The Daily Signal - From Media Bias to Big Tech Censorship, Brent Bozell Exposes the Left's Misdeeds

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Media bias and dishonest journalism today seem worse than ever. Hollywood is embracing more and more explicit content, and even pushing it on our kids. And conservatives can't catch a break with Big Tech, which has resorted to censoring and suppressing content at an alarming rate. For 35 years, Brent Bozell has taken on the elites in media, Hollywood, and Big Tech. He's built the Media Research Center into a powerhouse, created the Parents Television Council, aided grassroots activists with ForAmerica, and is now championing the First Amendment with the Free Speech Alliance. Bozell joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about the media, Big Tech, and his new book "Stops Along the Way: A Catholic Soul, a Conservative Heart, an Irish Temper, and a Love of Life." And click here to learn more about K9s for Warriors. 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, April 4th. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rob Blewey. On today's show, I interview Media Research Center founder and president Brent Bozell about media bias, big tech, and his new book stops along the way. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a nonprofit that trains service dogs to help American veterans struggling with PTSD. Before we get to today's show, Virginia and I want to tell you about our favorite way to get the news every morning. It's called the Morning Bell, and each weekday, the Daily Signal delivers the top news and commentary directly to your inbox for free. You'll be able to read about the policy debates shaping the agenda, analysis from Heritage Foundation experts, and commentary from leading conservatives like Ben Shapiro, Dennis Breger, and Cal Thomas.

It's easy to sign up. Just visit DailySignal.com and click on the connect button in the top right corner of the page. We'll start sending you the Morning Bell tomorrow. Now stay tuned for today's show, coming up next. Media bias and dishonest journalism today seem worse than ever. Hollywood is embracing more and more explicit content and even pushing it on our kids. And conservatives can't catch a break with big tech, which has resorted to censoring and suppressing content and an alarming rate. For 35 years, Brent Bozell has taken on the elites in media, Hollywood, and big tech. He's built the media research center into a powerhouse, created the parents' television council, aided grassroots activists with For America,

and is now championing the First Amendment with his free speech alliance. I'm honored to have him as a guest in our studio today. Brent, welcome to the Daily Signal. Thank you, Rob. Thank you for having me. You and I first met 20 years ago when I was a reporter for CNSNews.com. Thank you for taking a chance on me back then. It was a remarkable experience and really my introduction to the conservative movement.

It's hard to fathom, though, how much has changed in those past two decades, particularly with the media landscape. As you survey the way things are today, what are your observations, what alarms you? What do you think our audience needs to know about the media? Well, the first thing they need to know is something about Rob Lewy. I don't know why. Well, you're modest and you're humble. But you don't go around telling people a singular accomplishment. when the Troopergate story came out on CBS that said that George Bush had been doing nefarious things when he was in the National Guard.

And it was designed, that being a story designed to derail his presidential re-election bid on October 1st. It was the ultimate October surprise. It turns out that the documents were false, and it was not a typewritten report, as should have been in that year. It was, in fact, a computer printout. And it was Rob Louis who came out with a very first printed report exposing that. And, you know, Rush Limbaugh went all over the air. Bristown Hannity went all over the air. Everybody was on it that night.

the next day, everybody started peeling away from CBS, and ultimately the producer lost her job, and Dan, rather, lost his, as he should have. But it was you. You had the very first printed report on that. So I start by commending you. Thank you, Brett. To your question, what's happened? Someone contacted me yesterday and pointed out that in the book we wrote about 10, 15 years ago,

Tim Graham and I predicted this. We predicted the coming meltdown of the media. And I warned about it because I said in, and Limbaugh and I talked about this because I told Rush, watch out, they're going to do this. They're going to come after you. That the media were like cornered rats. We had so exposed them and so peeled off the veneer of a supposed objectivity that they weren't going to take it. They were going to do what cornered rats do.

They were going to go for the jugular. And here you go. The thing we didn't predict was just how far to the left the Democratic Party would go. And they are at the tipping point of it. They are at the tip of the spear of this Uber radicalism. We didn't see that coming. So that's where they are today. It makes you rue the good old days of Dan Rather and Tom Brokow.

