The Daily Signal - How to Fix the Media

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Today on "The Daily Signal Podcast," we are featuring the latest episode of "The Kevin Roberts Show." The podcast includes an interview with Townhall reporter Julio Rosas, author of “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful: The 2020 Riots and Media Gaslighting of America." Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, March 14th. I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, we are switching it up just a little bit and bringing you the latest episode of the Kevin Roberts Show, a new podcast from the Heritage Foundation. Kevin speaks with Julio Rosas, a reporter for Town Hall and Marine veteran who has traveled the country to cover riots and the border crisis. He's also joined by our own Rob Bluey, who discusses the media's failures and how they're The Daily Signal is positioned to be your trustworthy source of news. If you like what you hear today, be sure to subscribe to the Kevin Robert Show wherever you listen to your podcast. And you can also watch the full episode on the Heritage Foundation's YouTube channel. We hope you enjoy the show. Really frustrated, especially as someone who was at these events and people who weren't. And then they're saying, well, here's how it went down. And I'm like, no, no, no, no.

And again, that's part of the reason why I wrote the book. Because I was at all these different places. and seeing it firsthand and experiencing firsthand, and people need to know what actually happened at these folks. Welcome to the Kevin Roberts Show. For this episode, we're going to talk about something we consume every day. We watch it, we read it, we listen to it on our computers, on phones, and our televisions, and if you like me, on talk radio.

It's the news. More specifically, though, we're going to talk about what's wrong with so many legacy and corporate media outlets. It's disappointing to say the least. But unfortunately, it's become all too common. So how do we confront the fact that so much of what we consume is advancing someone's political agenda

rather than revealing the truth? At a time when we need solid facts, Americans are often poorly served. What should we do when we feel we have no reliable sources to turn to? Are there still media outlets we can trust? To answer those questions, We'll talk to someone who is doing shoe leather reporting and journalism the way it's supposed to be.

Julio Rosas, a reporter for Town Hall, is someone who's been on the front lines of critical stories. We'll also chat with Heritage's own Rob Lewy, founding editor of the Daily Signal. If this is your first time watching or listening, then I'd like to thank you for tuning in. And if you're returning, welcome back. We're grateful you've subscribed. Each week, we're diving into issues that matter with voices across the conservative movement, and equipping freedom lovers across the country to go on offense. In an ideal world, we'd expect all our news and media outlets to be fair and honest. After all, we depend on the information they convey to be factual and accurate.

Unfortunately, that can be hard to come by. So many of our major networks are less focused on the truth than they are on an agenda they're bent on pushing. You don't need me to tell you that. Just turn on your television. And the American people agree. Trust in media has dropped precipitously over the past decade, more so with Republicans and conservatives than anyone else. That's probably because the news media framed decent people whose views don't align with their own as radicals, gaslighting millions of Americans in the process. Just take the Freedom Convoy in Canada, for example.

Most of the protesters are reasonable people taking a stand against an oppressive and unfair COVID mandate. Much of the media, however, has portrayed them as radicals and extremists been on disorder in fueling conspiracies about public health. Or take their coverage of the Biden administration. His presidency has been marked by disaster after disaster. He's been indecisive and dishonest. His administration's incompetence, combined with a historic left-wing radicalism, is causing misery and hardship across the country. Do they hold him and his administration under the same scruples with which they do? did President Trump?

How about we recall the summer of 2020? We watched cities around our country burn. Angry mobs ravaged communities, places we call home, by looting stores and wreaking havoc. Major news networks told us these were just mostly peaceful protests. But in Portland, they sieged a federal courthouse. In Kenosha, they literally burned businesses to the ground. In Seattle, they established an autonomous zone, purely for

or anarchy. Joining me on the show is someone who was actually there, Town Hall journalist and U.S. Marine veteran Julio Rosas. I had the chance to speak with Julio just a couple of weeks ago at CPAC about his experience on the ground in Kenosha as a journalist. He spoke about the violence, the coverage of it, and the state of news and media in this country, and where Americans who want accurate reporting can find it. We'll go to that next. But first, don't forget to subscribe to the Kevin Robert Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please give the show a five-star rating while you're at it. High ratings help us reach more people like you. Stay with us. I'll be right back with Julio Rosas. Big Tech is out of

