The Josh Innes Show - Journalism Under Attack

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Scott Pelley of CBS News feels that journalism is under attack in America. Scotty, friend, no one trusts you guys. If that means that journalism is under attack then then so be it. What's happening here is legacy media people like Scott Pelley are realizing that the train is off the tracks and that scares the hell out of them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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smoked a pork bite yesterday. And I did it at about 275. So it really it didn't take all that long to 75 is a solid temp because you get some smoke in there. But it's not as slow as a 225 250. A lot of people rolled about 250. I started it way late yesterday at like 11 o'clock, but we were eating that bad boy by like seven something, I believe. So it wasn't bad for actually was a little bit later than seven something, I guess. But still, I was hammered. So it didn't, I

didn't even seem to notice. But I made a I mean, I mean, a great I mean, I said I mean I said a great pork. It was with meat church seasoning, their fajita seasoning. And it was meat church fajita seasoning and it was spectacular. We made like a Mexican pork butt. So I let it take a bath in Pepsi for like a night, like overnight I left it in a container in the fridge and Pepsi got it nice and, you know,

moist in that way. Then I let her smoke with the fajita seasoning and hot sauce. I rubbed her on up in hot sauce, put a little fajita seasoning on there for meat church, let her go until she looked good. Then I put her in a foil pan, put some more Pepsi in there, some more hot sauce in there, some more seasoning, some butter, let it go for a little bit longer, bada bang. It was exquisite, very good pork butt. So very solid week. And I also discovered that

I'm very bad at grilling brats. I had two brats, uncooked brats, not like the kind of brats you buy in a package. And then it's like, okay, we you know, they're already cooked, basically, you're heating them and then it's like, okay, we you know, they're already cooked basically you're heating them up. I bought like some raw brats, you know, fresh brats. And I had the grill a little too hot and two of them quite literally exploded. I had never seen anything like it. But it was something. But other than that, hope your Memorial

Day was great. Hope you guys enjoyed the time off. Hope you enjoyed the throwback pods I posted yesterday. I didn't see a need to post any new content yesterday. So I dug through and tried to find as much as I could to put up on a podcast. What I've learned is I have very little classic audio from any of these shows. I wish actually that I would have taken more time and kind of cataloged all of this stuff when I was doing it. When me and Jim were doing the show in Houston

the second time at 790, that was kind of part of my plan was from here on out, I want to make sure every one of these is logged and I want to write down what we talked about. But it's typically the case with me, I have a grand plan and then I don't execute the plan. So it never came to fruition. But that was the ambition was to have it all cataloged as if it was gonna matter one day you know like like just think about this it was almost nine years ago that I got the job at 790 that was in 2016 November or October I guess of 2016 is when I got that job that's

almost nine years ago that I got that gig had I actually logged all this shit and kept it, you know, recorded and saved somewhere, I'd have a lot of fucking audio for you guys, but I never did that because when do I ever follow through on anything I say I'm gonna do? Never, but I always have big plans. I never execute them. Anyway, let's play some commercials and we will continue. What's better than a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper

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over-deliver. Alright, so here's a headline for you that I enjoy. This is at the Barrett's Media website, which Barrett Media mixed with USA Today are two places that I like to find stories to talk about because they tend to be stories that I can make fun of a lot of them do. Let me see here. What's the actual headline? I had it here a second ago. The headline reads CBS News Scott Pelley states journalism is under attack in

commencement speech. Of course, one of the big stories is that NPR is fighting back against Trump who doesn't want taxpayer money or government money to go to NPR, which I'm actually on his side. I don't believe that any news should be funded by the government or taxpayers because news is biased and the taxpayers like you don't you don't want your money going to something that you don't support, right?

