Speaker 1: Here it is another edition of Armstrong and Getty Extra Larch.
Speaker 1: It's been too long, but here we are back again
Speaker 1: with a friend and hero of ours. Lara Logan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who I think was the subject of our first Extra
Speaker 1: Large podcast and we talked so much about Afghanistan in
Speaker 1: places around the world and her history as a journalist.
Speaker 1: Well now she's been out and making the rounds um
Speaker 1: commenting on the state of journalism today and pretty harsh terms.
Speaker 1: She's the former chief foreign correspondent for CBS News, one
Speaker 1: of the great foreign correspondents of all time, Laura Logan.
Speaker 1: Here's some headlines. U'm just gonna grab him around him
Speaker 1: here from Fox News from yesterday. Gut Field on Laura
Speaker 1: Logan's blunt truth on media bias from Deadline. Media Matters
Speaker 1: punches back at Laura Logan's podcast. Interview from The Washington
Speaker 1: Post Irony Alert, Laura Logan bashes liberal media from Variety.
Speaker 1: Laura Logan and CBS News have parted ways. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: in the news. We'll be talking about that. Um one
Speaker 1: more I wanted to get to that I really like, Uh, Laura,
Speaker 1: This is from the Washington Times. Laura Logan of CBS fame,
Speaker 1: a hero to truth that's from today about that. What
Speaker 1: a privilege to be able to interview somebody in the
Speaker 1: middle of their career suicide. Ladies and gentlemen, it's our
Speaker 1: old friend Laura Logan. Hello, Laura, are you are you
Speaker 1: preparing the eulogy? Hey? So listen? Uh, no shock coming
Speaker 1: from us. Fabulous job, um talking to uh the gent
Speaker 1: you did on the podcast that's getting so much attention. Um. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's God to those of us who who understand this,
Speaker 1: it's just glass. It's just a fabulous thing to hear
Speaker 1: somebody say it out loud. It's shocking that anybody's shocked
Speaker 1: by what you've said to us. But well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if people are shocked. I'm not really sure that,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I can't test what everyone thinks.
Speaker 1: But if you see a lot of if you real
Speaker 1: a lot of the reporting and listen to what people
Speaker 1: are saying, nobody's really shocked. I think what's just captured
Speaker 1: people's attention is that it's coming from me. And I've
Speaker 1: been you know, and I've been a firm fixture of
Speaker 1: that of the media establishment for all you know, a
Speaker 1: long time now, and I but it should be no
Speaker 1: shot to hear that coming from me, because it's not
Speaker 1: like it's the first time. I mean, I went on
Speaker 1: David Letterman and they asked me if I watched the
Speaker 1: Iraq coverage, and I said, no, why would I do that?
Speaker 1: It sucks. You know, that was during the war, a
Speaker 1: long time ago, so um, so it's not you know,
Speaker 1: this kind of talk for me is very consistent with
Speaker 1: who I am as a person. I just tell it
Speaker 1: like it is well, as I so often do. I've
Speaker 1: i've I've leapt ahead because I know what I know,
Speaker 1: and I forget that not everybody knows what I know.
Speaker 1: Why don't we talk about, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: things you're discussing with Mike Ritland about the state of
Speaker 1: media and how you feel about it. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because a lot of people reported on my
Speaker 1: comments and they characterized my comments, but many of the
Speaker 1: articles left out one simple fact, and which is that
Speaker 1: d five percent of journalists in America are registered Democrats.
Speaker 1: Now maybe that number has changed, maybe it's off by
Speaker 1: a few percentage points in either direction. I'm sure someone
Speaker 1: will come out with a statistic to prove that I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is that the vast majority of
Speaker 1: journalists are registered Democrats, which means that ideologically, naturally they're predisposed,
Speaker 1: they lean left, and they're thinking now. Contrary to what
Speaker 1: many people assume, there is actually a professional process that
Speaker 1: we go through as journalists in order for us to
Speaker 1: not set those biases and and opinions aside. You can't
Speaker 1: divorce yourself from who you are as a person. It's
Speaker 1: the biggest lie of our profession that we pretend we're objective.
Speaker 1: That's what I say over and over again to people.
Speaker 1: Were not objective. We make subjective judgments with every word
Speaker 1: we choose and everything we say, and who we interview
Speaker 1: and how we where we structure them in the piece,
Speaker 1: and how the story is written, and which stories are
Speaker 1: covered exactly, and which stories are covered, which stories are
Speaker 1: not covered. But the the thing is, you can't not
Speaker 1: be human, you can't not have those opinions and biases.
Speaker 1: But what you can do is be professional about your
Speaker 1: job and when you're doing it. Well, you know the
Speaker 1: old rule of journalism, I didn't invent it, to sources
Speaker 1: to direct sources. So if you use that rule, if
Speaker 1: your sources can't be indirect, the conscience, be second hand
Speaker 1: or third hand, you actually have to independently verify what
Speaker 1: people say. Well, okay, then let's look at some of
Speaker 1: that stuff that's out there. One person after another after
Speaker 1: another is allowed to offer their opinion and and reputable
Speaker 1: publications print it without ever verifying it. That's how you
Speaker 1: have a big story right now about you know some
Speaker 1: guy who was an actor who faked an attack on himself.
Speaker 1: Will Everyone just rushed to put that story out there
Speaker 1: without verifying any of it, right because it's it reaffirmed
Speaker 1: their beliefs and their biases. Whereas if they had used
Speaker 1: the old rule of working to verify it and independently
Speaker 1: corroborate it, then perhaps the coverage would have been different.
Speaker 1: I can't say I didn't work that story. I don't.
Speaker 1: It's not even the best example for me. There are
Speaker 1: much bigger examples than that one. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, what we know is when we abandon
Speaker 1: our journalistic standards and slide into the abyss, everybody knows
Speaker 1: they don't really know what's gone wrong. They don't really
Speaker 1: know exactly how to highlight it, or you know where
Speaker 1: to look for the for the deception or the errors
Speaker 1: on the mistakes. They just know it leaves a bad
Speaker 1: taste in their mouth and a bad feeling in their guts. Well,
Speaker 1: Jill Abramson, who's you know, making the rounds with her
Speaker 1: books and when she was running the New York Times,
Speaker 1: she says that a lot of the young people in
Speaker 1: the newsroom, particularly around the issue of Trump, I feel
Speaker 1: like things are so crazy now that that we have
Speaker 1: to abandon these old rules because things are this is important.
Speaker 1: We've got to bring this guy down. Is that some
Speaker 1: of what's going on or what's driving this? Well, I
Speaker 1: have to say I've never been in the New York
Speaker 1: Time newsroom, right, so I mean I can only you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really know. I haven't seen that firsthand. I
Speaker 1: haven't experienced at firsthand. But this is what I do know.
Speaker 1: And you know this too, because you're an old dog
Speaker 1: like me. Right, when you've been around the block a
Speaker 1: couple of times, you're much more skeptical and cynical about
Speaker 1: what people say. For young people today, it's their first rodeo,
Speaker 1: probably the first job they've had out of college. They
Speaker 1: believe everything everybody tells them, and the only people they
Speaker 1: disbelieve in question all the ones they don't like and
Speaker 1: don't agree with. Well, I had the you know that,
Speaker 1: you know what beaten out of me by a bunch
Speaker 1: of old cynical journalists when I was working on a
Speaker 1: newspaper in South Africa. I'd come, you know, bounding off
Speaker 1: the telephone. This is what the police told me. And
Speaker 1: I get, you know, crapped on by everybody in the newsroom. Oh,
Speaker 1: for God's say, you didn't believe that. Oh, well, don't
Speaker 1: let them tell you that. You know this? All that right?
Speaker 1: And I learned the hard way. Just because someone's in
Speaker 1: a position of power authority doesn't mean they're telling you
Speaker 1: the truth. We use power and authority today in the
Speaker 1: media world, and maybe we always have I don't know,
Speaker 1: but we use that as credibility. This person held this job.
Speaker 1: My ass is covered, therefore I'm printing it. That's what
Speaker 1: I mean when I say one anonymous former administration source
Speaker 1: after another, one anonymous FBI, soul software now or whoever
Speaker 1: it happens to be. It doesn't matter. We just substitute.
Speaker 1: You can substitute any of those agencies. Well, that's good enough, right,
Speaker 1: because it came from an agency. And if it's wrong,
Speaker 1: I can say, well, that's what the White House said,
Speaker 1: that's what the FBI said, that's what d o J said,
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. Well,
Speaker 1: that's not journalism. I mean, I don't know if anyone's
Speaker 1: standing going out there saying that's journalism. That's just blatant,
Speaker 1: blatantly false. And young kids today they don't know that
Speaker 1: they're coming out of journalism school. I never even went
Speaker 1: to journalism school. I don't even know anyone who went
Speaker 1: to journalism school. Everybody I knew, you know, was doing
Speaker 1: this as because they were just nosy and they knew
Speaker 1: how to not take no for an answer, and somehow
Speaker 1: we all kind of ended up in this you know,
Speaker 1: this place we call journalist people, people willing to stick
Speaker 1: their nose in other people's business. But at least where
Speaker 1: I grew up, when I was, you know, my soul
Speaker 1: was forged in the fires of journalism. It was in
Speaker 1: the health fires of a part date South Africa, and
Speaker 1: we believed in what we were doing. And even there
Speaker 1: the lines were blurred. Even there, the coverage was about
Speaker 1: evil whites and you know, and virtuous blacks fighting for
Speaker 1: justice and equality and freedom and all of that was true.
