The Daily Beast Podcast - Soledad O’Brien on Fox News’ ‘Stupid Blonde’ Spouting Vax Nonsense

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

This week on a bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Soledad O’Brien joins Molly Jong-Fast to discuss trust in the media, Fox News, coronavirus vaccines, and Afghanistan coverage. “Misinformation is an amazing tool to get people to not trust in their leadership or in the government. And I think the government and the media, too, have done a very poor job in making people trust them.”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the new Abnormal. And we thank you so much for being here. Today we have an extra special guest with Soledad O'Brien, who's the host of Matter of Fact with Soledadad O'Brien. And she's going to talk to us about how she sees the news being covered today. Oh yeah, and one note for Beast inside members. Did you know that The Daily Beast has a free iOS app for Apple devices? It's streamlined, light on ads, and is hands down the best way to read the Beast.

head to beast.pub dash app. That's beast.combe slash app to download it today. Thanks. Welcome back to the new abnormal Soledadad O'Brien. Right. Nice to be back. How hard are you? It's been a minute. I know, right?

Like, anytime something goes horribly wrong in media coverage, I want to talk to you. And I feel like with this Afghanistan thing, it really went off the rails, pretty fast. I'm not surprised, though. I have been woefully disappointed in our political coverage, partly because I think it starts from the place of this is all a game. It's basically all about, you know, who wins, who loses, who said the thing that came across as great, who's strategizing poorly. I think there's a place for that, but I think that's all our political coverage has become. And so I don't know that that's particularly helpful for audiences. So I think, that's a piece of it. And it's just a, it's sort of carried out from, from, I think, you know, just

reporting has how it's been over the last six years anyway. So I wasn't particularly surprised. I also think the media consistently likes war. And I think the media also consistently thinks American lives are far more valuable than anybody else's lives, which certainly it's important for the American media, but there's a sense that, you know, these people, when they're killed, are far more valuable than these people who are also killed. I mean, we used to joke about, you know, in a plane crash, how years ago when I used to be a producer at NBC News, you know, it would be Tom Broca and 28 others. Like, we'd all be relegated to like other because no one would care. And I, and sometimes I think in our coverage, we think about, you know, here are the people who died and they're the only ones

who mattered. And there were some others. And I think we'll leave. them out, it kind of minimizes and also works against an accurate framing of the story. So some people I think are, I think Clarissa Ward at CNN is doing a really good job. I think under very difficult circumstances. But also, you know, there is definitely this drumbeat of one, putting people on. You mean Carl Rove? He's a good example. Like, listen, I think Carl Rove does have stuff to say, but no one wants to hold him accountable and do the kind of interview that I think is required if you're going to have Carl Rove on. I mean, I think almost anybody can be a good interview, not always live necessarily. And lots of elected officials, too. They lie over here, but then they're

invited on as if they have credibility. And so it's a very bizarre time because I think as a rule, people who are liars just shouldn't be, you know, given a platform to be on TV. So yeah, Carl Rove is a good example, and there are many others. But the bigger problem, I think, is this. I read a study. that said that over the last five years, the networks have done 24 minutes of news on Afghanistan over the last five years, right? So roughly, that's two minutes a year. So some insanely low number. And so because we don't cover it as a story, the minute the pictures look interesting, I think everybody jumps in and you have a lot of these armchair pundits, unfortunately. And I think because we don't cover the story, we haven't really done a good job in serving the audience

and explaining what is actually happening, what they're actually seeing. This is very dramatic. Someone hands a baby over a wall. It's like, oh, my God, it's the most dramatic thing. And so I think that also, all of that combined brings us to a problem in kind of how we think about this story. I think I have to change that amount. I think it turned out to be the total was 24 minutes a year for any network, right, which was two minutes per month, which is nothing. Right.

