Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central, Please welcome George Stephanopolis. Stepanopolis,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the great to be here, this is this
Speaker 1: is so amazing having you here because I mean, like
Speaker 1: I feel like this is your world. You. You know,
Speaker 1: you're one of the most familiar faces. You one of
Speaker 1: the names that is most synonymous with all things news,
Speaker 1: and now you're taking us behind the scenes in this
Speaker 1: docuseries where NBC ABC is gonna be um embedding seven
Speaker 1: young journalists. They're in their twenties. They're all ambitious, passionate,
Speaker 1: smart kids. They don't have a lot of experience, but
Speaker 1: they're gonna go out on the campaign trail, basically a
Speaker 1: zone defense covering the country and cover all these campaigns.
Speaker 1: We're doing it for the first time for these mid
Speaker 1: term elections. Because I said it in that clip. I
Speaker 1: think our democracies at stake in these midterms. We've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like it before, and we want to make
Speaker 1: sure we get it in as real way as we can.
Speaker 1: It feels like these mid terms are going to be different,
Speaker 1: and you know, and people often say that I've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, American news try and drum up interest, but
Speaker 1: it feels like these are going to this time. This
Speaker 1: is the first time I think in a mid term
Speaker 1: election we saw a little bit of a lot of
Speaker 1: it where the very way we debate and decide elections
Speaker 1: is under assault. I mean, you've got of the country
Speaker 1: who still doesn't believe the last election is over, of
Speaker 1: the country who is determined, who doesn't accept facts in
Speaker 1: a in a debate, and you know, our whole system
Speaker 1: is premised on the ideas both sides can argue out
Speaker 1: based on a common set of facts. Whoever wins wins
Speaker 1: and you go on to fight another day. This is
Speaker 1: different because that has not been settled after the last election.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this as somebody who's been covering
Speaker 1: the news for so long and somebody who's been involved
Speaker 1: in campaigns. You've seen the tides shift, You've seen the
Speaker 1: attitude change. Did you see this coming? Is it new?
Speaker 1: And if if you did see it coming, what was
Speaker 1: the moment There's gonna be one moment where you you
Speaker 1: noticed that something had I can't say I ever saw
Speaker 1: this coming to this degree. I never believed. I mean
Speaker 1: I still well up when I think of the capital
Speaker 1: under assault. On January six, after an election, our whole
Speaker 1: system is premised on the idea of a peaceful transfer
Speaker 1: of power. But the change that started to happen, I am.
Speaker 1: You make it sound like I'm very old. I guess
Speaker 1: I am. But when I first worked in camp long time,
Speaker 1: but it could be at when I first worked in campaigns,
Speaker 1: we used to footnote are commercials because we were so
Speaker 1: concerned about being called out for not telling the truth. Interesting,
Speaker 1: but what has changed over time is that as each
Speaker 1: side basically just tries to get out their own voters
Speaker 1: rather than trying to persuade others, they care less about
Speaker 1: whether they're called out by the media on telling the truth.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you say that because I've noticed on on
Speaker 1: the news shows you'll be talking to politicians, and back
Speaker 1: in the day, it felt like a politician was so
Speaker 1: afraid to to contradict themselves, to be a hypocrite, to
Speaker 1: have any moment where there was a discrepancy. And now
Speaker 1: it feels like just having the platform to come on
Speaker 1: your news show and say something is more important than
Speaker 1: whether whether or not you will you know what they love.
Speaker 1: Often you'll have someone come on and you can show
Speaker 1: and it can be footnoted. You can go to the Dictionary.
Speaker 1: You can go to eight thousand reference books and say
Speaker 1: you're just not telling the truth, and they say, well,
Speaker 1: you're lying, and they don't care because to the group
Speaker 1: of voters they're trying to appeal to, calling us out
Speaker 1: whether we're right or wrong, works for them. So do
Speaker 1: you do you ever get to a point whereas the
Speaker 1: news organization you say we can right now? I mean,
Speaker 1: I will not put anybody on my show who will
Speaker 1: not accept the results of the last election. Just they
Speaker 1: don't come on. Um, well you have and you have
Speaker 1: newsis coming up all the time. I had an interview
Speaker 1: with a senator a few weeks back which I still
Speaker 1: can't leave. And remember how when Hillary Clinton had her
Speaker 1: emails that were classified, have Trump said locker up? Republicans
Speaker 1: wanted investigation after investigation. This senator would not even say
Speaker 1: that Trump having all of those documents in his house
Speaker 1: was wrong. Four questions, four times, I would not say
Speaker 1: it was wrong. So you're in an interesting position. For
Speaker 1: a long time, America had an agreed idea of what
Speaker 1: was happening on the news for the most parts, supposed right.
Speaker 1: Cable news came and then it became, you know, really positive,
Speaker 1: and you could have it this way, and you could
Speaker 1: have it that when your facts could almost be Alacotte.
Speaker 1: Now you still occupy a position to yeah, but you
Speaker 1: still occupy this position when most people think of it
Speaker 1: as Okay, this is the middle, this is but the
Speaker 1: Overtson window of middle is shifting. How do you not respond?
Speaker 1: Do you try and do you have to cater to
Speaker 1: some of these position heres here's what you don't do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there is a risk when you're
Speaker 1: talking to certain politicians if if you're willing to say
Speaker 1: what you're saying is not true, and sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to risk looking partisan by doing that. But I think
Speaker 1: we can't bow to that threat. I mean, as long
Speaker 1: as as I'm confident when I am that we're arguing
Speaker 1: about facts, undisputable facts, I have no problem saying you're
Speaker 1: not telling the truth, even if that's going to cause
Speaker 1: somebody to say, oh, you know, you're just being a
Speaker 1: political hack. You have to do that. That's what we
Speaker 1: have to stand up for as journalists, right and wrong,
Speaker 1: fact not fiction. You um, you are now sending these
Speaker 1: journalists as m beds. You know, they on the ground,
Speaker 1: they're getting information on the ground from these people. What
Speaker 1: we see even in that clip, and I think the
Speaker 1: documentary it really gets into it is people say, well,
Speaker 1: you have fake news. Do you think we're moving towards
Speaker 1: a world where the news is what you want to
Speaker 1: hear and then what you do essentially almost falls away.
Speaker 1: It's it's the great I think it's one of the
Speaker 1: greatest dangers or democracy faces right now. I think there's
Speaker 1: no question about that. You see it right there by
Speaker 1: different mission, There's going to be certain people who, no
Speaker 1: matter what the facts are, if I'm saying it, you're
Speaker 1: a liar, it's fake news. If they're if they're Kennedy
Speaker 1: is saying he's right, not wrong, and you're right, people
Speaker 1: just end up going to the places where they know
Speaker 1: the view that they already have is going to be reinforced,
Speaker 1: whether or not it's true. Have you found any way
Speaker 1: to break through on the ground on your show in
Speaker 1: any of them to try to do it? With this
Speaker 1: new show, I think what we're gonna try to do
Speaker 1: is show the process of these young reporters trying to
Speaker 1: get the truth, show them doing it in the right way,
Speaker 1: showing them doing it, we hope with integrity, showing the
Speaker 1: risks they take, to do it and if I think
Speaker 1: if people have, if if we have some transparency on
Speaker 1: the process, I hope that people will trust what they're hearing. Well.
Speaker 1: I wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: A general want to show you really fascinating about the
Speaker 1: series and make sure to check it out. Short stuff
Speaker 1: and not for everybody. What's the Daily Show? Week to
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