control. If they can silence the sitting president, what can they do to you? The Heritage Foundation has been on the front lines, fighting for free speech. We spotlight big tech censorship, demand reform and help you fight for your rights. Heritage was the first conservative organization to reject big tech's money because this is too important. We won't be silenced. Buleo, thanks for the work you do. You're one of the great patriots in the country. I think a lot of our viewers, of course, see you and your work, read your work, and it's just a pleasure to have you on our show at the Heritage Foundation. I want to cut to the chase because you're a guy who, while you're optimistic like most of us, you also believe that because of your optimism, we got to diagnose

some problems straight up. Absolutely. And one of the problems is, as you went to Kenosha, which of course was ground zero, as I would say, you saw some of our fellow Americans in their worst situation. That is to say, some of our fellow Americans initiating violence and their worst behavior and other Americans, business owners, people who were just mining their own business really suffering from that, I want to give you an opportunity to address our audience and us a sense of what it was like, but then secondly, we should have some optimism about America getting past that point. Yeah, so, I mean, Kenosha, I feel out of all the riots that I covered in 2020 and even 2021, I feel really heartbroken about that city because it's not Minneapolis, it wasn't

Portland, it wasn't Seattle. It's literally this blue-collar town in Wisconsin that not a lot of people knew about it. Actually, I knew about it before it became the Kenosha that people know about it today. And so just having, knowing that it has a town of about 100,000 people, it's in between Milwaukee, it's in between Chicago, I just knew that they were not, the local and even the county authorities were not going to be able to handle the rights that was going to come towards them. So that's why I booked the first flight there. And when I got there, it was, I mean, it was very familiar because at that point I've been to Minneapolis, I'd been to all these other places. But it was also very much a small town. And one of the dichotomies between

that was it has a very nice lakefront area. So you look out. People forget that. You see a lake, you see a nice, beautiful lake, and then you turn around, and there's just like devastation right behind you. And it just went on and on until, you know, the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings, which I also saw. And so, but overall, it was, it was just an average American town that has seen kind of what happens when the American workforce moves overseas and all that. And so they're just kind of kind of cleaning on. And then, you know, obviously they were also suffering from the COVID restrictions too.

and so it just got kicked when they were down. So Kenosha was one of the worst aspects in terms of that. With the optimism, I think, obviously, it's not, thankfully not completely destroyed. It doesn't look like a Lapo or anything like that. But they're resilient, right? I mean, they are Americans, and they've been able to persevere through the media circus that follow the riots and then through the media circus, which maybe I was a part of during the written house trial. You're on the right side.

Well, I mean, it's just the facts of what happened that night. And so, but it was nice to see being back there, some of the places that, some of the people, and kind of reconnecting with them that I interviewed the year prior, and seeing some of the other businesses that were destroyed or were heavily damaged, and the business owners actually making a comeback in that area. And I think that's a good thing to also highlight when covering these types of events. I'm curious how recent it was that you returned to Kenosha. So I wrote a book, fiery, but mostly peaceful.

And for research for that book, obviously I talk about my experience during the riots, but I also kind of documented some of the aftermath and the recovery. And I was there at different points. And it was weird because obviously being there and now all of a sudden it's just a normal average day, there's no craziness happening during when there's sunlight. But especially when I was covering the written house trial at the courthouse, it was really weird being back there because now everything that happened in 2020 was back at the forefront and it was very much on people's minds and so it like I said it was good to see kind of

the progress that was being made in the recovery efforts for them but I mean like I said they're just they're just your everyday Americans and they and they and they understood the like why they were in the media again and they understood like why kind of what happened to them wasn't really great yeah but they just wanted to move on and and you know who can blame them because it was a very traumatic experience. And really what Kenosha told the country is that if it can happen in a place like that, it can happen anywhere. Yeah, that's right. In fact, I was going to ask you that question. One of my best friends who also does policy work and is a great communications fellow like you, Josh Trevino in Texas, was the first to alert me to that reality about Kenosha. That is what you

just said. He said, Kevin, if that violence can happen in Kenosha, Wisconsin, it can happen in any place in the United States. And I think that's the sort of crucial thing for people. who are watching this or who maybe someone who's not yet read your book to understand that that isn't just some strange place where this this strange set of circumstances came together. It could happen anywhere. And that's why I think you've probably been motivated to pursue that work. Right. And, you know, unfortunately, the country in 2020 was just a tenderbox.

