The Dispatch Podcast - The Blindspots of Partisan Media | Interview: Brian Stelter

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Brian Stelter, longtime media critic and author of Network of Lies, joins Jamie on today’s episode of The Dispatch Podcast to discuss the state of newsrooms nationwide in an age of ideological division, debate the blindspots of partisan media, and offer thoughts on the future of journalism. The Agenda: —Overcorrecting coverage of Trump —Trump’s influence on ratings —COVID-19 coverage and school closures —Reporting on race riots —Forgetting 2020 —The New York Times' newsroom culture —Going independent and successful alternative media platforms —Stelter’s take on what CNN should do now Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is Brian Stelter. He is the former host of CNN's Reliable Sources, the author of several books on the media, currently a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, where he hosts their podcast inside the hive. And we get into a really winding conversation about different aspects of the media, what the media gets right, what it gets wrong, what is the media, both left, right, and center. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. It is really the third long conversation I has had with Brian on my previous podcast, the Jamie Weinstein show. I had two long conversations with him on some of these issues. But we get into some new ones here, and I think it was a really interesting and fun show. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Brian Stelter. Brian Stelter, welcome to the Dispatch podcast.

Hello, good to be here. Well, I'm excited to do this again. We've done this twice before on my previous podcast, the Jamie Weinstein show. But I'm happy to have you here on the dispatch. For another what I hope is an enjoyable discussion. And I want to begin with the presidential race. We now have officially, although I think it's been kind of official for a while, Donald Trump versus Joe Biden.

And my question is to you is, I think a question that you've thought about quite a bit, is how do you believe the media should cover Donald Trump? You're starting with the easiest question. Look, I mean, Jamie, I think we first have to acknowledge that there are thousands of kinds of media out there and everybody exists in their own media universe of their own making. So when we say, how should the media cover Donald Trump? I think you're probably referring to like the national media that considers itself nonpartisan that sends reporters out to states

that interviews people for a living and tries to dig up facts. And I agree that that's the media we should talk about. But we should also recognize like most people get most of their, a lot of their information from all sorts of other places, right? From podcasts, from crazy Fox News talk shows, from what their friends post on Facebook and TikTok. And so I just want to recognize the media, the news media, the people that consider themselves journalists trying to inform voters is a narrow sliver of this media world and the news media

has limited power. Don't you feel like the traditional news media has less and less power every year in the face of all these other alternative sources? Well, that is actually a question. I'll get to later about the free press and some of the ones that I think are positive outlets set out there. I think you're referring to some of more negative ones like InfoWars and things along those lines. But you're right. My question is kind of the mainstream media, the media that I'm sure that you're a consumer of and I'm a consumer of, the New York Times, the CBS, NBC. How do they

handle a second or I guess a third Trump presidential campaign? Number one, let's not overthink the coverage of Donald Trump. There are going to be days where people are going to read or watch coverage and say, that was too tough on him, or that wasn't tough enough, or why are they ignoring him? Fine, right? Whatever. But I think in the big picture, in the grand scheme of things, you know, it's cover him like he is the GOP nominee. He is a known liar. He has to be covered as a pathological liar. Don't, you know, take his word seriously. you know, I think his, I think there was obviously an overcorrection in 2021, right? There was an overcorrection.

Trump's speeches were basically ignored, even by Fox. Now there's been a swing back toward a more moderate position where what he says is newsworthy and it's covered and it's reported on and it's fact-checked. I would argue not fact-check nearly enough, but it's fact-check. But I think, Jamie, I don't want to fall into the trap that I'm afraid you're setting. And here's the following trap. Whenever I log on to threads, whenever I log on to threads,

all I see are people bickering about the New York Times. Why didn't the Times put this on the front page? Why didn't the Times put this anti-Trump piece of news on the home page? And I just, I could not be more bored of those conversations. I close the app every time I see those debates happening. Because I think that is such small ball. I just don't think it matters that much.

I really don't. But I mean, I guess what I am actually asking, and I don't want to get into those topics, those type of questions is do you interview Trump? And if you're if you're the head of a broadcast network, how do you interview them? And maybe more interestingly, is there, you know, what, what news anchors do you think have done a good job of actually interviewing Trump? Because it's a very difficult task. When I was working on my most recent book about Fox and the GOP, I did ask for a Trump interview. I told Jason Miller that I live out in New Jersey

near Bedminster and I'd love to come over to the resort and ask questions about Fox. And the response I basically heard this was last summer, last spring, last summer was we're too busy being indicted. And I just think that is so, and by the way, true. That was true at the time. He was too, but there were too many court appearances, too much legal apparel. But, you know, we have seen Trump do a small number of those types of interviews. He's not doing a lot of authors anymore. He's not doing a lot of mainstream media.

But I think Kristen Welker is an example of the way to handle it. tape an interview, come in with some important topics, surrounded with fact-checking when needed. But, you know, give the man a chance to talk. Give the man a chance to talk and explain what's on his mind. I don't think that's a, you know, you know, there were certainly times at CNN where maybe I was overthinking this, and I've tried not to in my, in my happy retirement phase. Well, I mean, here's an interesting, I think, question. In 2016, obviously, Les Moonvez famously said, he got a lot of slack for it, and I think rightfully so. It may not be good for America, but it's good for CBS, speaking of the Trump candidacy.

Your former boss, Jeff Zucker, got a lot of criticism for airing a lot of the rallies, you know, apparently to boost ratings, or at least it seemed that way. Do you think executives who see some ratings declines during the Biden era, not as exciting, I guess, in some ways in terms of news coverage, maybe good for America in some ways, but not certainly for news coverage as Donald Trump, for business. People that have to report to the board of directors, the bottom line, do you think there's a contingent of media executives that kind of secretly hope that Donald Trump becomes president again?

