The Daily Signal - Once Champions of Working Class, Journalists Now Represent America's Elite

Episode Date: August 15, 2022

Just when it seemed that confidence in America's news media couldn't get any worse, last month Gallup reported new record lows. "Just 16% of U.S. adults now say they have 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in newspapers and 11% in television news," Gallup's Megan Brenan wrote. "Both readings are down five percentage points since last year." Those numbers are startling—and perhaps well deserved given the current state of our corrupt corporate media. But they're also troubling for America. Batya Ungar-Sargon, deputy opinion editor at Newsweek, is the author of "Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy." She spoke to The Daily Signal about the media and her diagnosis of what's wrong. 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, August 15th. I'm Samantha Rank. And I'm Rob Blewey. On today's show, I interview Batia Ungar Sargon, author of the new book, Bad News, how woke media is undermining democracy. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story to kick off the week. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about another great Heritage Foundation podcast. It's called Heritage Explains and hosts Michelle Cordero break down complex policy issues using stories, clips, and expert analysis. Recent Heritage explains episodes dive into what you need to know about Speaker Pelosi's

visit to Taiwan, the crisis at the southern border, and the Biden administration's failure to address inflation. You can find all the latest episodes on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. We even put the full episode on YouTube. Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We are joined on the Daily Signal podcast today by Bataia Ungar Sargon, who's the deputy opinion editor at Newsweek and author of the book, Bad News, How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy. It's great to have you on the show, Batia.

Thanks for joining the Daily Signal. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really pleased to be here with you. Well, as somebody who attended journalism school and has worked in the media, I can tell you that I really connected with a lot of the ideas in your book. and I appreciate so much you're writing it and telling the story from your perspective about the situation we find ourselves today when it comes to journalism. I want to begin there before I get to your role at Newsweek and some of the things that you're doing to hopefully kind of change the direction that we're headed.

But I always like to begin with authors. What inspired you? What was your passion for writing this book in the first place? Okay. I have a very unsatisfying answer to that question, which is I tried to write a different book before and I couldn't sell it. And that book was called A More Perfect Union. And it was about how Americans are much less divided than we think. And that, you know, polarization is a pretty much purely elite phenomenon. And, you know, people who aren't making money or getting power off of polarization are not polarized. And I wanted to write a book about all this good news. And I couldn't sell it. And, you know, editor after editor was turning it down. And finally a very kind, conservative. conservative editor. You know, it was actually the last drinks I had before lockdown in March of 2020. The last time I went out for a long time, we were having drinks and she said to me,

look, you're telling me that we're not that polarized. Well, then why do I think we are? Maybe you should write that book. And I think that that is the book that Bad News actually is. It's an explanation of why Americans are so convinced that things are so terrible. You know, why is the media telling this narrative that we have never been more racist or sexist or, you know, this phobic or that phobic, when the truth is the exact opposite, Americans have never been more united around the values that this great nation was founded on. And that's, so that's, that was kind of what inspired me, I would say, you know, I sort of sat back and said, okay, maybe I should tell the story about how we're getting the wrong message. Why are we getting the bad news instead

of the good news? And, you know, that's bad news. The thing that I appreciate most about your book is that you go through not only in detail by providing examples, which I think is very helpful, but secondly, you explain how we got to the point we find ourselves today. And so walk us through how this class of journalists, which many years ago at the foundation of the Penny Press and Benjamin Day and Joseph Pulitzer were really there in service to the working class, came to abandon the working class and focus on maybe elite interests instead. Yeah, so the surprising thing that I found in my book that I did not expect going into it is, you know, why are Americans, why do Americans believe that we've never been, you know, so as divided as we are now, that we've never been more racist than we are now? Why do we believe all that? The answer is actually not about partisan politics or partisanship at all. It's about class. You know, really the reason that we're getting this messaging has a lot to do with the ways that the industry, of journalism changed, the way the profit motive has changed, but also a status revolution among journalists that shifted the kinds of stories that they wanted to tell. So for much of American history, you know, your typical journalist was not college educated. In fact, a lot of them hadn't even finished high school. This was a low status job. The kind of person who would

