The Daily Signal - 'Fake News Is a Threat to Our Republic'

Episode Date: December 16, 2019

Accuracy in Media recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Founded by Reed Irvine to combat liberal media bias, Accuracy in Media has a new leader. Adam Guillette speaks to The Daily Signal about his plans for the organization, the threat of "fake news," and the media's attacks on President Donald Trump.    Also on today's show: We read your letters to the editor. You can leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write to us at [e-mail]. And we share a good news story about a Marine veteran and his family who were surprised with a special gift during this Christmas season. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at dailysignal.com/podcasts.   Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, December 16th. I'm Robert Blewey. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we share Rob's interview with Adam Gleett, the president of accuracy and media. They discuss media bias and how conservatives can effectively communicate policy solutions. We also share your letters to the editor and a good news story about a Marine veteran and his family who were surprised with a special gift during this Christmas season.

Before we get to today's show, Rob and I would like to take. tell you about the agenda, a Heritage Foundation email that provides you with the news conservatives need to know every week. That's right. The agenda comes out on Monday morning and gives you the conservative perspective on top policy debates, along with television interviews from our experts and important events happening at the Heritage Foundation. You can sign up by emailing managing editor at heritage.org or scroll down to the bottom of the Heritage Foundation website. That's www.heritage.org and look for the subscribe to email updates section at the bottom of the page. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We are joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by

Adam Gillette, the president of accuracy and media. Adam, welcome. Hey, thank you so very much for having me. It is great to have you in studio today. A lot to cover. Your organization has been around from the start, really of the conservative movement, the modern conservative movement, as we know it. And you are doing some really transformational things. So I want to delve in to a couple of those. But before we begin, share with our listeners the mission of accuracy and media and what it is you do. Sure. Reid Irvine founded our organization in 1969, because that was a time where you had Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America,

lying to Americans about what was happening in the Vietnam War. So he set out to use a combination of citizen activism and investigative journalism. journalism to create a healthy skepticism of the media. And when he passed away just over a decade ago, the New York Times credited or blamed, depending on how you view it, blamed him with creating skepticism towards the media today. And of course, so 1969, you mentioned Vietnam War. It was also just five years after Barry Goldwater had made his run for president. So, I mean, pre-Ronald Reagan and a lot of the figures that modern conservatives really identify with.

I mean, you were at the Vanguard way back then. to do the type of work that you were doing. That's exactly right. They were doing investigative journalism before it was cool. They were the hipsters of investigative journalism. They were taking on media bias using citizen activism before the Internet. Before you could send out an action alert and get all of your followers to email this person or email this congressman, they would mail postcards to their supporters and say, fill this out, send it to the address on there and tell them what you think about that article in the paper.

They were doing brilliant stuff at a much more difficult time when there was no real precedent for how. how to do it or how you go about, you know, exposing media bias. They were making it up as they went along and they did it very well. So you just celebrated this 50th anniversary in Washington. You're new to the organization as its leader. Tell us about where you want to see and take the organization in the future. Sure. Well, I want to bring back our great history of investigative journalism.

I think moral outrage is the most powerful force in all of politics and nothing elicits moral outrage better than hidden camera, undercover investigative journalism. And it is a target-rich environment. There are so many folks in the media and outside the media that should be exposed. There are some incredibly powerful targets in the media that nobody really talks about. People complain about Rachel Maddow or they complain about the New York Times. Most of the people watching MSNBC already are of that political persuasion. I'm more worried about the influence from sites like Now This and BuzzFeed.

People signed up for Now This on Facebook because of puppy videos. isn't like puppy videos. Fast forward a couple of years, they have 10 million followers, and they start putting out news that's so biased that CNN calls them out for it. And they're reaching easily influenced young people who signed up for puppy videos and sharing propaganda with them on a daily basis. That's dangerous. Oh, yeah. It's really remarkable to see the growth of some of these sites. I mean, you probably don't necessarily, if you're a parent or somebody who doesn't necessarily keep tabs on what the millennial generation or Gen Z is following, that's how they are consuming their news. They're not getting it through the traditional broadcast, the evening newscast, or the newspaper. I mean, they are turning to sites and platforms like Snapchat and Twitter to consume that news and information. I want to go back to the investigative reporting piece of it because you previously were at Project Veritas, so you obviously have some knowledge and experience doing some of those undercover investigations. Talk to us about how that experience kind of shaped your view and why you think that is so important to pursue what accuracy and media.

