The Team House - Ep. 24 w/ Reuters journalist Maria Caspani

Episode Date: January 11, 2020

Maria started with Reuters four years ago as a digital editor handling news curation on Reuters consumer platforms. Since then, Maria has tackled live coverage of major events such as the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the terror attacks in Paris and London. In 2018 Maria covered the U.S. midterm elections from Atlanta, Georgia. Prior to joining Reuters in New York, Maria was a reporter for the Thomson Reuters Foundation in London where she covered social justice and minority rights. Maria hails from Lake Como, Italy. She got her start in journalism at a local newspaper in Milan and ended up in London where she briefly worked for ANSA, Italy’s biggest news agency, and the Financial Times Magazine. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MurphysLawstreamBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents,

and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. And we are alive. Well, hello everybody. Welcome. Episode 24.

Is it episode 24? Yes. Yes, sir. Sure. With our guests this week, Maria. Hi, hello. Reuters, journalist. here to talk to us about some of the stories that she worked on.

And give her opinions on everything. Talk about the news, about how newsrooms work. And also some of the cool stories that you've worked on. I think it'll be interesting, especially for our audience. I get asked about, slash lectured slash complain to, about the media all the time. And I find that I become like the personification of the media, you know, in air quotes to people.

And they talk to me. No, people talk to me like I'm David Remnick at the New Yorker. I'm okay, man, I'm just some guy who writes about the army. You know, it's not, I can't really tell you that much. But, oh, we're really happy to have you here. Thank you. I'm not going to be here. Yeah, thanks for coming.

And with that, I mean, just to start off, since our last episode, we were talking about Qasem Soleimani. being killed in a drum strike in Iraq right at Baghdad International Airport. We got into that with Jeff Kirkham. And since then, I mean, I think we were all kind of like sitting around waiting for some sort of like retaliation, what was going to happen. And then we saw it come to pass this last week with, what was it, like 14 ballistic missiles fired from Iran at a couple bases.

Erbil. was the other one. Al-Assad, Al-Assad, Al-Assad, Air Base. In Taji, they got some air raid warnings, but there were no impacts there. And there were four failures. Four of the missiles failed. And interestingly, I reported this.

I haven't seen anyone else cover this, but one of those failed missiles was fired at a base that we have people on in Jordan. And the missile failed and didn't hit that base. But interestingly, I haven't seen anyone else pick up on that yet. And now, how do we know it failed? Like, what does it mean that it failed? It means the missile did not reach its destination.

It came apart somewhere. Something went wrong. So. Well, you know my thoughts on it. Oh, you think, like, they weren't supposed to impact. Correct. Yeah. And, I mean, I think that it's pretty clear that, like, you're at least partially right.

Like they could have launched a thousand missiles and flattened those bases, right, if they wanted to. Well, they could have mobilized their militias to really rocket. They could have killed civilians at a hotel in Jordan and American civilians. You know, like, if they wanted to kill Americans, they easily could have done that. They very clearly calibrated that attack. Yeah. And I mean, I don't think that like it was a sham in the sense like they weren't trying to, you start lobbying ballistic missiles around. Somebody could poke an eye out, right?

But yeah, they quite clearly, they were not like trying to go over the top with it. I honestly, and I know that you really can't give, you know, and let's talk about Maria real quick here that you met, how long have you been a journalist for? It's been about 10 years now. About 10 years? And you, how long have you been with Reuters? With the news agency itself for about five years. About five years, okay. And we want to really know.

that America can tell us a lot about the field of journalism and what your job entails and things like that. But we're not going to get a lot, we're not going to get a lot of opinion just because Reuters, unlike many other organizations, does really focus on their people coming across as I'm biased and you don't want it. Yeah, I mean, I'm biased reporting is sort of a pillar of Reuters as an abuse organization. and our job as journalists is to really report the facts.

Yeah. It's my daily job and that's what I really focus on, yes. So when it comes to Iran, I know that you work on, you know, different types of breaking news, and that's not really, Iran isn't necessarily in your lane, correct? Yeah, it's really not. Okay. I want you to be able to share whatever you're comfortable with sharing in terms of your own personal feelings or opinions or anything else. And also feel free not to share.

But like, well, give us your, if you want, to the limit that you feel you can. What is your perspective on the whole thing running up with Iran, whether it's historical. whether it's current, anything that you want, anything you feel comfortable commenting on. Well, as I said, it's really not my beat is not my area of expertise. I just observed, there's a great deal of reporting that is being done on it, and obviously it's a crucial story, it's a crucial global story, so I think it's a way it's going to play a major, a major,

role in people's lives in a way, like in America as well. It's something that I feel there's a lot of public interest in. Yeah. And it's important that it's obviously reported on accurately and right with just, you know, all having all the facts that are available examined and presented to the public in the various possible way. And when it is something like that, whether it's, you know, the Iran striking, you know, against U.S. basis or U.S. inhabited basis, or, you know, or something that happens stateside. Like at what point in the journalistic process, like, the, like, when it comes to facts, right?

Because I think the facts sometimes, is like, how do you determine, I mean, is it sort of a group, like an editorial decision, is the decision of individual reporters? Like, when do you feel like the facts are, not only do you have enough facts, but when the facts are solidified enough, that we know these facts and this is how we verify these facts, to report facts, if that makes sense?

Well, for the area I cover, which sort of includes a lot of breaking news, facts just sort of presents themselves. So it's very important to have official. sources provide you with those facts and it's very important to be cautious about reporting especially again in breaking a situation where things can be really fluid and then there's a lot of things that are not immediately clear to the public and to the reporters who are doing the digging sort to speak up so it's very important to think as a reporter do your due diligence and and you know tapping to your

sources, your trusted sources that you obviously have a relationship with and are the ones that can provide you with the facts that you're comfortable reporting with. And obviously does a chain of command in a way. Sure. There are layers in every news organization before the story actually gets published where we make sure that no only the information is being reported correctly, but it's been embedded and that obviously more than one person, so by the time that the finished product is put out, we are confident that the facts that we're presenting are correct.

And so this is sort of the way that the machine works in a way. There's many layers of vetting, and there's many layers of just ensuring that we're all doing our job correctly and accurately and independently to just present the facts. That's the ultimate goal. we're just telling you the story as we learn it as we right this is what we know so far we're based on on the information and the facts that we have and that are the facts that are reliable and that come from sources that we trust yeah I know that like for me like when Jack and I were discussing wrong and when we've discussed other things like yeah Jack and I have differing opinions

on different on certain things and um uh I mean, I try very, very hard to police my bias, and it's very, very hard for me to remain aware of when I'm being biased. Well, we were talking a little bit earlier, too, about how I think a lot of people out there, they don't even register really the difference between the opinion section and the news section. It all kind of just runs together. So they're reading an opinion piece and think that's like the journalistic bias of an entire paper, or really it's not. But with that said, I treat this show as commentary, not as journalism. Well, 100%. I come on here, ranting and raving.

Yeah, 100%. My day job, I don't even really reference or talk about the work I do as a journalist here. Just because of that reason, I don't want to make it seem like when I'm here, I'm speaking on behalf of that entity. Right. Because I'm not. You know, when I work there and I write there, I'm writing journalism, and my editor would be like, Jack, you can't publish that. You're editorializing.

But on here, you know, we really are saying what we think or what we feel. And, you know, I try to be honest about that and say this is an opinion. This is a gut reaction. But, you know, it is commentary at the end. It's not necessarily journalism. Yeah. I mean, because I'll tell you, like, with the Iran situation, when they first started launching, and Jack and I were talking. And, you know, and I think, you know, I said, look, this is speculation.

Like, I hope this. I hope that I'm right, you know, that there won't be any American lives lost. Oh, right. that the reason these missiles were launched from Iran and not from, you know, Shia militias and whatnot, is because Iran wanted the world to know that they were the ones launching the missiles. But they're going to be very diligent about not killing anybody because even one. They only want to go so far. They only want to go so far because, you know, Trump, whether you love him or hate him is not, he is not,

A president, he is not a person like, you know, the last four or five presidents that we've had who will draw a line in the sand and then go, don't cross that line. Well, he kind of did, though. But see, you and I disagree on that too. Because you're saying, you're interpreting, you know, he said something and then you're saying, well, what he meant was. Well, no, because I think that he also clarified, because you're saying that his line in sand is if there's retaliation. Against Americans or American assets. And they launched ballistic missiles and they blew up a whole bunch. They hit an active flight line full of Black Hawk helicopters.

I still believe, like, and again, like, often I find myself in a position defending Trump. And I don't want to defend Trump. And also, I'm not attacking him either because I think he made the right decision. Yeah. Well, look, it's, you know, sort of going back to the trust in media is, one, I think the trust has a road, both from the last. and the right you know that the right will call the you know left-leaning media fake news and the left will call right-leaning media fake news and and then when you know like there were some initial reports well first Iran pushed the you

know 30 Americans dead somehow they knew this from Iran oh yeah and then there were some people on Twitter who were you know just post you know X number of American casualties and people like well we're your source, what are your facts? I was like, well, I saw this somewhere. And, you know, and then people, you know, people are going to line up with whatever their sight is. And people were saying, well, this is a lie. There were probably no American deaths. They're just using this and it's an excuse for war. Or, you know, on the flip side of that, you know, we need to go to war now. We need to bomb them, you know, turn them in the glass or whatever.

Then when it came out, there were no casualties, then the same people who were saying that it was a lie that there were 30 were now saying that it's a lie that there's zero, we're just covering it up. I mean, I'll say at any rate, like this whole last, what, week and a half, two weeks, this is a very, very dangerous game that was played. And any one person could have made a false move. As you said, if one soldier had been killed, you start lobbing ballistic missiles around and who knows what's going to happen. I mean, we could be having a very different conversation right now. So how, I mean, have you, your organization, I mean, have you guys, and I know that, I mean, you're known for unbiased, and this is something that Jack turned me on to you because I didn't know. Because like when Jack and I heard, I'm very sort of down on the media and down on the left-lending media, down on the right-leaning media. Like, I don't want opinions.

I just want the facts. I just, you know, I don't need, you know, some talking head on there who's really putting on an act, I feel, you know, to, you know, to make millions of dollars. But, but I didn't, like, I've read newspapers before or newspaper articles where it said AP or it said Reuters, but I never knew that they were there, that they had their own sort of, you know, thing going on. Yeah, we do it too at the website I work for is, you know, is it AP? Yeah, it's AP that we have. So do you want to explain that pretty far? Yeah, I think we have a wire service? Yeah, exactly.

And what is a wire service? Yeah, because we're kind of like running our mouths here, but you actually work that. Yeah. Well, the organization I've worked for has been around for a long time since the 19th century. and basically the way, obviously the business model has changed a lot over the last Yeah, sure, sure. But we are a wire service, like, very much like the Associated Press, the AFP, and we provide information to not only consumers like you or anybody who has a computer or a phone.

but we provide information to other means or outlets, for example, newspapers, for example, TV channels, for example, news aggregators, all did this, especially as the news business evolves and has evolved a lot over the past 10, 20 years, we are present across the globe in one of the hundred, we have more than 100 bureaus, more than 100 newsrooms, if I'm not mistaken. And therefore, it means that we can be present in a lot of places where smaller outlets cannot afford. Right, right, right. So we provide information, whether it's text-based information or visual information, so

photos and videos and graphics, maps, that kind of stuff, to outlets who are interested in buying it. and we also serve, Roeders has a, it's mainly a financial news organization, so it was born, a large part of its business is financial news, and so it serves a broad clientele in that realm. So that's a very important part of what we do. And yes, the only goal is to provide accurate and independent,

and fast information to a vast array of clients and customers. So what is the difference, the primary difference between like a wire service and would we say a media outlet? Would that be, is that different? Or like what? Well, it really depends. It's a good question, but it's very hard to answer. Okay.