That's how bad they've become. Well, take us back to 1987 because obviously it did look very different then. And one of the biggest changes that I have observed, and you obviously have been part of this, is the conservative media and the growth that we see today, I mean, starting with cnsnews.com in 1998, one of the first digital-only conservative platforms. But today, I mean, if you're coming out of college as a conservative journalist, you have so many options that you can go to. So go back to 1987. What did we have? You had ABC, NBC, CBS. There was this upstart CNN, but it still just wasn't a blitz.

on the scene. You had the Washington Post, you had the New York Times, the LA Times, you had AP, you had UPI, the magazines for Time Newsweek, U.S. Business World Report. What did every single one in having common? Every single one was left wing. There wasn't a single conservative outlet out there. If you wanted to tell your story, had to do it. You could do it one of three ways, four ways. you could give a story to human events with the circulation of about 35,000 that came out once a week. So by the time they published it, the story was come and gone. You could give it to National Review, which had a bigger audience, maybe 65,000, but it published once every two weeks. So the story was way gone.

The third one was Paul Harvey, who would do a commentary from Chicago, and he was fantastic. But that was just Paul Harvey by himself. The fourth one, I guess, is you could roll up a piece of paper. and put it in a bottle and throw in the ocean and hope that it made its way. Or you do direct mail. And you had no. It was kind of, it's kind of freaky to think back then. How could a conservative have been elected to anything when we had in a form of communication?

So Rush Limbaugh, up until the point he died, gave us credit for his show, which is silly. Rush Limbaugh, I think gets 100% credit for show. But this is what he meant. And this is where he was right. I was asked when we started the organization by a potential donor. There were three of us meeting in this old beat-up townhouse, and we had seven employees. We had two desks, but we did have seven phones, and we had a black and white TV and a random computer. And she said, who do you think you are?

Good question. We were going up against a multi-billion dollar industry. And I suggested that there were two reasons she needed to support us. One was because the media played a role with everybody and every issue. And so long as our movement had prime stake ideas, but it went to the grinder and came out raw sewage on the other end to the American people, we weren't going to win the public policy debate. So we had to do something about that. Secondly, that I believe that the media had an Achilles heel.

And that was credibility. If we could get the American people to understand what the media were doing, then if we believe in market economics, we would create an opportunity for others. At that time, when we started, Rob, 75% of the American people believed the media were objective. And by the way, objectivity doesn't exist, but they believed it. So Rush pointed to that, that because we were able to expose the media, there was a market demand for an alternative to. Dan, rather. And I used to tease him that every night you need to get on your knees and pray to Peter Jennings, to the ghost of to Peter Jennings for thanking him for getting you a job. But that's what that's what a, we, we help create an atmosphere, you know, but then others took over. And the Rob

Louie's took over and the Rush Limbaugh's took over. And it's been tremendous from that standpoint. How can conservatives today hold the media accountable? And where should they go to get truthful information. Okay, let's start with the latter first. I don't think there's one single place to go. I worry so much about our bifurcated society today. You know, with social media and the Internet and Google, you have, there's more information at our fingertips that are any time in human history.

All you have to do is ask a question with one click of Google, and there's your answer. But the paradox is that we are now dumber than ever because we don't seek new information. We simply look for cliff notes of cliff notes. We go on Google, we press the first thing. We read the first paragraph. Boom, we're wise. No, we're not. That's all we know.

And the problem on that score is that we are dumbed down. We instinctively, conservatives will instinctively go to Fox. a liberal will instinctively go to MSNBC. And I think that we're conservatives are concerned. Do that. But then go to the BBC. Go to CNN. Go to enemy occupied territory.

Find out what the other side believes and what the other side is saying. Every once in a while, you know, I like BBC, as left wing as they are and they are. But they do cover more news than anybody's stateside. And I do recommend go to those kind of sites. get a deeper understanding of the news instead of the meatball surgery, forensic knowledge. We have to go deeper. So what do you do about media bias? Everyone needs to expose them in their human interaction at all times, and it can be done.

If you're on Facebook, you have lots of people that you connect with. Remember, most people that you connect with don't feel the way you do about the world, But they respect your opinion on the world. There's a study that was done that showed that if you are an American corporation and you advertise on Facebook, you have about a 14% of believability rate. Only 14% believe in that Ford truck. The rash really don't care. Don't pay attention. If you put that exact same commercial on Facebook, Adam Commission, the believability goes up to 70%.