So I mean, I understand that that's a naive way to look at things to a degree, but that's the way this works. I just don't believe that money from people who are not, like the taxpayers aren't paying for iHeart Radio or Odyssey, are they? No, then why should they pay for NPR? And you know how I feel about news. I believe that news is inherently biased anyway, not necessarily that it's left-wing versus

right-wing, but it's people. People have biases and as long as there has been news and journalism, people's biases will creep into their reporting on stuff. And you want to tell me that in 2025, it doesn't happen more than ever with the internet and social media and people feeling pressured from social media. People are all part of tribes now. So like the hell that we're like,

we're in a bad situation journalism wise. So I'm genuinely curious what Scott Pelley at a commencement speech feels about journalism being under attack. CBS News anchor Scott Pelley had the distinction of giving the commencement address at Wake Forest a couple weeks ago. However, his remarks are making headlines this week as his network and the program 60 Minutes are under fire from the White House and the Trump administration. Following the

resignation of 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens last month, Pelley addressed his departure on the long-standing program saying that parent company Paramount quote, began to supervise our content in new ways and that by Owens stepping down when he did proved quote, he was the right person to lead 60 Minutes all along. Moreover, Pelley built on the premise of journalism being under scrutiny. In his remarks at Wake Forest he emphasized that the practice journalism being under scrutiny. In his remarks at Wake Forest, he emphasized that the practice itself is under attack. Quote, in this moment, this moment this morning, our sacred

rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack. If our government is, in Lincoln's phrase, of the people, by the people, for the people, then why are we afraid to speak? Here's what I find funny. So it's just funny how we flip-flop this depending on who the president is.

Because you sure as fuck didn't think that journalism and free speech were under attack when left-wing people were running social media and left-wing people were silencing other people with different viewpoints than them. You didn't think that journalism was under attack when during COVID-19 you all lopped up and sopped up all the shit that Fauci was giving you. Like somehow now we're under attack. Here's the reality of people like Scott Pelley and everybody else. They're realizing that their line of work is becoming

obsolete. Look, I'm a radio guy. My line of work is becoming obsolete and it's a scary proposition. It's something I've been around for the 38 years I've been on this planet. It's something I've done and made money doing basically since I was 15 years old. So that's 23 years. My entire adult life and a lot of my teenage life was spent doing radio shit and that is how I made money. That is how I was employed. And that freaks me out that it's basically obsolete and that it's going away and it doesn't have any real value outside of a couple of people doing it. It fucking sucks. So like I'm

looking at guys like Scott Pelly and Scott Pelly and these guys who are in this mainstream media world, this legacy media world have had the run of the place for a century or however long it's been since television came about 80 years ago, 90 years ago, however long ago it was that TV came about. They've had print, they've had television, they've had radio, they've owned it with the legacy media. What's happening to them now is that people, whether they're right-wing, left-wing, or whatever, are not going to unbiased news. First of all, there is no such thing as unbiased news because everybody has biases. Remember this, if you never take anything from this podcast ever again, just remember that everybody has biases and you cannot trust what you read in the media because it's a person wrote that and that person has biases. And you might say,

well, Josh, then you just can't trust anything. I can't. We've discussed this. I can't trust things. So if you look at the way the media operates now, the legacy media, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but legacy media people are recognizing that people are onto their bullshit. And they're recognizing that podcasts, blogs, websites, and other outlets are the places people are going to consume their information. Now, the hard part is all of these podcasts are also biased, but at least

they're admittedly biased. Like when you go to a Megan Kelly podcast, for instance, I think you know what you're going to get. Just like when you go to Joe Rogan, just like when you go to anybody else. Television, particularly network television, tries to portray itself as this down the middle beacon of journalistic integrity, and it is not. These people are all full of shit and they are biased, right? So what's happening is guys like Scott Pelley are recognizing that ultimately no one gives a fuck what you

have to say in the world of the news anymore. No one cares what you have to say and no world of the news anymore. No one cares what you have to say and no one cares what David Weir has to say and nobody cares what Laura O'Donnell has to say, Nora or Nancy O'Donnell, whatever the fuck her name is. No one cares about you people anymore and it freaks you out because your life's work has been being a journalist, a television journalist, a news journalist, just a journalist of any form and now you're running out of

places for people to consume it because people don't care about it anymore because people don't believe you. And it's not just right-wing people that don't trust the news media. I mean, look what happened whenever there were people questioning Biden on CNN and saying Biden should drop out of the race. CNN, a noted left-wing, left-leaning outlet was saying Joe Biden should hang it up. And there were people saying that CNN was in bed with Trump. Like, people are nuts. People are in tribes.