Well, I think, you know, in a lot of my background, I've really come to the conclusion that politics is so much more determined by emotion than by fact than logic. For better and for worse, we would argue for worse. And we can either sit around and bemoan the fact that political voters don't make their decisions logically and largely make them emotionally, or we can embrace the fact that human beings are creatures of emotion. They make decisions emotionally and then search for logic and facts to back them up. So I think the most effective method of persuasion is leading with emotion and backing it up with facts. The left is they're masters in emotion. We resign ourselves to facts and statistics and put people to sleep. Say we're debating Obamacare.

We'll stack up all the facts and statistics and prove that it's a bad idea. And someone might say, okay, I kind of agree. The left comes in and says, well, what about that single mother over there? And just like that, the battle's been lost. So one thing I learned at Veritas and previously at the Moving Picture Institute is that when you use, emotional arguments to draw people in, that gets them to understand how much you care, and that gets them to care. And then you can use your facts and logic and statistics to back up your argument and say,

this isn't anecdotal, in fact, X, Y, and Z. I think it's a great one to punch that our entire movement could be utilizing. It's a much better way to get people to pay attention to policy papers and graphs and statistics and so forth when you lead with the emotional arguments that investigative journalism can bring forth. Adam, I wholeheartedly agree. I hear it often from our president at the Heritage Foundation, K. Coles, James. It's one of the reasons we started the Daily Signal five years ago was to do a better job of exactly what you're describing.

It is challenging, I think, for conservatives because we too often want to resort right to the facts and the data and the numbers. But those stories are so powerful and can be incredibly helpful in terms of convincing people and persuading them that our solutions really are going to lead to a better life for all Americans. That's right. And that we're not just calculated pencil pushers obsessed with numbers that we actually care about individuals, that we actually care about you and so forth. And the kind of stuff you're talking about is what most effectively accomplishes that. So tell us a little bit about how somebody could go about finding the work that you're doing as you're producing this investigative reporting. Where do they go to find it? Sure. Our website, of course, is aim.org.

We're also on all the social media channels. And we literally just relaunched a couple of weeks ago. And we're working right now to hire investigative journalists and to build a small cadre or small. army of them out there working on a variety of fronts in a variety of states. I can't specifically name too many of our targets right now, but it is an incredibly target-rich environment that we face. Our movement could use umpteen organizations doing investigative journalism to bring our ideas to light, to expose morally outrageous behavior, and I'm excited for what we're going to accomplish next year. Well, and I'm not even sure our listeners know, but prior to the Daily Signal

launching, we had an investigative reporting team here at the Heritage Foundation, so that was a precursor to what eventually became the Daily Signal. I admire you. It's hard work. It's not easy. It takes time and a lot of effort on the part of journalists who are pursuing investigative reporting, but I give you credit for doing it. You mentioned social media just a moment ago.

It is increasingly difficult for conservatives, it seems, to get their message out using the social media platforms. We have heard all sorts of debates recently about whether or not companies are going to ban political advertising and whether or not algorithms are biased against conservatives. conservatives. I wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in on what you think the current state of affairs is with some of these social media platforms. Sure. Now, we're certainly dealing with tremendous difficulties with sites like Twitter and Facebook. You know, Twitter was caught shadow banning. They said they were trying to block Russian bots from taking over their site. When asked what terms they used to flag a Russian bot, they said, well, people are tweeting about God, guns, American flag emoji.