I mean, literally, it was nothing. It's not been covered. And then all of a sudden, everyone jumps in and they have a very clear idea of what should be happening in Afghanistan. By the way, I think it's just an absolute mess, but I'm not an expert. And I think there are better people to be helping educate people versus politicos who obviously have an agenda and are not going to be held accountable as well. Let's talk about this idea of the horse race. You've talked about that in a really interesting way, or at least you were the person who got me thinking about this idea of horse race. journalism. Can you talk about that a little bit? Sure. A great example of horse race journalism are the

debates, right? How did someone come across? And not even necessarily, how did they come across to an audience that we're polling? Often it's just, we feel this was a good zinger. Oh, my goodness, they seemed this way. And sometimes it's just how the journalist feels about it, not even, you know, how a wide swath of the American public felt about it. And so I think it's a really flawed way to look at both politics and policy. I think people need to understand a good example, which is, I think it was Politico that did, you know, Desantis is winning the pandemic. Like, what does that even mean, outside of the fact that that's just the most dumbass

thing I've ever heard in the middle of a pandemic. But like, what does that even mean? What, who says someone is winning a pandemic? Like, it's such incredibly weird framing. And they're trying to say, I guess, that he comes across a certain way. But with all these caveats, we know that, you know, it looked like Florida wasn't accurately reporting, et cetera, et cetera. And now, of course, looking back, we see, wow, actually not so much winning,

lots of losing. But the idea that everything is framed is like someone is winning and someone is losing versus here's what's happening. Here are the implications of this thing. Here's what you're hearing about. And then, you know, we ask people in the public to get a sense of how they feel about it. I think that's interesting. It's a terrible framing, but it's, and it's a lazy-ass framing too, right?

It's a, you know, here's who seems this way. Here's who seems that way. And I think you saw it a lot under President Trump, right? He came across as. And I think not to, again, not to the public, but often just to journalists. And I think that drove a lot of their reporting. And I think that had a lot of flaws in it. So we're seeing it in Afghanistan, too, right? Does somebody seem like they're winning? Do they seem upset? Do they seem pulled together? What is how does it seem versus? So take us back 20 years. How did we get here? who was involved? What were the decisions that were made for right or for wrong? And, you know, we've been talking to lots of academics around just explain the moving pieces. I mean, I sort of feel like Taliban, bad, ISIS, bad, Al-Qaeda, bad. But I want to understand how they all work in that region versus, you know, did the president come across strong today? I don't give a shit. I'm much more interested in what are we seeing on the ground and what are the implications. So I think that framing, which has been a very classic political framing. I think it's a really flawed framing.

It does strike me as it really is the thing now that we see again and again. And it's funny because it's like what happened with Trump and you and I have talked about this at nauseam, but I think it's important for a little context is that the type of journalism that had done well, you know, giving us information sort of fell apart. You know, you would have a headline that says something like, Trump says. Right. Trump says, you know, Democrats are killing babies and drinking their blood. And it just would be this misinformation spreader. Now we have sort of mini Trumps, right? We have like Marjorie Taylor Green and we have DeSantis and we have people who are sort of using those Trumpy playbooks, right? Like attacking the media. And some of the stuff he did with the media, I always think about, I've been thinking about this a lot this weekend is actually kind of worked. A lot of it worked. It's almost like a dysfunctional relationship. right? Like, again, when people lie to me on the air, I really tend to not put them on TV.

And if I have to put them on TV, because they're in a position that requires it, then you pre-tape them, right? Which allows you to not let them lie because you feel like, well, ultimately, I'm servicing an audience. Like, I have to do it for them. And I think what journalists found, as much as Trump was mean to them and nasty, I mean, the people loved it. I think Chris Ellis is a great example. He loved sort of being picked on because somehow it elevated weirdly in his head, his profile in some capacity. It's really kind of sad. So, yeah, I think the journalist never really figured out how to handle the whole, when there's this giant pipe of misinformation, you know, can you just say, well, he said this? You know, should we not report

