Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and
Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm
Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Rupert Murdoch and alternative Facts. Right,
Speaker 1: you can already guess where I'm coming down on this one.
Speaker 1: There are no such things as alternative facts. There are
Speaker 1: alternative perspectives, of course, but facts are facts, despite whatever
Speaker 1: spin Kellyan Conway tried to deploy during the Trump years.
Speaker 1: We can disagree about how to interpret facts, but there
Speaker 1: they remain stubborn things. When stubborn people collide with stubborn things,
Speaker 1: When the like of Rupert Murdoch assembles a media empire
Speaker 1: largely designed to embrace and disseminate disinformation, you have the
Speaker 1: makings of a Crash Course episode. Murdoch, the ninety two
Speaker 1: year old progenitor the Fox News Miasma, recently retired from
Speaker 1: his perch atop Fox Corp and News Corp. Fox owns
Speaker 1: various Fox media and broadcasting properties. News Corp. Pulls over
Speaker 1: more straight arrow enterprises like a Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins,
Speaker 1: as well as a handful of brass knuckle tabloids that
Speaker 1: have cut swaths through new York, London and Sydney. But
Speaker 1: Fox is likely to define Murdoch's legacy a legacy. Some
Speaker 1: of his former executives now reject. Three of them jointly
Speaker 1: noted in a recent public statement, and I quote we
Speaker 1: never envisioned and would not knowingly have enabled, the disinformation
Speaker 1: machine that, in our opinion, Fox has become. For his part,
Speaker 1: Murdoch seems untroubled barrier mistakes, he likes to say. Joining
Speaker 1: me today is Molly Jong Fast, a special correspondent for
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, a ubiquitous TV commentator, and the host of
Speaker 1: the Fast Politics podcast. Molly is shrewd, candid and unspinnable.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Murdoch, the media, and the
Speaker 1: epic disinformation cyclones surrounding us. Howdy Molly, Hi, how are
Speaker 1: you ell? I'm glad to have you on.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad to join you.
Speaker 1: So the departure point for talking about Rupert Murdoch's career
Speaker 1: and his legacy, I say, I have a hard time
Speaker 1: believing that a noted hard worker and control freak like
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch, who assembled this giant empire of media assets
Speaker 1: from scratch with a little help, you know, from an
Speaker 1: Australian paper he inherited from his father, will just let
Speaker 1: go of the reins and let young Lachlan run the show.
Speaker 1: But maybe that's the case. We'll talk about that. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to know just first and foremost, what is
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch stepping down from his perch symbolized to you?
Speaker 1: How do you think about that?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's a fake. Say again, this
Speaker 2: is the question here when you have people who are
Speaker 2: bad faith actors, like the Murdochs and Donald Trump, and
Speaker 2: you know, people where again and again they have told
Speaker 2: you who they are. I want to believe them. So
Speaker 2: I put very little steak in what Rupert Murdoch says publicly,
Speaker 2: and much more steak in whatever it is that he does.
Speaker 2: And in this case, look this sort of death star,
Speaker 2: the New York Posts, the Wall Street Journal, all Fox News.
Speaker 2: I think Fox News is the most destructive of the trio.
Speaker 2: But Fox News has got many other conservative media, you know,
Speaker 2: the right side broadcasting. They've gone on American news, right streamers, Newsmax,
Speaker 2: so they are no longer just one cancer. There's a
Speaker 2: metastasis right in our American media ecosystem. So I would
Speaker 2: say that I don't put much steak in what Rupert
Speaker 2: says or what lock row.
Speaker 1: Let's start with, why do you think Rupert's being disingenuous?
Speaker 2: I mean, I have no reason to think one way
Speaker 2: or the I mean, here's what I would say. I
Speaker 2: think life imitates art, and he will probably stay controlling
Speaker 2: the company until he dies, as he did on the
Speaker 2: HBO show Succession, which I know is not actually a biopic,
Speaker 2: but more and more it does seem like, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Rupert's mother, I think she lived till she was
Speaker 1: at least one hundred and twenty, but that might be
Speaker 1: too high. It's definitely well north of one hundred. So
Speaker 1: he could, you know, if the genes are at tel
Speaker 1: Rupert could be with us, you know, for twenty more years.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think what's relevant about Rupert Murdock stemming
Speaker 2: down is that there is the acknowledgment here, there's the
Speaker 2: tacit acknowledgment that someday he will die. And when he
Speaker 2: does die, do you.