Speaker 1: I was on that side, but there were many not
Speaker 1: evil white people, and there were many black people in
Speaker 1: that struggle who lost their way and did terrible things.
Speaker 1: And you know what Nelson Mandela and the leaders of
Speaker 1: the A and C like so remiposed at that time,
Speaker 1: they would have been the first to tell you that.
Speaker 1: And that's what separates journalists from being activists and political
Speaker 1: activists and political propagandists. My old boss at sixty Minutes
Speaker 1: said it to me once when I was doing a
Speaker 1: story about al Qaeda's returned to Afghanistan, and he said,
Speaker 1: how's it going? And I told him, and he's like, Logan,
Speaker 1: don't try too hard. Don't try too hard. You're not
Speaker 1: in a court of law. You're not a lawyer trying
Speaker 1: to prove a case. Your journalist follow the facts to
Speaker 1: where they take you. And I said, but I know this,
Speaker 1: and I know this, and I know this. And he said,
Speaker 1: then fine, if it's true, you'll find what you need
Speaker 1: and if you don't get it now, we'll do it
Speaker 1: when you get it. But we're not forcing it because
Speaker 1: that's not our job. I just want interesting. Wow. I
Speaker 1: just wonder whether whether young journalists or you know whomever
Speaker 1: aren't even aspiring to what you're talking about, though, whether
Speaker 1: it's desperation for eyes and ears and revenue, or that's
Speaker 1: our fault because the old dogs have to teach the
Speaker 1: new dogs how it's supposed to be done. They come
Speaker 1: out of institutions where they're only Let's face it, how
Speaker 1: many universities in America, how many colleges today are on
Speaker 1: the right? I think it's Prague University stands like a
Speaker 1: pretty lonely It's got a lonely spot all the way
Speaker 1: over there on the right hand side of the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: right past. Majority of colleges and professors and academia today
Speaker 1: in this country and in other parts of the world
Speaker 1: there on the left. And so you and what you
Speaker 1: are seeing as conservative movements, as student movements that are
Speaker 1: rising up today in protest against this. Well, when I
Speaker 1: grew up in college, I mean they were running battles
Speaker 1: and tear gas and orotests with the police. It was
Speaker 1: it was a place where every idea was tested and
Speaker 1: you learned who you were and what you were made
Speaker 1: of and what you believed in, and that was part
Speaker 1: of your journey into life. And now they seem to
Speaker 1: be factories for one political ideology, which I don't even
Speaker 1: have a problem with the ideology itself. In fact, if anything,
Speaker 1: I'm a product of that ideology, right I mean in
Speaker 1: South Africa, I didn't grow up as a conservative right winger,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's like it's crazy to me.
Speaker 1: Although although a liberal nineteen four liberal is a reactionary
Speaker 1: in two thousand, nineteen hell nine liberal is an arch
Speaker 1: conservative these days, so you know you have to be
Speaker 1: careful comparing ideologies across time. I just want to say
Speaker 1: one thing. If I say anything loudly and clearly, clearly,
Speaker 1: louder than anything else, I want to say, if there
Speaker 1: is any person out there or any group that is
Speaker 1: trying to paint me as some kind of right winger
Speaker 1: or some kind of conservative, I reject every fiber of
Speaker 1: my being and my soul. I reject that with everything
Speaker 1: in me. I am not a politician and I am
Speaker 1: not going to be labeled by any of them. I
Speaker 1: do my job the same way no matter who's in power.
Speaker 1: No matter who's in power, I do it the same
Speaker 1: way at sixty minutes as I did at a newspaper
Speaker 1: in South Africa when I was filing for radio stations. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're a journalist, you and your person who lives
Speaker 1: to the same principles, you're consistent, and I am consistent.
Speaker 1: And you know people who have people have come after me.
Speaker 1: A few people have come after me now saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, the failures of my being Ghazi story, for example,
Speaker 1: were journalistic not political. Oh really, I love I love
Speaker 1: when people who are not even real journalists themselves, who
Speaker 1: have not done a day or even five seconds of
Speaker 1: real journalism in their life, come out pointing their finger
Speaker 1: at you. And you know, I didn't talk about it
Speaker 1: for a long time because I wanted the apology to
Speaker 1: stand because it wasn't about me. It was about something
Speaker 1: much bigger than me, and it was about other people,
Speaker 1: and it was about standing up and doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: And I stood up and did the right thing, and
Speaker 1: I took it on the chin. But not all the
Speaker 1: facts are out on the table. And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say the most, the most. The greatest impediment to my producer,
Speaker 1: Max mcclearden and I being able to do what was
Speaker 1: journalistic gay required on parts of that story were a
Speaker 1: non disclosure agreement, a legal agreement written by CBS's lawyers
Speaker 1: that we signed with the people who wrote that book,
Speaker 1: and we did everything else journalistically that we could outside
Speaker 1: of that. We even went to the State Department and
Speaker 1: had them they cleared this person. Don't forget. They went
Speaker 1: through the state departments clearing, you know, Clarence process right,
Speaker 1: and was given a job that is supposed to be highly,
Speaker 1: highly secretive and at a high level of classification. So
Speaker 1: you've got people who are cleared. We confirmed everything that
Speaker 1: we could, but we never violated the terms of that
Speaker 1: legal agreement, and that's been portrayed as sloppy journalism because
Speaker 1: it was left out. Nobody knew that we signed that
Speaker 1: why because it was left out, left out of all
Speaker 1: the reporting, was led left out of all the reports.
Speaker 1: And you're talking about the guy who not on the chin,
Speaker 1: you're talking about the guy who misled you about certain
Speaker 1: aspects of the Benghazi attack. Well, that guy disappeared. So
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to him. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he told, the truth about him, what he didn't,
Speaker 1: because he's gone, and other people were left to, you know,
Speaker 1: say things to other reporters secretly, you know, and and
Speaker 1: no one including the FBI ever went on the record,
Speaker 1: So I don't know what the truth is. Did he lie?
Speaker 1: He probably lied. I don't know how much he liked
Speaker 1: about There were only two parts of his story that
Speaker 1: we're called into question. But what's interesting here is that
Speaker 1: the whole story disappeared. Yeah, I guess I'm just confused
Speaker 1: about how the nondisclosure agreement enters into it. But you'd
Speaker 1: probably have to disclose something. Yes, I will explain that better.
Speaker 1: So this guy was one of three main characters in
Speaker 1: our Sorry, I'll say that again. This guy was one
Speaker 1: of three characters in our story, the guy who's two
Speaker 1: parts of his account were called into question and we
Speaker 1: had an He wrote a book, and as many many
Speaker 1: many people do when they write books, they have none
Speaker 1: just they publishers have nondisclosure agreements so that you can't
Speaker 1: scoop them on their own book, and you can't go
Speaker 1: out there and tell people what their book is about
Speaker 1: before their book comes out, except the night before it's time,
Speaker 1: so that it's on sixty minutes on the Sunday night,
Speaker 1: and the book comes out Sunday or Monday, and so
Speaker 1: it's time to come out together, and you don't scoop
Speaker 1: them on their own book. Well, in this case, it
Speaker 1: was particularly sensitive and there were a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: um of concerns about it getting out. So this is
Speaker 1: a standard nondisclosure agreement that CBS IS lawyers wrote and
Speaker 1: had us sign. And afterwards, you know, I was criticized
Speaker 1: by media reporters, you know, for um because I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, do my job and we didn't do basic journalism.
Speaker 1: Well they don't even know. They don't even know because
Speaker 1: they didn't do basic journalism. They all wrote about a
Speaker 1: story that half of them didn't even watch. I've been
Speaker 1: watching sixty minutes since as a little kid, and it
Speaker 1: might be the most important u TV news show in
Speaker 1: the world. Um, certainly in America. You're with it for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Is it as good now as
Speaker 1: it used to be? Is there a slide going on there?
Speaker 1: How do you see it? I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: that's that kind of uh. Your question is is worse
Speaker 1: professional suicide than my interview? Come on, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to speculate on whether it's
Speaker 1: better or worse. I would say the environment now is
Speaker 1: worse because you have politically motivated and funded propaganda organizations
Speaker 1: who use their allies spread across the media to target
Speaker 1: journalists and journalistic organizations, and everyone is terrified to say anything.