Number one, I think the country has just changed too much. 2016, we were literally a different country. I mean, not literally. But you know what I mean? This America has so fully now. broken off into separate teams or separate realities, that I don't think the 2016 analogy works anymore. And I don't think that there are equivalence of less moon vests sitting around now thinking, this election is going to boost the bottom line because it's actually doing the opposite.

There's so much fatigue, there's so much burnout, there's so much disillusionment, there's people that are so sick and tired of politics, so mostly because of Trump, so sick of it all, don't want to hear about it. Advertisers don't want their ads next to news content. All of All of those factors mean that covering the election is not, you know, a huge profit play the way that it might have been before. But I always took exception to that in 2016 also because when you're showing a rally wall-to-wall live, you're not running ads. You're actually losing advertising revenue for that hour.

Newsmax, though, has come up with an innovation. They run ads for gold right on the corner of the screen when Trump is talking. But here's why I bring that up. Newsmax shows all the rallies. Fox has a tendency to show rallies. although not as often. But Trump's not having many rallies. I mean, think about it.

He's barely doing campaigning. I mean, that's because he has the nomination locked up and it's only March. But right now we're in a dynamic where we're kind of in an in-between. It's hard to picture what the fall is going to look like. He might be a convict by then. We have no idea what the fall campaign looks like.

So I guess I think the country is too different, too changed, too exhausted for that question to be the same. But look, you asked something really provocative toward the end. You said, are there media executives secretly hoping for a Trump re-election? And I think the answer is no. I think the answer is no. When I have talked to media, when I talk to CEOs and senior executives at media companies in the last six months, they know that a wannabe dictator is not going to benefit their businesses in the coming years, right? I mean, that's what we're talking about.

Let me ask you this. I was going to go into a different question, but the one to be dictator comment. And I think, I've said this on the show with other guests, that the chance that he becomes a dictator is greater than any president ever, that I know of. How confident are you, how confident are you as second Trump turn will turn into a dictatorship? Or do you think it's more likely that we'll get through it without an attempt at a dictatorship? Because that's where I am. I think that the threat is high.

not high, but higher than other previous presidents, but I think, you know, it's unlikely going to destroy America. I'm not going to give you a percent. You're reminding me of the conversation in Silicon Valley about AI. You know, there's this apocalypse metric, like, P, doom, probability of doom. And, you know, people, dinner parties debate, like, what is the percentage chance that AI will kill us? And, like, you're asking the version of Trump, I don't, I've never thought of it.

I don't have a percent. I do think it's clear that he is, he doesn't, he, there, there, obviously the guardrails aren't there, right? I mean, what's so strange about his recent comments, like the bloodbath, about the auto industry, he is, he hostages, all the January 6th stuff, he doesn't have to be saying out loud. He's saying things that aren't helping him in a general election, but he's saying them anyway, right? So we know from the data, you know, from, we know from his behavior that there's no constraints or guardrails around him. And why do you think there, I mean, when you say the guardrails aren't there, it does seem like, you know, he doesn't take power. It doesn't win the election, become president, and the next day, you know, is able to declare. I mean, it does seem like there are guardrails still there.

You know, the courts, the military. I mean, around his inner circle. I mean, in his, in his voice, you know, Ryan's prebus and Sean Spicer. although Spicer has taken a turn, these are people in 2016 who I personally trusted. Well, actually, that's an interesting point. And I went Maggie Haberman on, we discussed who would be in a Trump second term. Do you think it will be, you know, the craziest people in the fringe of his movement or even, you know, a step away from that? Or do you think he would try to get, you know, like he did, you know, last time and sometimes failed?

but, you know, key figureheads from business to be at Treasury, for instance, because he doesn't want to have a lunatic in charge of Treasury and have the economy implode or something. I mean, do you think that his desire to be seen as making America succeed would point him away from appointing Margini Taylor Green, Attorney General or something like that? I think here's why I struggle with the question. Words like lunatic and crazy and fringe don't mean the same thing to MAGA voters as they mean to, I don't know, CNN junkies, right? We're just, we're just so far gone from that, that sense of a shared reality that I don't,

I don't see those same constraints existing or that same, I don't see a hesitation to appoint someone who's extreme for the same reason that I can't have a conversation with disinformation about people anymore because disinformation has been completely weaponized as a term, right? I hate to bring it down, but, but I also think, but doesn't think talking about us. a second Trump term is so, so premature for the same reason that the Apprentice fell apart season after season. People, if you look at the ratings for the Celebrity Apprentice, the Apprentice was, you know,

the most watched show in television in its first couple of seasons. This was a huge blockbuster hit. Trump deserved every dollar for those first early seasons. But then the show faded. Then the show became less and less popular. You know, it fell off those peaks in much the same way that Trump's first term in office fell and declined and declined. And his popularity is so much lowered now than it even was then. So I, you know, count me as someone who thinks he is so much weaker than the swing

state polls imply. Yeah. But let me ask you, I mean, there's a lot of people, I wrote in 2015, maybe the last piece I wrote for the last five years, that he was going to cruise to the nomination, not 2015, in two years ago, in November before the election picked up, that he was going to cruise of the nomination easier than he did in 2015-16. At a time, you still had people on the left calling him the former guy as if he had no chance to be president again. And you had a lot of people in the Republican Party who thought that Ron DeSantis was going to be a strong challenger.