I mean, you had the election, you had the emergency of COVID and all that. So, I mean, really, if it wasn't George Floyd, I think there would have been something else to have, like, set things off. And so, but that was the problem with Kenosha because that wasn't the first place. That was far from the first place that I was experiencing a right. And that's kind of why there was frustration of why it took so long for actual law enforcement help, why it took the National Guard a lot longer, why the Democratic governor only called up 150 National Guardsmen, which is, I mean, in my experience, that's not nearly enough, even for a town of that size. Like you need, you need to overwhelm that place or else then there's going to be an absence of law and order. That's right. And then it's going to create conditions like the written house case where, you know, yeah, people saw what they initially saw or they heard.

And then, but even today, even today is so shocking to see how much people believe falsehoods and lies about that case. And, you know, whether he should have been there or not, it doesn't really matter. And just because he was there. And why was he there? Because there was literally no law and order. Yeah. And again, that's what was so disturbing about that, that this wasn't some major, major city. It was just a medium-sized town on the lake. Yeah, sort of a cross-section of America, if you will. Absolutely.

I remember in that same year, leaving the White House, there were thousands of people there for President Trump's acceptance speech or some part of the RNC. And look, that's my political bias. I would protect. I would like to think to the, the right of people on the other side to do the same, but this is the point. I wasn't too far away as I was leaving the White House that night from Senator Paul and his wife, who were assaulted. And I was walking back to the hotel and my teenage son was at the hotel and I only had four blocks to go. And he was texting me, said, Dad, I'm not sure how you're even going to get to the hotel. And I was thinking, what is talking about?

These people were so violent. They were so vulgar. I was so embarrassed as an American. I asked one of them as politely as I could because I didn't want to engage them. Why are you here? I mean, you can be mad at me. That's fine. Let's not get any sort of physical education. Why are you here? Because of you, because of you're evil. And you wonder, what is it about America today that would cause people to say that? And not that it hurt my feelings, as much as it really disappointed me as an American that it seems as if we can't even have

political disagreements, however stark they may be without resorting to a bunch of nonsense and a bunch of violence. The question for you, Julio, is, do you see us being able to turn the corner ever from this really bad spot that you've seen up close and personal. I mean, it's hard, right? Because you're right, that person that you interacted with, they just didn't think that one day. They've learned or they've, is the people that they hang around and what they consume, whether it's on social media,

or whether it's other parts of the media. So to be fully honest with you, because, you know, hey, I deal in facts, I don't, I'm unoptimistic. I'm not optimistic about that. And it's because, and maybe this is because I'm pretty jaded. Because what did you saw? Because I just keep, I just saw it, repeat it over and over and over again. And then seeing the reaction to, I mean, the perfect example was when I was outside the Minneapolis third precinct when it was evacuated, when it was ordered to be evacuated at the start of everything.

And I posted the video of the officers evacuating and they were attacked as they were leaving and all that. and there were quite a few people on Twitter that were just be ecstatic about it. They're like, oh, heck, yeah, because this is what they want, because they wanted to burn down the police station, which is a pretty significant, that's no small beings, especially in a major American city. And so, but the problem with that is that, okay, like, okay, you can be mad at the police with George Floyd, but even when they achieved their objective that they wanted to do, guess what they did?

They didn't go home. They just continued the rampage because they already got their primary target, So they went after secondary targets, which was just... Which was easy, right? Which was a lot easier. It was small, because there was literally no police left. So that's an extreme example, but it's not... But I wouldn't say it's a rare example, unfortunately,

because then that's how to do the Chaz shop in Seattle was created because, again, it was similar. The rioters were battling the Seattle police for days on end, and so they thought, well, we'll just leave. And so thankfully, that police station wasn't burned down, but again, they felt so emboldened. to do something like that, the rioters, because, well, they did in Minneapolis. So, I mean, it just, it daisy chains.

