Speaker 1: This headline from Beckett Adams and The Examiner caught my
Speaker 1: eye today We're well past the point of urging the
Speaker 1: press to do better. Something is seriously wrong that after
Speaker 1: a couple of giants stories in the last four days
Speaker 1: that everybody went crazy with and turned out to be
Speaker 1: completely wrong. And a related headline from Beckett the irony
Speaker 1: of the media going all in on a selectively edited
Speaker 1: video from the March for Life. T Beckett Adams coming
Speaker 1: to your writer for The Washington Examiner, joins us. Now, Beckett,
Speaker 1: how are you, sir? I'm great, Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me. Oh, it's always our pleasure. I have about
Speaker 1: as much hope for the mainstream media as I do
Speaker 1: for conservatism in Berkeley, California. But um to be interested
Speaker 1: to hear your perspective from the belly of the beast.
Speaker 1: Why so? Why so? Glum? Well, He's the thing is
Speaker 1: that the free press and uniti dates has always been
Speaker 1: a political animal. It's it's members for decades and decades
Speaker 1: have always pulled for one political party or another, sometimes
Speaker 1: more outright, sometimes more subtly. But where we are now
Speaker 1: is beyond sort of the newspaper endorsing a candidate or
Speaker 1: a newspaper condemning one party. This is descended our our
Speaker 1: national newsrooms have descended in a sort of hyperpartisan culture
Speaker 1: war battles where you know, up as down, white as black,
Speaker 1: and the truth doesn't matter. What matters is getting the victory.
Speaker 1: So we had these two big stories. We had the
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed report which claimed that Trump directed Cohen to lie
Speaker 1: to Congress, obviously crime, and then we had the story
Speaker 1: about these teams of Kentucky who supposedly be rated, abused
Speaker 1: and harassed an elder leading of American protester. There was
Speaker 1: not a moment's hesitation among our largest, most powerful newsrooms
Speaker 1: and some of the biggest reporters, the most famous pundits
Speaker 1: who both both of these newsrooms and the pundits just
Speaker 1: grabbed these stories. I mean they sunk their teeth into
Speaker 1: it and they ran with it. There wasn't there was
Speaker 1: not so much as uh at this moment where people said, well,
Speaker 1: these are some interesting allegation, is there any sort of
Speaker 1: co operation? The problem is these stories so perfectly fit
Speaker 1: into preconceived notions and worldviews about opposing sites in the
Speaker 1: culture ward that they ran with these stories. And later
Speaker 1: it turns out uh, Special counsel Mueller's team came out
Speaker 1: and dispute at the bus right story. We we've we've
Speaker 1: covered all that and we I think we're everybody's up
Speaker 1: to date on the stories that came out and how
Speaker 1: they turned out. But the greater overarching picture of you know,
Speaker 1: something needs to be done. What is wrong? I'm just
Speaker 1: wondering there has to be a there has to be
Speaker 1: some sort of push. What would be the mechanism that
Speaker 1: would push back for for all sides? Right now? If
Speaker 1: your audience loves these stories so much, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: they care if you get it wrong. Dang it. I
Speaker 1: was hoping that with true was true? Turned out it
Speaker 1: wasn't tell me the next exciting story? What you know,
Speaker 1: what's the bound side to do in that? Right? That's
Speaker 1: that's exactly the things so sort of self right, just
Speaker 1: as we get from so many in the press when
Speaker 1: the scripture starting a well, at least we try to
Speaker 1: hold ourself accountable. It's important to recognite at the other
Speaker 1: King story was less than twenty four hours after the
Speaker 1: BuzzFeed scroupt. There there was not even they didn't even
Speaker 1: take a break. The next thing and the other thing,
Speaker 1: the other main thing that I think it's been lost
Speaker 1: on people is that these weren't big, complicated mistakes. There
Speaker 1: were obvious red flags in both stories from the get go.
Speaker 1: That which is why I actually just finding myself and
Speaker 1: my colleague stayed away from both the bus seed story
Speaker 1: and the coverageing story until we had more information because
Speaker 1: the way that they were both initially reported and the
Speaker 1: claims were being made, there wasn't enough proof for that.
Speaker 1: And here we are. It turned out later like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I held off on this, but I don't understand.
Speaker 1: Are these institutions, with their bodies and bodies of fact checkers.