Speaker 1: Think that's really the tacit acknowledgement He does because he thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to send his segal out to the
Speaker 1: world that I recognize my own more.
Speaker 2: Talent fatality at ninety two. I mean, you know, this
Speaker 2: is not some like brave you know, shot across the
Speaker 2: bow here. I mean, he's in his nineties. But I
Speaker 2: would say this. I think that what is relevant about
Speaker 2: this is that of eventually the kids are going to
Speaker 2: have a fight because there are four kids, four voting kids,
Speaker 2: and only one of them is an actual fascist or
Speaker 2: you know, we're not supposed to say fascist is fascist adjacent?
Speaker 2: Or is fascist friendly? Okay, yeah, is fascist friendly? So
Speaker 2: there's going to be a big fight and it'll be that,
Speaker 2: I think is what is interesting.
Speaker 1: Just so our listeners know that the Murdock's exercise control
Speaker 1: over their media empire through a trust, and the kiddies
Speaker 1: each have an equal stake. Lockin's running the show has
Speaker 1: one steak, but his.
Speaker 2: Siblings Elizabeth and James, and there's one other one who's older.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they all have their own say, and there appear
Speaker 1: to be of a different political persuasion than Lachlan. Some
Speaker 1: people anticipate a food fight.
Speaker 2: And then there are the younger kids who don't have
Speaker 2: voting stakes, but who do have financial stakes. So I mean, eventually,
Speaker 2: when he dies, there will be a real reckoning for
Speaker 2: the station. But again, the thing about Fox, which I
Speaker 2: think is import or to realize and was not true
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety six when it started, is that the
Speaker 2: horse has already left the barn, right, like Pandora is
Speaker 2: out of the box. Right. If Fox ends tomorrow, they're
Speaker 2: still right side broadcasting. There's still Newsmax. There is such
Speaker 2: little pushback to.
Speaker 1: Some of the fact checking, fact checking and.
Speaker 2: Pushback when they lie that they can get away with it.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about the ecosystem that Murdoch has built,
Speaker 1: but it's worth pausing for a moment to think about
Speaker 1: how we got here, which is he rode test at
Speaker 1: all of this overseas. Yeah, first in Australia and then
Speaker 1: on Fleet Street, and then he came to America and
Speaker 1: owned a succession of papers that he went to school on.
Speaker 1: Originally the Village Voice, He had New York Magazine. At
Speaker 1: one point he ended up with the New York Post,
Speaker 1: then he famously got the Wall Street Journal. Over a
Speaker 1: period of decades. But Fox was the sort of realization
Speaker 1: of some of the lessons he and overseas. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think look, propaganda works, right, and
Speaker 2: what we saw with the Dominion case, which I think
Speaker 2: is really an important moment in American media studies.
Speaker 1: Right is here, But I want to wait. I want
Speaker 1: to wait to get to this case. I just want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit for a minute about the
Speaker 1: phenomenon of thoughts itself long before dominion came along. You know,
Speaker 1: he built this network under Roger Ales that had a
Speaker 1: combination of a news arm and commentators. But the real
Speaker 1: mojo for the network where it's commentators. They tracked in
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, seth Rich, birtherism, you know, the January sixth uprising,
Speaker 1: alternative viewpoints about what that meant over a period of decades.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that got traction?
Speaker 2: Why do I think it got traction? I think Look,
Speaker 2: tabloids have a long and storied history in America and
Speaker 2: Great Britain, and people like to read trash. I mean
Speaker 2: that is like, I feel like that is one of
Speaker 2: our basest instincts. And for a long time politicians in
Speaker 2: America at least had a sort of code and honor code. Right,
Speaker 2: so you know you would have a decorum, right, there'd
Speaker 2: be Senate decorum and you still have it. It's interesting
Speaker 2: you still have a disconnect between the Senate and the House,
Speaker 2: right the House is significantly. People are much sleazier to
Speaker 2: each other in the House and they're in the Senate.
Speaker 2: Right in the Senate because you kind of it's a
Speaker 2: little bit more clubby, which can also be problematic sometimes.