what the president said? Well, I think if the president's just lying to you, it's clearly misinformation, no, you shouldn't. You actually shouldn't about it. But listen, he's also, you know, the other piece of that is he's a real ratings skitter, which he knows and which the network executives know. And so, you know, he was not wrong when he would say, listen, you know, things tanked if I'm not, you know, if I'm not part of it, if I'm not on it. And I think because, I mean, all you have to do is see people would even hate watch his pressers because they were so crazy. And now the pressers that President Biden is holding are less interesting, right, because they're kind of straightforward. And CNN doesn't show you a shot at the podium for hours and hours

and just as a clock countdown to, you know, because they understand, you know, listen, they understand And like this is a good craziness. We're going to have some people who hate it and they're going to watch. We have people who love it and they're going to watch versus this is just going to be a presidential update. And it's going to be pretty straightforward. And so, you know, outside of even what the information is, I think that strategy has really, listen, the media is competing with social media. And social media is about the big event, you know, to make sure we can draw viewers with a countdown clock.

This thing is happening in 14 more hours. I mean, that's eventizing something. And people understood that that worked. And I think Biden is hard. President Biden is harder to event eyes. And also just less sizzle when it comes to delivering things. He's kind of straight forward versus someone who the actual fuck knows what crazy shit he's going to say. But the other thing that I'm struck by is that Trump would always say it's the liberal media.

The media is liberal. The media is liberal. And I think that he was able by doing this to really make people think, A, you can't trust. the media, I can only trust my special conservative media, which is siloed over here, right? That was one thing he did. But then the other thing he did, which I think we haven't talked enough about, is that the regular mainstream media put on more conservatives and more partisan conservatives in the hopes of balancing something that didn't really exist in the first place. Yeah, I don't think there is a liberal medium. In fact, having worked in media a long time, I think the media is actually

often very, very conservative. I think when it comes to, in terms of, you know, what stories they'll cover sometimes, I think they're interested in things that are more progressive, like trans rights and other sort of social issue stories. But if you're actually talking about the people, they're not, they're not liberal at all. I think there's this knee-jerk reaction to, you know, kind of war is good, soldiers are good, police are good, right? Well, that's not particularly a liberal point of view, but I can promise you that's sort of how the media in elevating those voices all the time is if, you know, they're not voices to ever be challenged. They're, you know, these are the ones who are, they are good. You know, I remember watching Dana Bash,

who I used to work with many years ago, and she was doing something on the squad. And then I guess there was like a Republican version of the squad. And all the questions she asked the women in the Republican version of the squad was just so like dismissive and demeaning. It was just a weird way to ask. first of all, the piece itself was just so crappily shot. I mean, it was like $8 spent on it. But I was really surprised. Like, just the tone of, you know, you're like, wow, this is a person who just really is, I have no point of view on the squad.

I don't care. Don't know them. Don't like them. Don't hate them. Don't care. The way she framed her question was very much like just really dismissive of a bunch of young elected officials, mostly women of color. And I think, so this idea that somehow, like that political coverage, well, she's

really, you know, hardcore liberal. She's really not. I mean, obviously. And sometimes I think people reveal a lot about themselves. And I get it. Listen, she's a middle-aged white lady working for a cable news network. I don't think there's any indication that her demographics do, you know, or her would be like, oh, clearly she's a liberal. I don't think so at all. So I think Trump did a good job of leveraging that. But that's happened. That was way before Trump, right? Like, I think, I think other politicians way before Trump have sort of leverage this idea of like, you must be biased, right? And to challenge the media to its face because the minute someone says you must be biased,

then you immediately start leaning over and saying, oh, like, what? What are you talking about? Of course I'm not. Look, here are my, you know, here are the here. Look how many other people we've hired. CNN did, not CNN, it was CBS, I think, did a story the other day that talked about. Some people say it's undocumented immigrants coming across the border that are causing the spike in COVID. No one really says that. That's been something that's investigating.