And it puts us in a very bad spot. And so, you know, the last riot I covered was in April of last year in Brooklyn Center right before the Derek Schoen verdict. And, you know, there hasn't been that many major riots since then. But I just, I'm very, I, personally, I'm kind of concerned about the, the 2024 election, and depending on how, you know, who wins that. I mean, so, so to answer, you know, to full come back to your question, I don't, I'm not optimistic about whether we can really reconcile a large part of political differences

to the point where it's in human, it's in, there's no humanity to it. Yeah, and that's just a follow-up question, which is not to pressure you or put you on the spot. I'm genuinely curious as I know our audience will be, let's say, I mean, what we do at Heritage often when we're struck with these diagnoses of problems that just seem insurmountable is say, okay, I'm going to give you a magic wand. Here's the magic wand. The magic wand can be for policy, it can be for culture, society. You know, what's that one thing or those two things if you're going to wave your

magic wand to make you more optimistic about correcting that problem? So I would say that we'd have a more honest media. Ah, there we go. I mean, like, I mean, that to me is number one because, I mean, I see every day someone who lives and breathes media and looks at it, because I understand that a lot of average Americans who actually have actual lives, they're not, they're not watching the news as close as I am. And honestly, that's like better for them. But just, it's so, it's so weird seeing how a lot of times the media gets all these little things wrong, whether on purpose or not, but it's like, well, that's not really true or maybe because,

you know, for whatever reason, but that builds up over time. And then you have the extreme cases, like example, the Rittenhouse case, where people were saying, oh, he brought an AR-15 over state lines, which was, which if they watched the trial at all, they would have found out that, no, the rifle was bought and stayed in Wisconsin the whole time. The only time across the state line was when written house turn himself into police in Illinois. And so that builds a narrative of like this is some vigilante white supremacist mass shooter, which covered in house is far from. And so, you know, if I had that wand, I would definitely say, like, I mean, just having a better media,

a media that understood, you know, by and large, that they have a lot of power. They have a lot of influence, especially with social media now, you know, plugged into that. I mean, because people just scroll and they don't may, they may not read the full story. They may just see the headline. Okay, you have nothing. And then they scroll past it. but even that headline might not be correct. Yeah.

I mean, so if they really understood just how much power they have, and maybe they do, and maybe that's why they do it. I don't know. I don't know. There's a lot of questions about that. But it's just, it's just I get really frustrated, especially as someone who was at these events and people who weren't, and then they're saying, well, here's how it went down.

I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And again, that's part of the reason why I wrote the book because I was at all these different places and seeing it firsthand and experiencing firsthand, and people need to know what actually happened at these events. Yeah. Well, thanks for the explanation. And it's actually a perfect segue into the next question I wanted to be sure and cover with you.

And that is media coverage about the Biden administration. You know, here we are, a year and some change into the Biden-Harris administration. I mean, I'll just posit that the media coverage is biased. I think almost everyone would agree with that. Yeah. That's unfortunate. What's your assessment, A, of how bad that bias is, and B, how we fix it. So yet another question about how we fix a problem.

So, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's bad, and we expected that. We expected as much that they were going to cover for, I mean, the most recent example, I don't know if it's going to date it too much, but the Washington Post had this headline about how the Ukraine crisis is responsible for the inflation. Yeah, right. And the supply chain, we've had this problem for a long time, actually, before all this. And so, I mean, that's just a recent example.

But, again, it just builds up over time. And so I think the really only time I've seen the media really actually. should kind of go after Biden was during the botts patrol from Afghanistan. And at the start of the border crisis back in March of last year, well back when it really gained steam in March of last year. But I mean, since then, it's moved on. And so, you know, they have their moments. I'm not saying that they don't.

Now, how do we fix it? Go to townhall.com. But, I mean, yeah, I mean, we have to, we have to, the media consumers have to go. with people who are trustworthy. Because, I mean, that's the only way they're going to respond. Through the money and with advertisements. And I just, I think there's just such an inherent problem with how, just the biases

and how it's just, well, it's just the way it's always been. And we're just going to continue it on because, and then also just, it's the people that work within it, right? And so I'm not saying that people who are biased are like bad people, but it's just, it does harm the country. And it goes back to, like, example, with Kenosha, part of the reason why the outrage was so much was because over and over,

they kept saying Jacob Blake was an unarmed black man, and he wasn't. And now, it was hard to tell him the video that first came out. Okay, he may appear to have been armed, but they didn't say that. They said he was unarmed. Definitively. Definitively, over and over again.

I mean, do you not think that incited some people to go out to the street? I mean, so again, I think it goes back to they need to learn the responsibility and understand the power that they have. Because it really does influence the discourse, it influences policy. And if they're not going to be truthful about it, then you got to go search out for other sources.