Speaker 1: You say one thing wrong, you do one thing, and
Speaker 1: suddenly there's an outcry and everyone's baying for blood. We
Speaker 1: don't live in an environment that's conducive to honest reporting
Speaker 1: because independent voices are being stifled. You know, no corporation
Speaker 1: is going to back you if it's controversial. They're dropping
Speaker 1: you like heartcakes. So um, you know, it's a different
Speaker 1: environment today. I think it's almost an unfair question, not
Speaker 1: just to ask of me, but it's an unfair question
Speaker 1: to ask in lots of ways. I mean, when you're
Speaker 1: the only dog in town, you're the only show on
Speaker 1: a Sunday night, and you're the only news magazine program
Speaker 1: and there are no cable channels and no twenty four
Speaker 1: hour and yous, it's easy to be the most important people, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, because there's nowhere else for anyone to go, now,
Speaker 1: I know. I mean, I believe in the show. I
Speaker 1: believe in the work um that they do. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: I like the stories and love them and they reinspire
Speaker 1: me and motivate me, and sometimes I hate them and
Speaker 1: I and I know I could have done a better job,
Speaker 1: but that's not really my you know, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't look back. Well, one of the reasons. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I asked, and I don't know how much
Speaker 1: you know or cross paths with Cheryl Atkinson who was
Speaker 1: with CBS. We like her and we've talked to her
Speaker 1: a lot, and she's written books. But she definitely felt
Speaker 1: like the CBS Evening News, which she was a part
Speaker 1: of for a long time, slid over the years as
Speaker 1: they got they do. They'd come up with she'd come
Speaker 1: up with the story, there'd be pushed back, there'd be
Speaker 1: lobbying against the story, um by by powerful groups, and
Speaker 1: they would dump story. And she felt they got they
Speaker 1: had less guts there towards the end than they did
Speaker 1: earlier on. Or they would run with the weather in
Speaker 1: the Midwest just to avoid having to cover hard with
Speaker 1: another weather story. Well, you know, that's that's very interesting,
Speaker 1: um that Cheryl says that, Look, that's her experience. And
Speaker 1: I have the greatest respect for Cheryl. She's actually speaking
Speaker 1: from things that she lived through. She's not making it
Speaker 1: up and she's not speculating, so I don't doubt what
Speaker 1: she's saying for a second. I somehow sidestepped all of
Speaker 1: that because when I was in the battlefield, you know,
Speaker 1: in all these places, they were usually so stunned that
Speaker 1: I made it there and I was still alive that
Speaker 1: nobody messed with me. And because I was out there
Speaker 1: and far away most of the time, I dodged a
Speaker 1: lot of the bullets that she was, you know, having
Speaker 1: to face every day. And I was not prepared for
Speaker 1: politics in America, if anything. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: greatest lessons that I learned was that when you do
Speaker 1: something of significance, it's not the significant parts you have
Speaker 1: to worry about, you know, it's the parts that are irrelevant.
Speaker 1: That's where they're going to hit you. Because the significant parts,
Speaker 1: the really solid parts that you've poured your heart and
Speaker 1: soul and every bit of energy you have into confirming
Speaker 1: and reconfirming and you know what true, and they go
Speaker 1: against a conventional wisdom and everything else, but you can
Speaker 1: stand by them till the day you die because you've
Speaker 1: you have you know that that's the truth. Right, Those
Speaker 1: are the pots they go after because they can't go
Speaker 1: after the truth. They can't take those pots down. They
Speaker 1: go after the meaningless pots that are irrelevant, and they
Speaker 1: just use perception and they use the tools of information
Speaker 1: wolf fit today, you know, all across social media and
Speaker 1: cable news and everything else. They use these propaganda organizations
Speaker 1: and they target you and they pour money into it,
Speaker 1: and they have armies of people who can do this
Speaker 1: from morning tonight, and corporations fold individuals fold people like me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell you one of the people in
Speaker 1: boltingness that across me and in the midst of you know,
Speaker 1: my roma after a big gagy story and said to me,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you haven't quit. And that's when I realized,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they want me to quit. They want
Speaker 1: me to lie down and die. They want me to
Speaker 1: fade off into obscurity, they want me to slip into
Speaker 1: the dock. And that's not who I am. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we get that just because we get bitched at
Speaker 1: from a hundred different directions every single day, and we
Speaker 1: understand that if you're not the sort of person who's
Speaker 1: gonna you know, grimace or grin at that and plunge on,
Speaker 1: you're not in this line of work. To begin with.
Speaker 1: But I wish the world would get a little more hip,
Speaker 1: and I think maybe maybe corporations will that this sort
Speaker 1: of you know, I hate the term masterturf because it's
Speaker 1: become a cliche, but that's sort of momentary, internet driven
Speaker 1: feigned outrage thing. Just take a deep breath, hold your
Speaker 1: breath for as long as you can. By the time
Speaker 1: you blow it out, it'll they'll be on to something else.
Speaker 1: And I just it's like my kids. My kids arrange
Speaker 1: in age from nine six and then are well. My
Speaker 1: son introduced me to the term dad hate is gonna hate.
Speaker 1: He's like, who cares, that's it. He is gonna hate.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping uh media gets a little more hip
Speaker 1: to that dynamic. And then oh, another one of these,
Speaker 1: another one of these. You raped my eyes with your story.
Speaker 1: You're the worst people ever, You're you're a tool of
Speaker 1: Trump here or whatever just at the place. Oh, I've
Speaker 1: heard that a thousand times. I'm hoping there will be
Speaker 1: an evolution. Do you remember the journalist Gary Webb. He
Speaker 1: was the journalist who broke the whole story about the
Speaker 1: cia UM and bringing cocaine into the streets of America
Speaker 1: and anything I had to fund the war. Um and Webb.
Speaker 1: You know, he's the one that supposedly committed suicide. They
Speaker 1: made a movie out of what happened to him in
Speaker 1: his life too. I think it was to Kill the Messenger.
Speaker 1: And I was so moved when I watched that movie,
Speaker 1: because I couldn't believe that with everything that Gary Webb did,
Speaker 1: that his name wasn't as familiar to me as Walter
Speaker 1: Cronkite and every Down Morrow and all of the greats. Right.
Speaker 1: I was, oh my wow, how come I've never heard
Speaker 1: of this guy? So I looked him up and I
Speaker 1: did a little research, and I saw something that he wrote,
Speaker 1: and it rarely struck a chorde with me and Um,
Speaker 1: and it was when he was looking back at what
Speaker 1: happened to him he wrote, Um prior to doc Alliance,
Speaker 1: that was the name of his story. He said, I
Speaker 1: was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on
Speaker 1: TV shows, and judging journalism contests. And then I wrote
Speaker 1: some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my
Speaker 1: bliss had been the reason I'd enjoyed, enjoyed such smooth
Speaker 1: sailing for so long, hadn't been as i'd assumed because
Speaker 1: I was careful and diligent and good at my job.
Speaker 1: Where wrote the truth was that in all those years
Speaker 1: I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty good. So all of us journalous we
Speaker 1: go around and we're patting ourselves on the back, and
Speaker 1: we go to the awards shows, and you know, we
Speaker 1: go to war and we're all, you know, all feeling
Speaker 1: pretty good about the work that we're doing and it
Speaker 1: means something, and we change people's lives and we're warriors
Speaker 1: for the truth and all this stuff, right, and all
Speaker 1: we haven't done is we hadn't written anything important enough
Speaker 1: to suppress. Like, because you can be as careful as
Speaker 1: you want. You can be uh, you can be professional,
Speaker 1: and you can work to those standards, and you cannot
Speaker 1: let your standards go right. You cannot just put an
Speaker 1: anonymous source on because you want the headline and you
Speaker 1: want the story. You can actually say no, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do this until I can verify it. You
Speaker 1: can do all of that, and you can still you
Speaker 1: can still get wrong. You know, I get now why
Speaker 1: you're so strenuous, strenuously denying that you're motivated by conservatism
Speaker 1: or whatever. You know, I've always said I hate labels. Um,
Speaker 1: they're they're almost always used to discredit people and to
Speaker 1: end conversations, and almost want to do They want to
Speaker 1: discredit me and end the conversation. They want me not
Speaker 1: to have a voice, they want me not to ever
Speaker 1: work as a journalist, and in they never want to
Speaker 1: hear from Laura Logan again. And and you know, there's
Speaker 1: an even simpler reason why I don't want that label.
Speaker 1: It's not true. It's not true. And by the way,
Speaker 1: my driver the other night, I just gotta say I
Speaker 1: love this man forever because I was after the State
Speaker 1: of the Union and I asked him what he thought.
Speaker 1: He's scared to tell me. Why was he scared to
Speaker 1: tell me because because he kind of likes Trump, And
Speaker 1: he was scared to admit that. How do we live
Speaker 1: in a country in the world today where someone has
Speaker 1: to be scared to say that it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: what I think or feel, whether I support him or not.
Speaker 1: That's irrelevance. Just the fact that my driver, and by
Speaker 1: the way, I talked to all my drivers, and he's
Speaker 1: one of many who's been scared to admit that to me. Okay.
Speaker 1: And some of them were black, and some of them
Speaker 1: will Muslim, and some of them will Korean, and some
Speaker 1: of them were white. I mean, it's it's just this
Speaker 1: fallacy that only racist white people support this president. That's
Speaker 1: just not true. And and he said to me, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm independent, and I thought, holy guacamole. He
Speaker 1: just that's what I am. I'm in attended. He said,
Speaker 1: I want the best man or woman for the job.
Speaker 1: And I was like, good Lord, above me too. You
Speaker 1: know you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, you
Speaker 1: made the distinction between um uh, people having bias, which
Speaker 1: everybody does, as you stated, or allowing that bias to
Speaker 1: be so gleefully put into your news stories. And I
Speaker 1: remember he mentioned Walter Cronkite. So Bernie Goldberg, who was
Speaker 1: a producer for Walter Croncott all those years. And we've
Speaker 1: interviewed Bernie. I don't know if you know him, and
Speaker 1: he wrote a book about bias bias about CBS News
Speaker 1: and he said, in all those years of working with
Speaker 1: Walter Cronkite, he never saw Walter Cronkites bias slip into
Speaker 1: his news. Well, so, Walter Cronkite when he gets older
Speaker 1: and retires and he was finally free to speak his
Speaker 1: mind and gets out there. He's like a whack job politically.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's way out there, on the edge of
Speaker 1: all kinds of different things. He questions the moon landing.