Why? Because it's peers sharing information. If I send you that, that, if it's just out there, no. But if Brent Beaux-El sends it to a cousin who may be a left winger, he's a cousin, and he's going to pay it to me not agree, but he's going to pay attention to it. So social media is a great way. If you're not censored, which is another huge problem, maybe a bigger problem. But you try to get that story out. We have to be storytellers, all of us. And when the media are distorting things, look at this transgenderism issue. Look what they're doing to it. Talk about it.

Don't be afraid. Talk about it. Remember, at all times, overwhelmingly, the American people on almost virtually every single issue are with us. Well, thank you for bringing up the importance of social media. And you and I have sat in meetings with Mark Zuckerberg, and we have been strong advocates for free expression and free speech on these platforms. I think we've seen how conservatives have been able to expand their reach as a result of social media.

However, it seems that the social media companies have decided that their embrace of free speeches is now secondary to their desire to control the narrative, to control and censor and suppress conservative voices. What was the turning point for big tech when they turned against us as conservatives? I think I know when it was. the last four presidential elections have been decided by social media. That's the power of social media. Barack Obama used Facebook to great success in 2008.

In 2012, he doubled down, spent even more resources on Facebook, won re-election. In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidential election using Twitter. And that was the point where they said, in the best Robert Durand voice, no must. They were not going to allow him to win re-election. And that's when you saw the censorship begin. The key point being, if you can censor the president of the United States, you can censor anybody. And once they got away, you know, he was officially censored.

What people don't realize is before being officially censored, he'd been censored, 265 times, and we look to see how many times Joe Biden was censored in that time period, not once. So what is it that that makes them think that they can do this? And Rob, this is key. People have to understand. They believe their censorship is a virtuous thing. These are companies that do not see themselves as American. They call themselves members of the global community at all time.

So what does this global community believe in? They believe in a European form of socialism. In this form of socialism, you put virtue first, freedom second. In our society, we have the Constitution first and then virtue of the application of it second. They see it just the other way around. They see virtue better than more important than freedom. What's virtue? Virtue to them is everything we're against.

They see it as a virtuous thing. The Constitution to them is irrelevant. It does not exist. Hence, banning guns is a good thing because they don't believe in the Second Amendment. And more importantly, Rob, free speech, censorship is a good thing in their minds. Because they don't believe in the First Amendment. And that's the secret sauce here. So you've got an entire industry that understands the incredible, it is more powerful,

than any corporate industry in the history of man. Think about the robber barons. Think about the railroad. All that stuff. That's tiddlywinks compared to the power of Silicon Valley. Three companies are sitting on a trillion dollars cash. Where's the market competition? Apple wants something.

It eats it. You don't need an apple. Apple eats you. They're that big. You can't compete against them. And let's talk about one of the real life consequences of that. So one of the most egregious cases of censorship came another October surprise, if you will, ahead of the 2020 election.

Miranda Devine at the New York Post has a major scoop on Hunter Biden and the corruption and the laptop and everything that was associated with that. Twitter and Facebook and other platforms immediately decided that the story needed to be suppressed. Their audiences couldn't see it.

It was, I think, of all things, and you have polling to suggest that this could have influenced the outcome of the election. It absolutely did. So what is your take? In recent days, the New York Times and other news outlets have come out and now acknowledge that it's true. Are you surprised by this acknowledgement?

And what are your general thoughts on the Hunter Biden story at this point? Okay. So the Hunter Biden story comes out. Now, if this had been, you just asked the obvious, if this had been Don Jr. with a laptop, what would the media do? If in there, they're talking about all these deals and he's done cocaine and he talks about cutting a deal with the Chinese government with the communists. and they're going to hide 10% for quote unquote the big guy. And if this had been Don Jr., there had been no question who the big guy was.

Well, you have all of this come out. And here's the key, Rob, no one in the Biden campaign ever denied it. No one on the Biden family ever said this wasn't true. That tells you everything you need to know. So what was the media's reaction? What was social media's reaction? Facebook. These people do all this underhanded stuff and they get caught all the time.

In this case, Facebook announced they were suppressing it. Twitter just shut down the account for the near post and then started shutting down people who would talk about the story. So they suppressed it. The media had nothing to say. I think there were seconds that they applied to it. That was it. So what was the real world consequence of this? We took a survey after the elections.