become a journalist was, you know, the kid in the back of the room in school who, like, couldn't shut up, who couldn't stop cracking wise, you know, who thought that his job was to point out that the teacher was wrong about everything and who put the teacher in charge anyway and why does the teacher have power over us, right? Somebody who like super anti-authoritarian, who was maybe even too anti-authoritarian to go work in the factory where all of his classmates were going to go after high school because he would have presented a danger. So he'd become a journalist, right? He'd go and he'd meet powerful people and he'd demand justice and accountability on behalf of his friends who were, you know, toiling away in the factory or, you know, who were plumbers or electricians or linemen, you know.

Journalists worked and lived in working class neighborhoods and they were part of the working class. It was a low status blue collar trade. It was not a profession. And over the course of the 20th century, that really changed. And of course, it's not just journalists, you know, the whole Democratic coalition, the whole Democratic Party, the left that used to represent labor, used to be deeply embedded in the working class. today is really the side of, you know, the overeducated, the coastal, people with a certain kind of taste, you know, palate and set up and so forth. And what ended up happening was journalists now are, it's one of the most educated professions in America, despite the fact that you can't actually teach journalism in school, which is something that Americans knew for like, you know, the vast majority of our history, it's something that you do by going out and talking to people. Now, over 92% of journalists have a college degree.

The majority of them have a graduate degree. One in five journalists lives in Los Angeles, New York, or D.C. 75% of digital media journalist jobs are on the coast in those corridors. So there's been a total profile shift in who journalists are. Today, journalists are the kid in the front of the class going, oh, me, me, me, you know, every time the teacher asks a question, me, me, me, and the teacher has to pretend they can't see them because otherwise they'd only be calling on them. these are people who are super comfortable with authority, super comfortable with like massive government. They think that somebody should be telling everybody what to think and what to do and they should be the ones in charge of that messaging.

It's just been like a complete shift in the makeup of this class. And as journalists ascended to the elites to where they're making, you know, they're in the top 10% today, as they started to go to school with, you know, the sions of billionaires, of international billionaires, of people who are going to go on to become politicians. or have super high status jobs in America, the people that they end up covering, right, but they have class solidarity with. It shifted their focus because they ended up on the beneficiary end of, you know, the radical class divide in America. Nobody wanted to tell that story anymore. So instead, they shifted the focus of inequality from class, which is where it really is,

to things like race and gender in order to avoid talking about the ways in which they were implicated in the class divide. And I don't want to make this sound like a conspiracy. I think a lot of this was unconscious. I think most of these people still see themselves as good people and really do believe that they are fighting on behalf of, you know, the forgotten people. But they really aren't. They really are on the side of sort of, you know, criminalizing the views of the vast majority of middle and working class Americans. So to me, the kind of woke revolution that we see in the media is just the last stage of this class revolution,

the status revolution, that then met an industry that was hungry for clicks and engagement, which meant that it was hungry to cater to the most extreme. And it was sort of like this match made in hell. And that explains why our media is so terrible. Well, thank you for outlining that. That's a really helpful analysis. And I agree with your assessment there. One of the things that I've noticed, and I'm wondering if you have as well, is this sort of pack mentality, that it seems that the journalist,

maybe because they do come from the same elite institutions and the same backgrounds, maybe even live in the same neighborhoods, tend to focus on the same story. And they're not telling certain stories or telling aspects about our culture that would have before, probably also a consequence of the fact that you don't have as nearly as many local news outlets that simply just have not been able to sustain themselves economically in this world that we live in. So how much of a factor is that in terms of how we're actually consuming news? and what it means for the populace in terms of how they go about getting information? It is a huge factor, but only because of the craven cowardice of the people who are

supposed to be at the head of August institutions like the New York Times and the Washington Post and NPR. If those people were doing their jobs, then like Twitter mobs would have no power. Like, yeah, sure, you'd have a bunch of like really angry, overeducated elites, you know, living in coastal cities who are really mad at you on the internet, but it wouldn't matter. The reason that it matters that there's this sort of mob mentality is because people at the masthead, the top of these mastheads have been caving over and over to the pressure from the mobs. That's where the problem lies. It's just in the cravenness at the top. Like there's no leadership anymore in this country right now.