Are you, I mean, are you too quick to say that the show is over when he's kind of proven again and again that he's pretty resilient? Look, he was renewed for a bunch of seasons after the popularity faded. But the show wasn't the same. It wasn't as much fun. And he didn't have, you know, the people with him. The television analogies only take it so far, I admit. But I think, you know, what the dispatches audience is all about, like political homelessness,

that sense of political homelessness, that sense that many, many, many people are on the sidelines, this idea of double haters. I think all of these factors are the more interesting factors than Trump's consolidation of the MAGA base. It is, you're 100% right. of course he was going to be able to reawaken the passions of his cult for, but it is a shrinking cult. Like, I don't know. Have you seen evidence in the last few months of these kind of pretend primary process that he's able to turn on a new voter who was previously opposed to him? I have not seen a single, I've never seen someone interviewed who said, I wasn't buying what Trump was selling

in 2016, but now I'm fully on board. I don't think that person exists in the United States. I think that there are tens of millions of people who have completely dropped out, who have tuned out, who said, wake me up when it's not a gerontocracy anymore, right? Those, I think that's the interest, those are the interesting people. You mentioned Trump's comments on the bloodbath, and I know you did a thread on it, but, you know, explain what your thought process was on how that was covered. Typical, cynical bullshit that most people see. through and don't want to deal with, meaning Trump said something completely inappropriate,

completely incendiary that shouldn't have been said. And yes, it was in his convoluted, contradictory, confused way of talking where he kind of talks in circles and it's unclear exactly what he means and he has an out by referring to the auto industry. But, you know, to me, the most important context for the media, for the mainstream media to include is his tendency toward violent rhetoric, toward violence. So obviously, news outlets wrapped it in that context, I think rightfully, which allowed Fox and pro-Trump media to cry foul and cry victim. So it's all just, everyone's just playing their role, you know? Like, it's like, it's, it's so boring to me to watch these spats happen. Again, this is why I close the app. But don't you think,

I mean, look, I could paint the other side, right? I could, of where, you know, dictators and and authoritarians rarely are clear in their speech. They use elliptical language that could be seen either way in order to do something. On the other hand, he often is pretty clear in language and things that are pretty horrible and terrible that are easy to pile up on why, you know, why pick up on something that in the context does seem like it could be clearly referring to economic, the auto industry and other economic ills when you're going to have a lot of voters looked at that, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, and say, well, the media told me he called for a bloodbath, and now in context,

I see this misreported. I really can't trust what they tell me. I don't think we live in a world anymore where the amount of context that surrounds a quote from Donald Trump is what causes people to trust or not trust the media. I just think we're off on a different, we're in a different, we're playing a different game at this point. You know, and you could say, you know, well, a thousand of those episodes add up. And sure, a thousand of those episodes do add up. But I think we are in an environment where where no one...

Do you think there have been a lot of episodes where sometimes the media overdoes something that he, you know, again, there are legitimate things to attack them on? Do you think there are a lot of episodes where they overdo it and may have caused The media's job is not to attack, right? These conversations always and understandably devolve into kind of political or rhetorical conversations. The media's job is not to attack. The media doesn't attack.

Individuals might post a tweet you don't like. Individual commentators might say something you don't like. I always just try to back up and say, wait, what's the media's role? The media's role is to tell you what happened at Trump's event. Was there any news that was made? I would argue the use of the term bloodbath was indisputably newsworthy. Now, you know, whether a single article put in the context that you think is appropriate, like, I don't know, to me that's like a small ball conversation.

The bigger conversation is, is there anybody, anybody out there that is still on the fence about Donald Trump? And the answer is no. Is there anybody? Well, maybe here's a larger ball question with that, which you just mentioned. You said the media is responsibility, and again, a lot of great friends at mainstream outlets who do a great job. But if they watch a speech and there's really nothing that stands out, you're not going to get a lot of clicks. Do you think that the incentives for some of this stuff to get retweets on Twitter or get clicks for the website maybe causes people to create something around a comment that might not rise to the level of outrage that that's being ascribed?

do it? Um, you know, maybe narrowly around the edges, but, uh, for the, for the most part, no, for the most part, I don't think that click or profit or traffic motivations affect people, affect reporters on an individual level. I think, you know, broadly, you know, companies want to grow and they want to, they want to maintain a profit. But, you know, look, I think if you're Aaron Rupar and you sit through an entire Trump speech and you're trying to pull out the most newsworthy bits and share them on social media, uh, yeah, you, you, you want your you want your feed to reach an audience. And, yeah, people can argue over whether his tweet is fully accurate or not.

To me, that's just, like, we're so far past that. We're in an environment where, you know, Trump's threats to the American democracy the way we know it are so significant. I'd rather talk about that than, like, what someone tweeted. Like, earlier this week, you know, there was some idiot, we're taping this on Friday. Earlier in the week, some washed up former NBC executive who, you know, his whole social media following is predicated on being a big deal at NBC, even though like he worked for some obscure division a long time ago.

But, you know, he posts all sorts of stuff trying to go viral all the time. He posted some idiotic post saying, a baron Trump is 18 now. He's fair game now. And, you know, Matt Gertz at Media Matters pointed out that Fox News has spent more time talking about that stupid tweet than about Mike Pence refusing to endorse Donald Trump. Like, that, to me, that to me speaks to what's broken in our information environment, that you can dedicate really any amount of time to a single dumb tweet. Unless it's a tweet from someone in power like the former president of the United States.