Speaker 1: I mean, just he's way out there. But he didn't
Speaker 1: let that seep into his news coverage, which disciplined man,
Speaker 1: Which is it was pretty interesting and nobody's even trying
Speaker 1: to do that anymore. Well, I would think that probably
Speaker 1: the more honest kind of assessment is is that it
Speaker 1: always seeps in. I mean, I just think we've got
Speaker 1: to be honest about that. Bernie probably didn't notice it
Speaker 1: because he probably shared some of it, because that's what
Speaker 1: I learned. You know, I don't know how many years
Speaker 1: I spent on the battlefield trying to convince soldiers that
Speaker 1: the media isn't liberally biased and that their perception of
Speaker 1: it was wrong. And it took me many years to
Speaker 1: figure out, Wow, I'm the one who's wrong because I
Speaker 1: agree with with most of my colleagues about on all
Speaker 1: of these subjects. So I didn't really notice that there
Speaker 1: was that intrinsic kind of implicit bias. And why do
Speaker 1: we think that what do they call it. They have
Speaker 1: a term for now, unconscious bias. It only exists on
Speaker 1: the right. It doesn't exist on the left. I mean,
Speaker 1: if unconscious bias is a real thing, why is it
Speaker 1: only afflict one side of the political spectrum. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying about real life. If what you're
Speaker 1: being told and seeing on television is a distortion of
Speaker 1: the way you know things happen in real life, then
Speaker 1: it's probably not true. It's a distortion right in one
Speaker 1: form or another. So, Mike, when I realized when I
Speaker 1: confronted this bias, actually it was I was coming out
Speaker 1: of on Capitol Hill, coming out of a building, and
Speaker 1: there was a big um pro life protest, and for
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, it was people who are
Speaker 1: against abortion. Pro life called them whatever you like. I
Speaker 1: told this story once and I was accused of bias
Speaker 1: just in the words I chose, So I'm not choosing
Speaker 1: any particular words. These people were on that side of
Speaker 1: the protest right, and um, I got trapped in one
Speaker 1: of the security things with a whole bunch of people
Speaker 1: and they started this conversation with me which got quite
Speaker 1: heated about you never represent our views on television. You're
Speaker 1: biased against us, and I am, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: flying the flag and saying, of course this isn't true.
Speaker 1: And then but it bothered me, and their words kind
Speaker 1: of stayed with me, and I started to watch and
Speaker 1: I thought about it. I ruminated over this for years, okay,
Speaker 1: until I finally admitted to myself, Okay, the only peat
Speaker 1: time we put people on television who are you know,
Speaker 1: anti abortion and pro life, whatever you want to call them,
Speaker 1: is when they're bombing clinics or looking ridiculous, or it's
Speaker 1: somehow put in a context where this person is very
Speaker 1: conservative in inverted commas, right, which is I don't know
Speaker 1: a code word for something terrible. So actually they're right.
Speaker 1: They were right. We do because I don't know anyone
Speaker 1: that I ever worked with who wasn't in favor of
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not going to say I mean
Speaker 1: against life, because that was, you know, the counter argument
Speaker 1: presented to me. Who was in favor of a woman's
Speaker 1: right to choose what she wants to do with her body.
Speaker 1: I don't know any people like that that I ever
Speaker 1: worked with. And I've been a journalist since I was
Speaker 1: seventeen years old. That's thirty years now. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that's an example we throw out a lot on the show.
Speaker 1: Is is the abortion issue and that there's such an
Speaker 1: enormous divorce between the perception you would get from the
Speaker 1: media about what Americans attitudes are toward abortion and the
Speaker 1: actual reality, which has been pulled over and over again.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't I'm not particularly strong on
Speaker 1: either end, and neither are most Americans. It's very very um, well,
Speaker 1: it's practically uniform that people think first trimester abortions are unfortunate,
Speaker 1: but you really can't interfere with a woman running your life.
Speaker 1: Those numbers drop in half or second trimester abortions, and
Speaker 1: they're practically nobody using who's in favor of late term abortions,
Speaker 1: and you just never get that idea from the media.
Speaker 1: This is not an argument in favor of one abortion
Speaker 1: policy or not. This is just an example of the
Speaker 1: incredible divorce between you know, your media perception and reality. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny you talk about media perception and
Speaker 1: reality because is it media perception or is that being driven?
Speaker 1: And you know, I tend to think these things don't
Speaker 1: get created by jealous, you know, I mean most of
Speaker 1: us are pretty damn lazy. Let's just be honest, okay.
Speaker 1: I mean half of the news room will do a
Speaker 1: story where they're taking calls and they're writing it rather
Speaker 1: than have to get off their butts and get out
Speaker 1: and go sore and do some real reporting. And that's
Speaker 1: why half of these people rely on one source only
Speaker 1: because they can't they can get away with it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, what you actually what you actually look at
Speaker 1: is journalists are not creating these things. Someone else is
Speaker 1: creating it because it serves their purpose, and typically journalists
Speaker 1: are going along with it unless they're part of some
Speaker 1: kind of ideological machine or even ten generally part of
Speaker 1: these propaganda networks that function throughout right, that tried to
Speaker 1: influence throughout I mean, just look what people tweet out,
Speaker 1: just what they put on their social media feeds. You
Speaker 1: can pretty much map those propaganda networks when you look
Speaker 1: at that. So what what ends up happening is someone
Speaker 1: somewhat take, for example, today, the idea that we're divided country, Well,
Speaker 1: explain to me how I can go from the length
Speaker 1: and breadth of this country, from one coast to another,
Speaker 1: whether I'm in California, in a small town or a
Speaker 1: city or New York City, or I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: or Pittsburgh, or now suddenly I'm in Portland, Oregon, or
Speaker 1: I'm in somewhere in Texas. How come everywhere I go
Speaker 1: people are interested in hearing about the truth and in
Speaker 1: talking to me and engaging with me on these on
Speaker 1: these things. If we're so divided, how come everywhere I go,
Speaker 1: in all these different places, people come out and want
Speaker 1: to have these conversations. I don't find people so divided.
Speaker 1: I find that we live in a country where we're
Speaker 1: told every four and a half seconds that we're divided.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the polls, if you I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at the elections, they're not landslides for
Speaker 1: one side or another. There fought in the middle. What
Speaker 1: does everyone talk about the swing states. It's about the
Speaker 1: fact that the electorate is in the middle. Most people
Speaker 1: in this country are moderate. That's what most people are.
Speaker 1: And if most of us are moderate, then we're not
Speaker 1: really that divided. No one's winning these elections on the
Speaker 1: extreme left and on the extreme rights, are they? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know a whole bunch about politics but I
Speaker 1: do know a little bit about bullshit, right, and that's
Speaker 1: max of bullshit to me, right. But it's it's it's
Speaker 1: just not terribly useful to point out what unites us
Speaker 1: in us. It's for a field good speech occasionally. What
Speaker 1: you know, It's funny study came out a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago that it was one of those things that
Speaker 1: rang so true. It's like, oh, how how did we
Speaker 1: just realize this? People? People bond more quickly and deeply
Speaker 1: over what they don't like than over what they do like.
Speaker 1: It's just a stronger motivator, and that's I think. You know,
Speaker 1: the political pros have gotten better and better at their
Speaker 1: jobs through the decades and centuries, and I just think
Speaker 1: they're really really good now at whipping people's animal passions up.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it's just corrosive and poisonous to
Speaker 1: us as as a people is well, it's not their problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've met enough high level political hacks to
Speaker 1: know they're a little short in the conscious department. You know,
Speaker 1: my opinion, the political hacks wouldn't be so powerful and
Speaker 1: influential if they weren't walking hand in hand with the media.
Speaker 1: That's you know, those are those the media itself isn't
Speaker 1: powerful on its own right because Johnah isn't coming up
Speaker 1: with these myths. Is they're they're almost like sheep. They're
Speaker 1: they're being used, and some of them are choosing it.
Speaker 1: Some of them are are more you know, politically minded
Speaker 1: than others. But a lot of the time it's cheap pull.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it takes an extraordinary you know, and
Speaker 1: basically it takes someone who's you know, borderline suicidal to
Speaker 1: stand up against the flow, right. I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna stand up today and criticize the president, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have the vast majority of the media cheering you and
Speaker 1: elevating you. They'll be giving you awards, They'll be talking
Speaker 1: about your heroic journalism. You're gonna be on all kinds
Speaker 1: of chat shows. You're gonna be on the front cover
Speaker 1: of a magazine. Someone who's gonna be asking what suits
Speaker 1: you wear or what dress? Who made your dress? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no courage in standing up against that,
Speaker 1: and there's no point in standing up against it if
Speaker 1: you don't believe it. But if you're going to stand
Speaker 1: up and do I don't know, I mean a friend
Speaker 1: of mine works has a job at the State Department
Speaker 1: these days. And I mean, this administration passed a resolution
Speaker 1: making crimes against women and women an act of war
Speaker 1: or well, I've never heard anyone talk about that. What
Speaker 1: if I wanted to do that story on sixty minutes?
Speaker 1: How popular would I be? Then? I mean, am I
Speaker 1: then an agent of an evil man and his evil,
Speaker 1: dangerous administration? And therefore I bear responsibility for everything he
Speaker 1: says and does? And you know, I mean, and if
Speaker 1: something terrible happens, now it's that blood is on my hands.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the world that we kind of live
Speaker 1: in today. And um, and how does anyone survive that?