Then you know it's a bot. These are the people that we're dealing with. people who think that if you've got an American flag emoji, you're obviously a Russian bot because somebody living in Silicon Valley never confronted anyone in their life who would use an American flag emoji in a non-ironic sense. So that absolutely is a challenge. I would say we've got a lot of self-inflicted wounds with social media as well. We're very often happy to be in our own echo chamber and share stuff that's really only of interest to people who share our beliefs. We'll endlessly virtue signal about, you know, pro-life causes as if we're going to save one baby with every like and babies with every share, ignoring the fact that everyone in my social network is already pro-life.

You know, I think that's a big problem with it. Other times, organization within our movement create content that really are only appealing to our echo chamber, only appealing to our supporters, and aren't necessarily of interest to the easily persuadable 19-year-olds. And it's a challenge, because if you've got to pitch something to a financial supporter of your organization, it's got to appeal to them. But obviously, what's going to appeal to a 65-year-old may not be as appealing to a 19-year-old And I think we can more better balance that and make sure that the content we create in social is going after that actual audience.

Well, and you've had experience doing it, obviously, even before coming to accuracy in media, Project Veritas or the Moving Picture Institute. I mean, so what are some of the ways? What's the advice that you have for people who might be listening now who are active on social media? How can they do a better job of breaking out of those echo chambers? Well, just like if you're giving a speech to an audience, the first thing is know your audience. Who are you going after? Speak in their language. If your audience only spoke French, you would at the very first.

at least have subtitles, but so frequently we'll create content that really is only appealing to our group. And it's understandable because it's so rare to see content for us. You know, there's you guys, there's some others out there. But if I turn on TV, odds are it's going to be a left-wing point of view offering comedy. If I turn on a network show, odds are it's going to be a left-wing storyline subtly being put through. So I can understand why people are so excited to make content that's specifically for us. But if we seek to persuade, if we don't just seek to motivate the the goal should be knowing your audience and trying to actually persuade them and speaking in a language that they speak in. A lot of times, you know, we'll see videos created that are incredibly long on our side and incredibly fact-based.

Well, if you have a 12-minute video and consistently people are clicking away on YouTube after two minutes, YouTube is going to downrank your video like crazy. And you'll sit there and say, well, those jerks are biased against conservatives, those jerks. Well, no, it's because YouTube wants you to watch videos for the rest of your life. They'd like you to watch one video until it ends, then another, then another. And if people are clicking away two minutes into your video, they don't want people to see your video. It's your own darn fault. Our side needs to embrace more effective tactics on YouTube and on Facebook and Twitter.

That's so true. I mean, look, I had an opportunity earlier this year to attend the social media summit that President Trump hosted at the White House. And I believe he either was asked or he referenced the fact that some people say you wouldn't be president if it weren't for social media. He says he would be president regardless. But I have my own doubts. I think that social media definitely gave him a direct line of communication to the American people. He's still using it, obviously, with Instagram and Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. I think it's so important that conservative leverage that opportunity.

I mean, for years, we complained about the media serving as a filter and not letting through the information that we were trying to get out there to more and more Americans. And I think that's one of the reasons you do have concerns about some of the social media. companies today is that they don't want to see information restricted or limited, but you have to create effective content that people want to consume as well. That's exactly right. Certainly there's bias against conservatives. Certainly the power they have is incredibly dangerous. We often talk about Eisenhower's farewell address and how we warned about the military

industrial complex. In that same speech, he warned about the dangers of a technological elite that could take over our nation without us even realizing it. That danger exists with Google and with Facebook. with Twitter. Google can redefine words like they did with fascism without you even realizing it. You know, three years ago, Google defined fascism as a left wing ideology, which it is. Soon as Trump started getting called a fascist, they redefined the term as a right-wing ideology. What a dangerous power. Similarly, Facebook, they know your political inclinations.