Like the leadership class is over. I mean, the leadership that I follow now is from the working class, from average everyday Americans who have more courage and more values in their pinky finger than the people leading the New York Times. Well, you mentioned the New York Times, and obviously they play a big role in this. You yourself are a deputy opinion editor at Newsweek. James Bennett, who was leading the opinion pages of the New York Times, of course, was forced out of his job when he published an op-ed by a sitting U.S. Senator, Tom Cotton, at a time when many people, I think, on the woke left, did not agree with that opinion. And as a result, he lost his position.

I'm sure he's not alone in that regard. Let me just tell you something that I think, you know, people don't realize. and I go through this in the book, Blow by Blow. It wasn't just that the New York Times fired somebody for publishing a sitting U.S. senator. It was that they then lied in their own reported piece by three journalists about what had actually happened. They misrepresented what was in the op-ed. So they misquoted their own op-ed in their, quote-unquote, objective reporting. They then lied about what it was.

happened and then they leaked the name of the most junior person at the opinion desk who had worked on the piece. They dangled that like bait in front of the Twitter mob who came for him in this rapacious, disgusting, anti-Semitic way just because his last name sounds Jewish. And the New York Times condoned that and condoned it and condoned it. So there had been seven editors who had worked on that op-ed. They dangled one name out there and not one of those people stood up for him. AG Salzberger, all of these people, the standards department, the quote, unquote standards department at the New York Times, all of these people allowed this kid's name to be dragged through the mud. It was so despicable and they encouraged the reporters to lie in their reporting about what it happened. It's not just the one op ed.

I mean, the rot goes so deep when you think about the abdication of just like basic humanity, basic morals because everybody is terrified about this Twitter mom. I mean, it really, really is shocking. I know I sound very angry. I got so angry when I was reporting this out. And I just think people need to understand. By the way, this was by design at the New York Times. If you go back to 2014 when they laid out their digital strategy for the future, one of the things they said they wanted was they wanted their employees to be social media stars.

They wanted them to be setting the agenda. I mean, they said, we need to reward people who go out there and make a name for themselves. on Twitter. And so what happened? They encouraged this behavior and then their own employees turned on them and got them to fire people who they didn't like the cut of their jib. I mean, it's really, really, really horrifying. I mean, just the dereliction of duty at the top. And, you know, the, like, you know, look, you know, there's a lot of victims here, but like the main victims of this is like, you know, now we are an America that doesn't have a New York Times, right? Like, You know, that's not great, you know, like for people like me who grew up reading that paper every single day of my life, like, you know, that's not great.

But I just think that, you know, the New York Times now, their readership is 91% of their readers are Democrats. I mean, that, to get to that level of squandering your legacy to where only 9% of your readers are people from the other party, I mean, that takes a lot of work. And unfortunately, they put that work in. Well, you've done a great job here of outlining the problem. I also want to give you an opportunity to talk about some of the solutions. And let me begin by asking you the question, if there are different models that you've seen in the media landscape that have worked particularly well as disruptors, maybe there are some people who are doing it well and trying to push things in a better direction and not only hold those in power accountable, but maybe provide a better alternative for the working class on other Americans who really. should be getting information in a way that we did in years past. I mean, okay, yes, obviously there's stuff I love.