And that's tough. I understand there's a lot of places out there. But, I mean, you got to just go with whoever has shown repeatedly. Like, no, we're going to stick to the facts, and we're going to give you that perspective. Well, and I will say, and I don't mean this to be solicitous, and I would say it not in your presence. Your work is a great example of that.

Thankfully, there are a lot of people, actually across the spectrum. There are a few left of center journalists still who are very focused on reporting the objective facts. They have their bias like we all do, but they check them at the door. But this is the point. People are looking for places to go for news.

I mean, go to Daily Signal, but you also mentioned townhall.com, it has some heritage roots. We would plug it even if it didn't, because it's awesome. And so tell us about the work you're doing at Town Hall, maybe some stories, some projects that may be coming down the pike

for our audience to really be paying attention to as they're looking for those fact-based sources. Yeah, so since the riots have subsided, thankfully, I've been focusing very heavily on the border crisis. I've been down to the border multiple times, from San Diego to Tijuana to down to Brownsville, Texas. I mean, every place in between. And the reason why I do that is because, like I said,

the media was actually pretty good covering it back in March, but because it became old and because the Biden administration has done a really bad job with the board. And actually, I like to say that the border crisis was the administration's first crisis, because they literally, day one, just undid everything. But it's an everyday thing. And, I mean, it's happening right now.

As we speak, we're people crossing over, people being able to get away from Border Patrol. More drugs are coming into the country, which, I mean, the 18 to 45-year-old or 50-year-olds, the number one cause of death is fentanyl. And that's all coming through the Southern border. and it's just insane on how much people don't really understand. They might know, but they're not fully understand that a southern open border like that does affect way beyond the border towns. And so that's why I like to go down there because, one, I mean, it's important to see that firsthand,

but it's also to better convey, hey, this is going to come to a town near you, whether it's the people or whether it's the drugs or, you know, whoever or whatever. So that's why I like to focus on that a lot. I'm hoping to go back to the border sometime in March. And we have a VIP subscription that people can sign up for. They get exclusive access to content. But the reason why that money is important, that it goes towards funding trips like mine.

That's right. So that I can actually go down there. Because, I mean, it's a lot of money. You have flights, hotels, and rental car. And it's essential that you be down there on the ground. That's part of getting the facts in order to do your good reporting. Absolutely. I mean, and the only other time the media really focused on the border was during the Del Rio crisis in September of last year when all those Haitians were stuck under that bridge.

And I can tell you that, I mean, that, I had never seen anything like that before. Yeah. It was literally 12,000 people under a bridge. And it was a third world refugee camp. But the only reason why they were there because there was no place to put up. Because there's so many a crossover. And that finally got the attention. Like, oh, well, maybe we should cover this.

But it took something like that in order to break through, right? But we have like 12,000 people on a daily basis crossing over, all different parts. So it may not be all at once like that, but it's that level and that number is still very much happening even to the stay. Yeah. Well, Julio, I'd sit here and talk to you for a few hours, but you got, you're a busy guy, and we rely on you to go report the facts. I just want to thank you for your work. Thank you for joining me. And I look forward to having you back sometime.

Yeah, thank you. All of you, thanks for tuning in. Don't go away. We'll be right back. 50 years ago, the Heritage Foundation was created to help conservative save America. from crime, inflation, communist aggression, and cultural decay brought on by left-wing coastal elites. The bad news is, leftists are screwing it up all over again. This means we're going to have to save America once more, and the good news is we can.

Today, Heritage is the tip of the spear for America's counteroffensive against the woke socialist left dominating Washington and poisoning our country. We're laying out the facts, leading the debates, and setting the agenda to protect our elections and our border, to rein in big tech and rescue kids from woke schools and to help Americans rebuild a strong economy and even stronger families. After what we've seen the woke left become in recent years, we know the days of reacting to them are over. From Congress to school boards to kitchen tables, conservatives need to go on offense every day, stay on offense, and win the fight for the next generation. Welcome back, everyone, to our final segment of the show.

This week, we're going to extend our discussion on the state of media and bring in Rob Blewey, founding editor of The Daily Signal, and the vice president of Heritage's Communications Department. For more than 20 years, Rob's worked in journalism, earning prestigious awards in his field, and advancing not only conservative media, but more importantly, the truth. Rob, thanks for joining us, and thanks for being such a great colleague. Thanks, Kevin. It's good to be here. So, Julio covered some really important ground, and you've been where he's been, not necessarily literally, but figuring. figuratively, right? And so just give me a quick assessment of the interview with Julio, in particular, some of the indictments he makes of your business journalism.