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Well, I do want to talk about the conservative media a little bit later, especially the breaking news that is going on as we're taping with Candace Owens. But I do want to, I think, is there a conservative media anymore? Well, the way you define it, there's so much different media that I guess there is no single media anywhere. But I kind of want to stick a little bit to kind of the mainstream media because I do think there is a divergence of maybe how I see it and you see it. And I really enjoy your perspective. And I wonder if you do think there are blind spots in the mainstream media, even though that might mean a lot of different things. But as I'm talking about it, the New York Times, the old CBS, NBC, the ones that are the prestige

media in a certain way. Right. Oh, absolutely. I mean, of course there are. And that's okay. And part of the role of media critics and readers and viewers is to call it out and point it out and and challenge these places to be better. To me, that's all, that's all the way it's supposed to work. Um, you know, so let's find an example, uh, where, where I live in New Jersey, uh,

you know, there's a high school that's totally erupted in a book banning, uh, debate. You know, one, one specific book that scares some people, the other people like and there's this big, you know, battle about the book, which, you know, I look at that and I think, can you say what the book is? What is I don't, I don't remember the title. It's obviously a pro gay. It's, I, It's obviously a, you know, a book that has messages about sex that scare some conservatives. And I think talking about that openly is good. We should talk about what is scary about it. And why are you scared?

And I think sometimes news coverage. But Brian, can I stop you there? I mean, there was a lady who kind of led the charge on this in Florida. She went on Joy Reid show. And Joy Reid tried. And she started going, do you know this book? And she started talking about the specifics of the book. And it wasn't just a book on, you know,

an anodyne book. It was a graphic book. And they were saying banning it from a public school library, that does seem to be an area where, you know, you see on a lot of, book bannings, book bannings, and when you get specific, it's banning from a elementary school, a book that is fairly graphic. And I would guess if you got really specific,

it would be a 90% issue in the country. So that's what I'm trying to say. I think the conversation, sometimes the media blind spot is to skip the part to say, why would someone be disturbed by this? Why would they be troubled? What does scare them about this content? And it goes straight to the, you know, kind of the political battle. To me, that's an example of a blind spot.

Now, you know, I would just, I would hasten to point out that what we should actually really care about is what's accessible through our children's phones and iPads, that that's actually what's terrifying when it comes to learning about, you know, whatever. whatever, whatever thing is scary in a book. I think, like, it's so weird to me to obsess over public libraries when the real threat is in the digital devices that the children and teenagers have. But that said, I think that's an example of blind spot. I think, you know, I think that's actually a pretty good one.

Let me, let me ask you maybe about another one. You wrote a piece in Vanity Fair, which I largely maybe entirely agree with on Trump and COVID four years later. You wrote at the end, and that's the point right, in an emergency. leaders can either help or hurt. They can rise to the occasion or fail to lead at all. Trump's record speaks to itself, but Politico Deputy Managing Editor for Politics, Sam Stein recently observed that according to polling data, many voters give Trump a pass for the COVID year of his presidency, or at least don't really hold him responsible for it.

Like you, I hold him responsible for making masks a political issue to some degree and for a lot of the things that he did during that time. But then there was a New York Times article. just this week, which I think may explain why some voters gave a pass and like your comments on it. It was on schools and COVID shutdowns. And part of the article read, some schools often in Republican-led states and rural areas, reopened by fall 2020. Others typically in large cities and states led by Democrats would not fully reopen for another year. A variety of data about children's academic outcomes and about the spread of COVID-19 has accumulated in the time since. there was a broad acknowledgement among many public health and education experts that extended

school closures did not significantly stop the spread of COVID, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting. While I do put blame on Trump for helping make COVID a political issue, I do think there was part of the left and the media who kind of adopted the other side. And when you even raise the issue at the time, when people, I know, pretty moderate conservative saying, like, I don't see the data where it shows that it's a great, greater risk to kids going to school than staying home. People were, you know, I mean, I remember Yon getting elected, you know, and opening the schools and people calling him a fascist for opening the schools in Virginia. Do you think that during this time there was too much partisanship

in the media to shut down competing voices? I think, okay, so number one, it wasn't like some elected official called him a fascist, right? You're talking about Twitter trolls. You're talking about, like, you know, lunatic lefties. You're not talking about Joe Biden. I'm just talking about Democratic operatives, not just random, you know, randos on Twitter. I come at this from a place of privilege because my children's private school reopened in the fall of 2020.

And so I don't know what it was like for a public school family. And also, my kids were really little and one of them was still at home. But I don't know what it was like for public school family to be shut out of the schools until the fall of 2021. I, it's, that's, you know, it's 2021, right? Yeah. That it was, it's, it's, I don't think anybody disputes how damaging it was. Like, I don't think anybody, like, do you think there's like a debate about like,

oh, no, it was actually good to keep the schools closed? Like, isn't there, doesn't everybody agree that was really terrible and horrible? And, then, well, no, I'd actually think in the article, it explained how, you know, the Democratic cities kept the schools closed longer. And, you know, a lot of Republicans didn't. Is anybody defending that now years later? I don't think so. Oh, you know, I haven't pulled it, but I bet you a lot of people would.

Yeah. No, I hope not. Let's put on after this. Let's put on Twitter, put it on Twitter to see if anyone's defending it and see what, and the replies you get. This is the problem with our, with our society. TMI. We have TMI. We have too much information.