Speaker 1: You don't survive it with a corporation behind you, because
Speaker 1: no company is going to stand by you. I just
Speaker 1: saw a tweet. Out Magazine has an article prominently featured
Speaker 1: the Current Issue where they're saying the Trump administration's policy
Speaker 1: against the killing of gaze in Iran is actually a
Speaker 1: colonialist and racist and a bad thing. And it's like,
Speaker 1: and I read it. I you know, I was a
Speaker 1: polypsyga in college, so I got what the guy was
Speaker 1: driving at. But I was like, dude, so he's finding
Speaker 1: everything he can criticize under the sun, including the execution
Speaker 1: of gays. How about you let that one ride? Well,
Speaker 1: how about this, I have one better for you. ISIS
Speaker 1: has a stated position on the elimination and eradication of
Speaker 1: all gay people from the face of the earth. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Security Council has convened once. The United Nations Security
Speaker 1: Council has only convened once in their entire history to
Speaker 1: address a gay issue. A gay issue, right, It's never
Speaker 1: happened before. But because of the blatant and terrible targeting
Speaker 1: and slaughter of gay people by Isis, the Security Council
Speaker 1: actually convened to take on this issue. I can show
Speaker 1: you video off the video of the video of gay
Speaker 1: people being handcuffed or their hands tied and tossed off
Speaker 1: buildings in Mosal and all across you know, the so
Speaker 1: called ISIS Caliphate when they had it at the time.
Speaker 1: And then you have mar Matine going to a nightclub,
Speaker 1: okay and kill all people in a gay nightclub that
Speaker 1: he targeted. If you read al Kade his manual, if
Speaker 1: you read the propaganda, it tells you to target gay people.
Speaker 1: It's one of the legitimate targets. It's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons the Security Council had the special meaning. And then
Speaker 1: you've got everybody coming out the blurring of the facts
Speaker 1: because suddenly it's leaked that Oma Matine had a gay
Speaker 1: lover and he was seen at the nightclub, and he
Speaker 1: was on Tinder and all this stuff. Weeks later, the
Speaker 1: FBI investigates, in fact that they tell him, you know,
Speaker 1: even dragged out some guy who said he was Oma
Speaker 1: Matine's jilted lover. Right, none of that was true. None
Speaker 1: of that was true. But if you tell people today
Speaker 1: that the Orlando massacre was about terrorism and and gay
Speaker 1: people were deliberately targeted as a terrorist tactic, they'll tell you, oh, no,
Speaker 1: it had nothing to do with terrorism. They'll fight you
Speaker 1: on it because so successfully was where the wards moneyed,
Speaker 1: and these issues obscured because I don't know, it didn't
Speaker 1: suit the political masters of the time time to admit
Speaker 1: to the fact that this was a real threat and
Speaker 1: an ongoing issue because why Because I don't know, gay
Speaker 1: people are an issue of the left, and apparently if
Speaker 1: you're gay, you're not allowed to be conservative. Well what
Speaker 1: if you are? What if you are? I mean, I
Speaker 1: have a friend who lives in Texas whose son is
Speaker 1: gay and his misery in his life doesn't come from
Speaker 1: the fact that he's gay and his you know, his
Speaker 1: Republican family in Texas kind accepted comes from the fact
Speaker 1: that being Christian and being conservative in his gay world,
Speaker 1: he feels is a like a noose around his neck.
Speaker 1: That doesn't you know. I'm not speaking for against anyone me.
Speaker 1: I don't care. It makes no difference to me. I
Speaker 1: I'm a live and let live kind of person and
Speaker 1: I am a bleeding heart. Okay, you know I have.
Speaker 1: I have a big heart, and I don't want anyone
Speaker 1: to suffer, and I don't want anyone to struggle. And
Speaker 1: I thought all my life against racism and prejudice. That's
Speaker 1: not who I am. I don't like prejudice in any form.
Speaker 1: But I also I learned the heart. You know what
Speaker 1: I learned from Nelson Mandela that tolerance means true tolerance.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean you create a new type of acceptance,
Speaker 1: and anyone outside of that is now not acceptable. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We work around a couple of newsrooms over our careers,
Speaker 1: and um, they are overwhelmingly left leaning among the reporters,
Speaker 1: and I can think of one reporter who had the
Speaker 1: courage to be outspoken as a conservative, as one of
Speaker 1: the reporters, and he's still talked about by what a
Speaker 1: freaky one. He was a Christian, and he's he's now
Speaker 1: a pretty successful guy and he's on your big conservative
Speaker 1: cable news channel. He could probably guess what it is.
Speaker 1: But anyway, at the time he's he stood out and
Speaker 1: he didn't get to go to the afterwork stuff and
Speaker 1: the parties and all that. It's just a lot less fun,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that to be to to be out
Speaker 1: with your views. Uh, And it's probably worth pointing out
Speaker 1: he was not a strident man. He was actually very
Speaker 1: kind and gentle. Yeah. But so, but just from it
Speaker 1: you're talking about it's human nature to be lazy and
Speaker 1: go to the easy stories. It's also somewhat human nature
Speaker 1: to like just want to fit in with the fun
Speaker 1: crowd and be able to date the girl over there
Speaker 1: or the guy over there, because you're not running against
Speaker 1: the crowd. Well, you know, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to mention something here. So I mentioned you that a
Speaker 1: friend of mine was working at the State Department now right,
Speaker 1: And this is the only way I found out of
Speaker 1: this by accident and I just want to say, you know,
Speaker 1: as a woman who was gang raped, this is important
Speaker 1: to me, and as a woman who not just that
Speaker 1: because of that, but because when I was a young
Speaker 1: reporter in Kosovo, you know, I was the first person
Speaker 1: to get the story that women were being raped by
Speaker 1: the Serbs as an act of war, right as an
Speaker 1: act of ethnic cleansing. And it happened in Rwanda, and
Speaker 1: it happened on many other stories that I've been passionate about,
Speaker 1: and so this rarely resonated with me. And what it
Speaker 1: was is that a year you know, this is on
Speaker 1: October two thousand eighteen, so a year ago in two
Speaker 1: thousand seventeen. October two thousand seventeen, Trump signed the Women
Speaker 1: Peace and Security Act of two thousand seventeen, legislation that
Speaker 1: made the United States the first government in the world
Speaker 1: with a comprehensive law recognizing women's essential contributions to efforts
Speaker 1: that promote peace, maintain security, and prevent conflict, recognizing that
Speaker 1: women off a post ways the economic prosperity and global
Speaker 1: security objectives right. And so the legislation has sparked a
Speaker 1: whole new thinking in the State Department and other programs
Speaker 1: and everything else, and my friend is an ambassador for
Speaker 1: this program. And so how come we don't know about this?
Speaker 1: How come in the age of me too movements and
Speaker 1: women rising up? How come that's not a story. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever heard that either. Well, you should
Speaker 1: do a story on it. Well, Pete on your show.
Speaker 1: He's awesome. We'd be delighted to do that. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: I get you, Pete Morocco, Okay, yeah, fantastic. Well let's
Speaker 1: you know. It's I was saying. I get asked in
Speaker 1: real life a lot about media bias. Um as a
Speaker 1: not left winger in the media, whatever I am, I'm
Speaker 1: a weirdo, is the old libertarian saying goes, I believe
Speaker 1: a gay couple should be able to defend their platform
Speaker 1: with legal firearms. Um, so what does that make me?
Speaker 1: I don't even know. Um, but I'm independent, just as
Speaker 1: my driver. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm a very complicated man.
Speaker 1: Get to know. But it has to do. I tell
Speaker 1: people with enthusiasm, it's not a plot. It's it's there's
Speaker 1: not a cabal that meets by moonlight under the lone
Speaker 1: oak tree. It's a question of enthusiasm for particular stories
Speaker 1: or particular angles of stories, and and it's individual decisions
Speaker 1: being made on what story will I cover or how
Speaker 1: much energy will I put into a story? And so
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's tough for us to have this
Speaker 1: discussion because we are, by some measure editorialists, by some humorists,
Speaker 1: and arguably journalists sometimes. Um so there are plenty of
Speaker 1: times I'm trying to make a point not get it facts.
Speaker 1: But if you're claiming to to be primarily motivated to
Speaker 1: get it facts, the time to be most careful is
Speaker 1: when you're the most enthusiastic. I think, Yes, what you're
Speaker 1: saying is when you like people and you agree with them,
Speaker 1: you should be you should be careful because we're predisposed
Speaker 1: to believe those we agree with. And in fact, you're
Speaker 1: saying you should be more careful that you're skeptical of
Speaker 1: naturally and instinct. Sure. I mean, for instance, I want
Speaker 1: very badly for Trey Goudy to be right everything he says,
Speaker 1: because I really like his views on government. And there
Speaker 1: would be a danger if I were a reporter sitting
Speaker 1: there with Tray Goudy, that I would just sit there
Speaker 1: with stars in my eyes and love in my heart
Speaker 1: and and some some might suggest Scott Pelly was like
Speaker 1: that a little bit with old Andre stricken by the
Speaker 1: same illness. And I'm not taking a position. I'm just
Speaker 1: messing with you. But I don't feel that way about
Speaker 1: any politician, right, good sister. All journalists should go into
Speaker 1: the interview like that. Yeah, that that'd be fantastic. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the interviews I ever did well with the generals.
Speaker 1: I really liked stand it because, you know, because I
Speaker 1: had to put that aside. It was brutal. They tore
Speaker 1: me apart those interviews, and actually one of them, I
Speaker 1: know it had the same impact on him because he
Speaker 1: kept stopping to drink water every four seconds that interview.
Speaker 1: And I know it's because he didn't want to bullshit
Speaker 1: me because we was friends. But I know they he
Speaker 1: also is professional, so I had to be professional. You know.
Speaker 1: I gave him a hard time, but I was as
Speaker 1: fair with him as I am with everyone. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the choosing of stories, the enthusiasm for stories is such
Speaker 1: a big thing, and I wish there for the case.