Speaker 1: There was not even a moment to wait, but here
Speaker 1: mentioned but here's the problem. What's going to be the
Speaker 1: correcting mechanism? As I said, the exactly. Joan and I
Speaker 1: are right, Joan, I ha, Joe and I are in
Speaker 1: your camp where we try to like, if that sounds fishy,
Speaker 1: let's wait and see or do some research. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I think there's more money, more viewers, more licks, more eyeballs,
Speaker 1: more ears, and just going with whatever serves your side
Speaker 1: that seems. And you know, Jill Abernsman, she's got a
Speaker 1: new book out. She was the editor of The New
Speaker 1: York Times. She's come out and said The New York
Speaker 1: Times is doing better than ever um with subscribers and
Speaker 1: everything like that. While they have lost their way, they
Speaker 1: now have opinion in their news stories, So what's the
Speaker 1: correcting mechanism. They're making more money this way than they
Speaker 1: were the old way, so i'm too. I'm two minds
Speaker 1: on this. One is that at some point I think
Speaker 1: there will be a sort of countermeasure. There's always a
Speaker 1: counteraction too, super sort of cultural movements. Right now, I
Speaker 1: think we're in the middle of a cultural movement where
Speaker 1: newspapers have decided that they are in the business of
Speaker 1: resisting and not on the business of reporting. At some point,
Speaker 1: I like to think that the pendum is going to
Speaker 1: swing back because I hope my my hope is that
Speaker 1: the like overeating the press, the polic will eventually feel
Speaker 1: like it has gorged itself on nonsense and wants to
Speaker 1: return to just a plain, simple, tidy diet of just
Speaker 1: fact reporting. I'm not sure overeating is the best examples
Speaker 1: You've been to the Walmart recently, but that's really what
Speaker 1: this is. It's gorging on like partisan operative thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: but you said the pendulum is gonna swing back like
Speaker 1: the eating and it hasn't just keep getting the other mine.
Speaker 1: It is that kind of what I feel like, maybe
Speaker 1: it's time to go full Colonel Kurtz on this and
Speaker 1: just burn all the old institutions to the ground and
Speaker 1: rely on on the ground independent reporters, because I feel
Speaker 1: like the old institutions are so broken down, these old
Speaker 1: dinosaur networks are so entrenched that I don't know if
Speaker 1: you can come back from this now. I think you're
Speaker 1: right about that. Beckett Adams is a commentary writer for
Speaker 1: The Washington Examiner. You know, I think the pendulum, if
Speaker 1: it's going to swing back to calm, reasonable, cheery reporting,
Speaker 1: we'll do so when there's a progressive president, and I
Speaker 1: think they'll they will rediscover their you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: even handed tone and the rest of it. I just
Speaker 1: justper times call for desperate measures, and media is desperate
Speaker 1: right now, so you're seeing them do desperate things. I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the institute, is that a lot
Speaker 1: the reporting that's going on is directly proportionate to the
Speaker 1: tone from the White House. That seems natural to me.
Speaker 1: But this is also part of the reason why I
Speaker 1: avoid the calls to join these sort of unions of
Speaker 1: civility and let's have a banded stavility where left and
Speaker 1: right reached across the aisle and will stand together, because
Speaker 1: I am pretty certain that that will last for exactly
Speaker 1: four or eight years before people go back to being
Speaker 1: in a coma and not caring about what the executive
Speaker 1: is doing. I'm in a band called Unions of Civility.
Speaker 1: We play all it's very mellow better it sounds just so.
Speaker 1: Are you hopeful or hopeless? I'm hopeless. I'm completely hopeless
Speaker 1: that this is going to get better anytime soon. I'm hopeless.
Speaker 1: I thought it would actually take a bit longer for
Speaker 1: the press to go from scrounging through a Supreme Court
Speaker 1: nomine yearbook for proof of wrongdoing to scrounging through random
Speaker 1: teenagers from Kentucky yearbook for proof of wrongdoing happening about
Speaker 1: two or three months. But here we're well said, yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: so Beckett a different topic. It strikes us and taking
Speaker 1: in the media over the last well, let's say, from
Speaker 1: Friday to today, a real change in tone even among
Speaker 1: the left leaning media about the whole shutdown controversy, and
Speaker 1: we're hearing a lot more. Boy, both sides look terrible
Speaker 1: commentary even from the CNNs and MSNBC's signaling perhaps a
Speaker 1: coming to the table in the offing. I think there
Speaker 1: might be some of that. I think Trump's address on
Speaker 1: Saturday kind of moved the needle and not necessarily in
Speaker 1: his favor, but away from democrats favor, and he offered
Speaker 1: temporary protections for Dreamers in return for funding. And I
Speaker 1: think it's not being lost on people that the hold
Speaker 1: up here is that he's asking for funding and they
Speaker 1: are refusing to come to the table so far as
Speaker 1: to you know, turn down the invitation to come to
Speaker 1: the White House for lunch to discuss it, which is
Speaker 1: funny because later they back to Democratic leaders backtrack and
Speaker 1: well he didn't specify what he wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: What else are you thinking about? So I think a
Speaker 1: lot of this it isn't I think that the cars
Speaker 1: are still in the Democrats favor because the longer this
Speaker 1: goes on, it does hurt Trump, who did claim response
Speaker 1: before it even happen. If you're calling that that Oval
Speaker 1: Office meeting, so it is to their benefits stretched it out,
Speaker 1: But I do believe that some of its shifting away
Speaker 1: because it just keeps going on and it's clear that
Speaker 1: both sides aren't budging, and then that will only benefit
Speaker 1: one side for so long before people just say, both
Speaker 1: of you know you don't stop this fighting right now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn this car around. You know. I love
Speaker 1: you Beckett, and I love your writing. But the whole
Speaker 1: Trump set in advance, he'd take a responsibility thing I
Speaker 1: think is overrated. That is, that's a in the know,
Speaker 1: uh chattering classes. And I'm including myself in this description
Speaker 1: a piece of information as it becomes more and more
Speaker 1: about blue collar people t s A inspectors, for instance,
Speaker 1: who can't pay their childcare costs and they can't pay
Speaker 1: for the gas to commute to work. I mean, a
Speaker 1: lot of the calling quote unquote calling and sick. It's
Speaker 1: not just a protest, it's that I got I can't
Speaker 1: pay for childcare for my kid. Um As that narrative
Speaker 1: grows and grows and grows, and Donald J, for all
Speaker 1: his false is saying I have an offer on the table.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to compromise. Can you come and we'll talk
Speaker 1: and compromise, And Nancy and chuck stick, dude, No, we
Speaker 1: won't discuss it at all until you reopen the government.