Oh, I agree with so much of what Julio said. And I think in particular, the fact that he is doing things that most reporters don't do, and that's get out from behind their desk and go on the ground and talk to people. We see too little of that happening in media today. And frankly, I think you can look back to things like the 2016 election when so many in the media were shocked by President Trump's win. That is an example of their failure to get out and talk to the American people about what the concerns are on their mind. So that's clearly one solution and perhaps the biggest. Given your experience in journalism, your experience here at Heritage, are there a couple of other solutions you might suggest collegially to your friends in journalism that they follow?

Sure. Well, I think Julio had some, but I'm going to take a page from the Kevin Roberts playbook and say first and foremost, conservatives need to stop giving money to colleges and universities that are funding journalism programs run by radical professors. They are educating the next generation of journalists, and frankly, they should not be getting our money. I would say that's number one. Number two, we need to support conservative media outlets. Julio talked about how town hall has a subscription. The Daily Signal is a nonprofit news organization here at Heritage. We need the support of people through not only readership, but sometimes financially, to do the things that we're able to do.

So it seems to me that's really one of the answers to the question that I know you get a lot. I get it all over the country. And that is, how do we fight fake news? I mean, in other words, very reasonable Americans who are looking for somewhat objective news sources are struggling to find that. And it seems as if you've offered some disruptive innovation

regarding the schools of journalism. You've offered a couple of solutions in terms of town hall and the Daily Signal. Are there some others for people who are watching this? You're saying, Rob, Kevin, you know, give me some ideas on how to fight fake news. Sure. Well, I think number one, it's important for conservatives to hold the news media accountable. And so for too long, I think we were afraid. And President Trump came along and he showed that you can fight back and you can challenge people. You can call it for what it is. We need more of that. I mean, that's our approach at the Heritage Foundation. You yourself, and a couple of weeks ago, we had

Washington Post reporters who were coming to us with lies about our organization. And you said, let's bring them in. Let's have that conversation directly. I think we need to confront them head on. And sometimes when they do print things about us, we need to ask for corrections. We need to insist whether we use our own social media platforms to call them out for what they're doing. I think the other thing is a big part of that, though, is you need to have a balanced news diet. So don't rely just on a single source of news. And probably at the local level, this is the most important. because you need to know what's happening in your local community, and for you to be well-informed, seek out different sources of information.

And on that point, being a big purveyor of an advocate for local news, even, frankly, some left-of-center locally owned papers, just knowing their left-of-center doesn't mean that they're necessarily radical. I think about one newspaper in central Texas. It's owned by a couple who probably don't agree with your politics in mind, but they're very fair. They're what I would call old-school journalists. And so when it comes to local news, so little of which, well, maybe this isn't true, I'd say so little of which is partisan anymore, but that's changing, is really just about property taxes and so on.

They're just good at reporting the news. And that leads me into the next question, which is you've been in this business 20 years, every business changes. What's changed so much about journalism in that time? Well, I would say, number one, it's a completely different media landscape, particularly when it comes to conservative media. And that's a good thing. So when I started, when I first came to Washington 20 years ago, there were maybe a handful of outlets that I could go to work for as a conservative and really utilize the principles that I believed in and pursue the types of stories that I wanted to report. I started at CNSNews.com, later went to human events. CNS was one of the first digital only news outlets founded by our friend, Brent Bozell. Human events, of course, got its start in the 1940s and for a long time was a conservative newspaper, Ronald Reagan's favorite.

But that was about it with a few others. Now, I think the great thing about it is, there are so many conservative Christian-based colleges that are turning out journalists on a regular basis, and they have so many different choices that they can turn to. So that's one of the biggest changes on a positive direction that we've seen. Well, and you and I both love sticking to the positive, but let's go through some indictments. What are the best examples, worst examples, of media malpractice in your experience? And I think one that comes to mind, and probably for you as well, I don't know if we'll ever

see anything worse in our lifetime than the lie perpetuated on the American people about the Trump, Russia collusion hoax. Yeah. I mean, for years and years, we just had people repeatedly present information that was wrong and has been debunked now. So that one stands out immediately. Of course, there are other things that we can point to like Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing and how the media immediately ran with a narrative that they,