It was a fascinating and disturbing survey. It was 1,750 people, so, you know, about as accurate as a poll as you can take. We went into the seven battleground states, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Those were the battleground states. We put a series of questions to Biden's voters. Did you know? And then we asked him, had you, to those who did not know, had you known, would you have voted for Biden? Rob, it was frightening on every single issue.

It was 35, 45, 50.5 percent of the Biden's voters had no idea that America had become energy independent. 49 percent. I had no idea that Biden had won, that Trump had been nominated for three people. Pulitzer prizes. In every case, we then took the 4% for a, you know, whatever the number might be of percent who said they wouldn't have voted for Biden. We put it across those states. And Trump over and over and over again won six of the seven states, 295 votes. Then we got to Hunter Biden. We asked, did you know about Hunter Biden? Now, every conservative knows everything about Hunter Biden. We asked Biden's voters, Rob, I think it's 47% thereabouts of Biden's voters had never heard of Hunter Biden. If you go to CBS, it was never reported.

If you go on Facebook, it wasn't allowed. So that was suppressed. Almost 50% of Biden's voters had never heard about it. So then we said, this is the story. Now passing judgment, this is the story. Would you have voted for Biden had you known? 9.4% almost 10% of Biden's voters in these swing states said they wouldn't have voted for him. We then put that 9.4% across every state, the seven states, again, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

Donald Trump would have won with ease every single state, 311 electoral votes, a landslide. That is what was the consequence of censoring the story. Yeah. And so the New York Times comes out a year and a half later. Whoa, whoopty-do. Thank you so much, New York Times. And yet, and yet, even when the great lady, that font of wisdom where the rest of the media are concerned, come out and say, it is true. And there's an incredible scandal here that is a thousand times worse than Watergate, a thousand times worse than anything else you've seen.

You're dealing with commune. You've got the son going, you know, piggybacking on Air Force two rides and making billion-dollar deals with the communist Chinese, with 10% of it going to the big guy. The last week act, as of several days ago, it's been 265 days since ABC, NBC, or CBS have mentioned the word, Hunter Biden. They still aren't covering it. That's why it's so critical the work that you do, not only at the Media Research Center, but the Free Speech Alliance to bring these issues to the world. forefront. Brent, one last question for you before we wrap. You've written several books over the decades, all of which have really exposed media

bias and brought the spotlight on issues that too often don't get the attention they deserve. But your most recent book is quite different. It's called Stops Along the Way, a Catholic soul, a conservative heart, an Irish temper, and a love of life. It's a personal story about your own life. Tell us what inspired you to write this most recent book. Well, I had some good stories to tell first, but they were different stories.

And it's not a memoir. It's not by autobiography. It is a series of true stories. But what I'm hoping to do is to take the reader back not just to the good old days, but to an extraordinary world of possibilities. I think, Rob, we're not dreamers anymore. We are so concerned with the here and now. as we should be because I think we, this country is very much teeter tottering and I think we're very much at an existential moment. But yet we need to be dreamers too.

We need to think about the world of possibilities. And I take you to a world of possibilities where people have read it and I cannot tell you how many comments I've gotten back. People are writing me from all over the country, either telling their story or telling something that affected them. The second part of the book is more political, telling stories there. and I do tell a story, for example, of a person who I imagine 99 out of 100 conservatives have never heard of. And yet, without him, arguably, there would have been no Reagan revolution. And you've never heard the name. And I worked for the guy.

How many people know the story of John T. Terry Dolan? I tell that story. And when you read the story, and it ends tragically and beautifully. But when you read that story, you're going to say to yourself, if you're a conservative, OMG, I had no idea. Two stories. Brent, thank you so much for sending me a copy of the book. I do appreciate it.

We'll be sure to leave a link in the transcript as well as the show notes for today's episode. Thank you for what you've been doing, not only as a conservative leader, but exposing what's going on in big tech and the media. We are certainly grateful for it and look forward to keeping in touch. Rob, thank you for everything you're doing. We're all guilty of it, spending too much time on the internet watching silly videos. But it's the 21st century, and maybe it's time for a change. At the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel, you'll find videos that both entertain and educate, including virtual events featuring the biggest names in American politics,

original explainers and documentaries, and heritage experts diving deep on topics like election integrity, China, and other threats to our democracy, all brought to you. by the nation's most broadly supported Public Policy Research Institute. Start watching now at Heritage.org slash YouTube and don't forget to subscribe and share.

Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first? In response to Star Parker's commentary, a morally weak Biden invites Putin's aggression. John Wilkerson of Germantown, Maryland, writes, not only did Biden crush America's energy independence, which led to higher gas prices, not Putin,

but Biden also stopped America's ability to export liquefied natural gas. By exporting liquefied natural gas to our European friends and allies, we can wean them off Russian natural gas, in particular the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Putin is a predator whom the good Russian people cannot get rid of due to election rigging. As with any predator, Putin looks for the weak prey. Here is where Joe Biden has stepped in. Pray for Ukraine. Pray for the Russian people.

Pray for America. And in response to Rachel DeJudis's article, Ukraine Zelenskyy shows the world what it means to be a man. We received this letter from Jim Shepazian of California. He writes, Thank you so much for Rachel's article regarding Ukrainian President Zelensky. I don't know anything more about the man, but he truly is standing up for his country and not

leading from behind. Thank you for putting it in context regarding human masculinity, as we have surely lost the edge in our country by listening to those who degrade our men. Keep up the good work, and I will support you and your stand. Your letter can be featured on next week's show. So send us an email at letters at dailysignal.com. Virginia Allen here, I want to tell you all about a great way you can stay in the know on all the news the Daily Signal covers. Social media. The Daily Signal has an active presence on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. We are constantly posting news stories, clips from interviews, videos, and more across all our social platforms. Follow the Daily Signal on social media so you can get all the latest content from Reels on Instagram to video clips on Facebook and political commentary on Twitter.

Virginia in a world where we so often hear bad news, we love to start the show and the week with a good news story. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you so much, Rob. Well, I was recently down in Florida, and I had a chance to learn about a pretty great organization. You know, sometimes we hear this question, who saved who, in relation to pets and their owners. This is the question that is often asked by many veterans who work with a group called canines for warriors. The Florida-based nonprofit Canines for Warriors rescues dogs often from high-kill shelters. and trains them to be service dogs for veterans who are struggling with PTSD or who have suffered from a traumatic brain injury. Their mission is to save two lives, giving the dog a loving home and the veteran the hope and peace of mind to return to civilian life.

I met combat veteran Becca Stevens and her canine Bobby, and they are one such pair that have really benefited from this program. Becca served in the military for four years, and when she finished, her service, she struggled with PTSD and developed a heroin addiction. Despite her best efforts to return her life to normal, she really still struggled. I tried rehab, I tried therapy, I tried medications, and nothing really fit the bill for me until I came into this program. Canines for Warriors matched Becca with Bobby, a sweet yellow lab. Bobby, like all the Canines for Warriors' dogs has gone through special training to help veterans like Becca feel safe in daily life. So the training takes, depending on the dog, anywhere from five months to a year, and you're

basically training the dog basic commands from sit, stay, heal, to more complex commands that the veterans can use in public. There's some commands where you can have the dog watch your bat. which is incredible for veterans. You know, we're always a little iffy about having our back turned just like I am right now. And, you know, these commands give us the confidence, right, to go out in public and to do things and to be normal. Becca is not only a recipient of a canines for Warriors dog, but also works with the program now, helping other veterans find healing through the love and safety of a canine companion.

Canines for Warriors has served more than 700 veterans. since its founding in 2011, and among those veterans served, 82% say they struggle less with suicidal thoughts now that they have a dog by their side, and 92% say they have reduced the amount of medications that they're on. They've completely changed my life, right? Coming from post-traumatic stress disorder and using drugs to self-medicate now to being out here and talking to you and just smiling. Right? Because people take that for granted.

But like, she's just the greatest addition to my life that I could have ever asked for. Canines for Warriors is the largest provider of service dogs for veterans. And if you want to find more, if you would like to get involved or learn more about their work, you can visit caninesfor warriors.org. And we'll be sure to put that link in the show notes as well. Virginia, I'm so glad you had that experience. Thanks for sharing that story today. Absolutely. It was a nice bright spot in a reporting trip to Florida getting to hang out with some dogs that are doing some great work.

It sure sounds like it. Well, we're going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rurkissue audio network. All of our shows are available at DailySignal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. If you like the show, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot to us and helps to spread the word to even more listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Daily Signal and Facebook. dot com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation.

The executive producers are Rob Blewey and Kay Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Doug Blair. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.