Speaker 1: But if you have you know, four soldiers blown up
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan today, Fox News will cover it and the
Speaker 1: other two cable news channels will hardly at all, if
Speaker 1: at all, and that's just a choice. I'm sorry, Wait,
Speaker 1: I just got to say I do not accept that.
Speaker 1: That is not acceptable. That is, that is absolutely exactly
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. That is more than Uh. Look,
Speaker 1: when I say that we all have biases, I didn't
Speaker 1: say that the I'm not saying just give in to
Speaker 1: your your bias, right, I'm not saying just give in
Speaker 1: to those things. I'm saying that let's just be honest
Speaker 1: about the fact that they exist. But when you when
Speaker 1: we make up all let me give you an example
Speaker 1: of how we would do it at sixty minutes, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, we would be exhaustive about trying to find
Speaker 1: out what the facts are. We would question every line
Speaker 1: and every word of the story over and over again,
Speaker 1: and we would you know, push back on each other.
Speaker 1: But sometimes when we did that, we would have to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's all true. This line is true, it's accurate.
Speaker 1: We can defend it, we can stand by it. But
Speaker 1: is it misleading? Does it? You know? The reality is
Speaker 1: when people hear that, they're gonna think this and we
Speaker 1: know that's not true. Now that's a subjective judgment, but
Speaker 1: it's based in fact. Okay, So it's not just people
Speaker 1: putting out their opinions anyone today, any news organization that
Speaker 1: is ignoring what's happening in Afghanistan, If Fox are the
Speaker 1: only people covering it, there's something wrong with that, Just
Speaker 1: like I had a problem with the fact that when
Speaker 1: I was living in Baghdad and we were rushed of
Speaker 1: our feet every night covering the violence, the party across
Speaker 1: the streets the Fox bureau was that we had an
Speaker 1: open invitation to go there. We only made it on
Speaker 1: Fridays after you know, we've done the evening, used five
Speaker 1: nights in a row, and we used to tease our
Speaker 1: colleagues about that. So I'm an equal opportunity offender. Okay.
Speaker 1: Nobody owns that's the thing. The left doesn't own me,
Speaker 1: the right doesn't own me. No party owns me. I'm
Speaker 1: not even a member of any party. I'm not even
Speaker 1: a member of a club. I don't think they have me. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't want to be in any
Speaker 1: of those boxes because sooner or later, sooner or later,
Speaker 1: the truth is going to take you to a place
Speaker 1: it doesn't fit. All right, let me, let me do
Speaker 1: a devil's advocate argument. Throw it at you. Um. And
Speaker 1: I want to go back to the law you're talking about,
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration pass that declared crimes against woman
Speaker 1: to be acts of war, etcetera. And I can't wait
Speaker 1: to get more into that. I am a young, idealistic,
Speaker 1: all right progressive journalist, and I'm going to say to you, listen, Laura,
Speaker 1: we are in an emergency right now. We have an
Speaker 1: insane What is what is a progressive journalist? What does
Speaker 1: that even mean? You're either a journalist or you're not.
Speaker 1: I don't person who isn't cowardly progressive, who is employed?
Speaker 1: Is a journalist? Is not political movement that is hijacked
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and the left, or appears to have
Speaker 1: done so. I don't know, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what that's about. That offends me. Just like when people
Speaker 1: say to me. Some young girls says to me, I
Speaker 1: want to be a human rights journalist. I said to her,
Speaker 1: what is that? I know what a sports journalist is. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll cover sports, but you're still a journalist. You're no
Speaker 1: different to me. You do your job the same way
Speaker 1: I do my job. We're journalist, you cover sports, I
Speaker 1: cover news. I get that, but don't tell me I'm
Speaker 1: a progressive journalist, because that's that's the kind of political
Speaker 1: nonsense that that is now propaganda. You're now an activist
Speaker 1: or a propagandist. You're no longer a journalist if that's
Speaker 1: in your title. So I was really intrigued by the
Speaker 1: notion of a fact. You're talking about the way you
Speaker 1: you carefully combed over a sixty minute stories, the fact
Speaker 1: that is misleading that journalist who happens to be a
Speaker 1: progressive person. Don't yell at me again, who says Laura Laura?
Speaker 1: If we were to emphasize that story, that would mislead
Speaker 1: people into thinking the new Hitler Trump is a good guy,
Speaker 1: and that would lessen the existence. I appreciate the law,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to publish the story that that
Speaker 1: is a lie, because the truth is he's evil, and
Speaker 1: he's a misogynist and a racist and a homophobe in
Speaker 1: the rest of it. Okay, So I can I can
Speaker 1: answer your question for you. This is what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1: I'm as tired of the breathless headlines as anybody else.
Speaker 1: I meet people every single day who say this to me.
Speaker 1: People just can't stand it anymore. Okay, when when Hitler
Speaker 1: was marching across Europe, I'm sure that people then said
Speaker 1: there was no greater time in history that was more important.
Speaker 1: When Nixon was in the White House, I'm so sure
Speaker 1: there were people who went out there and said there's
Speaker 1: never been a more critical time. When we were heading
Speaker 1: into Vietnam. I mean, there's to to assume that this
Speaker 1: is the most dangerous time in history, or this is
Speaker 1: the only time in history that we've ever faced. Anything
Speaker 1: like this is hubris in a scale that says everything
Speaker 1: about you. It reminds me of the end of the
Speaker 1: world's blind it that reminds me of the religious end
Speaker 1: of the worlders who think my time is the time
Speaker 1: the the world will end because we're the people. There's
Speaker 1: an enormous humerist to it. Like you said, yes there is.
Speaker 1: But I want to make an important point here that
Speaker 1: is distinct from fact. Okay, because what I was talking
Speaker 1: about is you when somebody says to me, you know,
Speaker 1: Trump is is dangerous, as Hitler, I start to ask questions.
Speaker 1: That's my instants, right, So I'm not going to take
Speaker 1: a position on this. It doesn't matter what my position is,
Speaker 1: How the hell should I know? Right? I gotta figure
Speaker 1: this out. You this person has made have made this claim,
Speaker 1: and that's all it is until I can verify it.
Speaker 1: It's a claim or it's your opinion, right, So I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna put it as fact. That's not a fact.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna look, Okay, how many people have been
Speaker 1: burned alive in gas chambers, how many people have been
Speaker 1: put on trains? How many people are being what loads
Speaker 1: are being passed that's that are taking us down that past?
Speaker 1: And what are the answers to those? Those questions lead
Speaker 1: me to the facts, and those lead me to understand
Speaker 1: whether something is an opinion or is it an analysis.
Speaker 1: Is it an opinion that's based in emotion or is
Speaker 1: it in your that's based in fact? What is the
Speaker 1: evidence supporting this this claim? Right? And that's my process
Speaker 1: as a journalist, and I have to look at that
Speaker 1: in every respect. I mean, I don't want to use
Speaker 1: a controversial you know example that's gonna have everybody jumping
Speaker 1: up and down, but you know, it's it's sort of
Speaker 1: it's sort of interesting. Cheryl Atkinson, who you mentioned, she
Speaker 1: has a thing like substitute switch things around. Substitute you know,
Speaker 1: Obama for Trump, Trump, substitute you know somebody else. Put
Speaker 1: left where the right is and put right where the
Speaker 1: left is, and see if the treatment is the same,
Speaker 1: and that those are the things that I look at.
Speaker 1: Is the treatment the same? Do we hold everyone to
Speaker 1: the same standard? Because I'm I'm consistent, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't yell at my kids about one thing one
Speaker 1: day and then say, oh, next day, I don't care
Speaker 1: about that. No, I'm consistent. I tell my kids kindness
Speaker 1: and respect. And you don't get a break from that.
Speaker 1: You don't get to be a jackass today and then
Speaker 1: go back to being kind tomorrow, No, because then you're
Speaker 1: still a jackass. So if we have to be to me,
Speaker 1: we have to be consistent in how we apply this process.
Speaker 1: And when you're not consistent in applying that, usually something
Speaker 1: is motivating it. And that's and that's where the problems
Speaker 1: come in. So what you're talking about is not like
Speaker 1: when we do a story. I mean, if someone wants
Speaker 1: to make an executive decision at an executive level and
Speaker 1: say sixty minutes isn't covering this Because we're going to
Speaker 1: be helping an administration that's a political decision. You've now
Speaker 1: made a political decision. And then let's be honest about
Speaker 1: the fact that we're not just making journalistic decisions. We're
Speaker 1: no longer moderate. We've taken a political position, and let's
Speaker 1: be who we are. Let's own it. That's if that's
Speaker 1: what we're willing to do, and we think it is,
Speaker 1: then let's own it. But what we have today is
Speaker 1: journalists want it both ways. They want to take a
Speaker 1: political position and then claim that they're still occupying the
Speaker 1: middle ground and they're still and they're fair and they're
Speaker 1: even to both sides. And then should they succeed in
Speaker 1: getting what apparently it seems like everybody wants getting this
Speaker 1: president removed from office, even though he was elected the
Speaker 1: same way every other president was elected. You know, Um,
Speaker 1: if they succeed in that, then they can go back
Speaker 1: to being moderate and impartial and everybody's supposed to believe it.
Speaker 1: You know what I love is I was attacked once
Speaker 1: for making one, um, one comment about something that I
Speaker 1: then went on to do a story and people are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this journalists is giving opinions. Well, if
Speaker 1: you give an opinion they like and they agree with
Speaker 1: nobody cares the fact that you're in You're not on
Speaker 1: the air, and you're in a you know, a private
Speaker 1: situation where people public sitch room, for example, where people
Speaker 1: have come to a lunch and they're asking your opinion.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to give your opinion in that space.