There's like, you know, great independent stuff going on. But I would say even more importantly, I love the mass boycott of the news that's happening right now because I just don't, first of all, most marginalized communities have spent, you know, a hundred years being news deserts, right? So it's like, you know, like, okay, now we're all feeling like what that feels like. but, you know, how important is it that, you know, there be a national news media that people tune into? I'm not sure it's very important. Like, local news was very important to holding power to account. But right now, I just don't see how any of these people has the moral credibility to hold people to

account. And they weren't even doing it like before because of all of this class solidarity. So I'm very heartened to see the American people just sort of turning away from all of this, finding podcasts they like that reflect their values that they see as on their side. There's a lot of that going on and that's great. But at the end of the day, it's about entertainment because, like I said, the crisis in leadership is so deep. One struggles to imagine, like how would you fix this? How would you turn this around? I don't think that our journalistic class is capable of doing that because they are so economically invested in the status quo and so psychologically invested in denying it, right, and denying their own culpability in it. Like, I don't see that

turning around, but they don't want America, you know, the vast American readership anymore, right? The New York Times wants a democratic readership. It wants an affluent coastal, city-based, like, they only want the 6% of Americans who identify as progressives. So in a way, it's sort of like working itself out, you know, they no longer look, you know, care about other Americans and other Americans no longer care about them, you know? I think it was Glenn Greenwald who tweeted, you know, there was this huge hit piece against Tucker Carlson in the New York Times where they did their best to call him racist a gazillion different ways. And it just fell flat. And Glenn Greenwald tweeted, you know, it was a time five years ago, 10 years ago, where a hit piece from the New York Times calling you a white supremac would have ended your career. And today nobody cares. So I feel much more heartened by the boycott than I do by the, like, you know, the fact that there's now substack or what have you. You know, I'm taking my cues from working class Americans who I speak to every day. you know, working on my next book. And I just feel like the real power, the real alternative to all this lies in the people. And that's when I'm sort of, I'm a little bit more focused on that now.

Well, it certainly does. And you and Josh Hammer at Newsweek have certainly, I think, pushed back successfully and tried a different approach. And so I'd like to hear how you are approaching your job on a day-to-day basis, not only to push back on the cancel culture that you've talked about, but to make sure that you are reaching a broad swath of Americans and not just catering to Democrats or Republicans, but trying to reach everybody with a diversity of opinions. So first, I have to say, I do my job with a lot of gratitude to Josh. I mean, he's just a total, total. I mean, he walks the walk.

He doesn't just talk the talk. You know, we run opinion from across the political spectrum. Now, interestingly, I think you and your listeners will find this very interesting. Newsweek is now coded as center-right, even though we have three opinion editors who are on the left and two who are on the right, because just the fact of hosting the debate makes you, that's now considered a right-wing proposition, if that makes sense. That's where we've arrived at, right? You know, a week ago, there was a debate between Senator Lindsay Graham and Senator Bernie Sanders, right? A very cool thing to take place, and where do you think it took place on Fox News, right? on Fox Nation, right? It's so interesting that the left has so abdicated the question of debate,

that that is now considered a right-wing proposition. But so, but we host opinion from across the political spectrum, across the religious spectrum. We have, you know, people writing for us of all races, of all backgrounds, of all ethnicities, of all persuasions. You know, obviously there's limits, right? You know, we each have our red lines and then we have our sort of collective red lines as a section. But we are deeply committed to having Americans from, you know, all walks of life. I I have a very strong focus on working class voices, getting people into our pages who don't have a college degree, who work in the trades, who have a different perspective on life and on American life.

You know, that's something I'm very passionate about. I'm very passionate about elevating moderate black voices, which is they represent sort of where the vast majority of black Americans are at, but you will never read those views in the New York Times or the Washington Post or, you know, actually you will in the Wall Street Journal. But, you know, especially with their newsweek. You know, and we each have sort of our, you know, Josh is very invested in sort of the populist right. And we have two editors who are on much more on the left, central left, representing that point of view. Getting the woke point of view, of course, is really important, even though, you know, I personally don't agree with that view.