They can make it so on election day. If you're of a political inclination, they like, they've got banners in the top saying, vote today, vote today, vote today. And if they disagree with your beliefs, those banners ain't there. That's a tremendous. this power they've got. But the first thing we need to focus on, no self-inflicted wounds. Let's at least use them as effectively as we can. You know, Mark Zuckerberg gave a big speech here in Washington, D.C. at Georgetown University, where he talked about the benefits of free speech and why he wanted to keep Facebook as open to different points of view as possible. He came under some fire for that from those on the left,

which, you know, it seems that they don't necessarily agree with that instinct that we should have freedom to speak our minds. Do you think that he's sincere in those? remarks? Do you think Facebook, you know, is trying to position itself differently from some of those other social media platforms, or is this just lip service? Even if he's fully sincere, let's assume that he doesn't have control over every bit of his organization every day. As Project Veritas exposed, there were folks inside the organization who were demonetizing and downranking people, you know, endlessly, just as we saw at Twitter. So it's more to the company than Mark Zuckerberg. He's not the only one there. And what we need to do is first use.

these platforms properly. And second, if we find legitimate instances that we can prove of them being biased, let's expose that again and again and again and again and create that outrage amongst the American people as a whole that will cause them to reform their ways. They're always going to have a cranky, loud, leftist majority that they probably go to cocktail hours with every Thursday afternoon that is going to have their ear telling them that they should be blocking hate speech. And we've got to be aware of that and we have to counterbalance it with a majority in America of people who think that it should be a platform for all viewpoints and those folks putting pressure on Facebook from the other side.

Adam, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about President Trump, who we've talked about and somebody who has coined the term fake news, he's constantly criticizing the media as being biased against him despite the tremendous economic success he's had in this country leading it as the president. What are your thoughts on the traditional media, the national news media, as coverage of him, particularly as we head into an election year? Well, as we've even seen at the New York Times, Project Veritas exposed, they're all chasing the Trump bump. It's an era of declining clicks, declining subscriberships and so forth.

So they've given up objective journalism and instead are writing any kind of anti-Trump content they can because they know there's a rabid base of people who want to read that content and it'll sell. It's almost as if they're writing fan fiction in their newspapers and on their websites because that's of interest to that base of subscribers. and that's morally outrageous. Don't pretend to be a journalist. The greatest threat to real news is fake news. These folks say that, you know, attacking the news is a threat to our democracy. Their fake news is a threat to our republic. It's morally outrageous.

Adam, you know, the other thing that I associated with that is certainly this polls indicating that the trust in media and journalists is, you know, what would appear to be, a record lows. I mean, increasingly, it seems that the American people are looking for alternative. sources, probably places like accuracy and media in the Daily Signal because they have lost trust in those mainstream platforms. So I just ask you, what is it that you're going to do at accuracy in media to make sure that you are on the same level and breaking through and having success as a New York Times or a Washington Post or a big TV network?

Well, we're going to confirm suspicions. We're going to expose bias. We're going to catch people engaged in morally outrageous behavior and maintain a healthy skepticism. And I think when these folks get exposed again and again and again, it'll cause some people to reform their ways. We've got a profession now where it's much like contractors or trial lawyers or politicians. The few remaining good journalists are going to want to be in a position where they say, these folks are giving me a bad name and they'll start to speak out against the fake news going on out there.

Adam, as we wrap up here, anything else you'd like our audience to know about the work you're doing at accuracy and media and your new leadership of the organization. Sure. We'll follow us on all of our social media platforms. accuracy in media. One thing we're launching in the beginning of next year is we're going to be working with conservative social media influencers to expose influencers and celebrities and reporters sharing fake news online. I think there are so many celebrities out there who are far more influential with news than any journalist that we would talk about. Because if you're a young person, you're not following Rachel Maddow on Twitter unless you're a leftist, but you might be following Jaden Smith or Justin Bieber. and they'll be incredibly influential when they share fake news. Well, we're building an army of folks who will activate as soon as we see that sort of thing being shared and respond to it,

not in a tribal divisive manner saying you blankety blank sharing fake news, but rather when George DeKay shared the photos of kids in cages on the border, immigrant children, and said, darn you, Trump, for doing this, people responded and said, appreciate your concern about kids on the border. That photos from the Obama administration. And to his credit, DeKay corrected the record in a pocket. I think if we can replicate that again and again and again and say to these celebrities and to these influencers, listen, I appreciate your concern and an X issue, but what you shared was wrong. People will either be more hesitant to share fake news because they don't want to get called out and look like a fool, or they'll start actually checking their facts before they get out there. And they'll apologize when they screw it up.