Speaker 2: But I think people liked that there was this kind
Speaker 2: of tabloidiness of it, and I think all right, And
Speaker 2: I also think that like one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: this propaganda has really grown is because there are really
Speaker 2: racist people in this country who see that they demographically
Speaker 2: can't beat it, right, they can't win, right, they are
Speaker 2: not having babies fast enough to keep this country white.
Speaker 2: And the racism the underlying I'm not even going to
Speaker 2: say it's anxiety, because I don't think you should give
Speaker 2: them the benefit of the doubt. The racism, the sort
Speaker 2: of American racism which has I think long been an
Speaker 2: undercurrent in life in America for centuries. Yeah, really got
Speaker 2: all flared up with this when they started to understand
Speaker 2: this demographic change and then also when they started to
Speaker 2: feel that they could not keep up the standards of
Speaker 2: living that their parents had.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I mean, but that's anxiety as opposed
Speaker 1: to racism. You know, the idea that you can't keep
Speaker 1: up your living standards. I'm not denying that they're obviously
Speaker 1: racism and sent some of this as well, right, but
Speaker 1: it is informed by a number of factors, and I
Speaker 1: do think economic anxiety is one of them, right.
Speaker 2: But I also think the deep undercurrent, Right, you don't
Speaker 2: get to Obama's birth certificate unless you're a racist, right,
Speaker 2: you don't, because otherwise that's not insecurity about your job.
Speaker 2: That's the belief that this man can possibly be one
Speaker 2: of OZ because he's black.
Speaker 1: And I think that Birtherism and Obama is a signal
Speaker 1: moment because it involves so many things. Obama was presiding
Speaker 1: of an administration that was dealing with the fallout of
Speaker 1: a financial crisis, right, people feeling economically insecure. He was
Speaker 1: black in a nation in which, you know, as you noted,
Speaker 1: the demographics were working against white people. And he was
Speaker 1: being pillaried in a media ecosystem that could make conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories go viral and a way they hadn't before. And
Speaker 1: I think one of the things to think about with
Speaker 1: Fox and its evolution is they put their finger on
Speaker 1: sort of this issue of discontent. When Roger Ales first
Speaker 1: started the idea that there was this silent majority that
Speaker 1: wasn't being heard from on the major networks, and they
Speaker 1: sort of took baby steps. When you look back into
Speaker 1: it now, you know, sort of soft conspiracy theories. The
Speaker 1: institutions are against you, but they weren't wholesale trafficking initially
Speaker 1: in propaganda, racism and disinformation. And with each passing decade
Speaker 1: it became more and more severe. And I do think
Speaker 1: of the Birtherrism moment as when the floodgates began to
Speaker 1: open and led right into the shoes of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and Trump was part of it, right.
Speaker 2: This is like the Tea Party, you know, the Tea
Speaker 2: Party is this sort of rage towards institutions for not
Speaker 2: delivering what you want. And then you've got from there
Speaker 2: Birtherrism and the beginning of Donald Trump. I mean, hell
Speaker 2: has no fury like a white man told he might
Speaker 2: have to be the same as everyone else.
Speaker 1: You know, Murdoch is clearly a newsman in the old
Speaker 1: fashioned sense of it. He's liked newsrooms, he's liked reporters,
Speaker 1: he's owned properties that do do quote unquote straight news reporting.
Speaker 1: But he also knows what he's unleashed on the other
Speaker 1: side of that ledger, which is again propaganda disinformation, playing
Speaker 1: people's worst emotions. I think I know the answer to
Speaker 1: this one, but I always like hearing other people's thoughts
Speaker 1: on it. Why do you think he likes to luxuriate
Speaker 1: in the cesspool while also funding old fashioned news gathering.
Speaker 2: So I actually think that there was a moment, or
Speaker 2: at least two moments that I can think of, where
Speaker 2: Murdoch tried to pump the brakes on Fox and it
Speaker 2: was too late, and so instead of stopping the propaganda,
Speaker 2: they lost market share. I think at some point he
Speaker 2: realized that he was no longer driving the bus off
Speaker 2: the cliff, that the bus was going on autopilot off
Speaker 2: the cliff. Now I still don't think he gets any
Speaker 2: credit for that, but I do think he's savvy enough
Speaker 2: to know that at this point the monster he has
Speaker 2: no control anymore.