Speaker 1: From all these self righteous journalists who going up they saying,
Speaker 1: good God, Well, I can't find a fact in the
Speaker 1: New York Times half the time today, or in political
Speaker 1: reporting today. I mean, there are some people who are
Speaker 1: better than others. I don't want everyone out there is
Speaker 1: a political reporter to hate me. You know, there's lots
Speaker 1: of good political reporters out there, but sometimes it's very
Speaker 1: hard to actually find a fact because so much of
Speaker 1: it is one anonymous official or person source after another
Speaker 1: giving their union. I mean, the Neil Times actually printed
Speaker 1: people sitting supposedly sitting in meetings, you know, with Mike
Speaker 1: Flynn when he was National Security Advisors saying that he
Speaker 1: didn't know how the National god was supposed to be
Speaker 1: called up, and that he didn't apparently didn't know that
Speaker 1: weapons sales have to be approved by Congress. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I've ever heard of anything more ridiculous
Speaker 1: in my life. What idiots thought that it was okay
Speaker 1: to print that, Because, first of all, he was the
Speaker 1: head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and that's their job.
Speaker 1: He ran it, So how the hell would he not
Speaker 1: know that weapons sales have to be approved by Congress.
Speaker 1: His entire agency that was under his command for I
Speaker 1: don't know how many years. That's one of their sole
Speaker 1: missions is being responsible for the weapons the United States
Speaker 1: producers from beginning to end, So that that idea in
Speaker 1: itself is ludicrous. What it says to me is that
Speaker 1: the journalist knew nothing about how weapons sales are approved,
Speaker 1: knew nothing about the Defense Intelligence Agency, and apparently knew
Speaker 1: nothing about Mike Flynn. Neither did any of the editors
Speaker 1: at the New York Times who printed that stupid story.
Speaker 1: Oh and then, by the way, we reproduce something not
Speaker 1: dissimilar to it at some place where I may have
Speaker 1: been working at the time. Even though I put out
Speaker 1: a thing internally to correct those misconceptions, it was ignored
Speaker 1: because someone chose what they wanted to be true. Oh,
Speaker 1: this guy's an IDIOTY should never have had that job,
Speaker 1: That's what they were trying to say, right and by
Speaker 1: the way National God soldiers fall under Title thirty two.
Speaker 1: Find me a reporter who can tell you the difference
Speaker 1: between Title tan, Title fifty and Title thirty two and
Speaker 1: whose authorities those governed and what you know the legal
Speaker 1: uh or what are the laws under those authorities. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: that's my frustration with the with the coverage. It's not
Speaker 1: that one is on the left or on the right.
Speaker 1: It's the fact. It's the ineptitude of this that we're
Speaker 1: putting this spin out as fact, and we're making political
Speaker 1: decisions and we're trying to pretend they're not political decisions.
Speaker 1: Just call it what it is, okay, and please do
Speaker 1: the most basic journalism, figure out, you know, whether some
Speaker 1: what someone is telling you is actually true or not,
Speaker 1: or even as credible or believable, and not just more
Speaker 1: propaganda to advance, you know, someone's political position in the
Speaker 1: destruction of someone. I need to jump in reprise my
Speaker 1: Tony Award Willing role as a New York Times editor
Speaker 1: Laura Darling. We got a hundred and eighty five thousand
Speaker 1: clicks on that story. All right, enough, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: They just have different goals. I think we're doomed are
Speaker 1: we doom? You know, I don't know. I know some
Speaker 1: great reporters at the New York Times. I know great
Speaker 1: reporters all across the field. I mean Dexter Filkin's, Rich Apple,
Speaker 1: Colada Goal, Charyl Atkinson, Sarah Carter. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: great reporters, and there are many more that I'm just
Speaker 1: not thinking of right now. I worked with many great
Speaker 1: reporters all my life, Richard, Max McClellan. You know, some
Speaker 1: of the greatest journalists that I've ever known, and I
Speaker 1: learned from great journalists. And I don't want to come
Speaker 1: off sounding like, oh, I'm a great person. I'm not,
Speaker 1: you know, I really am not. In fact, probably the
Speaker 1: biggest misconception about me of anything is that like people
Speaker 1: look at me and think, oh, I'm the TV girl
Speaker 1: because of the way I look and whatever else. No,
Speaker 1: I only became a TV girl because I couldn't get
Speaker 1: a job in print, because you know, the newspapers looked
Speaker 1: at me like, we don't need a little white girl
Speaker 1: in South Africa. We need a black guy that can
Speaker 1: go in and out of the townships and that can
Speaker 1: you know, uh, plug us into the real story here,
Speaker 1: the one we care about. The one that matters. So
Speaker 1: I only got into television because they need more bodies
Speaker 1: and because the cameraman running the bureau that I got
Speaker 1: a job. I didn't know how to type or right.
Speaker 1: He hated it, and I watched him one type and
Speaker 1: with two fingers and said, can I do that for you?
Speaker 1: I didn't even he didn't even know my name. I
Speaker 1: was waiting to meet him. You know. That's that's how
Speaker 1: I got a job in television. But my job in
Speaker 1: television is to be alike for other people. If I
Speaker 1: have any light, if people want to hear what I
Speaker 1: have to say, it's it's because I'm a great vehicle
Speaker 1: for what this person has to offer that maybe maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes you wouldn't otherwise have paid attention to. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes sixty minutes was that platform. Sometimes it was a
Speaker 1: CBS Evening News. I'm not alone. It's not me. I
Speaker 1: didn't get here on my own, and I don't stay
Speaker 1: here on my own, and I don't stand alone. I
Speaker 1: can't do anything on my own. Actually I can't even
Speaker 1: survive because, believe me, if you they think I declared
Speaker 1: war in you know, my Mike interview, imagine how they're
Speaker 1: going to react to this one. There's already people trying
Speaker 1: to tweet stuff and associate me with conspiracy theories. And
Speaker 1: I know it's the beginning of painting me as if
Speaker 1: I'm some right wing nutter. Again, I'm not. I am not.
Speaker 1: There's nothing about me that belongs to any one side
Speaker 1: or one ideology. You know, nobody can figure out my
Speaker 1: politics because I haven't figured out my politics. I don't
Speaker 1: give a shit about politics. I am who I am,
Speaker 1: and I know how to be a good journalist and
Speaker 1: I learned that from other journalists. And I know how
Speaker 1: to be a good person. And to me, those two
Speaker 1: things don't get separated. They walk together and they're considered stint.
Speaker 1: You have to try to be a good person every
Speaker 1: day of your life, every day of your life, and
Speaker 1: sometimes I fall short. But you know what, when I
Speaker 1: fall short, I own it. As I tell my kids, hey,
Speaker 1: or if my husband says to me, you never apologize.
Speaker 1: I'm always the one apologizing. I say, Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to use the word I usually use, but let's just say,
Speaker 1: I say, dude, I apologize on national television. Okay, I
Speaker 1: own apology in this house. Tell me I don't know,
Speaker 1: I apologize, Hey, are you You have to be somewhat
Speaker 1: worried that you're never gonna work again at the prestigious outfits.
Speaker 1: You're sixty, You're you're the Atlantic, those kind of things.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about that? Not one bit. I'm done.
Speaker 1: I'm never I don't know if anyone is ever going
Speaker 1: to hire me at any of those places again. But
Speaker 1: this is what I said to you. I'm a journalist.
Speaker 1: I'm going to do my job the same way I've
Speaker 1: always done it, to the best of my ability, with
Speaker 1: the most honest heart and open mind. That's how I'm
Speaker 1: going to do it. I bring that you get all
Speaker 1: of me. When I sit down in front of you,
Speaker 1: You've got all of me, you know, every little bit
Speaker 1: of me, and most important of all, you have my
Speaker 1: willingness to try and understand who you are, why you
Speaker 1: believe what you believe, how you got here right. I
Speaker 1: don't bring barriers to understanding that. That's what I want
Speaker 1: to tell journalists to tell me I'm a progressive journalists,
Speaker 1: or I'm a human rights journalist, or I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a women's rights journalist. No like, how are you
Speaker 1: going to have an open mind and hear someone properly
Speaker 1: and understand and properly if you're bringing those barriers, like
Speaker 1: you go to Egypt to cover I don't know, the
Speaker 1: General Sissy and the terrible things he did to the
Speaker 1: poor Muslim brotherhood, and then you find out, oh my god,
Speaker 1: the Muslim brother did a whole lot of terrible things
Speaker 1: as well. As a human rights journalist, are you now
Speaker 1: going to only report on one side of that? Are
Speaker 1: you going to pick a side? Are you going to
Speaker 1: bury what you know about the side that you came there,
Speaker 1: you know, convinced we're the victim, and now you found
Speaker 1: out the victim maybe isn't so much a victim. Maybe
Speaker 1: sometimes they're a victim and other times they would just
Speaker 1: as at maybe even worse. You know, how do you
Speaker 1: make those decisions? You can't make clear decisions if ideology
Speaker 1: is guiding you as a journalist. When ideology guides you,
Speaker 1: then you become an activist. And if you're going to
Speaker 1: be an activist, just call it what it is. But
Speaker 1: people don't want that, right, I mean, because propaganda organizations,
Speaker 1: they have people all throughout the media organizations acting you
Speaker 1: know who who walk in step with them, and they
Speaker 1: don't want to be out it. I mean, some of
Speaker 1: them admit who they are. I mean, you know, one
Speaker 1: of those organizations even gloated it and prode about taking
Speaker 1: me down, and the New York Times exalted them for
Speaker 1: it and approaded them and did a big article on
Speaker 1: on isn't this so wonderful? What did you think, New
Speaker 1: York Times? Did you think about what it means? Did
Speaker 1: you think about what if that propaganda machine was turned
Speaker 1: against you and your journalists? Did you ever think about
Speaker 1: what it looks like from the other side. I do
Speaker 1: that every story that I go into, every day of
Speaker 1: my life, I think about it from the other side. Well,
Speaker 1: who We've talked about this many times, and it makes
Speaker 1: me crazy, especially with a couple of kids just through
Speaker 1: college and one in college, looking at everything through the
Speaker 1: lens of the victim and the oppressor and picking them
Speaker 1: in advance and analyzing everything from that basis. And he
Speaker 1: gave a great example talking about the Muslim brotherhood. The
Speaker 1: idea that you you put a black hat and a
Speaker 1: white hat on each side before you even begin asking
Speaker 1: questions and go from there is incredibly dangerous because we're
Speaker 1: all just flawed human beings running around trying to find
Speaker 1: happiness somehow, and don't use words like dangerous. Don't do that,
Speaker 1: because everything is dangerous these days. You know what it's
Speaker 1: it's blinded, it's it's um my opic, and it's prejudiced
Speaker 1: in itself. Quote out what it is. We don't know
Speaker 1: if it's dangerous, right, it might be, but that's your like,
Speaker 1: you know, you see that as dangerous and maybe it is,
Speaker 1: maybe it isn't, But what you're really talking about, Let's
Speaker 1: quote what it is first and then let people decide
Speaker 1: how they feel about it, and then you can say
Speaker 1: I see that as dangerous for these reasons. But uh,
Speaker 1: but really that's what we hear all the time, this man,
Speaker 1: this administration, this time. We've never been a more dangerous times.