Because, you know, I think if I'm not mistaken originally, news, news. agencies provided dispatches. So like very brief succinct accounts of facts of what was going on in a specific situation, a specific place, just to give the rundown of exactly what. Like sort of like a cable in a way. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey.

Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and family resource network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserve someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. The business has evolved, so we're branching out, even newsagest I branched out into

different forms of storytelling, more, not ambitious, but more complicated, more complex, more varied ways of conveying the news. So it's very much an involvement in business. If I had to pin it down, I really wouldn't really know how. It's just the fun, what I can tell you is that the fundamental principles of what we do have remained the same.

for over 150 years and we provide we provide facts we provide the news yeah Reuters is also you know as you mentioned moving on to other forms of telling these stories some pretty impressive investigative pieces over the last couple of years yes again I cannot really speak to that I'm not part of that team but um there's it doesn't it's obviously it's something that there's a large appetite for and and It's a very important form of storytelling to really like dig deep into fact-finding and present stories that are complex in nature and require a lot of time and a lot of efforts.

Was the story about the former NSA people working in the UAE? Was that one of yours? Yes, it was the former team based in Washington. That was really well done. And then of course the story that I interviewed a lead Tuttle about the military housing story. Yes. Reuters did a big, big expose on that. Yeah.

Yes, I think it led to legislation in Congress actually being passed. They had hearings. I'm not sure if they passed. They may have. So let's talk about the NSA and UAE and then we'll talk about the... Oh, boy. And then we'll talk about the housing situation. Like, this is for the people who aren't aware of it.

Yeah, this is super complicated. It's very complicated. I'm not one of the reporters isn't up, but it... I mean, long story short is the UAE is hunting for capabilities. And they have gone to the NSA or former NSA people, former CIA people, former special operations people, to bring all of these people in. Now you can look at it, there are these two projects. There's this one where they were bringing in former NSA people,

and they had someone from the NSA going to their boys, you know, when they worked in the government saying, yeah, this is NSA approved. when really it was just the UAE running amok. So it was basically a false flag operation. In essence. I mean, and not really, I guess, but. Some of the employees, and I mean, maybe it's just after the factor, like trying to cover their ass. Right, right.

But, yeah, they were pretending they were acting under auspices when they weren't. And it turned out that there was a massive, like, surveillance. They were even surveilling journalists, American citizens. I mean, this is a really sketchy stuff they were doing. Now, the flip side to that, of course, is the story that came out in BuzzFeed with Dale Comstock, where they brought him in a bunch of other dudes, ex-seals and other people, to the former direct action unit working in, where was it, in Aden? Yeah, I think, I'm trying to remember now.

Well, I interviewed Dale about it. We'll get Dale in here one day. Yeah, we'll talk about it. He's writing a book about it right now. Oh, is he? But Reuters did the, so BuzzFeed did the story about Dale and that, you know, that direct action. team that the UAE had set up. And then Reuters had done the story about the former

NSAID people. There's a lot of very impressive investigative reporting from a lot of different outlets. Busfeed has been really good. I think of really digging out. Really? That is surprising to me because I would never Busfeed is not

perhaps was not really associated with this type of reporting. They actually have a really impressive team. investigative journalists and they produce a really high quality story. So, you know, it's really like, I think in this constantly evolving news landscape, it's this very good material coming out of very different places. And it's, it's, again, it's an evolving business. It's fascinating, having been near in this environment for over 10 years, how much things have changed.

this from even from my start oh well get it going going to that tell us a little bit about how you got into the industry yeah and and moved you know around the way you have coming from italy to the United States coming into Reuters and you know as you have your career has gone on how you've seen this media landscape of wall yeah so you know I'm I was born and raised in Italy and I've always wanted to be a writer. And so, as I always say, like, I try to figure out a way to make some money out of it. Sure. That was a really poor choice.

At the beginning of my career, you're like, oh, my God, I thought I was going to make some money. And, you know, when you start out, you're all. Jokes on you. And I'm like, oh, me. But then, you know, it's sort of like how I started. I worked for, I interned for a bunch of places in Italy and then I really wanted to get to, I really wanted to go abroad and try my luck. So I went to London first and I was lucky enough to find some mentors there. I worked for an Italian news agency at first and then I moved on to the Reuters Foundation, which is the charitable arm of Thompson Reuters.

And there I focused on a more sort of humanitarian type of journalism that was really interested in and really good to sort of develop my honing skills or, you know, whatever they say. But I learned a lot during my time in London, and I did a stint to the Financial Times Magazine where I learned a bit about magazine journalism, which is, again, a very different beast and very, very interesting and very, very hard. What makes it hard? Well, you know, I guess when you're a breaking news reporter, you're pretty much writing every day or every other day. In magazine journalism, depending on how often the magazine comes out, you have different deadlines, and the sort of like the scope of the articles and the pieces is very different.

So they tend to be longer, more in depth, or just they have a different flare, the way they're written, it's just, it's different. And it's very, very, very challenging and very interesting to learn that business because it can be, I find, immensely satisfactory because it's a beautiful way of writing in many cases. And it really can bring out the writing skills of a journalist. But it's also challenging. Like, there are lengthy pieces that have to be produced and, oh, not very tight-backer.

deadline and there's a lot of obviously coordination that goes into them like you know preparing visuals and making sure that basically every cog in the machine is is working properly so it's very different journalism it's the I think the attitude also the the way the editors deal with with words and magazines is different and very interesting from it's more more eloquent it's like the sort of stuff you could find in you can refine your work a little bit more in the new yorker or uh in harpers or uh i don't know what new york times magazine yeah yeah there's also a lot of really good long-form journalism um in

online outlets just like purely online um outlets that um you know those things require a lot of resources you have to have a lot of money yeah i i i I mean, again, I don't know. I'm not an expert, but yes, it's a big commitment. To produce high-quality journalism, it really, really requires dedication, resources, and talent. ProPublica is one of my favorites. But I think they're a foundation, right? Yeah, they're nonprofit.

So they rely on donations and grants, I think. And they are, in a way, sort of like a new model model. But I don't know they're in the workings, but the work that they put out has clearly earned some praise. They won't close their prizes and they've got some really impressive work. So you hit Wondon, you're working on magazine features? For a little bit. But then, you know, at the Reuters Foundation, I focused on lots of different things, but mainly reporting on humanitarian aid and issues that were not so much in the day-to-day news cycle.

From that job, I moved to New York, which was a dream of mine since I was a kid to living the Big Apple. And then I landed at Reuters Digital, which is sort of like the consumer-facing part of Reuters that we serve. That branch serves the website, it's the website of the social media sort of arm of things. And it was really interesting to be in digital strategy for a bit. And last year I moved on to the breaking news, like the general assignment desk. Now, when you moved from London, New York, did you move with Reuters?

Like, were you still... With Thompson Reuters. Yes. Yes. When you were with the financial news outlet or with the Italian news outlet, did you find, I mean, were there, editorially, were there pressures that weren't with Reuters, or were there, I mean... They're different. They're different? Yeah.

I mean, Italy also, the way journalism is done in Italy is very different. I find... Fast the moose. It's, I don't know, it's just a different way of approaching the news. And again, I should say I worked for Italian media for about six months in my life. Okay. So I really don't know. We had Paul Cielino in here who was over in Italy covering the Amanda Knox case as a private investigator and stuff he was saying.

About the European media in general, it's just that they went crazy. They were just crazy. Yeah. I mean, I think every country has its peculiarity. Sure, sure do. Countries media rolls in a different way. You read all the time about the British tabloids. It's profoundly cultural, I feel, in a way.

What I really was drawn to was, was news agency journalism because it really sort of strived to present the facts. Was what news agency journalism? Yeah, you know, sort of like the bear, I wanted to learn the inner workings of the news business in a way and the basic reporting skills. And that is what I feel I've been able to enjoy my career. in terms of like, because I think, you know, when you talk about the business model changing a lot,

like, I think that for a long time with a lot of media in the United States, whether it was right, leaning, left, and whatever, that we really saw a lot of the, I mean, some of these agencies grew real, not agency, but some of these media outlets grew very fast, very quickly, and they kind of shrank in on themselves.

I think that we went through this process of outrage, clickbait, that, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, yeah. And then whether, again, but from both sides and then I think that a fatigue set in and those that in face that got a lot of it down that um did but the but also but those I think the people just got fatigue from it I think the people just got tired of like okay what am I outraged about you know what am I supposed to be outraged about today um how so their financial models you know

blew up, they got sort of overvalued and then they, and then they, now everybody's like, let not, you know, letting go. Do you, do you feel as though, like wire services, like Reuters or AP, they sort of, whether that storm just be, by remaining constant to their sort of values or? No, I don't, I'm really, I mean, I can't speak to, to whether the values. I mean, I think people, in the end, readers want to get a good service, right? Sure. They want to know, they want to get their information. We live in a world where there's an overload of information.

Sure. Because of social media, the internet, it sort of exploded and you can find pretty much whatever you're interested in online. I think as far as the media. business is has developed is developing there's a lot of figuring out and there's a lot of um um just um I think people are just trying to maintain um to be true to their vocation and and in their calling in a way because journalism is a calling in many ways um and do a service to the public then I'm not saying that

you know, there, it's like many other businesses, it's sort of like a try and an error path where there are certain things that have worked and certain things that have not worked and certain things that will find out whether they work in or not. It's, it's a, it's a tough time, I think, to navigate the world of information because there's so much of it out there. And it can be overwhelming. And when you're speaking of readers fatigue, I don't know whether that's correct, but I feel... I think outrage fatigue, not necessarily readers themselves.

Because I think, you're right, people constantly, I think, want information. Yeah, every debt. Yeah. But I also hear of people who, you know, need their notifications because it's too much. Sure, sure. And that's what, that's the fatigue that I'm talking about, you know, is just like, okay, I just really got it. Well, I mean, I turned a whole of them. off on my phone because I have to for my own sanity. Otherwise I'm getting, you know, Donald Trump

on my cell phone every 30 seconds, literally. So, I mean, you have to do that, like, just for your own mental health. Sure. But, I mean, it's like these extremes that, like, yeah, we all want information. You know, I want to know what's going on in the world. I want to read world news. But, man, I don't need it, like, coming at me, like, at 5 a.m., like, you know, a notification every three seconds. And I mean, I think that's what leads to the fatigue. It's that the tech. It's that the Technology has allowed it to like insert itself into every waking moment of our lives. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And not just, it goes well beyond news, obviously. Technology is something that pervades our lives. 100%. Do you, now some, you know, college programs now, some big ones, I think, are sort of teaching this idea of journalism as activism. Do you have an opinion about that? Do you want to share an opinion about that? Do you care about that?