Speaker 1: So what are the two moments?
Speaker 2: Moment is first, when Trump starts to get the nomination,
Speaker 2: sometime between twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, he realizes that
Speaker 2: this guy's going to be the nominee, he doesn't want
Speaker 2: it and there's nothing he can do right. And then
Speaker 2: he's going to win. And then after January sixth, they
Speaker 2: all said like, we're going to stop doing this, and
Speaker 2: they couldn't because they saw their numbers go down. I mean,
Speaker 2: count is not really the right word, and they didn't.
Speaker 2: But I think that's the other moment.
Speaker 1: And so you're saying that he luxuriated in the cesspool
Speaker 1: because he had created an unstoppable machine, not because he
Speaker 1: liked rubbing it all over his arms and legs.
Speaker 2: I think he wants money. I think all he cares
Speaker 2: about is money, and I think that this was the
Speaker 2: winning formula and by the time that door was open,
Speaker 2: he just was like, you know, look, this is an
Speaker 2: incredibly competitive business, and I think this guy cares more
Speaker 2: about winning than about like American democracy. I don't think
Speaker 2: Ripper Murdoch wakes up in the morning and is like, oh,
Speaker 2: I might be ruining America's democracy. I think he's like,
Speaker 2: the numbers are good, the numbers are bad.
Speaker 1: And famously he's used his media holdings to flex It
Speaker 1: gives him enormous way in the business world, it gives
Speaker 1: them enormous way in the political world.
Speaker 2: You want to win. You don't get to be a
Speaker 2: billionaire like that. Unless you just don't And I curse,
Speaker 2: now I can't curse. You don't care about anything but winning.
Speaker 1: And you know, famously he even had editors who went
Speaker 1: around wire tapping people. Whether the extent to which Rupert
Speaker 1: knew about that or didn't was debated in a courtroom.
Speaker 1: But he did establish a culture of very brass knuckled
Speaker 1: approach to digging into people's business and sort of threatening
Speaker 1: enemies perceived or actual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, of course, I mean the guy is that,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't spend enough time I say this
Speaker 2: as someone who grew up very not wealthy myself, but
Speaker 2: in a place where I was exposed to a lot
Speaker 2: of wealthy people. We don't spend enough time talking about
Speaker 2: the kind of extreme I want to say, ambition and
Speaker 2: lack of compassion. One must have to make billions of dollars.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's fair to say that billionaires
Speaker 2: are not like you and I that.
Speaker 1: They offer although I would say I do know compassionate billionaires, right,
Speaker 1: and I do know billionaires who have high standards. And
Speaker 1: I think that Rupert is an unusual amalgam of low standards,
Speaker 1: no standards, variable standards, professed high standards and it would
Speaker 1: seem a almost complete lack of compassion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean right, and he also in his mind whatever.
Speaker 2: We can't know what's in his mind, but the pure
Speaker 2: ambition does not lend itself to compassion.
Speaker 1: On that note, I'm going to take a break so
Speaker 1: we can hear from our sponsor and we'll come right back.
Speaker 1: We're back with Molly John Fast, Vanity fair scribe. We're
Speaker 1: just talking about the arc in a very brief, compressed
Speaker 1: way of Rupert Murdoch's career. He's handed the reins off
Speaker 1: to his sons. One thing I just want to touch
Speaker 1: back on is this idea of what changed in the
Speaker 1: propagandic ecosystem in the sort of seventies, eighties, nineties up
Speaker 1: to the notts and now because I think of you know,
Speaker 1: past events where people's jaw dropped the Willie Horton ad.