You know, that little like teenager slogan, it's true for all of us adults now. We have too much access to other random people's random thoughts. and, I meant some of your media, but Brian, I meant some of like the, the, the, the, the, your friends in the media or my friends in the media, um, their responses, not just random. When I say put it on Twitter, I'm not talking about random Twitter, I'm talking about people that you would respect and influential people in the media and see how, how they respond. I guess my question is that do you think the media shut down some of this conversation or help shut down some of this conversation when, when there was so little knowledge about, you know, at least there should be a debate of when, you know, uh, at least there should be a debate of, when schools open open. Yeah, you mean media outlets popular among liberal consumers. And yes, maybe there was. I don't think I was a part of it because I remember booking David Leonhardt to talk about masks early on and getting some blowback from lefty viewers. But I look back at that time, and here's why I think it's really complicated to talk about, just take 10 seconds and try to remember how scared everybody was. And by the way, if you're a

listener and you say, I wasn't scared, good for you. Everybody else was. And I think, unless you can appreciate the fear, the loneliness, the isolation. I find it very hard to go back and, you know, bitch about coverage from back then. Sorry, I'm just being really, maybe I'm being way too honest. I'll probably regret it. I just think what we went through as a country in 2020 is so profound and so traumatic, so painful. People do not want to remember. People have actively forgotten about it.

People have forgotten about how Trump hurt the country back then. People have also forgotten about some of the school closures. Sure. I just think people have buried it so far down because it's so painful and it was all so scary that, you know, when I look back and I think, did the media, was the media, were newsrooms based in New York to, did they side too much with public health officials? I mean, I don't even know how to phrase. You see where I'm going with that, Jamie, but like, I don't even know how to phrase it. it like should we have should newsrooms based in new york have listened more to contrarian thinkers uh the great barrington is it barrington the great barrington letter writers at a time of immense

terror and i mean yes sure of course they have of course they should have but i don't even think it's fair to say that four years later i yeah i'm but for the record i'm i agree with you you know the the ambulance you would see on the media on tv in new york i was in New York going to the hospital. I'm not talking about that period. I'm talking about a year and two later when there was more data. Well, totally. No, but I'm just, but even, but even a year later, right, even even until vaccines were

in enough arms. And, and by the way, I think this is also about a matter of like proportionality and about what, what you think is a bigger, this is where you and I usually differ. What mattered more, right? And, you know, I think a lot of people would agree with me that what mattered more during that time was vaccine denialism and that kind of disinformation, right? So it's a matter of what you think is more salient as a problem. I think you can think different things about different aspects of it. I would just say that I think there was, in my mind, certain things

that were based on data, not conspiracy stuff, seemed also to be shut out because it came from a certain sector or a certain part of the political spectrum, even in the moderate part. But this kind of... That's an argument. Okay, so, Jamie, that's an argument

for more conservatives and moderates and people who don't identify as liberal to go into journalism and be in newsrooms. I mean, that's where I would take that point. That's where I would take that point. I am so exhausted by all these, like, you know, you know, random conservative influencers and professional

posters who all they ever do is bitch and moan about the media, go be a part of it. Like, go try to gather original reporting. Go do an investigation. Go join a newsroom and try to reform it. To me, that's what I... Wonderful segue into my next question, Brian.

Which is, what did you make of the Adam Rubinstein piece in the Atlantic about the New York Times? This is a right-of-center guy, pretty moderate, I think, who did go into the newsroom at the New York Times and talked about his experience there where it was a culture that was not welcoming. He mentioned that he liked Chick-fil-A and was chastised by the HR executive and everyone snapped their finger, which to me sounds a little bit like an insane asylum. But I guess my question is, what did you make of that piece

and does that speak to a problem of ideological homogeneity in newsrooms like the New York Times? Number one, I love Chick-fil-A. Number two, I wouldn't have snapped. And number three, no, but I actually think that's important to like, let's level set at be a normal person. Like so many of these fights in our politics are between people who are not normal and just be, just try, let's be normal. There is a silent majority of politically homeless people who just want normalcy. They just want to keep America normal, which is, by the way, why I think Trump is going to struggle in the fall because people want normal. They don't want loud and wild in their face.

My impression of that article, in that entire years later, we're still debating what happened in one week in June of 2020, is that, again, we can't talk about it without remembering the feeling of that week. the fear, the terror, the outrage, you know, I don't know, to me, to me, it doesn't speak so much about the New York Times of 2024, but it tells us something about that moment in 2020. And, you know, was that not the finest moment of the New York Times? Probably, sure. Yeah, probably not. Let me make two points there. One is, I think what you just implicitly said with maybe not realizing it is that New York Times is stocked with not normal people, because they are the people like doing the Twitter sneeps on Chick-fil-A. That is a takeaway that is a takeaway I get as well.

I don't know how many people at the times would actually snap their fingers, okay? But yes, I hear your point. But that's actually, see, that's the thing, Jamie, about American politics right now. In 2020, and maybe even up until 2022, you could make a credible argument that the Democrats were more likely to be the weird ones, the out-of-step ones, the maybe creepy ones. You know, I live out on a farm now, and a lot of my neighbors would not feel as comfortable with the pronoun conversation as progressives in New York City do, right? So I see that, and I appreciate that. But that was in 2020 and 2021.

2024 now, it is pretty hard to dispute that the Republicans are now the side or the party to have some weirdos, they have some creeps, okay, trying to take away IVF, you know, those sorts of, you know, some of those, you know, I think that's an interesting, to me, that's a tug of war right now in politics. What side is more normal? What side is more weird? And I think, like, that's actually a more interesting way to measure what's going on in our politics versus, like, who's advocating for tax cuts versus raises on tax.

