane, John. I think about this all the time. And we certainly on Pod Save America and at Crooked Media, we cover this all the time because we feel like it's maybe the fundamental issue of our time, which is saving democracy. And so we talk about the Trump investigations and the January 6th hearings and the election deniers and gerrymandering and everything that's happening all over the country and all of these races. Though, you know, having done all these focus groups, I've come to believe that in order to save democracy,

you have to persuade most of the people in this country that democracy is worth saving. And to persuade them that democracy is worth saving, you have to persuade them that democracy can work for them. It can deliver on the things that matter most to them in their own lives. And those of us who have more leisure time to pay attention to politics closely because we are more well-off than most of the country, those urgent concerns that a lot of people are struggling with, we don't have them as much.

No, that's true. That is so true. We can easily, of course, be affected by gun violence. We can easily be affected by abortion bans, though even that has an economic component to it, of course. But those of us who have more leisure time because we're wealthier, we can pay more attention to this stuff. And most people who are working in this country, they don't have the time and they just want someone to help put food on their table. That's so true. And, and such an important point. And I guess the question is, how do you do that? But, you know, but I think, look, I think to your point, I mean, from a political perspective, I think, you know, we got to get back to sort of grassroots organizing and relational organizing,

and you're more likely to be persuaded about politics by someone you know someone in your family a friend of yours someone in your neighborhood so you got to go back to sort of knocking on doors grassroots democracy i think from a journalism perspective what you said which is like journalists have to be in more communities across the country and you know whether it's nebraska whether you know i um i talked to lauren williams who was editor-in-chief at vox and now she started capital b, which is in black communities across the country. And she talks about how it's so important to be of the community and to be in the community, particularly because, and you know all about this. Local news.

Local news and disinformation spreads in places where there is a news vacuum, especially a local news. Right. A news desert. And, you know, something like 2000 newspapers have closed since 2004. Margaret Sullivan wrote a small book about this for Columbia. And the local news drought is is really a problem because people tend to believe local journalists more than national journalists for some of the reasons we've discussed already in this podcast. And when there is a vacuum, what fills that vacuum is sometimes news that is, you know, affirmation instead of information and not really legitimately sourced, et cetera, et cetera. And that's a real problem. And that's why I do think, you know, Bryan Stevenson talks about the importance of being proximate. And I think we are so siloed in our little bubbles. And this is also cliche, but it really is true. And that's why there should be, I think, national reporters. And, you know, that's expensive, by the way.

And that's why you see so many people on television sitting around a table, basically, you know, just giving their opinion and analyzing news. But where are they out in the community talking to real people? That's what we, I think, need to make people trust reporters more. And, you know, Axios has a big program where they're doing, you know, all these local newsrooms. But it's also so decentralized, John. You know, it's so fragmented that people can create their own information ecosystem. And there's not a lot of shared common knowledge among people. And I think that has also really impacted kind of our ability to trust not only

information, but each other. Let me ask you, since you co-chaired that commission, the Aspen Institute Commission on Disinformation, did you come out of that process any more hopeful that there are solutions to some of these challenges? I mean, I did and I didn't. You know, it feels like the horse has left the barn, if you will, in many ways, and how you can put the genie back in the bottle and all that jazz. And the lack of interest in these big social media platforms, not only to do something, but their inability to really control it, right? With so much stuff out there, all the fact checkers in the world.

My daughter, Carrie, worked for Reuters in a program that was like Reuters and Facebook. And they say, you know, disinformation, what is the expression? Lies run around the world before the truth is able to tie its shoes type thing. And it's true, you know, Carrie would fact check things like the vaccine gives you Alzheimer's, you know, and she would call people and they would rate sort of the information that was being posted or spread. And, you know, they would I think by the time she would do her due diligence, it it had gone viral or spread everywhere. And, you know, it's sort of like- It's a little knife to a gunfight kind of thing. It really is really-

Knife to a nuclear war. Yeah, it's really, really difficult. I think that, you know, we came up with some ideas like these massive super spreaders, you know, be able to identify people who are giving, you know, false, say, health information with impunity. And, you know, are there people who are amassing huge followings who need to be checked? And I was talking to one of my colleagues earlier today, and we were talking about, well, now the gun manufacturers are being taken to task when you think about the

Sandy Hook parents suing Remington. And maybe we're going to start considering the source and considering those who are enabling, whether it's disinformation or gun violence, and holding them accountable more. You know, part of the problem is that academics can't even get the information they need to understand how algorithms work and how fact checkers work and how kind of this disinformation spreads. And as you know, this really affects like underserved communities even more who are specifically targeted with fake information so they don't get out to vote or they're misinformed about people. So I agree with President Obama that the biggest threat to democracy is disinformation. And I think we all say it, but I have yet to witness kind of a national

groundswell of people who really, it's a very complicated issue because you have the First Amendment here in this country. We don't have as much latitude as you do in Great Britain. But I do think something needs to be done. And I would say I'm pretty neutral on the optimistic, pessimistic scale that something will get done. I just don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think it's tough because it's not a, like I said, it's not a fair fight, right? It's not on the level, some of this debate in a way, because there is a very powerful apparatus on the right, an ecosystem on the right that is trying to sow disinformation. So when, you know, Republicans and Democrats both talk about reforming Section