There's no any, right. It's a right-wing talking point. Embracing a right-wing talking point and you throw a couple of May and some say, listen, I've done it. Some say, I mean, me and my three producers back there, so we can honestly say, some say, they basically just dress up a right-wing talking point. when there's no empirical evidence that somehow it's all these people coming across the border that are somehow bringing COVID, we know because there's been a zillion freaking interviews with people who are telling you, I'm a Christian, I do not want to get vaccinated. The Lord will take care of me. And then they're begging for the vaccine as they're dying. I mean, those are horrible stories. But it's not like, where is this coming from? We know very clearly. We've been following a lot of those

stories. The idea that CBS would take a talking point and just elevate, that happens all the time, all the time. So I just don't believe that there is this, you know, liberal media. I think there's a media that sometimes, you know, is interested in discussing some progressive stories, partly because it's news and new. Right. No, I think that's right. But it is, it's definitely, we are, I feel like we're, we're pushing back again. a sort of narrative that Trump managed to get going. It's a little bit, and you've seen it on Twitter a bit, right? Like, you're too afraid, Molly, to debate me.

And you're like, right? And some people fall for that. No, I'm not. I'll put you on my, you know, where I think a lot of people just think, well, that's just, why would I even do that? It's crazy. But it's a little bit of that same philosophy. And so what ends up happening is you elevate people who, I think, have this reputation

for being moderate, right? So Senator Portman, listen, he's a nice, average-looking white dude. I think he's a perfectly nice look, right? But he doesn't come across. He's crazy. Right. So Paul Ryan is another good example, right? They're just average-looking, clean-cut white dudes.

And so they come across, and they're not crazies. They come across as, you know, and so they become the moderate voice. Well, believe me, a lot of what they believe and what they say, even what they, you know, said in their own words. is actually not moderate at all, but because they appear a certain way, and because I think the bulk of these political journals are kind of used to that face. At CNN, when I worked there, Paul Ryan was, you know, he's a policy wrong. But Paul Ryan doesn't have, he really is not a policy one. I know, he's so dumb.

He's so not smart. It was just so interesting because I'm like, well, I'm definitely not a policy walk. I'm like, I'm winning this debate. This is fucking crazy. But literally people used to say, you know, we should put it in the script, kind of known as a policy wonk. And that's a win because, you know, most policy wanks actually work in academia and they're happy to walk you through policy and they're kind of bored. So he was able to get that narrative embraced. And part of the reason he could get that narrative embraced is because

he doesn't have an afro. He doesn't have dreads. He doesn't talk like he's from South Central. He talks to these reporters like he's one of them. He is a perfectly average white dude who's not threatening and comes across just fine. And that takes you a very long way. Trust me, if Paul Ryan were a woman and, you know, who actually seems like a bit of a policy wonk, people are not, you know, saying Katie Porter's a policy wonk. But actually, she has a far better grip on policy than Paul Ryan ever had. She's much smarter, obviously. And she was in these diagrams, et cetera, et cetera. So I really think that, you know, those things are sort of sold, right? They're packaged. sold and then everybody says, I feel good about putting Paul Ryan on because he's a moderate voice.

I feel good about putting Senator Portman on. He's a moderate voice. Listen, I put Senator Ron Johnson on five zillion times. And now he's like, you know, Mr. Crazy Land. He's crazy. But here's a guy who's, you know, got a fabricated story about the election. But he gets tons of airtime, right? I mean, if he were a black dude with an Afro spouting this crazy shit, people would be like, oh, not him, but maybe in February for Black History Month, we can find a spot for him. I mean, the thing I'm struck by, too, is like, Yohan Omar is sort of targeted by both the left and the right as like an extremist, but ultimately they're going on the fact that she grew up as a, you know, an immigrant and wears a hijab.

You'll say, well, how are she extremist? And they can't point to anything. It's just racism. This seems to happen a lot with President Obama. I remember interviewing Amy Kramer. And she said, you know, just that Obama just seen, you know, he's just different. And you're like, literally, lady, you are describing racism. You're just, and by the way, I think it's been a fantastic lesson.

It works, right? Because people at home, many of them are thinking the same thing. I'm just not, I don't know. There's just a thing. And the media has helped create that thing, right? There's a picture of a guy who killed his children. and I think he took them on vacation and he stabbed them. Right?