Like, no, the battle is actually over who's weird versus who's normal. But I guess as it relates to the media, I think, what matters in that, in this case. And I do think, I think you mentioned earlier are just, you. you said our disagreements are based on what matters and maybe what doesn't matter. I might make the argument that sometimes that you agree with me, but when I dismiss something as not mattering, because it, you know, it's not maybe a point that you want to focus on with the problem in the media. And I would say, say that why this matters is, the matter what the time is, this is the New York

Times. They are supposed to be a nonpartisan organization. and even, you know, they can't take even, you know, mild conservative, you couldn't take a U.S. senator who, whether you agree with them, not writing an op-ed, and then a pretty mild maybe right of center, I think he's right of center, Adam, I've only met him once or twice, a guy who's in there, you know, it's too much for them to keep him as a, as a staffer there. He's just so out of place. what does that say about who is producing the news?

Sure, right. And I would also, I would then add to that, some of this is a loudest person, loudest voice problem, the louder voice at the moment, you know, in that Slack channel or whatever, we're suffocating what was maybe a more mainstream opinion within the newsroom. But again, you know, so I will admit to a bias here.

Like my bias is I think the American news media is flawed, but really, really, really, really important and deserves defending when warranted and deserves respect and deserves like, like, we're better off with it. We're better off with CNN in the York Times than without is sort of where I come from. And then within that construct, by all means,

let's talk about how to make them better. Let's talk about, you know, flaws. But so that's where I come from when I say the following statement. I find it, I get more disturbed by the rewriting of history about the summer of 2020. by right-wing media,

than I do about what happened at the New York Times that week. Because, yes, what happened with the op-ed was not the finest hour. But it troubles me more that people like Donald Trump still lie about what happened in our cities that summer.

Because I lived in the city, I lived in Manhattan, and I remember the one night where one window was kicked in in my building, and I remember the graffiti on the bodega that had just reopened after two months of being closed from COVID. And that was a horrible night.

But the next morning, we woke up and people cleaned up the glass and by the next day, everything was okay. And it pisses me off to no end that in pro-Trump media, they pretend like entire cities burnt down. They pretend like the city, New York City is a hellscape. Like to me, again, that's just a more salient thing to me because it's still going on. But you would say, I think, what's the makeup of the New York Times newsroom or the opinion section is also very relevant. And yes, it is. Well, I mean, I think I would say that I, um, I,

I also want to, I read the New York Times. I have a lot of friends in New York Times. I think you made an interesting point, which I want to delve into, about the loudest voices in these organizations. I do think it's worth noting that there were actually riots in cities and that Seattle was turned in, and I had a journalist that you would know who you're about to do it. You're going to over-dramatize it. Go ahead. No, I'm not.

I live in a city. I'm probably going to move from the city. But I live in a city that has become extremely. Extremely dangerous and the crime has risen dramatically, especially compared to other cities. I just talked to someone who got back maybe six months ago from Seattle, their first visit, and told me, this is someone that you would respect and you would know well. And writes for the type of media that I'm talking about right now who said it was everything a Fox News segment would make about that city.

I couldn't believe driving through Seattle what it looked like. So I do think that there are serious issues with cities. So I don't necessarily have a problem with that. But then that's not lie about the summer of 2020. That's all I'm saying. There is an ongoing lie that makes out the awful riots to have been worse than they actually were. And I say that as someone who was on live TV on CNN, covering and condemning the looting that I was witnessing on live TV. Like that I was in it.

I was a part of it. I find the rewriting of history to be worse. To your point, though, about crime, I mean, I'm also worried about what's happening in Washington because it seems like Washington's a bit of an outlier. You know, there are so many other cities that are faring so much better right now. And there's something that's gone really off, something that's gone really amiss in BC. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. SquareSpace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online.

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Well, let me just add to my voice. I'm someone who dislikes the comparisons between January 6th. in the riots over the summer because I think January 6 was uniquely problematic and uniquely a threat to our system. I do not think, though, that the other part should be diminished. I think those were serious issues in cities. And I do think a lot of people saw a lot of hypocrisy in that, like, you know, we had to isolate and then all of a sudden we're told that you don't have to isolate anymore for going out and protesting and in some cases rioting, not all cases, but in some cases, right.

Look, the different, again, though, what's broken about our media culture is that there's that infamous banner, that CNN banner, you know, that says, you know, mostly peaceful protest with fires behind the reporter. And obviously,

100% accurate banner. The majority of the protests in America in May and June of 2020 were peaceful. It was a mostly peaceful movement. No. But there was also, there was also sickening rioting. But that's the same thing that's said by the people on, that's Tucker Carlson's argument for

the videos from January 6th. Those were mostly peaceful. The video we saw mostly was peaceful, right, because only within parts of a takeover do you actually see violent scenes. Of course that most things are peaceful. But the fact that it wasn't peaceful makes it not a peaceful protest. And they were a lot of that, a lot of that going on. But that is kind of the argument.

people make for January 6th, I think is wrong as well, that, you know, most of the people there weren't, like, wielding a weapon and trying to stab somebody, but they were violating the law. This is why, this is why the less time we spend in our inner echo chambers, the better. Because the people who try to, the people who try to win arguments by throwing cable news chirons at you are just not performing in good faith. They are bad faith actors. I loved, you know, I love these groups like better angels and more in common. that are trying to help people see that those online bickers in the fights are worthless. Like Monica Guzman from, you know, from braver angels, she says,

whoever's underrepresented in your life is overrepresented in your imagination, right? Instead of people, you see monsters. Instead of possibilities, you see disasters. I think that is so right on. That gets to a lot of what I think we're talking about, especially about the 2020 and 2021. Like, if you don't know anybody who voted for the other team, then you're going to either be terrified or of them or think they're evil. And I, you know, I will admit to benefiting from moving out of Manhattan.