I mean, um, um, frankly, uh, I, I, I, I don't think I'm, I'm qualified to speak to that. I just, um, I think there's many avenues that, um, the journalists can go down. Okay. And, um, it's totally up to the individual or, you know, the organization that they, they, they were for. Okay. Um, you know, I'm not here to bash anybody. No, no, no, it's just not even that. It's just, um.

I feel like the idea of journalism that I have is one thing, and I try to sort of like, learn and grow as I go. I think other people might have different ideas of what journalism means. It's well possible. Yeah, it's just something I kind of, I kind of, I know, as you said, it's something that people are taking an interest in. It's out there, and I think it's great that there's possibilities for people who want to explore different avenues and just experiment in different ways with what the profession is.

I do think that sort of there are some very basic pillars that being a journalist sort of... Yeah. You're so fair. I am such an opinionated bastard, I tell you. Well, but you guys have a commentary show, as you said. Yeah. And to that, I found really interesting the fact that you mentioned before, which is like, you know, sometimes I don't even know whether it's an opinion or straight news article. And I think it's important to have things clearly labeled.

And as long as you explain yourself and you say what you mean and you explain where you're coming from, I'm going to rename this live stream. We're going to call it two white guys have thoughts. Many thoughts. Yeah. Two old white guys. I mean, look, not dealing with any, yeah. We're not getting any younger.

No, that's for sure. Well, no one is. No, no one is. No. Time is to, you know, age is just a number, right, Maria? I don't talk about that. Let's answer a couple quick questions here. Alex Bennett, thank you very much for the for the super chat.

Hi guys, what's your favorite? Oh, what's your favorite meme regarding the current tensions with Iran and how will memes be looked at by historians in the future? There will be like glossy paged, you know, books, like telephone book fixed with just like the memes of the 2010s. Like, there it is. Okay, boomer. Yeah, okay, boomer. My favorite, you know, World War III meme, I think. Well, there have been a couple good ones, but one of the better ones.

is the one that says, America attacks Iran by bombing Iraq. Iran attacks America by bombing Iraq. And then it says Iraq. And it's a picture of this Arab guy. Yeah, I was looking at, you know, I stayed off Twitter pretty, well, I stay off all social media. But during that event, I was, like, reading through the translate function, a lot of Iraqi and Iranian, you know, feeds. And poor Iraqis, I mean, seriously. I mean, they've been protesting for so long

against the sort of the Iranian-aligned government that they have right now that's... Let me tell you, the Iraqi SWAT team commander that I worked with when I was in the army, Solom, hits me up on Facebook. What, last night, two nights ago? And I swear to God, he says to me, can we just have peace so that we can die?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of Iranians were too, they're like, oh, please, like don't, you know, no war, please, don't, don't, we don't want this. I mean, that's, I don't know. Can I ask you a question, guys? Yes, ma'am. What's your, what's your network like? Like, I know you guys talk to, and you've kept in touch with a lot of the people that you've either served with or work.

with in the past and previous roles and how do you are you in touch daily a lot of these people what sort of maintains your network and where do you get your information from I guess the kind of most of it evolves out of just friendships over the years I don't know I don't know how I mean I also have a very non-traditional back in, you know, journalism. So for me, I try to develop long-term relationships and people that I'm friends with. There aren't too many people that are just, like, purely sources.

I mean, and most of them are, like, you know, friends of mine. I consider them to be friends of mine, and they can, in turn, introduce me to other people, you know, at certain times, you know. So it's very, I don't know, it's a little. loose, it's a loose affinity network, if you will, of, I mean, people I served with, maybe, but I mean, it extends out a lot more than that. A lot of those guys are out of the military now. Yeah.

You know, they're off doing their thing. So. Like you are. Yeah. So, I mean, I wouldn't want to comment publicly on, you know, potentially anonymous sources, but you got to go out there. you've got to find this information and put it down on the street where it belongs, Maria. I mean, that's how a...

Well, you're at Columbia J school grads. I never went to J school. I got my bachelor's to grade in Columbia. That's right. That's right. What was a political science? Yes, it is. So, yeah, I mean, that's kind of, for me, it's really just more of, you know, friends and people that I feel I have a lot in common with,

that, you know, and we rap once in a lot. Yeah. I get most of my hands. information from Jack. He's my source. He's my anonymous source. I don't, I mean, I still have a lot of friends in,

you know, in the military and whatnot, but I never really, I don't really ask them about goings on. Because I've never been a journalist. I've never, you know, I have opinions about everything, but I'm like, no knowledge. And I kind of prefer it that way.

Local man has opinions. Yes. I kind of prefer it that way. I I just I try to like if I you know for me if I see a story

like House you know whatever you know Republicans vote against this or Democrats vote against this then I'd rather like I want to know why

you know because like I know that Democrats don't hate veterans and I know that Republicans don't hate firemen or you know what I mean like I know these things so there's always more to the story than what anybody is one not anybody.

The why is always like the best part of the story. But why? Because, you know, generally there's a ride around the bill or something that was untenable to the other party. And those are the things that people will never really tell you.

And I try to, when I look at something, I try to, I don't know, I don't believe that most people are evil. I don't believe that most people have malice in their heart.

you know, even if they do really crappy things, it's because they think they're doing right, or they're doing right by their... So, so I try to... I try to look at why they're doing it. Like with this whole thing, with, you know, between Trump and Iran and when Iran was striking, I was like, well, you know what, like, I know that, like, there are a lot of hardliners in Iran, you know, a lot of, you know, religious hardliners in the government, in the regime. you know, it's theocratic.

But most of them don't want to die. You know, like, it takes, I think, a young person who's ready to die for their country, whether it's America or whatever else, without a thought. And so for me, like, when they're like, okay, Iran's launching all these missiles, I'm like, okay, they know that Trump can be unhinged, you know. I mean, I don't even know if it's unhinged is the right word, but he's already shown by killing Soleimani that he will do whatever. It's the nationalistic pride involved in it. But see, I don't think that things are just that simple.

I just, I don't think that things are simple. Look, Iran has been working against U.S. forces for ages in Iraq. Ages. I mean, I would say that most of the prosthetics that U.S. veterans have right now are thanks to Iran and EFPs. So to think that all of a sudden we're just randomly starting this war with Iran, like Iran has been at war with us for a long time. And whether it was Bush or Obama or whatever, nobody ever did anything about it. So was the strike against Soleimani the right thing to do? I don't know. I'm not that smart. what was it deserved 100%

is it going to cause escalations well I don't know they've already been fighting they've already been fighting us so so like so we're you know it's sort of that type of thing it's like are we okay saying that all the soldiers that Iran is killed today you know which 500 600 whatever plus all the all the soldiers they've wounded they don't mean anything that Iran should Iran should get off scot-free because we don't want to lose another soldier. You know, it's just, it's one of those things that, and I don't know the answers to these things, you know, like, I...

What's sort of the next piece of information that you guys aren't interested in finding out? Regarding this issue? Yeah. What's Iran's long-term game plan on this? Because, I mean, I think that they did the outward-facing, you know, the public PR campaign, which was the lob symbolistic missiles. status. I want to know, you know, these guys think over a longer period of time that we do, and I want to know when are they going to try to assassinate an ambassador or a station chief. Like, I know in the back of their minds they got something they're planning to do to us.

So maybe that's more of the sort of thing that the director of the CIA is thinking about right now. But as a journalist, that's something I'm very interested in. the next phase in this, you know, conflict between the two countries? See, when it comes to this stuff, and I could be wrong, but you know how when you walk down the street and you have all these self-doubts, you know, and everybody else seems so confident, you know, like, everybody seems like they could just have their life together and it's like it's just me who's kind of fucked up, you know, and why does everybody seem that way? I don't know if any of you guys can relate to that, but the thing is that, like, we're all

narcissistic. We can't help but mean narcissistic, because there are. thoughts and the only thoughts that we know and you know so when I say narcissistic it's not that we think we're great but we are the center of our universe and in America in any other country it's the same way so with us like a lot of Americans are going uh what's Iran going to do next well Iran their leaders are also like their leaders are not unimpedant you know they're also like well what's America are going to do next and specifically what's Trump going to do next And so, and you're right, that I do think that they have a much longer view of this.

They're waiting for the Maki. You know, they're waiting for the caliphate. That's their goal, right? Their stated goal. I mean, they're a theocracy. Well, for the crazy people. For the people running the country. For the Ayatollahs.

Yeah. I mean, there's ministries and there's all sorts of bureaucrats in Iran. Okay. They're not just religious fanatics. Soleimani was a very pragmatic person. Okay. It's not, I don't think they're calling somebody who's true to their belief. I don't think that they're a fanatic.

Westboro Baptist Church are fanatics. But if you're like a harbinger of the apocalypse, that kind of falls under the category of a fanatic. The caliphate is not the apocalypse. The caliphate is, is a, is an accepted part of Islam. It's the 12th caliphate, or the 12th Amam, right? The Hid and Amam, yeah. The 12th Amam.

It's an accepted part of Islam. So it's not, we're not talking about Loonies here. We're talking about people who are just true to their faith. You know, which we have a hard time doing because in America, you know, we tend to be very secular, you know. But the thing is, so I do think that they have a long-term game plan, much longer, like a game plan that extends hundreds of not thousands. since a year, you know, not necessarily a game plan, but they are waiting, you know, for the caliph. They're waiting for, is Al-Matti?

Like, anyway. So I kind of feel, and again, I can be wrong, but just sort of on a human level, I believe, because they're not religious zealots, and they're not lunis, they will wait for Trump to go. Trump is an anomaly in American politics. Most presidents in the United States will not risk international outrage. They won't risk escalation. They won't risk all these things.

I think that they will, I believe, that they will wait for Trump to leave office, whether that's soon or in another four years, because for them it's no big deal, because Trump potentially could set them back generations. if Trump were to start pushing back the borders of Iran, if he were to take out all their military bases, if he were to do these things, now you have a Shia country

who is now vulnerable to the Sunni influences around them. If you look, Pence and Pompeo are pretty much pushing for that to happen anyway from what I've read in the press. But see, so were the Democrats when they shot down the drone. I mean, how many people got on, from the left got on Trump's case about being weak for not?

They weren't asking. him to invade Iran or topple the government. They were asking him to strike. What's so what's the difference between that kind of escalation and? What was a Democrat saying like let's flattened terrain

let's go do that? Well look a war with Tehran a strike against Iran is a strike against Iran. Whether you say let's flat regardless of what their optics are the language. Go and look at the people who are advocating for regime change in Iran

And they're all like FDD think tank people in D.C. They're all hardline Republicans. I don't agree with them. I mean, I'm not defending them, but I'm not going to jump on, you know, the Democrats. There are as many hawks on the Democratic side as there are on their opponents. I mean, I believe that most politicians these days, whether on left or right, are just these centrist, globalists sort of, they're all making their money. They're all leaving office wealthy. But the thing is, is that regardless of whether it's whether the left or right, you know, that Iran or the people in Iran, the rule of the regime in Iran is going to outweigh Trump.

Because he will bring, again, he's, I don't want to say he's unhinged because that's not an appropriate term. But he's not politics as usual. And they face the possibility of, like I said, being left almost toothless surrounded by Sunni influence. And I don't think they want that. And I think that with the death of Soleimani, they realize that. So I guess what piece of information,

I don't know if there's any information that I want now. I'm just, I don't know any of this to be fact. I wouldn't, you know, get in a fist fight over it or bet a bunch of money on it. I, maybe I'm just hopeful, you know, that this is what it is. But... All right. We've got a question for Maria here. Can Maria comment on her thoughts on how various countries train their journalists?