Speaker 1: You know, when Michael Ducaccus was running for president, Fox
Speaker 1: calling Florida early for George W. Bush when the final
Speaker 1: vote tally in his race against Al Gore was still
Speaker 1: being calculated. Those sorts of things at the time were
Speaker 1: much debated and seen as sort of grotesque manifestations of
Speaker 1: hardball politics and a kind of unreltting news environment. But
Speaker 1: none of it really seems again to me to be
Speaker 1: on the same par with what began when Barack Obama
Speaker 1: became president. Even the Clintons. I think the Clintons would complain,
Speaker 1: as Hillary did, you know, vast right wing conspiracy. I
Speaker 1: don't even think the Clintons were really exposed to the
Speaker 1: same kinds of things that Barack Obama was. And so
Speaker 1: I do see Obama the Obama presidency assist departure point
Speaker 1: along with the rise of social media and then the
Speaker 1: advent of Donald Trump. We talked a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: about that demarcation, but I want to talk about it
Speaker 1: a little bit more now in terms of how you
Speaker 1: think about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, social media. I think social media
Speaker 2: is amazing and good because I came of age I
Speaker 2: started writing in the nineties, and there were just so
Speaker 2: many gatekeepers, right. You'd write a piece for Vogue, and
Speaker 2: maybe it would go up, and maybe it would get
Speaker 2: thrown out. You know, you'd pitch the editorial page of
Speaker 2: the New York Post. You know, there were just gatekeeper
Speaker 2: after gatekeeper after gatekeeper, and I think that was the
Speaker 2: way it was, but it would sometimes cause really interesting
Speaker 2: voices to not be able to break through. And so
Speaker 2: what I do think is really cool about social media
Speaker 2: is that you do have people like I was watching
Speaker 2: this TikTok the other day of this amazing guy who's
Speaker 2: like a brilliant pundit who there is no way you
Speaker 2: would ever have heard of this person was it not
Speaker 2: for TikTok? And I am just delighted by it every day. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that I really do look at
Speaker 2: Congress as this sort of biggest screen.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's putting the car before the
Speaker 1: horse to go to Congress. So I agree with you, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Things were not regulated properly in the beginning because people
Speaker 2: didn't understand it, and so you know, content was kind
Speaker 2: of given away for free and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: and again I blame I was going to say, equal
Speaker 2: parts Congress and media companies for not being able to
Speaker 2: see what was coming, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: we all had to backpedal and say, like, you like
Speaker 2: our free content, now will you willing to pay forty
Speaker 2: bucks a year for it?
Speaker 1: On top of that, very smart analysis as well is
Speaker 1: that we have conflicted feelings about the idea of gatekeepers.
Speaker 1: As you've pointed out gatekeepers especially in the you know,
Speaker 1: the classic big metro newspaper era, three network era, it
Speaker 1: was largely white men. It became privileged white men who
Speaker 1: stood atop those various institutions, and it meant that diverse
Speaker 1: few points didn't come into the newsroom. It meant that
Speaker 1: a variety of subjects didn't get covered, and meant that
Speaker 1: talented people like you in a previous era wouldn't have
Speaker 1: gotten a shot. So social broke apart that kind of
Speaker 1: media monopoly on the intellectual and creative side. And I
Speaker 1: think that's important and worthy.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, to pause you for a second,
Speaker 2: because like, I come from a family of like I'm
Speaker 2: a NEPO. I don't want to say baby, but NEPO
Speaker 2: middle aged. So let's not cry for me, Argentina.
Speaker 1: Here should we tell the audience about your elements?
Speaker 2: You know, my mom was writer, my grandfather was a writer,
Speaker 2: or they're both day No, my mother is still alive. Sorry,
Speaker 2: sorry mom, Sorry mom, But I'm just saying I don't
Speaker 2: know that. I think I was quite lucky by being
Speaker 2: born where I was born, But I dot.
Speaker 1: You're also being modest. Now you also have your own
Speaker 1: collection of talents, right that had to get discovered in
Speaker 1: a specific way.
Speaker 2: But I do think that you know, there are a
Speaker 2: lot of people for whom the you know, social media
Speaker 2: has been in Sorry, go on, So yes, I didn't
Speaker 2: mean to interrupetw No, No, it's.
Speaker 1: All good, and I agree with that. I also think
Speaker 1: there is a positive side to gatekeeping m HM, which
Speaker 1: is being a screen for value. Now, if it's just
Speaker 1: a limited number of people with their hands on the
Speaker 1: gate then what you're screening for has very narrow parameters.