Like, I totally have benefited. It's been great to recognize that it's possible to lower, like to bring the temperature down, to bring the volume down, right? And to be at a dinner apart. I mean, you know, I know you're famous for your dinner parties. It's so wonderful to be at a dinner party with somebody who agrees to the one, absolutely nothing politically, but can become a good friend. And I wonder, Jamie, like, how do we help other people? How can that become more, like, how can we have less, more of that, not less of that, right?

Biden and Trump aren't going to solve it. Like, the gerontocracy is not going to solve this connection problem we have. Yeah, well, I agree with that. And it's certainly been the theme of both by dinner parties and my podcast, both the previous one and this one where in my previous one I had everyone from Roger Stone to Taunhaasi Coates on and everywhere in between, which is as wide a spectrum as I think anybody in media. Let me ask you what I wanted to ask you earlier, the breaking news that kind of was happening today. Today is Friday that Candace Owens, I guess, is leaving the daily wire. Where does she go next? What do you make of that?

You know, she's basically raising money and promising that she will pop up in lots of places. What I see it as a version of what's happening in across pro-Trump media, which is every move is a move further to the right, a move further from the real. I'm borrowing a phrase there from Jay Rosen of NYU because when I wrote in one of my books that Fox keeps moving further to the right, he said, no, they're moving further from the real. and I appreciate that distinction. I think what's missing, what's lacking, what's glaringly absent at places like the Daily Wire is real original reporting. Like, go out and gather real news.

Go out and gather news. By the way, do it from a right-wing point of view. I wish there was more journalism that came out of a conservative point of view that started from a conservative position, but then was actually real journalism as opposed to complaining about other people's journalism. And that to me is the hollowness

of the pro-chromp media. What do you, I mean, I think one of the issues to the extent she could find somewhere else to go, there's obviously a lot of limits, but one of them is, I mean, did you believe, I mean, and you might be someone who knows, I was shocked about a year ago when Stephen Crowder claimed that he was offered something like, you know, $50 million over three years to go to the Daily Wire. Hey, do you think that that type of salary is real, the Daily Wire really playing some of their people like Candace Owens, that type of money, which is, which, which,

puts them up with any network almost, and not even almost. And if so, I mean, that really limits her options to almost trying to create our own network. I do think that number was real, but I think it reflects, you know, a fact that some of these partisan media operations are more political than they are media, right? It's harder to justify those salaries if you're talking in terms of ad revenue and subscribe revenue. Those salaries make a lot more sense when you're talking about political machine designed to elect candidates and enact certain policies. So, you know, I would just, I would leave it at that. You know, I do think what we're seeing in this media space lately with Tucker Carlson, for

example, is that it is really hard to make a go of it on your own with streaming and subscriptions. And, you know, of course, you know, he'll never share his numbers or he won't share his numbers for a long time. And I'm sure he'll have a puff piece written claiming that he's doing really well. But I think we can see from the outside that he's struggling. That's interesting. So do you think it's not working the, I mean, we have models that's like Megan Kelly

and supposedly Bill O'Reilly. Someone claimed that he's making, you know, eight figures a year doing what he does. I don't know if, is that true? And are you saying that unlike them, Tucker so far has not been able to monetize it? Well, well, I mean, Tucker is definitely much more of a radical than even they are. But I guess I look at it and I say, everybody's going to be fine. They'll all be millionaires. You know, they'll all be able to pay their mortgage.

But they are, but to build and grow something and to go from 10,000 subscribers to a million, you know, or from 1 million to 10 million to it looks awfully hard. If I were in Vegas betting on these businesses, I'd rather bet on the New York Times in terms of a growing, sustainable media operation, then I would bet on some of these kind of fringe right-wing stars. You know, the eclipse is coming up next month, and you should watch for what media outlets spend money to really cover the eclipse well.

And what you're going to notice is it's going to be all the old-fashioned, old-line brands. It's going to be ABC and Fox. It's going to be NBC and CNN. You know, it's not going to be some of these, like, you know, it's not going to be the new guys or it's not you know it's going to be the the brands that we've known for decades like the the ones that are the ones that are the ones that are mainstream well let me ask you about uh one of the new guys

i really like that's doing well uh the free press barry weiss's publication and another uh i guess new guy i've tweeted about on the other day which um i like sometimes and don't the others i listen to a show i understand his appeal which is joe rogan um what do you make of their success they do seem to be hitting it off where others aren't. And as a corollary to that question, they always say about third parties. They rise until a major party adopts them and they fade away. Do you think the success of things like the Free Press and Joe Rogan will ultimately be seen by the mainstream press what they're doing differently and some of what they're doing be adopted and kind of not making them obsolete in a sense,

but them trying to model some of the things that they're doing right. So, you know, I know that Barry Weiss and Joe Rogan have a relationship, but I would point out they are in two completely separate businesses. Joe Rogan's an entertainer who makes money by talking. Barry is building a business of reporting and perspective, writing, doing real work.

That's, to me, real work. And, you know, finding the perfect writer for the perfect story and commissioning that work, You know, you can tell that I'm a little bit of a downer when it comes to kind of this talk landscape where, and I admit that we're talking right now, but we're talking from a place of substance. You know, you booked me because I've been writing articles for Vanity Fair in other places. I'm down on this form of media that pretends to be substantive when it's really just a bunch of people bitching about what else they read and watched elsewhere. Like it's just, you know, and that to me is Joe Rogan. His fans would say he has three-hour-long interviews with experts.