Are they distinctly different news cultures, so to speak? I think so. I think each country in perhaps different regions more than countries have different journalistic traditions. For example, where I come from, Italy has a very different way of doing journalism, in my opinion. Again, granted that I've not worked long in my home country, but especially the way that the language is used, I feel, when I, when I began reporting in Milan, it was sort of more, I don't know, maybe it's because of the different language. English is not Italian, and vice versa,

but there was more of, of a, I found it a less structured way of composing a news article. I was very sort of attracted to Anglo-Saxon journalism, the type of journalism that I, I learned at Royers in other places where I really learned a good way of structuring and building up a story. So, yes, I don't know enough about many different, the different sort of... What does that look like, though?

Like, is someone who's bilingual that you've worked in both the entries? You have a lot of familiarity with both countries. I mean, reading an Italian newspaper versus an American newspaper, I mean, how do those cultural nuances were full? I think that the ethics of journalism are sort of like a universal constant. Like, you know, journalists worldwide have the same creed in a way, like, you know, which is reporting the facts and, you know, sticking to the facts and present an accurate account of what's going on around them, sort of in a way, being the observers of reality and reporting that out to the reader who cannot directly access those facts, access those facts. So in a way that is sort of like the common denominator in the news business, in journalism across the globe. I think, for example, in Italy, we tended to have more elaborate leads in a way. A lead there was more perhaps wasn't so, wasn't directly going into the nut graph or sort of like the heart of the story.

but began a little ahead of the events. It's sort of introduced to the events in a more elaborate way, for example. A little bit more alliteration. Maybe, yes. And it's something that perhaps you find here more in magazine journalism that presents the fact in a more perhaps. So is it more of a storytelling fashion in a way? Because I feel, yeah, like me and you would be told like,

hey, your point needs to be in sentence one paragraph. Absolutely. There's a very clear structure. And, you know, there are set rules in journalism that is important to respect, I think, and presenting the facts because they're about, I think, intellectual honesty, and they're also about doing your job properly and delivering the news, which is what you're trying to do in a timely and accurate manner. But yes, are there different traditions in different countries? Yes, I mean, look at the British press, for example.

Tabloids are a very big thing in the UK, and they do very distinctive journalism in a way. You know, it's a very different format. They cater to a precise audience and a very specific audience, and then they know how to best serve that audience. What I'd like to hear you weigh in on, too, is one of the big differences, I think, between America and, the UK, Italy, just about any other country you care to name.

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press is like written into our founding documents. We have things like the Freedom of Information Act. There's just like a level of mandatory transparency in our government. And our government can be very duplicitous in so many ways. But there are other countries like in Italy. I feel like you're not really going to find like hard-hidden. investigative pieces about the Italian military or the sorts of things that you find here.

There is very good investigative journalism done in Italy. One thing I think that plays a huge factor is the language barrier. That stuff doesn't, you know, the world is largely English speaking or Spanish speaking. Something a very hard-hitting article about the, I don't know, the, the, I don't know, the collusion between, I'm speaking hypothetically. Sure, sure. The Italian government and organized crime, which has been done, perhaps doesn't have

make it here. Make it here doesn't have as much resonation. It doesn't resonate as much. Italy is a smaller country. It doesn't play such a huge role in the global scene. Many factors, but I think really good in-depth journalism and Italy. I read a book.

recently called Moneyland, written by a British journalist, a British financial journalist, and he was saying they have a real big problem over there with the libel loss, because you can't report on anything unless the person has been convicted of the crime first. So that prevents them from breaking huge stories because a big paper doesn't want to get sued out of existence. Likewise, the police would not even know to begin prosecuting this person because they haven't been made aware of the crime. So it's like this bizarre situation they get in where journalists aren't really able to do their job because they don't have the First Amendment that we have here in the United States.

And as you see, I think it's something that is very much cherished in the United States. It's brought up often, and I think it's a very important pillar of American journalism. that is sort of like one of the fundamental principles that has allowed American journalism to develop the way it has. Here's an interesting question going through the feet. Who you're with is asking. Because I think it relates directly back to the First Amendment and also the press. But I would be interested in your perspective on Chelsea. Manning, Edward Sutton, Joanna Sange, and other whistleblowers in terms of First Amendment.

Like, I don't know how much you, you want. That's for you guys. Okay. I just, I'm not an expert on it. Sure. I mean, I don't consider any of those people to be whistleblowers per se. You know, we've considered them to be journalists or reporters? No.

I mean, I mean, Chelsea Manning and Ed Snowden, I mean, they're not journalists. they're not. They just aren't. They've never produced a single work of journalism in their lives. So they're not. Now whether or not they're whistleblowers, I mean, you can get official whistleblower status by, you've got to go and get a congressman on your side. And this is what you do. You go to Congress. Jason Ammering, special forces officer, blew the whistle because he felt the way our hostages were being negotiated for in Syria was incorrect. So went to Congress, talked to Congress went and offered congressional testimony and he became a whistleblower. And for anyone out there who's thinking about blowing the whistle on criminal corruption or malfeasance in our government,

I highly encourage you guys to go and talk to a congressman. And you can talk to people like me and Maria too who are journalists. I do not encourage you to just steal every piece of top secret information in that office and run to China. or Russia. You're not taking care of America. You're not taking care of yourself. Yeah. So I really don't encourage you to do that and go down that route.

I'd really encourage you to, as frustrating as it is, to use the system. You can go to IG. IG has problems. Like that, the inspector general and how that program works in the United States, like that's worthy of a journalistic expose, if you will, in of itself, because IG works for the agency that they're assigned to. But anyway, they're like HR. They're not, HR is not on the side of the employee.

They're just trying to protect the company from lawsuits. Yeah. Like if you're, if you see something, if you're an employee of the CIA, for instance, or the FBI, whatever, and you see something wrong, and you go to IG, IG works for the FBI or CIA. Like, they are ultimately going to protect the institution. They're not going to look out for your best interests necessarily. Maybe that's an unfair thing to say. I just have talked to whistleblowers and read many accounts of people who have been burned.

So, yeah, it's frustrating. It's messed up. You know, when you become a whistleblower, I mean, you are becoming a pariah in so many ways. You're sacrificing your career for the good of your country in a lot of ways that you're pointing the finger at corruption and you're taking a hit for the team, man. And it sucks to be that guy. but yeah I would not encourage anyone to go down the route that Chelsea Manning or Ed Snowden went down What about Julian Assange? Like where does he fall in it? Because he wasn't actually the one doing the hacking

He wasn't the one what what like Assange said him I mean there's a lot of ins announced to that whole story and you know Assange is a shady character um in in my opinion I could not prove this um but in my opinion I think If you look at Assange, if you look at the people he hung out with, I think he was used as a proxy by foreign intelligence services and set up to leak information specifically about the United States. When he had opportunities to leak information about the Russians, he didn't. So it kind of shows, in my opinion, what his agenda was. And I would argue that perhaps he was working for, or maybe he was unwitting. I mean, maybe he was completely unwitting and thought he was an activist and journalist or something like that. but he was and I mean this is just a fact he selectively published and leaked information

and he called that a form a new form of technical journalism that you know instead of doing what journalists normally do of taking in the information and writing about it he said hey we're just going to take these documents we're going to add some annotations to them you know so you understand what the acronyms mean and we're going to publish them as a And I mean, I'm wearing like two hats here. I'm kind of speaking as, you know, somebody who really does, and I really am concerned with American national security,

but I am also a journalist. And I have an obligation to, you know, point to corruption or wrongdoing as well. And, you know, I take those calls. And when somebody calls me and says, you know, my husband, who is a soldier, is beating me, you know, I would be an asshole if I didn't, you know, listen to that. You know, that's your job. So it's like these two things. And, you know,

where do your values stand? But I think that, you know, take just taking a bunch of top secret documents and spilling them, there are certain things like, you know, Chelsea Manning leaked that video. What was the famous, it had a name, the video of the Apache pilots shooting up civilians. It's like, okay, you saw something that you disagreed with. like I got that, but why are you stealing every State Department cable and leaking that? Right. It's like, okay, now we're getting beyond whistleblowing. Right.

We're just stealing top secret information and leaking it to, you know, the public. And, you know, as a journalist, putting that hat back on, it's very different when me or another journalist, you go and you talk to people who are in the intelligence community and you have a conversation. And then you write about that and you write a story. That's one thing. actually taking top secret documents and bubble shinging is something totally different. So I think for you it's kind of interesting because you have actually held, have had different jobs over the course of your life and this sort of putting on two different hats I find very fascinating. I've only known one thing in my entire life, you know, my job. I wonder how

you sort of reconciled the two things. which can be kind of difficult. Yeah, I mean, it has its, it's ups and downs in the sense that, you know, as a former guy, a former special forces guy, you know, due to come out of that line of work, feel a little bit more comfortable talking to me. It opens up some doors. You know, when those guys come and talk to me, even if they cold call me, which happens sometimes, you know, they know that I'm not like some anti-military person. They know I'm not like out to get them or something like that.

Maybe they also understand the mechanism. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they don't have to like brief me on what, like, hey, special forces is this, Rangers or that, like, you know, you speak the same language. The flip side to that is what I do is considered by, again, in air quotes, the community, I mean, it's considered to be like treason. So I deal with something that you never would, that a traditional journalist, somebody who went to J-school would not really have to deal with, that I have tremendous pushback that I've had flongs out with friends. In some cases, close friends of mine, because I asked questions that they felt shouldn't be asked, because I said things that people didn't want to hear, because I exposed things that people thought should have been kept quiet.

So the response to it is also a lot of anger. A lot of anger. And I mean, I know there's a lot of journalists out there experiencing that anger, that sort of public anger with the media in general. Mine has been more personalized in the sense that because what I do, it's seen as like a sellout, you know. But for me, I mean, I mean, I'm pro-military. I'm pro-America, but I am also very much pro-reform.

I believe in military reform. I believe in intelligence reform. I look at the way we're doing things, a mess we're making around the world. And it's not that I don't like my country. It's that I think we should do things better and smarter. And I don't think that we should be sending all these soldiers to die overseas without any kind of strategy whatsoever. So, yeah, maybe I'm editorializing here a little bit.

but I think that as a country, we have this sort of malaise that we just keep doing the same stupid thing over and over again, acting like it's okay, and it's not okay. It's not. And so somebody has to pump the bricks, and somebody has to point a finger at that. And I think the job that someone like me can do, and not that I'm alone, there are others out there, is to just remind Americans every. day like, hey, this is going on. This shit is real. There are people dying over there, and it's just been an interesting experience because the more truthful you are, the more angry people get. People don't get angry by fake news, per se. People get angry by real news, and the more real it is, and the more you're putting it in their face, and the more you're saying, like, hey, this is going

on, this is happening, and this is real, the more upset they get. And that's just been my experience walking through it. But I mean, I don't talk about it that often and I don't like to complain about it because at the end of the day it's one of those things like, hey, if you don't like it, find another job pal, you know. So, I mean, this is the path I chose, so I don't necessarily complain about it. That's interesting. Real quick, are you guys having a hard time hearing Marie? Do we need to turn a mic up? and that might be

no I probably need to speak louder no no no we can turn up your mic too if that's an issue because somebody said that your mic might be a little low um Alex Bennett thanks for the donation thoughts on the Millennium Challenge

2002 I don't even know what that is that's a training exercise from back in the day I believe the Millennium Challenge 2002 You need Jack to answer this question? I do. Yeah, I need him to answer most of the questions. I know. And then I chime in as if I knew what was going on.