230, they want to both do so in opposite ways, right? Democrats want more content moderation for all the reasons that we have been talking about. The rights problem with 230 is they think that social media companies are censoring free speech, that they are suppressing the voices of the right as if somehow we're not hearing enough right-wing voices out there. And so if you have one party that's going to say, yeah, no, there shouldn't be content moderation, that we should be able to say whatever we want all the time, even if it is inciting hate and potentially violence, then it's going to be a really difficult fight. And I don't know that the solutions to that fight are technocratic in nature, because I do think you need an educated,

engaged population, not just among college educated people who are wealthy, but among the entire population in order to fight back. Because, yeah. And so I do think I think that, you know, revitalized grassroots democracy is the answer. And that's not an easy one. But that to me is the ultimate way to fix this. Yeah. And, you know, we talked a lot about sort of, you know, educating people to be discriminating consumers of information. You know, giving them the educational tools. But,

you know, you hate for the onus to lie with the consumers. But, you know, whenever I see things now, and even if I'm preparing, say, for a podcast, or I'm doing an interview with someone, I'm always like, where did you get that information? And who told you that? Right. And I remember seeing something on Kirstie Alley's Twitter feed about something about a board. What was it? It was some political information, and it had a very legitimate sort of seal, like it came from the AMA. So I was like, what is this

organization that is perpetuating this kind of information? So I googled it, and it's like an anti-abortion group. And I thought, well, I'm looking at that, but are there other people who are going to take the time to Google or in your young people's cases, TikTok, the organization to see who's behind this information. And it's just a lot to ask of people. On the other hand, I think it's going to be really important and a necessary part of how we educate kids today. I agree. Yeah, I think it's both. There's obviously systemic solutions, but there's also individual behavior that I think

is important. And that has to, you know, education has to play a huge role. Do you think the left, can I ask you one other quick question? Do you think the left perpetuates disinformation too? Yeah, certainly. I think there are some people on the left who either intentionally or unintentionally spread disinformation. I don't think it's as big of a problem as, as on the right. I don't think the megaphones are quite as big. We make sure

there are, there are certainly things that, that we've said that I go back and be like, oh, we just got this wrong. You know, we were going too fast. We were too anxious to go hit Republicans on something. And, you know, we might have got this wrong. And I try to make sure that if we do that, we correct ourselves or we take care, you know, to do that. Or if there was an errant tweet, delete the tweet, explain it. Right. So I do think it happens on both sides. Of course, that's the difference between misinformation and disinformation. Right? One is intentional. One can be accidental if you spread it. So we try to make sure that it's only misinformation and then try to correct that as soon as possible

and never try to engage in disinformation. I think you should do a series on the whole Hunter Biden thing because I think most people are still so confused about that. And as somebody who reads a lot and tries to kind of appreciate sort of where the truth lies, I'm confused. I am too, because I feel like I have too much, I have too many other issues to dig into that I haven't been able to get into that one. But I think that's really important because I think one of the things that journalists need to do is admit when they're wrong. You know, I got a lot of grief when I wrote in my book about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I interviewed her. And she said something that seemed out of character and strange and subject to misinterpretation. And I said that, like, I redacted like 20 seconds of an interview

I did. And, you know, the outrage was, and I wanted to say, hey, we're humans. We make decisions and we make mistakes. And I think journalists, one way to, I think, engender more trust is to say, you know, I got that wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I think that goes, that can go a long way in journalism and in other parts of public life. Katie, last question I ask all of our guests before I let you go. What's your favorite way to unplug? I love taking walks without my phone. Oh, nice.

You know, I have this whole thing when I gave a graduation, I've given many commencement addresses, but I did one for my daughter's high school graduation, much to her chagrin. But, you know, there's a part of your brain that actually is responsible for creative thinking, and it only fires when you're not distracted. And that's why you have so many good ideas in the shower and good ideas when you're walking or just sitting on a beach and thinking and your mind is wandering. So I like taking walks, and I love going to the beach. I think nature really helps me unplug.

And I also like my flowers and my garden. I'm obsessed with flowers and I love arranging flowers. I love that. That's great. That's a great answer. No, I agree with that. Less phone time means more creativity. Katie Cork, it's always wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining our fun. Thank you for letting me interview you, John. But I love

talking to smart people. And I think, you know, we all need to have these conversations and be open-minded about things and not be so intractable in our positions. It's a scary time, and the country, I think, is not in a good place. Anything I can do individually or help collectively get us back on track, but I don't know. I'm pretty pessimistic, John. Yeah. No, I'm an optimist at heart. I always have been. I guess that's the former Obama staffer in me. But these times have tested that optimism. I will say that. But I think that I've kind of concluded that whether optimism or pessimism, both can sort of be useless. And what we really need is just determination to keep plugging away because that's all we can do.

That's a great point. And so that's going to be my new mantra. Perfect. Thanks, Katie. Thank you, John. Offline is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, John Favreau. It's produced by Austin Fisher.

Andrew Chadwick is our audio editor. Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis, sound engineer of the show. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Tanya Somenator, Michael Martinez, Andy Gardner-Bernstein, Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Sandy Gerard for production support. And to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Nar Melkonian, and Amelia Montooth, who film and share our episodes as videos

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