But there's no newsroom function there. I mean, that's what he's proud of, of course. Increasingly, we have this alternative media in the United States that is proudly not fact-checked and not news. This is Elon Musk, is the best example of this. Elon Musk recently admitted in his interview with Don Lemon that he learns what is going on in the world through the people who replied to him, which is really scary.

Can you imagine if you learned about news through your replies? all you'd learn about is is porn and scams. The idea that Elon Musk is he can replace real newsrooms with his fans replying to him. Like, that's exactly what's about our media environment. But to me, the Barry Weiss, you know, is the opposite. You know, she's 100% a sign of the future. And I think your question's really interesting.

Will it be kind of, will it become a part of the, will it be folded in? I remember when I was at CNN in 2021, yeah, it was 2021. Jeff Zucker wanted to get Barry Weiss in for a pilot, you know, to give her a show. So, you know, and that was, you know, before the free press, I think even launched. So I don't think it, I guess to the extent that her values and her publications values are, you know, infused into the mainstream press. I wouldn't say that's like a new, necessarily brand new, like, you know, Barry Weiss has been on TV and been on, you know, CNN and HBO and stuff for years. So I guess I would hesitate to take that too far.

Is that the right comment? I agree there's a difference between Barri Weiss and Joe Rogan. I do think there is some value for Joe Rogan. I enjoy the way he hosts conversations. I think he has more responsibility. He should take more responsibility for when he has Alex Jones on. For instance, I don't know if the dispatch would welcome it, and I understand people have different limits. But I would host Alex Jones for an interview.

but I would feel immense responsibility in that interview to be very prepared for it. I don't think Joe, from the times I've heard him, often feels that responsibility going into an interview that I think, if you're interviewing somebody who is like Alex Jones, that you should take it upon himself. Listen, that's why I use the word entertainer. He's an entertainer. But that said, Joe Rogan had Jonathan Haid on the other day. Jonathan Haid is out with a really important new book about the impact of technology on teenagers. And, you know, I am glad that that message, that topic, was able to get out to Joe Rogan's audience, for sure. I'm going to close with this, Brian.

If CNN were to call you tomorrow and say, we want you back, but not to host a show, but to run the network, what would you do there? What would you change there? You know, is there anything that you would make much different than we have right now? Well, first, I have to say that call's not coming. I'm sorry to break it to you. Second, I have to say that I don't even know if they have my number anymore. I'm just kidding. I do stay in touch with lots of friends there.

I think, so look, I'm stalling because I'm trying to think of the right answer because I'm not going to lie and like I wouldn't want to do that job. That's one of the most interesting jobs in America. It's definitely one of the most interesting jobs in journalism. What would I do? number one, I would say there's nothing broken about CNN

and it's certainly nothing broken that can't be repaired like it is the Coca-Cola of news it has the best news muscles it has the best infrastructure you know you'd much rather be CNN than

you know one of these also ran news networks or news divisions I think what would I do differently I am gosh I'm still stalling I think I have an answer though. I think number one, I think television's about

consistency and relationships. You know, I think people watch people, people listen to people. You want to have a consistent, relatable team. You know, you want to, in other words, you don't want to go moving all the pieces around the board the way that happened in 2022

and 2023. Almost every hour of CNN has a different anchor now than it did two years ago. There are a few exceptions, thankfully, Anderson. Aaron Burnett, Wolf Blitzer, and Jake. But most of the other pieces have all been moved around the board, and that hurts the audience.

The audience doesn't want to see that. What the audience wants, I think, is a sense of urgency and a sense of understanding that the only side we're on is your side. We're not on Team Blue or Team Red. We're on Team the public. We want to defend and help and support and inform the public. And I think within that construct of the only side we're on is your side, you can take a stand in favor of what is true and not what is false.

You can defend the public against liars and demagogues. You can, but you've also got to explore why lying and demagoguery has an appeal. And that's where I come down on Trump, Jamie. I meant to say this earlier. The story is not really Trump anymore. It's Trumpism. It's Trump voters. It's the voters.

It's who are we as a country? Who are we? And yes, it's still important to cover what Trump says and report on it. But what's more interesting are how people react to what Trump says. You know, people use, you know, you know how liberals like to complain about diner stories. Ah, there goes the New York Times, interviewing voters at diners again. I say, give me more diner stories. I want more of them.

I want to go to diners where there are non-voters, where there are RFK voters, where there are Biden and Trump voters, I want to hear more from the voters and less from the, you know, from the demagogues and politicians. And so maybe, maybe that's a part of my answer about CNN also is try to try to point the camera as much as you can back at the audience and hear what the audience is feeling and thinking. But I think that's, look, a lot of what I'm saying CNN does, obviously, but I think that would be my answer. You got to give a sense of urgency and a sense of understanding what the audience is all about, and then be their advocate for what is true in the world, because most people just want to know what is true.

Most people don't want to be fooled. Most people don't want to be condescended to. And by the way, I admit there were probably a couple of times on CNN that I was a little too in your face. I was, you know, I was probably guilty of giving a lecture or two or three. I look back at that and say, you know, I was learning. We're all learning. We're all just people.

But, you know, I think that's what viewers want. They want to know that the network, the newsroom, the anchor is on their side. And I'm rambling now, so I'll just stop. Brian Stelter, thank you for joining the Dispatch podcast. You didn't tell me if you'd watch my version of CNN. I don't watch cable news very much anymore. Oh, burn. What a burn.

Thank you so much. Good talking to you. I'm going to be.