It's my strategy. I let Jack take the lead and then I jump in and go, oh yeah, that, the one in Challenge 2002. It's my mic too low? You sound good. I sound good. Okay, I messed around with us. So I said we're five by five. Sorry about that, guys.

We are Lima Charlie. So Maria, what I would like to do now is to talk about some of the bigger stories that you've worked on. And if you can kind of talk us through the process, because I don't know, I feel like a lot of folks out there, and going back to that anger that you sometimes hear from the public, they just don't really understand, like, how the newsroom works and how that whole process works. And they think, like, you know, you're a reporter, you come into the office in the morning, and your editor's like, hey, you cook up some fake news today, you know, and it doesn't really work that way. Well, at least not in a, certainly not in a reputable, you know, place like Reuters or AP or, you know, like every job, like people, you know, you go to work and you know what you're doing, you know,

the structure of what your profession. What's expected of you. It's expected how, just how it works, but like if you were to ask me how does an engineer work, you know, day in and day out, I just would have no clue, so I mean, I understand there's the ins and out of the profession are not probably well known or yet. People just don't know. It's possible that, you know, the day nor workings of an news organization are not well known. But yeah, I mean, you know, there's a structure. And as I said, I work on the general assignment desk for, for,

for the US General News Service, which means I cover a lot of things that happen in the United States. That usually, so we cover a lot of breaking news. So for example, if there are crimes or acts of violence or court cases, we jump on it and we report it out. It's a team of people, obviously, and there's an assignment, there's assignment editors who sort of vet the stories and assign reporters to work on them during the course of the day. And, yeah, once you get assigned a story or you, you know, you come up with a story idea that you're interested, you know, subject to you're interested in exploring and presenting to readers,

you will have an editor that will sort of follow you and follow the story from the beginning to end. And depending on what you're reporting on, whether it's what we call a spot news story, which is the story that you do in a day, you know, in a couple hours and three, four hours, depending on how much work you requires and how important the, sort of the event is, you, you know, you'll work differently as if you're tackling what we call an initiative story, which requires a bit of, a bit more reporting, perhaps, a different storytelling. format perhaps and a little bit more time. So, yes, but I mean, it's, as you guys know, it's busy.

There's a lot of stuff going on. So how, okay, so, you know, it's like when something's breaking, I think of, okay, I saw it in the news, but you guys are the news. So how do you know when something's breaking and how do you prioritize? So the crimes or court cases, like I'm sure they're going on all the time everywhere. It really depends on your outlets, sort of mission and public. We are focusing on national news, so we don't focus necessarily on local news. We're not, for example, a local, and that's the importance.

of local news, local news outlets can really focus on covering their own communities and bring to light a lot of issues that national or international media outlets don't have the resources to do for various reasons. And so depending on how much interest we, an event might be, then coverage is sort of decided upon those criteria. So is local news sort of a feeder to the national news level? It always works like that. Okay. Something starts, usually starts out of the local level, and because of social media, that functions as a giant sort of megaphone, it can immediately snowball very quickly into something that garnered national traction. And in that time, you jump

on the story. You know, sometimes it can be anything from a phone call from a source that alerts seat or something, sometimes can be a press release, the receiving the mail, sometimes can be a tweet. And obviously there's a different verification process that goes on that takes place according to what type of source is giving you the news or the tip or whatever that is. And in a perfect world, it's like, you know, like you said, yeah, source hits you up with something like, this just happened. And you're like, you remember there's that one meme where the guy's like, you know, in a perfect world,

it's like that. But there are also these programs now, and I'm sorry I can't run the name offhand, but they like aggregate all the social media and they show you pinpoints on the map. And I know a lot of journalists use that nowadays to identify breaking news like if there's a mass shooting or something like that. What is that? Oh, they're just kind of. There are different ones. There are different programs. Interesting sort of like content management systems for data miner.

Is that one? There's one called NewsWip. There's a bunch of brands and different products. that work really well. It's because it can be kind of overwhelming to monitor such a best realm of information and sort of filter it to really understand what is news and how to best report it out. These tools can be pretty helpful in identifying. So is AI becoming more of a thing as sort of that type of,

aggregate and then filter for? I think yes. Again, I'm not an expert, but from what I can tell, yes. And automation is certainly something that, you know, algorithms and different technological means are really kind of shaping sort of the way we filter more than, obviously not report the information, but filtering, gathering, news gathering, I would say.

It's change a lot from where I started out, which, again, I am like, I think I'm not that old. These things didn't exist ten years ago. Oh, God, no. Not even six, seven years ago. No, we didn't have these tools. And it's pretty, they have plus sides and downsides. Obvious, for me, downside is that there's really no time all in a way. Because it's always constant.

The news cycle is pretty crazy, you know, just. But it's also, it can really allow you to do a thorough job in a way, gives you access to amounts of information that we're otherwise not available. Yeah. All right, Maria, I'm still going to make you get back to the Maria stories. Oh, yeah. No. But we've got a question here.

What's the craziest pitch you've ever heard from a political operative? From a political operative? Oh my god, I'm so sorry to disappoint your viewers, but A, I don't cover politics. Like, you know, pitches, journalists receive pitches, as I'm sure you know, Jack, every minute of every day. And there's actually, I should direct you actually to Twitter because there are some journalists who... DMs open, bro. No, do tweet the funniest pitches that they receive daily. And some stuff is pretty out there.

What's the craziest one you've gotten? I don't know, man. I get things all the time about stuff that I really don't cover. Biggest candy store just happened in, I don't know, Uganda. I don't know, something like that has really, like, you can't, it's hard to really look at it and say, wait, what's going on here? Do you ever get like, you know, the, you know, the Vatican ants colluding with the Rothschilds to put chem trails in the sky? You've got a lot. What I'm going to tell you is you got a lot of crazy stuff.

But, you know, it's like if you open your Twitter. Right, right. And there's a lot of information out there. Is there anything that you did ever, like, seemed crazy at the outset and then actually, like, formed into something that was legitimate? Or even if, even if it was misinterpreted at the very beginning. I mean, personally, that I have encountered, not off the top of my head, there are, one thing, let's put it this way, one thing I've learned is not to judge a book by its cover. Everything requires attention and everything should be thoroughly examined and sort of vetted before you take or do not take action. I find it a very important job to do your due diligence on these things.

I would say it's fundamental. I try to tell women all the time not to judge it, but Bryce because none of them listen. I shouldn't have left this. None of them listen. All right, so, Maria, some of the bigger stories you've worked on, what are the bigger ones the ones you're most proud of? I know you've worked on, you've spent quite a bit of time on, certain stories.

Yes. I've spent a good amount of time on a story that I talked to you a lot about, which was when I tried to talk to some U.S. military veterans following the U.S. pullout from Syria. you gave me a lot of really good tips and advice. And as we were talking before about, you know, having networks of friends and people you trust and value. It's always, in a way, I think it's source building. And it's really important to get good information, I feel.

That story was really important to me for many reasons, but, mainly because I was very, very, very interested and self-conscious about the fact that I wanted to get these guys' stories out there correctly and properly at a very important time. And secondly, because I learned a lot that I didn't know. And that for me is a big part of my job. I always try to go into a story saying, hey, I do not know very many. things about this subject. I do not know. I want to learn. So please. And that's very different from being gullible, I feel. It's just being open-minded. And be a very good listener. The smartest people were the ones who are like, yeah, I don't know. Right. And I feel like

there's, but my biggest, my biggest sort of goal was to really tell these stories accurately. and some of them were hard stories to hear. And it was an immensely rewarding and difficult experience for me. It was more of a feature story, but it was really important to me. On the opposite sort of like side of things, we covered the Weinstein trial earlier this week. this week and that is obviously a huge story, a very fast-moving story and it's it's it was a really, really interesting experience for me. I learned a lot and I'm not just saying it because I have to say it, but it was really like I find that in reporting you every occasion, every, everything that you

report on, you learn something new and especially being a general assignment reporter, the, the range of topics that you get to cover is so broad. Yeah. You really have to be kind of as nimble as possible in trying to... What I can tell you about, the Weinstein trial was it was really cold. Really? I was out of the courtroom for like hours. Do you find that just like in a social setting, you know,

that when people find out that you are a journalist, do you get a, do people tend to, sort of like shut off to you? No, most people are actually very friendly. Yeah. People love to talk. Very curious about what I do. No, I've never really had somebody who's being confrontational or unpleasant or aggressive.

Or what if, not even that, but, or like, worried or nervous or like, oh, you know, are they? Oh, in that sense. No. I'm no Jody Cantor, you know. It's like, I don't know. I'm going to smile like I know who that is. She's the New York Times reporter. Okay.

Kind of co-broke the Weinstein story. Okay. Yeah, people get nervous when I look at their LinkedIn profiles. Like, oh, get it up in a Jack Murphy article. So Jack is scared. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I'm scary. They're just scared of what I'm going to do.

But, so, like, conclusions, though, of some of these works. I mean, what did you find when you went and spoke to these veterans about, you know, us withdrawing out of Syria? Because, I mean, you've tracked down a couple people on your own. And then I also put you in touch with Greg Walker and Mark Giaconia. See, I'm happy to help out people I like. You know, if you just inbox me, though, asking for my sources, New York Times. You know, but otherwise I'm happy to help out. I'm a nice guy.

What were your conclusions coming away from? What were my conclusions? Yeah, what did you find out as you talked to these guys? Talk to your sources for this article. One thing that stood out for me. It's not the answer you want, I think. The dedication, the love for the institution, the love for the country. And the fact that such an experience really kind of ends up shaping lives for us.

ever. And that for me was not only fascinated, but kind of moving in a way. It was the biggest takeaway for me from that story, regardless of, you know. What do you mean, like the love for what institution? What the hell are you talking about? I'm talking about the love for the military. For the military itself. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You sound surprised, Jack. Where's that surprise coming from? I don't know. I mean, you talk to a lot of different people. I mean, story itself is about, you know, the Kurds per se. It's not really about the military. But it's, if you ask me as a, as the person who talked to them for a fair amount of time, the overwhelming feeling I got off is that.

When you, uh, maybe in that story or something else, I'll reference that story since, you know, you're kind of talking about now, but, you know, I know that you go in with sort of as much of an open-minded as you can in terms of... Clean sleeve. Yeah. But we also, all of us have sort of preconceived ideas about whether it's anything. Do you find that like when you're going through stories like that, especially when they're so in-depth and you're talking to so many people,

that where you started and where you end are very different places in terms of just maybe perceptions or opinions or anything else like that. No. Or do you find that you are able to maintain? I try as much as possible and maybe this doesn't sound realistic, but I really don't think about myself when I'm reporting. That's amazing. I mean, that really is.

I don't think about what I think really. Yeah. I'm really focused on delivering my story accurate and fairly to my readership and telling the story the subject is telling me. You know, like without, I'm not saying, yeah. It's just... Well, you're also, like you said, you're coming into it without the, you know, I would bring it probably

a bias to that story because I was in the military, because I've been to Curtis and all this kind of stuff. And this is the benefit of coming into it with a blank slate is that you're really just like, oh, this person said this, this happened, and then this happened and you're not necessarily bringing in.