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think Middle America is worried
Speaker 1: about what Trump said a couple of months ago. But
Speaker 1: as long as I squeeze is on, like I was saying,
Speaker 1: like that, the White House, You're absolutely right, the White
Speaker 1: House meeting is it is in the weeks, but that
Speaker 1: is something that they constantly bring up in fundraising supporters. Sure,
Speaker 1: you are right. As long as this is it's continued
Speaker 1: and people start to actually feel the squeeze, I don't
Speaker 1: think any amount of well he said it was his
Speaker 1: and all that their problem is gonna matter at the end.
Speaker 1: It's just noise and I don't care who's that fault. Again.
Speaker 1: It kind of feels like a parent with noise of kids.
Speaker 1: I don't care who's a fault. Just stop scriting. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know I said that the other day on something.
Speaker 1: I said, if you're getting a fight over this, I
Speaker 1: don't care who started it. We're not gonna get to
Speaker 1: do blank doesn't make any difference. Just have it. Um Uh.
Speaker 1: I had one more on the other topic because I
Speaker 1: can't let it go. Here's what It's confusing to me.
Speaker 1: If I'm at the New York Times of the Washington
Speaker 1: Post and I hate Trump, how do you not recognize
Speaker 1: that when you get these big stories wrong, you have
Speaker 1: handed Trump such a tool, such a hammer, and given
Speaker 1: him so much help. How do you not standing in the
Speaker 1: the newsroom and say, people, we can't get any more
Speaker 1: stories wrong at all, or we're gonna get Trump reelected
Speaker 1: the years I've been saying that for the last three years,
Speaker 1: I don't know. This is the thing that makes that
Speaker 1: I find so funny is that you have we have
Speaker 1: this over and over and over and over again. Newsroom
Speaker 1: comes up with a big, thinly sourced story, everyone rushes
Speaker 1: to it, it falls apart, and then frum goes see
Speaker 1: and then they go, well, how dare you point that out? Sir?
Speaker 1: We try like, well, look that works maybe the first
Speaker 1: or or you know, first, second, or third time this happened.
Speaker 1: We're on like the eighteenth iteration of this story, and
Speaker 1: it keeps happening. And the thing is that probably all
Speaker 1: these these stories that are thinly sourced and fall apart,
Speaker 1: they all go in one direction, and they are all
Speaker 1: stories that point to wrong doing by Trump. At some
Speaker 1: point if this were this is where the conspiratorial side
Speaker 1: of me getting engaged at some point. If these were
Speaker 1: just honest mistakes that all of Averages stated would state
Speaker 1: that at least one would go in Trump's favor them
Speaker 1: do and then he all he has to do is
Speaker 1: come out and go see And you're like, well, you
Speaker 1: make a compelling argument. I don't know what to say
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, no kidding, Beckett Adams, he's a secret
Speaker 1: after truth. Imagine that coming to your writer for The
Speaker 1: Washington Examiner, Beckett, it's always fun. Thanks a bunch, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, good to talk to. You're right, if it's
Speaker 1: just mistakes, you would think there'd be the occasional goal
Speaker 1: in the other direction. No, it's it's not. It's enthusiasm
Speaker 1: run wild. And the enthusiasm is entirely to take from town.
Speaker 1: But if you hate Trump, as Jack points out, your out.
Speaker 1: But I'm the Captain from Captain and Sinil died what
Speaker 1: about a week ago? God rest his soul, and we
Speaker 1: appreciate a service to our country. You're listening to the
Speaker 1: arm is Strong and Getty show conscious of the nation.