We've created a world where the tribes are the more important thing. The information is not what's important. It's you having your beliefs validated. That's what's important. People care more about having their beliefs validated than they care about getting actual facts. The hard part is we've gotten to a point where the media has allowed itself to erode to the point that we can believe when Donald Trump says that the media is biased and the media is fake. We believe it when you hear people on Joe Rogan talking about it. We believe it on every podcast we hear now that the media is full of shit. You've allowed your credibility to take such a massive hit that nobody believes in you anymore and it's rendering you obsolete. And that scares the hell out of you. And that's totally normal that that scares the hell out of you. It should

scare the hell out of you. It should scare the hell out of anybody who's in that line of work, knowing that people would rather go to some dipshit on a podcast than go to the network news or go to the USA Today or go to the Washington Post. But part of it's what Trump has been able to do and convincing people of the fake news. But people are starting to see the bullshit for themselves. People see like, look, do you think it helped journalism last week when this this this Jake Tapper book came out and he's like, yeah, we basically knew that the president of the

United States was a vegetable but we didn't really write anything about it but now you can believe us because it's in my book. Go buy it for 39.95 like that's not good for that. That's not good for business at all like you want to but you want people to believe in you and then when you have access to the president and you refuse to tell people that the president is a vegetable, that he can't remember people's names, that he's basically falling asleep in meetings and has to read cue

cards during meetings and now you said nothing about this when it was happening, but now you want us to trust you because it's in my book now so you can trust it. Like that did a massive, that's to the detriment of the we need journalism and journalists now more than ever crowd. Please trust us. We're telling you the truth. Are you? Are you? Because it was one thing when it was just you know CNN, Fox and Fox was obviously completely opposite of the mainstream and CNN was sorted down the middle but now they're not sorted down the middle. Now, people see that you're full of **** and whether

you are full of **** or not, people believe it and it's a trust thing. People do not trust you. There is a lack of trust for media in this country and it goes across all spectrum. Now, like in sports, at the end of the day, it's sports. So big fucking deal. If you know, you don't trust the guy doing sports radio, if you think he's full of shit at the end of the day, it's the sandbox, the toy department of the of the media world.

So if a guy is in bed with the team at the end of the day, does it really matter? No, is it impacting your life? No, not really. So like you can live with it, but they're all full of shit too. They're all part of tribes too. But when it's the real media who's supposed to be giving you real information. And another big thing is I think that people are less educated. The people doing the jobs are less qualified and less educated now and have come up in this era of social media where they see how important it is to be part of a tribe because

what you don't want to have happen is the tribe turn on you so you want to find the right people in a line with the right tribe that keeps you above water. One of the worst things that has ever happened to us as a people is social media and the immediate response people can get for everything they do because I truly believe that alters how people do their jobs. It was one thing to go out put something out, knowing that you wouldn't get a reaction to it until it came out. You're getting a reaction to shit in real time now.

And I think social media and the way people attack on social media has impacted the way people cover things and do their job. And that's what, like with social media and everything, I do not believe it is possible for people to be honest journalists because people are human and people are going to see the reactions of other people. Journalists are going to see the reactions of other people and it's going to impact the way they do things. Like if you have an opinion on something, but you know that

social media is going to burn you to the ground for it and you know and you feel in your heart that opinion is right, but you don't go with it because you're like, the social media world or crush me, let me take another angle on this. That's more accepted. You want to believe that doesn't happen. If you believe that, then you also probably believe that Pete Rose never bet on his own team. Like, it this kind of shit happens. Social media and the

cults and the people going out on the attack have altered news, they've altered media, they've altered journalism, and they altered the way people do their jobs. It makes it impossible. So Scott Pelley can tell you that journalism is under attack. Scott Pelley is someone who recognizes that his line of work is a dinosaur at this point that nobody cares about People don't people have decided that they're going with tribes and they're not going with anybody that's allegedly down the middle They don't trust you. They don't believe you and you're kind of a dinosaur. So that's kind of what you're looking at more to come