We can certainly hope that this is successful because I can tell you that I still hear repeated to this day, the claim. about President Trump in cages. So, I mean, you can even have an apology, but because of the cultural influence and the way that news spreads, sometimes that message doesn't ever filter back to the people who saw the original post. So it's really important that you're doing this project. I'd also say culture, as Andrew Breitbart always said, is upstream from politics, right? So, I mean, these cultural figures, these celebrities are oftentimes the ones at the forefront, and the politicians are the ones lagging behind. Politicians are followers, not leaders. They follow the polls. They follow the polls. They follow the

celebrities, they follow the money. These folks in the culture have a much greater influence over our nation than a Rachel Maddow or even as Sean Hannity does. Although those people have tremendous value for what they do, they're not as much reaching undecided folks and easily persuaded young people as these celebrities are. Adam Gillette, thanks so much for joining the Daily Signal. Congratulations on your new role at Accuracy and Media. We wish you the best. Thank you so very much for having me. If you're tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger and bigger government, it's time to partner

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Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature our favorites on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Virginia, who's up first? Stephen Reagan of Lancaster, New Hampshire, writes, Dear Daily Signal, I want to thank Fred Lucas for his daily summary report and the Daily Signal on the House impeachment hearings. I can't force myself to suffer through this third-rate circus. I also think Lucas deserves a long vacation once this is over. Well, you can find all of Fred Lucas's articles on the impeachment hearings at daily signal.com. And Elizabeth Ferrari of Buffalo, Texas writes,

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Send an email to Letters at dailysignal.com or leave us a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. What the heck is trickle-down economics? Does the military really need a space force? What is the meaning of American exceptionalism? I'm Michelle Cordero. I'm Tim Desher. And every week on the Heritage Explains podcast, we break down a hot-button policy issue in the news at a 101-level. Through an entertaining mix of personal stories, media clips, music, and interviews, we help you actually understand the issues.

So do this. Subscribe to Heritage Explains on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast today. Virginia, we always enjoy beginning the week with a good news story. So over to you to tell us what you have on tap this week. Thanks so much, Rob. Well, you know, one of my favorite parts about Christmas time is all of the beautiful lights that we see on houses. and probably many of us grew up helping our parents decorate the house inside and out for Christmas. But getting those lights up in trees and on bushes is a big task.

And for Marine veteran Chris Scott and his family, it just was not possible this year. Scott served in the Marines for eight years in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti. He was medically discharged eight years ago and has been battling stage three cancer for two years. This year, Scott was just not well in. enough to decorate the outside of his family's Florida home. So Florida power and light stepped into help. The team of volunteers covered the outside of Scott's home with beautiful Christmas lights and decorations. Standing with his wife and kids in his driveway, Scott expressed his gratitude to those who gave their time to decorate his home. They wanted to get lights up.

So we were going to start trying to work out this week, but I haven't been feeling too good lately, so this helps out a lot. With his house beautifully decorated for Christmas, Scott and his family and the generosity of Florida Power and Light serve as such a great reminder that the men and women who have served our nation need our support, sometimes just in really practical ways. To do and to come home and be taken care of by people and people caring and doing things like this, it's just, it's really special.

Of course, we want to wish all of our listeners a very big. Merry Christmas. We hope that you're enjoying this season and hope that you're encouraged this season by Scott's story that you might be able to think of someone in your community who you can help and be a blessing to. That's great advice, Virginia. Thanks for finding that story this week. Absolutely. It's always, always fun to share a little bit of good news in the midst of so much craziness going on in the world. It certainly is. And we're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast comes to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rurcashay Audio Network.

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