refused to fact check, many of which we later found out. But my personal favorite, which I had a small role in, and goes back to 2004, another Republican president, George W. Bush was running for re-election. It was two months before Election Day. Dan Rather goes on CBS News, is 60 Minutes to broadcast documents that were going to shake that campaign and probably bring an end to President Bush's time in office. And those documents, which purported to show that he did not serve in the Texas Air National Guard as he did, were a big, fake news before the term fake news existed. And Kevin, the thing that was so shocking to me about that is when I looked at those documents and saw that they were typed in Microsoft Word, Times New Roman font, which did not exist when typewriters did in the late 1960s, all I had to do was contact a few typography experts to teach.

tell me that. Any journalist could have done that and they failed to do so. They tried to deny it. And I tell you the great thing about that particular story is they were held accountable. CBS ended up firing four executives. Dan Rather lost his job as an anchor. So it just goes to show that we as conservatives can't have an impact if we hold them accountable. You know, and that's the example I thought of immediately. I just quick story aside. Our audience may enjoy this. I saw Mr. Rather on an airplane about two years ago. He's a gentleman aside, you know, this issue aside and he needed some help with his jacket. And so I offered him some assistance. And I said, sir, I'm going to help you with your jacket in spite of what you did to President Bush in 2004.

And to his credit, he said, yes, I don't know who you are, but that was a mistake. So something I'll just, I'll take to heart. It leads to the next question, though, and that is, how do conservative stay relevant in this media landscape? I mean, I'm hearing hopefulness from you in terms of all the outlets that are out there. You as a journalist have, as your guys, is your guiding some younger folks entering the industry, more places to send people. But if we go outside D.C., we go into Real America, as I like to say, there's still a massive complaint from our friends, people who are probably watching this saying, how do we get our stories out there? It's an uphill battle. And let's face it, you look at poll after poll. Conservatives have

complete trust in the news media, and rightfully so. And I think even at the local level, what you were talking about, I mean, we've seen so many local newspapers have to close their doors, just simply because of changing times that we live in and not able to keep pace with that. So that is tough, that is a challenge. The good news is that there are programs, like Hillsdale has a journalism program now. There's the National Journalism Center

run by our friends at the Young America's Foundation. They are doing good work to produce the next generation of journalists. But I think one of the things that conservatives need to invest in is investigative journalism to do the hard-hitting reporting, get outside and talk to the real American people about the ways that their lives are being affected. that aren't unfortunately getting covered by the national news media. Yes, and frankly, as we wrap up here,

even though you have to account for my bias, heading the Heritage Foundation and being an avid reader of the Daily Signal, you're trying to do that with the Daily Signal. And so just for our audience, just give them a sense of what you're up to, what your team is doing, what you're trying to accomplish with that. Sure, absolutely. Well, we created the Daily Signal in 2014 because we saw a void in the marketplace.

We said that there was a large number of consumers out there who were being underserved by traditional media outlets. And we said we can step in and help do that. So we've focused particularly on policy news. That is obviously at the Heritage Foundation what we do. And we try to put a human face on those policy issues. So some of the favorite stories that we do are when we go out into the country and like Julio go down to the border and interview the Border Patrol agents or interview

the ranchers whose lives have been turned upside down by illegal immigration, going to places like Kenosha, talking to the small business owners, just like Julio was doing. And putting those stories on video, because I think that that's going to be the real transformative thing that we see in the future. And I think that the fact that the Daily Signal can be there to document these stories is a way that hopefully we can make a difference for the better in the future. Well, and I think you are. So, Rob, thanks so much for being here, most of all, for the work you do for us and for America. Thanks, Kevin. You bet.

That's it for this week's show. I want to again thank my guest, Julio Rosas, and Rob Louis. Don't forget to subscribe to the Kevin Roberts Show on Apple Podcast, Spotify. or wherever you get your podcast, and give the show a five-star rating while you're at it. And please tell a friend. Our movement is for everybody, and all are welcome. Take care, and we'll see you next week.

I hope you all have enjoyed this special episode of the Daily Signal podcast featuring the Kevin Roberts Show. Again, if you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to subscribe to the Kevin Roberts Show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to get your podcast. Doug and I will be back with you all tomorrow for our regular podcast programming. Have a great day.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Rob Blewey and Virginia Allen. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.