We publish stuff like that all the time. So we are deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply invested in, you know, the American, you know, in America and in, you know, the great American conversation in the great American debate. And Batia, a final question for you. here, I've had the opportunity to watch some of your interviews, listen to them, and I noticed that when you're talking to some in the media, they get very defensive or in some cases even angry about some of the indictments that you've made. What is your response as you look ahead? Now that your book is out and people have had a chance to digest it and see your opinion, where do you see things going from here? Do you have an optimistic perspective on the future?

Or do you really think things are going to maybe get worse before they get better? Oh, I'm really optimistic. Yeah. I mean, and I'm, I'm sort of like, it's funny because the left will say talking, you know, they'll call me, yeah, they'll be like, oh, you bring up this critique is a right wing talk, right wing talking about. I'll be like, okay. So it's, it's now considered a right wing talking point to care about class. If only the, if the right is willing to follow me there, I'm coming to the right. And I will just, you know, say to you and your listeners, I don't if your listeners know this, but, you know, I was invited. to speak at this heritage event. And when I was first invited to speak, I said, sure, can I come and talk about how free markets, you know, miserate the working class? And, you know, and I said, no hard feelings either way. And John Malcolm wrote back to me and he said, I hope he doesn't mind my sharing this. And he said, Batya, you come and talk about whatever you want. We believe in open debate and dialogue and hearing from the other side. You know, if the right is going to become the side of, you know, talking about class inequality, talking about, you know, the dignity

of working class life and working class jobs. My God, what could be better? I mean, I don't care which side does it. I just care that these people have a voice. And I'm getting a great response from the right. I mean, I don't, I don't quite know. I haven't delved deeply into why, but I'm super, super grateful. I'm super grateful to be here talking to you and to have been to the conference. And so I don't really care, you know, which, I'm not, I don't think right or left really matters so much anymore. I think it's really about who has power and who doesn't and how do we reshape that. How do we build power from the bottom up and give people a sense of, of dignity back in a sense of ownership over the sense of, a sense of autonomy. So, you know, I feel very, very hopeful and optimistic because I see people responding to

my work. And I, I'm, like I said, I'm taking my cues from the people that. I interview. And so I'm elevating their voices and I'm seeing an increased appetite to hear from them. So yeah, I'm betting on the American people, man. I'm betting on the American people. So I feel great. Well, thank you. I appreciate you leaving us with that. I mean, I like you, am optimistic about where things are headed. I think the response that we've received since the creation of the Daily Signal, and I know there are so many other conservative media outlets that have come into existence in just the last decade. There's clearly an underserved audience out there of American people who are looking for alternatives to the legacy media. And so thank you for the work that you're doing not only with

the book, Bad News, but day-to-day Newsweek, ensuring that we have that diversity of opinion represented. Batia Ungar Sargon, thank you again. The book is called Bad News, How Woke Media is undermining democracy. We appreciate you coming to that heritage event in Nashville. We appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure and it's an honor. Are you looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues? Sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. In the agenda, you will learn what issues Heritage Scholars on Capitol Hill are working on, what position conservatives are taking, and links to our in-depth research. The agenda also provides information on important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch

online, as well as media interviews from our experts. Sign up for the agenda on heritage.org today. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show. Samantha, who's up first? In response to Lindsay Burke's commentary piece, discussing how the Department of Education makes $300 billion accounting mistakes

on student loans, Leslie Hagerich of Elgin, Texas, writes, Dear Daily Signal, I read the article on student loans and the debt that the taxpayers will be on the hook for. I agree that this is an unlawful. unfair situation for taxpayers. However, instead of blaming students, I think a deeper look at the problem needs to be taken. First, we have created a nation where young people in high school are told repeatedly that they won't be able to make it in life without a college degree. Second, at one time, you could start at a job that did not require a degree and work your way up. Things have changed

quite a lot in today's jobs that used to require a bachelor's degree, now prefer master's level degrees. The students did not create this environment, yet they are always the ones blamed. The education system, employers, and even government policies are to blame for the mess created. And in response to that same article, Felicia Bowden writes, I understand student loan debt can be crippling. The real problem is the cost to go to university. It should never cost a student $200,000 for a four-year degree. The explanation of why the program is losing money says a lot.