It's not good. But you said the institution leaves the mark on you, you know? You come So, you know, nobody's like, we all learn. As I said, this is a learning process. We all learn. But I think for me being a good journalist is really trying to take a step back. That's really admirable. I mean, it really is.

You know, I don't even say admirable. It's just, it's an exercise, and I'd like to think that I'm doing that exercise. Yeah. And what about the Weinstein trial? I mean, I have not been keeping track of that, really. I know that it began, and I saw the pictures of him with the Walker, like, come on now. What's going on? Where is this trial at right now? It's jury selection. It's in the very early stages. They're selecting the jury before the trial, the actual trial began. And he's being

charged with rape. He's being charged with, I think, one count of rape and sexual assault. How many counts? I don't actually recall the exact number of counts, but there are two different charge is two different. There's two accusers in this particular case. It's a very complicated legal proceeding. So only two victims are going to trial? The case being brought on behalf of only two victims. Okay. Because I mean this particular criminal case. Right. Civil cases there are separate. It's a very complicated. And they're like probably being settled out of court and things like Well, there's been, there has been reported already that there was a settlement for a certain amount of money a couple weeks ago. So there's different proceedings that have been handled in different ways.

Wow. And they're just in jury selection right now. Yes, correct. It'd be interesting to see how that shakes out. It's a, it's, I think pretty, is to follow from a perspective and from a, the human, the human, story perspective also as well. I'm not a legal reporter, so there's different roles. Legal reporters really follow the legal proceedings. I covered the more, you know, outside the courtroom kind of scene. And there's almost two stories in full demanding.

That is interesting. What other, or what are some of the other bigger stories you worked on? I remember you worked on one story that you published about a transgendered, Man transitioning to a woman? Yeah, no. Was that the way around? I'm sorry. I focused for, that's a topic that I'm interested, sort of like covering the LGBT community,

being part of it myself is always been sort of one of my areas of interest. I had that story, which was last year, I think we were two years ago. It was a year ago. Yeah, maybe. Now I'm trying to really develop. sort of focus on the environment and the human impact of telling the human stories behind the global warming, climate change, and environmental shifts in general. So I've worked on an interesting multimedia story about corals and some scientists that are doing

some very interesting work on coral cores, which are basically parts of the coral skeletons, are extracted from coral reefs. We went to this amazing laboratory in just 40 minutes from New York City in the woods, where they have these feet-long coral corals that they study in X-ray and are able to tell you all sorts of crazy stuff about the environmental changes in the, sort of the changes in the environment around the corals going back hundreds of years. Now, do you get, when it comes to things that you're interested in, I take it that you get to pitch sort of story ideas or whatever. When things become national news in your realm of interest, do you have to compete for those stories or how does it?

Or they get assigned to you? They get signed. Okay. You can express obviously interest in it's like, hey, I'd like to cover this. but it's really the luck to work and the fortune of working at a very part and when a big,

breaking new story happens, you just kind of it's all hands on deck. Everybody jumps in and we all sort of divvy up the workload and then we focus on getting the story out. And then how is, I mean

maybe it doesn't matter you guys, how is credit given or how is the buyout, how is that, when everybody works on it? Is there a senior, like is there a senior journalist, senior reporter? No, so it depends on who's reporting the news. So if you're making calls and gathering information on a big breaking news story, there's usually a journalist who will sort of gather all that information from the various reporters and write it. Okay. So you either give paragraphs and sentences to this Trump or call Trump writer. And so the people who will get the

byline are the people who are gathering the information and then the person who writes it will have a credit at the bottom. I see. And the person who edits it or the people who edit it will also have the credit at the bottom. And this varies from outlet tech. It's very different depending on what you're working for. Right. It's not. But it's, there are some things that are shared in the business, which is like where you're reporting from. So that's where the reporter is. What do you do for fun? So you're always, so you are always like in this world of fact, right? In this world of information, nonstop information.

How do you unwind? Like, what do you do? I have a serious addiction to crime TV shows. Do you really? Like the fact, like actual? No, no, no, no, fictional. Okay. Fictional.

I'm a nerd of British crime TV. British crime TV? I didn't, honestly, didn't know that was like. I'm not much of crime TV. It's pretty big. Is it? Yeah. There's a pretty big following also, I think, in the States of British TV.

It's just different. And having lived in the UK for five years, I don't know. It just brings up some sweet memories. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. What is different, or what is more appealing to you to from, like, British crime TV compared to U.S. crime TV? Like, Law & Arrest View, or whatever else it might be? I don't know.

The Brits are just... Sophisticated? No, I love the accent. Let's put it that way. I just love the accents, and especially the quirky accent from like, I don't know, the north of England or Scotland or Ireland, you know, UK and Ireland. It's, I find it fascinating. There's a bunch of awesome American TV crunches that I follow, but now I'm going through. Like, you know, when you get like tunnel vision, you're just like going down a rabbit hole.

I'm in that rabbit hole right now, like, I'm like just doing British TV. Yeah, that's awesome. We had a question from Alex. What do you guys know about the LE division of the NOAA, the National Office's Atmospheric? Is that what the NOAA is? I don't know anything. I'm sorry.

Yeah, I don't either. Oceanography and atmosphere, right? Administration. Their law enforcement division? I don't know. No, no, I don't know. I think every federal agency has some sort of law enforcement. Everybody's got a slot team.

Which is super scary because, like, you're all straight. Because like the IRS, you know, I remember a friend of mine was an accountant. And she's like, I think I might go to the IRS. I'm like, why should I guess? Because they get to carry guns. I'm like, okay. You're getting ready for the boogaloo over there, Dave? Yeah.

And then thoughts on the new 5.7 pistol from Ruger. I don't know anything about the 5.7 pistol from Ruger. The 5.7. Thanks, Alex. That FN fires. The FNP 90 and the 5 and 7 pistol that they make. It's interesting. It's an immediate pistol round.

I mean, you can reach out to about, you know, 100 yards or so. Yeah, I mean, accurately, like, yeah. Yeah, I honestly don't know anything about it. I, you know, I'm interesting. No, no, no, and I know 45 minutes. I fired the FMP 90 once. It's a cool gun. Yeah.

Yeah. A little submachine gun. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm sorry. That's on the L.E, the law enforcement division of the NOAA. Are I still here? Huh?

Am I still here? No. And thoughts on the... Five and seven? Especially on that. You want to hear my thoughts? I don't even know what that is. I thought it was a snack or something.

Tasty treat. So the state of the media. A lot of people not happy. There's a lot of navel gazing, if you will, both within the media and outside. kind of this like almost like self-loathing I feel like some of the criticisms I think are very valid others you know not but what do you think about what do you make of the state of the media right now and where it's at right now I mean it feels like it is in a bit of a crisis doesn't it

are you talking from business perspective business but also philosophically ideologically I I mean, I think there's been some, like, self-reflection, especially since 2016, about... I think it's just like any other business, there's pains. I really wish I was smart enough to have a comprehensive idea of what's happening to the media business as a whole. I think I'm more... Honestly, I'm more fascinated in the business side of things. and how things actually work, then in anything philosophical that might have no... I really don't feel qualified.

I know what you're saying and I know there's a lot of talk about the state of the media in the U.S. specifically, I would say. I try to focus as much as possible daily. And that for me is what the media is. Might sound cheesy, but that's what I really have. Do you pay attention to other media, like, maybe other, like, news, but do you pay attention to other media outlets, whether it's Fox or seen in the Mississippi Street? I think it's part of our due diligence to really read.

Be well run. Yeah. Interesting. What do you make, Ben, I mean, do you think it's, It's true that there's a deliberate effort to discredit the press right now. Pass. Our pass. Maria, you're such a softie.

There was a question for you. There was two questions for you, actually. One, do you watch Luther? Yes, I watched it all. It's amazing. Actually, is it amazing? What the hell is that? It kind of, I loved it.

I loved it. To whoever asked this question is great question. It's D.C. Nolan. Nolan, it's, it's, it's, I liked it, I. And he asked it in all caps, so it is an important question. I feel by the end of it, Luther himself kind of irked me. Okay. I wanted to.

Didn't care for the character development so much, or? He just became kind of absurd to me, like, extreme. And it's Idris Elba, so a great actor. He just became too much for me. Okay. But it was a great show. Okay. I totally.

And for our viewers who are not familiar with Luther and Jack and myself, what is it exactly? It's a, I think it was created for the BBC or by the BBC, but it's a detective show. Okay, okay, cool. That you can now, I think, stream pretty much anywhere on US OTTs, featuring Yerselba. So this is a great British actor. and it's kind of procedural. It's, I think the plot lines are very entertaining. Cases are pretty gruesome.

It's, it's one of those things that you keep watching. But by the end of it, his character is just like... I mean, a lot of detective shows, a lot of murder mysteries are like that. Like, they feel like they have to one-up themselves. Yeah, and then it becomes too much. And you're like, this is really not plausible anymore. Right, right. There's that Netflix series, I think it was called,

The Killing? Yes. With the shadow set in Seattle. Yes. With the redheaded detective. The really tall, lanky guy. Who's all strung out. And that was a great, great show.

That was a great show. Cinematography also was amazing. But by the end of the last season, you're kind of like, you know, the connections get to be like, really, she is connected to this guy, just by happenstance, who is the villain. I know. It's just kind of like, yeah. But if you just want to like kind of To get you That's perfect

And there was one more for you It was a follow on It was More about British TV shows please Oh here's a good one Andrew had a question for us here Do you think that video explanations Of news organization

Retractions would help restore trust in journalists like a video of a reporter explaining what went wrong in taking ownership of the mistake I think I'm not sure about the I mean I think the format is something debatable I think it's it's always important that reporters explain or news outlets actually explain corrections as elaborately as thoroughly as possible it's it's definitely like a lot of one of those very important things that aren't are necessary to do your job properly as a journalism to serve the public. So I'm going to come at my other question more obliquely to try to get an answer at you this time.

It's been interesting to see how the press has taken steps to like they will do a big story and then there'll be like the sidebar story to explain like how we wrote this story, how we sourced it, how we did it. you know, here's the dude or the girl who wrote it. And this is how, like, they're trying to increase, like, information, literacy in the United States. Because the press can be this mysterious thing, I think, the people. Like, what do you think about all of that when you see that? Like, is it a good thing that they're trying to do, like, almost this sort of, like, community outreach effort to say, like, this is how we work? Well, let me, you're going to hate me now, but let me just reverse the question.