Speaker 1: And this is used to justify us abandoning our principles.
Speaker 1: And I'm I don't know. Nelson Mandela never abandoned his principles.
Speaker 1: He never did. He never sold out. He spent twenty
Speaker 1: seven years behind bars for something that he believed in
Speaker 1: because he wasn't prepared to sell himself out or to
Speaker 1: sell anyone out. And he's my guide. It's people like him,
Speaker 1: and you know what, some of them you don't even
Speaker 1: know their names, but they're black people whose names are
Speaker 1: not known anywhere outside of their family. And the people
Speaker 1: like me who knew them on the street in South Africa,
Speaker 1: who lived those principles every day of their life, and
Speaker 1: who showed me the way, They showed me how to
Speaker 1: do that. And I meet those people everywhere sometimes, you
Speaker 1: know what, I meet them in rural Tennessee. Doesn't have
Speaker 1: to have to be in some dusty, miserable village in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Where you meet them. You don't only find courage and nobility.
Speaker 1: There doesn't only exist in liberal cities. You put guess
Speaker 1: what you even find it in small conservative towns, and
Speaker 1: you find it in small liberal towns and families. It's
Speaker 1: not owned by politics. These are human qualities that live
Speaker 1: and breathe in all of us. And all I was
Speaker 1: born to do was tell it like it is. That's
Speaker 1: that's who I am. So I don't really care who
Speaker 1: I do it for. It was the greatest honor of
Speaker 1: my life to work at sixty Minutes and to work
Speaker 1: with Mike Wallace and a Brady and to know these
Speaker 1: people and to live up to the legacy of that show.
Speaker 1: And I don't want to do anything to sally that
Speaker 1: legacy because I believe in it. I believe when sixty
Speaker 1: minutes is great, I believe in the greatness of that.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of the work I did there, and
Speaker 1: I have so much respect for the people I worked
Speaker 1: with there. But does that mean I agree with everything?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Does that mean sometimes I'm not throwing things
Speaker 1: at the television, you know, um and want to vomit
Speaker 1: sometimes that some of the things that are put out there.
Speaker 1: Of course it's supposed to be like that. I've got
Speaker 1: to be learning and I've got to be challenged. And
Speaker 1: when did we go from learning and being challenged to
Speaker 1: safe spaces? I don't know how the how that happened,
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm a little old school like that, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you I'm tired of living in fear.
Speaker 1: I've been living in fear. The girl everyone says is fearless, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not fearless. I've been living in fear of these
Speaker 1: propaganda organizations. I've been living in fear of the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to be, you know, employable to
Speaker 1: these these organizations and publications that I look up to
Speaker 1: and that have have been such a guiding light for
Speaker 1: me in my work as a journals and inspired me. Right,
Speaker 1: I've been living in fear of all of that, and
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm done. I don't care. It's never been
Speaker 1: important to me. It's not that I don't care about that.
Speaker 1: It's that I'm not gonna be um like a hunted animal. Right.
Speaker 1: It's liberating, it's liberating, liberating, and it's not very lucrative,
Speaker 1: but it's very liberating. Well, we're prepared to make you
Speaker 1: a five figure offer, Laura, if you'd like to come
Speaker 1: work for the arms Strong and get these show like
Speaker 1: four hundred and ninety two. Oh no, no, left side
Speaker 1: of the decimal. We're not cheaper around here, So listen.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like you need a great deal of encouraging,
Speaker 1: but UM people usually react to the most strongly if
Speaker 1: you're a completely nuts or be really close to the truth,
Speaker 1: and it makes them uncomfortable. So keep making people uncomfortable. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I really mean it when I say I
Speaker 1: can't do it alone. I used to be that journalist
Speaker 1: that wanted to be first, right, and that wanted to
Speaker 1: be exclusive, and of course it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: that in all of us. But now I'm that journalist.
Speaker 1: Where any good journalists I know, by the way, Adam
Speaker 1: Housley one of the best journalists I know. I gotta
Speaker 1: mention Adam. I'll do anything for any journalist I know
Speaker 1: who I respect. I give them my context, my relationships,
Speaker 1: I find out stuff for them, I tell them whatever
Speaker 1: you need. It doesn't matter who they work for, because
Speaker 1: those of us who are standing up for the truth,
Speaker 1: we can't survive alone. Adam had at one point he
Speaker 1: was working at Fox News, he had, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: he had more than a dozen intelligence sources who were willing,
Speaker 1: some of them active, who had already gone and told
Speaker 1: him how the last administration was spying on people like
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders and Mike McColl and Lindsey Graham and many
Speaker 1: others during the last election. And Fox News wouldn't run
Speaker 1: that story. They said he had to have someone on camera. Well,
Speaker 1: if that's the standard of journalism today, you gotta have
Speaker 1: people on camera, Well then how come you know, how
Speaker 1: come there's all these anonymous sources all over the Washington
Speaker 1: Post and New York Times and everywhere else right who
Speaker 1: are bringing people down in the administration. It's good enough
Speaker 1: for them, But suddenly if that's not good enough at
Speaker 1: Fox News, you know. So that's why I laughed when
Speaker 1: people said, to your old folks were so far right?
Speaker 1: Really are they? I don't know. I don't really answer that.
Speaker 1: In some respects they are. But here you had a
Speaker 1: story which at the time, if Adam had broken that
Speaker 1: story would have been huge. Now now you say to people, oh,
Speaker 1: they were spying on people, the answer is, oh, well
Speaker 1: that's isn't that what they always do? No, they broke
Speaker 1: the law. It's not what they always do. It actually
Speaker 1: is a crime. But apparently if you don't enforce the law,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. Then it's not a crime. No, you're
Speaker 1: still committed a crime. You just got away with it.
Speaker 1: You've got away with it because the media and which
Speaker 1: is supposed to be about accountability, they let you get
Speaker 1: away with it because it didn't serve a political narrative.
Speaker 1: And when you're so blindly following one narrative, maybe you're
Speaker 1: missing something, some things that are really important to all
Speaker 1: of us. Because now they work for you, Now they
Speaker 1: walk with you. But what happens when they don't. That's
Speaker 1: the purpose of a democracy, right Because of the place
Speaker 1: you're talking about, where there's only one opinion, and where
Speaker 1: there isn't any difference between your propaganda senial media, and
Speaker 1: people aren't free and people aren't held accountable. Well, that
Speaker 1: place looks a lot like dictatorship. Wow. Wow, Laura Logan, listen,
Speaker 1: We're not going to steal all your time. We hope
Speaker 1: that we can do this again soon. And uh, well, obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you actually care about this, and you
Speaker 1: obviously care about this, this is a long term battle.
Speaker 1: I just I do have one thing to say. It's
Speaker 1: the first interview I've done since you know, all that
Speaker 1: happened with Mike Ritland. And I only did that interview
Speaker 1: with Mike Brlin because he's one of the best guys
Speaker 1: I know, and he's a friend, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: do it and he needed it for his podcast. I
Speaker 1: didn't expect anything that came after it. But when I
Speaker 1: had all these requests for interviews, the one I did.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm talking to you, guys is because you've
Speaker 1: always been there. You've been there, You've you've been interested
Speaker 1: in what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan. You've been
Speaker 1: interested in the work, and I respect you for that,
Speaker 1: and I respect your the way you've treated me and
Speaker 1: and so I this is no accident, this interview. I
Speaker 1: came to you on purpose. Well that's kind of you
Speaker 1: to say, and we appreciate it. You know, we try,
Speaker 1: we're we're just we're a couple of dopes who are
Speaker 1: too stubborn to do anything but just described the world
Speaker 1: the way we see it. And I've always loved your
Speaker 1: reporting for so many years. We really appreciate you coming
Speaker 1: on today. Yeah. Thanks. You never invited me to be
Speaker 1: a guest on your TV show, That Boy. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: a little unconventional for the networks. That's my excuse.