The cost is unrealistic compared to the return. What a terrible investment in education has become. The jobs people are studying for don't support the huge debt. So, fix the problem, not the horrific result. Go back to the universities. Let students file a claim against the university and make them pay part of the loan when they can prove that they've done everything within reason to get a job to support the debt and yet can't afford the payments.

Force them to make education affordable. Don't force the taxpayers to support their extravagance. Your letter could be featured on next week's episode, so send an email to Letters atdailysignal.com. The Heritage Foundation takes the field on offense with their young leaders program. I'm Evelyn Homily from Hillsdale College. I'm Harrison Stewart from the University of Virginia. I'm a journalism intern with the Daily Signal. I'm a digital productions intern in communications.

For spring, summer, and fall semesters, the Heritage Foundation hosts undergraduate and postgraduate interns right here in the nation's capital to train our country's future conservative leaders. As a daily signal intern, I've had the opportunity to cover exciting events here in D.C. And work in a fast-paced environment with some of the conservative movement's best journalists. In YLP, interns are on the cutting edge of the conservative movement, attending exclusive briefings from heritage experts, members of Congress, and movement leaders fighting for the fate of our country.

It's been exciting connecting with big names in the political world and better understanding our nation's greatest threats. If you want to go on offense with other passionate, dedicated conservatives, go to heritage.org slash intern to learn more about the Young Leaders Program. Evelyn, you have a good news story to share with us today. Over to you. Yes, thanks, Samantha. After stopping to help an elderly neighbor mow his lawn, Alabama native Rodney Smith started an organization that has encouraged thousands of children across the country to serve their communities. In 2016, Rodney founded Raising Men and Women

Law and Care Service, nonprofit organization designed to give youths ages 7 to 17 an opportunity to use their skills and bless those in their community, whether it's mowing lawns, raking leaves, or shoveling snowy driveways. Here's what Rodney said about how he started raising men and women lawn care service. I was leaving school one day, and I came across his elderly man outside mowing his lawn and looked like he was struggling, so I pulled over and helped him out. And that night I decided I'd start mowing free loans for the elderly, disabled, single parents,

and veterans right here in Huntsville, Alabama. What started in Alabama has now reached all 50 states through the 50-yard challenge, a program that asks young people to provide free lawn care for 50 homes in the area. The program emphasizes serving the elderly, single parents, veterans, and those who are physically or financially unable to maintain their yards. To sign up, all a child has to do is send a picture with a sign that says, I accept the 50-yard challenge. Once a participant has reached the 50-yard mark, Rodney visits me.

them and brings them a brand new lawn mower to recognize their dedicated service to their community. Program alumni have said that the challenge taught them how rewarding hard work and service can be. Here's what a 13-year-old graduate of the program told Rodney on the day he completed his 50th lawn. I got to know my neighbors a little better. I got to learn more about them and it felt good to serve people. Since its beginning in 2016, the 50-yard challenge participants have mowed over 21,000 lawns for free. and more than 4,000 children are currently enrolled in the challenge across the U.S. and in eight other countries. The 50-yard challenge teaches children about the importance of community service, hard work, and responsibility,

and empowers them to make a tangible difference one lawn at a time. Evelyn, thank you so much for sharing. We are going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rurkishay Audio Network. All of our shows can be found at daily signal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot and help spread the word to other listeners.

You can also follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the DailySignal 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 Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen, Doug Blair, and Samantha Rank. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.