The picture they've used of this guy is not scary, not a mugshot. It's not literally. It's like the most adorable, cute family. You know, and so other people just don't get that kind of coverage, right? They look like, yeah, I'm glad that motherfucker's behind bars. He's scary as shit. But this guy, he looks amazing.

His wife is adorable. The two babies are cute. Like, everybody's cute. He murdered them. Yeah. No, it's true. Right. And you constantly think about how.

How do we frame certain people and we don't frame other people? I think that's a really good example of, you know, the media is not particularly liberal at all on that front. I had to give a talk the other day. And I was saying how when I worked in local news, we used to do these perp walks, which meant that like the police would bring a guy out who they'd arrested and walk them in a circle.

And I was talking to the police chief in this town. And he was lovely, a nice guy. But I was saying like, it's just so crazy to me now when I look back when I was younger. I didn't even think about it, to be honest. But like we, you know, I loved it because it gave me a nine second intro. Marcus even Jones was arrested last night. Blah, blah, blah, right? And now they got him walking.

There's my opening shot. I appreciated it tremendously. But you, you know, but if you, if you think about, well, actually, you're just in cahoots with the people who arrest you're helping them tell the narrative that they want told. When you start looking at it that way, you think, oh, that's not, that's not so liberal. That's not so progressive. That's actually kind of not how we want to be reporting, but it's a very, you know, it's a very typical practice. And now that some news organizations are saying we're not going to cover stories like that

because we wouldn't cover that dude when they let him out, when they decide, oh, he was the wrong guy, right? No one's going to do a, turns out the police were wrong when they arrested. Marcus, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think people are beginning to recognize the what's unfair. But again, because we're only coming to it now, that doesn't make me feel like, oh, fuck, the media is so liberal. Not at all. Yeah.

We really have a vaccine hesitancy problem in this country like you can't. I mean, a lot of people are not getting vaccinated because of things they're reading on Facebook or Fox News. Fox News has this extremely strict vaccine passport program. Can we talk about this for a minute? Yeah, absolutely. Listen, I think what's happened is obviously disinformation. And the bigger picture is people are just suspicious. You know, I used to be so perplexed when people didn't trust the media.

I'm like, oh my God, I'm sitting here reporting. Like, what do you want to? Talk to me. Here I am in your neighborhood. People would say to me, you didn't cover this. You didn't cover. I'm like, I'm one person trying to do. this, but I actually understand it better now. And I think we've lost a lot of faith in our institutions.

You assume people are lying to you because they do all the time. And I think Fox is a really good perpetrator of that kind of bullshit, right? Everybody's vaccinated, but they're going to continue, especially that the stupid blonde one, what's her name, Ainsley? You know, she's just going to continue to talk about how, like, I don't even know about vaccine. Who know? You know, you know. amazing how just what a complete non-intelligent human being that chick is. But, you know, just constantly what comes out of her mouth is just so unimaginally uninformed and ill-informed. But it works, right? It works to get an audience and there's an agenda there.

And so, yeah, I think, you know, misinformation is an amazing tool and you just need people to not trust in, you know, in their leadership in the government. And I think the government and the media too has done a very poor job in making people trust them. Listen, you know, I'm always kind of yelling about CNN. I think the whole Chris Cuomo thing, how would you feel about CNN being trustworthy and transparent and open when you read through that story? Like, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. You'd be like, yeah, they did a thing that they thought was good for them. And then when it was no longer good for them, they stopped.

Okay, so they don't have, you know, are the listener, the viewers interested at heart. And, you know, I think that happens all over the place across media and also, you know, certainly across government as well. Yeah, that is absolutely what, it's so striking to May. This was so great. Thank you so much for joining us, Audin. It was my pleasure. It's always nice to talk to you.

Thanks for having me. On that note, we'll wrap this episode of the New Abnormal from the Daily Beast. In future episodes, we'll be talking to smart folks from the Daily Beast and beyond from media, culture, politics, and science. We'll help us understand what's happening to our country and the world. We hope you'll subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app and share the show on social media. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you again on the next episode. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our

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