Do you find them helpful? I don't read them. you answer your own question yeah but I'm also I you know I write stories so it's like I don't I like and I and I in some cases I actually know the journalists in question like I know them personally so it's like not like my relationship is a little bit different I think there's a you know people's appetite for news is very varied and different diverse

Yeah. It might sort of serve a certain readership and for sure. I mean it's like in a way experimenting with different storytelling formats. There's, I think there's value in experimenting. Dave, if you ever read that stuff? I don't read. That's a hard now. Yeah, I mean, if there's a retraction, then,

then I want, I think their retractions are as important new as a story. And I feel like a lot of media outlets bury their retractions. I feel as though like they, that they're sort of obfuscated or that they're, honestly, I think that the front page of a newspaper or the main page of a website should be there, they should have any retractions or any corrections or anything should be the first thing you see and not buried either at the bottom of an article after you know after the you know the credits or you know or whatever or um you know on page six of a magazine i think that you know it's just like if i you know if i'm in a relationship and i make a mistake then i need to apologize for that mistake and i need to

make it very clear that what I did was a mistake and not and not bury my apology, you know, in some sort of kind of twist, you know what I mean? So I feel that trust in the media has eroded and they are responsible for that, you know, because they, they tend to, I mean, I feel like everybody wants to break a story. And so, um, so, so. So, so. So now, because information goes so fly so quickly and so many media outlets, and not like news organizations, but media outlets. And I consider Fox, CNN, MSNBC, I consider them all media outlets. They're media conglomerates. They rely on advertising dollars.

They're entertainment, you know. And the thing is, is it, they are the reason. They are the reason these channels, 24-hour new, you know, these channels and a lot of newspapers and whatnot. Whether, again, left-turning, leaning right-ling, it doesn't matter. They are so quick to break a story that supports their angle, that supports their side. And so many people go around on both sides of the aisle believing something completely non-faxion. And then these organizations do not do anything to really make it known that they were wrong or that they jumped a guy. That and also back to what I was saying before is that there is a op-ed section and there is a news section.

And Fox will say the same thing. Like, hey, we have our hard news. And then over here we have, you know, our commentary. We have the Bill O'Reilly's and the Carlson Tucker's and that kind of stuff. But like for the public that consumes these media sources, it's all just the same thing. Like literally, they don't differentiate between them. No, it's all just one big media blog. Like you say Fox, but, you know, Rachel Meadow.

Yeah, no, I'm not trying to disregard that. You know, of course. And the thing is, is it, I mean, and the other thing is, like, it's sort of how facts are presented. Again, like, you can say that Republicans voted down this bill for firepower. fighters or Democrats voted down this bill for veterans. But are you really, that might be the fact, you know, that that's what happened. But they're not telling the story. Or, I mean, was Baghdadi an austere scholar?

Oh, the Washington Post story. Sure, I guess. Sure, I guess. That's technically true. I guess. I mean, was Mao a, what the New York Times call now a cultural? Oh, I don't know. You know, some, like, like, okay, if that's, you know, if that's how you want to present these people, you know, whatever, you know, um, so I don't know, I, I ranted.

But, but, but, but I feel, I feel like, I feel like the media, any, any retractions they make, that should be the front page news. Look, we messed up. Yeah. This is how we messed up. Yeah. I don't need to know why they messed up because, you know, like, it, you know, like, it, you know, it. You know, it's like the old military thing. Like, I don't need your excuses.

Just, you know. Yeah, just put it out there. Just tell me what you did wrong and correct it. That's it. What's Maria's dream story to get as an assignment? No, that's an... Crisis. Wait.

I would like... Okay, I know this is going to sound vague, but I don't know yet what shape this will take. You know, concrete. in a concrete way, but I would love to be able to tell the story of a community in a particular area of the country that I find interesting because of various reasons, and I would like to really be able to tell something that they've done that made them come together as a community to tackle an issue that is threatening them for example and I know it's probably been I'm sure it's been

done before but I would like to find a better a newer angle is a coastal community who is really threatened by rising sea levels there are some people in their own communities they're doing amazing things to really change the way their towns or cities are going to are going to survive for for the next 10, 20, 100 years. Have you seen these communities coming together, it form like sanctuaries where they're saying, like, we won't accept refugees? Yes, there's also, I, okay, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I want to tell the best

people story possible. That is sort of one of the reasons why I'm into journalism. It's really to listen to folks. And I know, again, another thing that sounds corny, but is what I really, and so I'm happy. I would be honored to bring people's stories to life. It would be great too because, I mean, there's just so many parts of the country where there are these communities doing good things and bad things, whatever you want to say about it.

I just feel like... The U.S. is such a huge country. There's so many stories to be told. In a big city like New York, right? We have major media outlets here, right? Like, New York Times owns a building over by Penn Station. Like there are huge papers here. New York City is covered and not always covered well.

And I'll go on a separate rant on another episode about that. But my point with that is that there are rural communities all over America. Local newspapers shutting down left and right. So like there are just stuff happening in the flyover states, the square states in America. It's just not being covered properly or at all. And that's a real problem. So I found the other part of the question. Do you feel that it was intentional that the LA District Attorney filed charges on the first day of the Weinstein trial?

No comment. Okay. Graff. I saw somebody commenting that I look like a guy who listens to Radiohead. Now what the hell does that mean? You've got to look like a 1990. hipster, Jack, that's what they're trying to tell. Really?

Yeah. I'm not sure whether that's a comment. Because I grew up listening to industrial music. See, here's the thing is it, well, the 90 hipsters? Because hipsters didn't really start to like. No, I'm sort of like conflating to two things. Because for me, I think the hipsters came, the whole hipster look came from photos of SF guys with the big beards and the shemogs and stuff like that.

And before that, it was emo. Remember email? That was the thing. Like kind of like, wow. Yeah. I did listen to Radiohead when I was a teenager. I didn't. I had the albums, yeah.

I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it. I love them. Really? Yes. I grew up listening to. I was, I don't know if like people I grew up with listened to Radiohead, but I was a weird kid too. I listened to like skinny puppy and nine inch nails.

And I had Gus, Gus, Alice and Chains. I had like Supreme B. beings of leisure, dead can dance, all that. So, yeah, you were pretty weird. Yeah, I was pretty out there, man. You know, Juno Reactor. That is outside of my... Basement Jacks.

Basement Jacks. Yeah, you remember that? Because they were more... They were big in Europe. They were big in Europe. Orbital. Yes. Yeah.

Later can Moby, which is very different. Moby's old stuff, his house music, I really liked. And then, like, I felt like he sold out. He started doing that craft. Yeah. But yeah, I grew up listening to all that stuff. I loved and I still listen to industrial dance music. While he's working, which amazes me because I can't, if I'm writing, I can't listen to any music.

Now there's some of the other genres. Well, Future Pop is another genre I really like. But now there's like synth wave. There's all these like 1980s like throwback synth music. And it's better than it was back in the day. It's like actually good. Shut your mouth. Yeah.

Shut your mouth. Do you listen to that stuff? Not the new stuff. I mean, I used to. The old stuff. How could I not? I was an 80s kid. I know.

I mean, of course I did. You know, I was an 80s kid. I loved everything. Now there's like, oh, what is it called? Well, there's perturbator. There's some of the other big ones. Oh, my gosh. I'm drawing a blank.

Laser Hawk is another one. There are all these bands out there that are doing that kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, I like a lot of the old, I like a lot of the new, I like the retro pop stuff, you know, sort of the retro disco. Like, there's a lot of, I mean, there's, there's, there's, there are a lot of people now that are, like, I mean, Luzzo's doing, you know, some kind of retro sound, you know, a lot of James Brown kind of stuff. Are you a Zophan? Oh, yeah. Ooh. Yeah.

What do you listen to, Maria? Okay. Right now, I'm... It's in a loop. Local hero by your Martin Offler. I'm not sure if I know that. Dyer Straits? Oh, Dyer Straits?

Okay. He's the lead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And he wrote the soundtrack for this really strange movie that I think went out in the evening in his order early. It's about an oil executive from Houston who goes to Scotland to try secure plot land to drill and he has this sort of conversion and he's like you know spending time there in the community was like no no and the music is just amazing I listen to a lot of

Southern Gothic really oh yeah I love Southern Gothic I mean blues and then also like I mean I was a huge Prince fan you know growing up so and there and there are you know there are people now that are sort of like kind of hitting that sound and the James Brown sound. Yeah, that's true. It's all coming back. Yeah, it is. Vintage Trouble, like, you know, they do a lot of the sort of Motown sound. Yeah, I mean, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've been like more into the, like, German dance music, German industrial dance music. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. asking me about a K-pop and it was just funny like my K-pop story is that when I had to take it was a required I had to have a music credit in college and I'm like what 30 at the time 31 taking this class on East Asian music and I had to write a paper analyzing East Asian music so K-pop I mean if you guys don't know I mean you can go everyone's familiar with Ghanem style, but K-pop is fucking huge. It's huge fun. I mean, it's so much fun. It's insane. Yeah, what is it?

B-T-S? No, I don't know of B-T-S. I'm pretty sure I have them on my playlist. At the time, there was a group because they're really big in like boy band groups and girl groups. There's one called Girls Generation, and it's like seven girls. And, you know, if you never seen K-pop before, like these girls are probably like 18. or 19, but they look like they're 12. And here's a 30-year-old, your pal, Jack Murphy, watching girls' generation music videos,

like I'll repeat in the student lounge over and over again. And it's like these girls that look like they're freaking 12 years old wearing hot pants, like do do, do, do, do, and dancing around. And I'm like, oh, my God, if anyone sees me watching this, I'm ruined. How did the paper go? I have passed the class. My final paper I wrote on the I test the class

The score to Ghost in the Shell It's probably my favorite film And the professor actually tried to talk me out of it Because he's like it's very difficult to do that Because he was a musical ethnocologist And to try to tear Go into music and to try to tear apart Like where one culture ends and the next begins

It's like basically impossible to do and the score to Ghost in the Shell it has a traditional Japanese an ancient Japanese dialect in it combined with Bulgarian bells So they fuse these two things

together and as a undergrad I attempted to analyze this in a paper knowing nothing about music but I mean I got like an 85 or 87 on the paper so it was okay it was fun to do Okay. There are some more questions about your shows, The Wire.

Yes, oh my God. The Wire is awesome. Maybe I should. Maybe I should have a plug is over. You should. D.C. Nolan, Jessica Jones was Marvel, man. Come on. Did you get watching the Marvel shows on Netflix?

I have to admit, no, I'm not Marvel. Were you a communist? Line of Duty. Yes. Line of Duty is pretty good. If you haven't watched this, a relatively more recent one called The Unforgotten, with this British actress I love, she's called Nicole Walker. And that is a pretty new take sort of on procedurals. I'm not going to reveal, I'm not going to spoil the plot for you, but it's available on some.

American US streaming services, so Unforgotten, check it out. Check it out, unforgotten. Let's see here. I've gotten into one profession, clothes. You should be doing entertainment, at least. I know, I know. Well, that's pretty fun. Alex says, do you think Katz's 2019 film adaption should be considered an enhanced interrogation

technique? What movies are you looking forward to in 2020? You guys don't. I'm actually looking forward to seeing the new Wonder Woman film. I took my daughter to see the first one. The first one was phenomenal. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to seeing

the new one. It takes place in like 1984. So it's all 1980s. Yeah. So like a stranger thing's marvellized? Kind of, where they're like, they're in the like mega mole in the beginning. Yeah. I feel like you missed out on that whole mega mall culture there,

Maria. Because by the time you got here it was kind of... Yeah. Guys, I cannot tell you how much malls freak me out. So I Really? I was fairly happy that I grew up in Europe. It's a, it's a surreal experience. Like, if you think, when you think back to that day.

I mean, I grew up in the Midwest, so malls were, that's where you, that's where you hang out. Mall life, man. Yeah, I'm all rats. Yeah. I mean, it's where we hung out, you know. It's fascinating for me as a, as a. Orange Julius. What's Orange Julius?

It's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, like a fast food place where they just do, um, They just do orange julius and hot dog on a stick were like the two places. Orange Juilliubon. This is what this predates in one. Predates. This predates. I mean, I'm pretty sure it predates. Dave, this is like fucking archaeology.

Hot dog on a stick. And hot dog on a stick was basically just that. It was a place that sold cord dogs. That was it. I remember the pretzel place. There's still pressur places in there. Yeah, the press place. Auntie Yannies.

Yeah. But about like 90% of the malls have shut down. Yeah. Yeah. And even the malls that are still going. A lot of their... They're a shadow of what they were. I don't know.

There's some huge ones upstate guys. There's some. Yeah. There's like the Permanus mole around here. Yeah. But I mean, it's just like, dude, back of the day, man, I remember as a kid, as a teenager,

going to the mall and buying the, like, anime series I liked. like on VHS tape. From Suncoast? Man, I can't remember. I'm pretty sure of Suncoast. Because I think Suncoast was the only, the only chain. It was just VHS tapes as far as the eye can see.

And you go in there and buy anime. And then there's a whole store of CDs. Like the younger people watching this don't even know what the hell a CD is. And there's their stores, and you go and physically buy an album. Yeah. I remember that. I remember when CDs first came out. When they hit the scene?

of MCs. Well, instead of cassette tapes. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of cassette tapes, like CDs and laser discs. Laser disk was a weird thing. Yeah. It was there.

I remember laser discs. I mean, I remember when ATM machines first came out, because before that, like, my parents had got to write checks at the grocery store for the weekend, so they'd have cash over the weekend. Wow. Yeah. Back in the good old days. Simpleer times, guys.

J.C. Penny is a Tung Coast video. George Julius, hot-de-I-gonna stick, where are all the mainstays in a mall? Spencer's Gifts. Babbage's. Um, hot topic. Yeah, hot topic. Pacific Rim or Pacific...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the one you're talking about. Pacific Sun. I know exactly the story of talking. Pat Sun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, malls were when we went to go do all our shoplifting when I was a juvenile delin. Malls were... Um, uh, anyway.

Somebody asked, did Maria work on Thompson-Rourgous Foundation 2018 piece about the world's most dangerous countries for women? No, because I was already working for Reuters. Reuters. Sorry, I came to say, Reuters. And no, so the short answer to that is no. Okay. There was a second part, but it was, if so, do you know why the U.S. was ranked the 10th most dangerous country for women? I would guess it's based again I'm speculating because I didn't take part in that reporting but it's a survey so it's actually no I don't know okay so sorry I mean I would I would speculate too without looking at the data that we probably keep better statistics than most countries do sure in those statistics it's like if you get like number of people or

actually assaulted in America. It's like one in four. It's crazy. Actually reported on the U.S. is pretty bad rates of maternal mortality. So obviously you consider that as part of a woman's while being in a country. Oh, dangerous countries. Dangerous countries. Well, it makes it dangerous for a woman. Well, yeah, I guess you'd have to know what their methodology for determining what danger was. But there's a bunch of factors. But there's a bunch of factors. because we're, um, um, um, the U.S. fairs pretty poorly in terms of, um, helping the women. Mm-hmm.

Uh, let's see here. Nolan wants to know how old we are. I'm 22. I knew you were going to catch that checker. I'm 36. Dave is, uh, 55. And I'm 34. Uh, well, how old did you say us?

I'm 49. Uh, I'll soon be. 50. I read it a 53-year-old level, though. So I think that I'm pretty mature for an age. Yeah. 49 with the body of an 80 year. Is the U.S. Army going to get forced out of Iraq? I don't think so. As much as a lot of them would like us out of there, America is the biggest scam in town. I mean, people...

Our money. Yeah, our money. Yeah. G-O-I is like stuff in their pockets with American dollars. Sure. Oh, yeah. I mean, at this point, I think the Iraqi government is pretty much in the pocket of the Iranian. Not in the pocket, but under Iranian influence.

But those American dollars are pretty sweet. Yeah. They all, you know, they all want to get like a, you know, a green card to come here. They're going to stuff their pockets and then come live, you know, down the Fairfax, Virginia area. Meanwhile, meanwhile. Their people are. Meanwhile, leaving their people screwed and going to the predatorial machinations. Yeah, I was thinking about this today.

I have a lot of sympathy for the Iraqi people and everything they've been through. I have almost no sympathy for the government of Iraq, which is just corrupt to its core. Yeah, one percent. And does absolutely nothing to help the aforementioned Iraqi people. Like, throw a dog a bone here, guys. Like, Jesus. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know,

certain people like people have been have like when the whole kateba has a lot you know protest happened like well people have been protesting for for months it's like people have been protesting the iranian influence that that in the iraqi government they want iraq for iraq this was something completely separate that was you know sort of orchestrated so you know don't Don't conflate, you know, don't throw these two things together. Well, I mean, the Sunni-Shiya divides first and foremost in Iraq, and everything else, you know, let's say America, for instance, gets filtered through that lens. Right. Whether rightly or wrongly, I mean, when we were there back in the day, I mean, we're still there, but when I was there back in the day, the Sunni or the Shia, they would like, they would interpret it as America is allied with the Shia, but now they're changing sides.

their ally with the Sunni and now they're doing this and that and they interpreted that for their own reasons but i mean i tried to explain to the the iraqis i worked with i was like americans don't have they don't know any idea of the sunni and she and it's like no like we and our politicians certainly yeah and i told them i was like we just see you guys as muslims like we do not understand that your your these nuances like we just don't get it yeah um so yeah it's just uh to say it's unfortunate what it's happened to Iraq is an understatement. So, understatement of the 21st century.

I mean, look, I don't, I think that the initial invasion was advised. I don't think it was a good idea. And then, you know, sort of like, once you break that egg or whatever, we had an opportunity to do something good. And so did the Iraqi government. They had an opportunity also. Yeah. And there were a lot of people.

And I'm not saying that we, that. The American people didn't do, weren't there, you know, trying to do something good because you worked with Iraqis. I worked with Iraqis. I mean, I wanted, you know, I wanted them. They wanted to free Iraq, you know, but our policies, our politicians, Bush, Obama, you know, like, they all get it wrong. And they put these people like Brummer in charge who don't know what the hell they're doing. And they get it wrong. and you know but the thing is again I don't know that any country really does foreign policy right

like the countries that do foreign policy right are the countries that don't really have a say in the matter there's also no other country in the world that is a global power the way the United States is and we don't we don't handle it well well I I'm 100% agree that we don't handle it well but I would challenge if China were in charge and maybe handing it well I would chant that's my Because I would challenge anybody come up with a country that had our power. Well, no one has. No one ever has. To handle it better.

Like, policies are always going to be flawed because human beings are flawed. And, you know, America is not as homogenous, you know. There's no America. There's just a big group of people, right? So, and people mess up all the time. Okay. Here's a penetrating question. Okay.

Are you ready for the real stuff? It's about time. Yeah. Is there a pecking order among Reuters? reporters, is there an assignment everyone wants? Do American journalism schools properly prepare students? Let's start from the last question. Didn't go to school in America, so I don't know. You have to ask an American journalist who's somebody who's studying here. There's a story, is there a story that everybody wants? Was that the question, that everybody's out? Is there an assignment

everyone wants? Is there an assignment that everyone wants? Well, I I would like to give you a straight answer, but I really can't because journalists are people and people have different interests. Are there some assignments that are more career-making than others that people buy for? I mean, you know, yes. Like in every other profession, there are some more high-profile sort of jobs. And some people, I don't know, like, you know, everything in life depends on what you want to do. with it. There are events that you read every day in the news and reporting on those is, is, what I would consider a sort of a very high profile jobs. Yeah. Is there a pecking order in the newsroom? Like, is there an informal rank structure of sorts? Outside

maybe like seniority, yeah. No, I stick to my, I stick my answer. No. No. So you just walk into your boss's offices. This is what I'm doing. No, informal, you said. That would be informal. Like, there's no informal order. There are hierarchies, yes, for sure. Places are, there's a worker structure, like everybody else, but, like everything else, but I wouldn't say so.

Okay. I'm not sure I guess we would be not for me. So, let me just say to everybody joining us tonight, thank you for coming and watching. Maria, there's like 20 to 30 people watching us live at any given time. I have officially. You have tried to hide. You've tried to dodge and dodge and dodge and dip and dive.

And here you are, media star. But thank you everyone who joined us tonight. Please subscribe to the channel. If you haven't subscribed yet, hit that subscribe button down below and hit the bell icon so that you get notified the next time we go live. and if you like what we're doing there's also a link down in the description for our Patreon page if you want to make some donations to the cause

Yeah even a dollar a month guys We're like halfway to paying our rent So we appreciate it Every dollar counts It makes a big difference Thank you so much for joining us We really appreciate it Where can we find you

I mean we've been talking about your work all night Where can we find your work We want to go and find it And where can we find you on the interweb Uh, Reuters.com. And what? Are you? R-E-U.

So I go to Reuters.com and Maria's articles are there on the phone page. Guys, Google. Help, throw a dog of bone here. Like, come on. Um. What do I got to do to find your work? The best way to find it, honestly, is to Google my name and my last name and roiders. And they will, a page will come up with all my recent work.

All right. Fantastic. And you're on Twitter? I am. At? At. Maria Kaspani, 85. There you go.

Yes. Send her all of your crazy news tips. You got some conspiracy theories? All the money news tips. You got conspiracy theories about the Vatican, Chemtrails, the JFK assassination. That's for Jack. Yeah, thank you so much.

It was a lot of fun. Anshawa, I mean, I'm very hearing of questions. Yeah. So this is very fascinating. Good stuff. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for coming in and telling the story. Tell us about some of the stories you worked on.

And, you know, just illuminating us about, you know, how things work in the newsroom. I don't know. But thanks for having me. And thank you for filling us on good British procedures. Yes, but that seemed to be the most successful part of my contribution. I'm really glad. People are into it. People hit me out for, for, for Tills.

some British TV crime If you guys need If you guys need You know some stuff to add your watch list You know That's me All right Next time we'll have to do a whole episode

About like Nickfoot shows Comic books you and I got covered Oh yeah You TV shows call me I watched them all Yeah British electronic music That is again you All right

Alex said awesome show guys Don't forget the subreddit Oh that's right subreddit, please find our subreddit at the subreddit is our, the team house. It's Reddit.com slash R slash the team house. The team house. It is the team house. Yes. Also, we are on iTunes.

And sound cloud. I'll get us on Spotify soon. Yeah. If you guys like the podcast edition. And likewise, if you're listening to the podcast right now, we're also on YouTube. and we also live stream, so you can go check us out there. The Team House on YouTube. Do we have anything else to pass it?

No, man, that's about it. I think we should keep Maria here for a little while. I think we're going to wait past her. Another like three hours at a minimum. She bet us that we couldn't be a record. Maria is holding out on us right now. She's got all this information. I want to make you pay for this.

She said if we could stretch this out three hours that she would break the news on the new uh the new Brexit strategy no on the newest TV crank but but wait there's more because Maria's going to do an exclusive video for our supporters after this oh yeah oh yeah this is part of the oh yeah it's spoiler it'll be Luther all right guys thank you very much thanks for us. See you guys soon. Thank you. Bye.