Speaker 1: But if you also are concerned that propaganda, racism, right,
Speaker 1: negative aspects of how we communicate or live or act
Speaker 1: in the world shouldn't just be plastered all over people's
Speaker 1: eyeballs twenty four to seven or pumped into their ears
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven, or put in their papers twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven, gatekeepers play and important. That's true, and
Speaker 1: that is where social media has completely dropped the ball,
Speaker 1: and they've lived under this. I think canard that, well,
Speaker 1: we're technology platforms. We had Facebook and Twitter and TikTok
Speaker 1: are just technology platforms and we are just here to
Speaker 1: let everything blossom and we can't play any role in
Speaker 1: telling people to go the other way right, and that
Speaker 1: has been lost. Along with the privilege that disappeared. The
Speaker 1: gatekeeping role has really been, I think disastrously watered down.
Speaker 2: Yes, I agree, and I.
Speaker 1: Think there's a certain longing people now have for clarity
Speaker 1: around facts. Where do facts reside? Who assesses them? Can
Speaker 1: media be a vehicle for actually finding commonality having civic discussions.
Speaker 1: I think it's very hard right now, and I'm not
Speaker 1: optimistic about it, But I was wondering if you are
Speaker 1: optimistic about.
Speaker 2: It about facts coming back?
Speaker 1: So yeah, about the ability to have narratives that people
Speaker 1: can consider dispassionately, with an eye towards problem solving, as
Speaker 1: opposed to mudslinging, with an eye towards creating good policy,
Speaker 1: as opposed to saying policy doesn't exist, with an eye
Speaker 1: towards communicating better because we're a diverse community, as opposed
Speaker 1: to using it to create for their divisions. You know,
Speaker 1: the proactive positive side of media.
Speaker 2: I mean again, media reflects the culture, right, so you know,
Speaker 2: we could like sit down and talk about the people
Speaker 2: on the opinion side at the New York Times or
Speaker 2: at the Washington Post or at the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: But I actually think when I think about that question,
Speaker 2: I think of, like I do a podcast too, where
Speaker 2: I interview nine guests a week and I talk to
Speaker 2: a lot of politicians, and like, I don't think media
Speaker 2: solves its problems itself, but there are some pretty exciting
Speaker 2: you know, I interviewed Congresswoman Summer Lee, who I've interviewed before,
Speaker 2: and she was talking about you know, she had a
Speaker 2: statement that Menendez needs to resign. Robert Menendez, demo from
Speaker 2: New Jersey, who is.
Speaker 1: Face with lots of gold bars.
Speaker 2: He's facing his second set of indictments. Gold bars, Mercedes
Speaker 2: is half of that.
Speaker 1: Stuff in pockets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but she had said, you know, we're not going
Speaker 2: to we have no moral high ground if we don't
Speaker 2: take it, and we cannot be the party that tells
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas he has to resign after going to two
Speaker 2: different Koch Brothers summits. If we have a senator who's
Speaker 2: googling how much can you sell a gold bar for?
Speaker 1: Well, that's a high minded thought, and I don't disagree
Speaker 1: with you. I think there's a moral thing there that
Speaker 1: you're airing on the podcast. There's a point being driven towards.
Speaker 1: But I'm talking about sort of the broader world we
Speaker 1: live in right now, when people are surrounded, particularly via
Speaker 1: social by raw propaganda and disinformation, and not by strong
Speaker 1: conversations about a moral way to be a senator or
Speaker 1: what is and isn't breaking the law. I'm worried about
Speaker 1: the broader world that in right now.
Speaker 2: I mean, again, with this disinformation, misinformation, the propaganda stuff.
Speaker 2: I worry about it, and I would love Congress to
Speaker 2: do more legislating on it, and they have an opportunity
Speaker 2: to which they have continually let the orse out of
Speaker 2: the barn. But I do worry about it, and I
Speaker 2: certainly worry about, you know, this continual death of local news.
Speaker 2: But I also I don't know. I mean, maybe this
Speaker 2: is a moral failing on my part, But I'm a
Speaker 2: little bit hopeful because we have seen this is not
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen where Trump won, you know, because we saw
Speaker 2: online there was a story about John Podesta and spirit
Speaker 2: cooking and comet ping pong, right like we've actually seen
Speaker 2: in the last bunch of elections, Republicans have underperformed even
Speaker 2: when they have said, you know, blatant lies about a candidate.
Speaker 2: I mean I'm thinking about like herschel Walker versus Reverend Warnock, right,
Speaker 2: Like that was a race where the Republicans were pumping
Speaker 2: out a lot of information about Reverend Warnock and he
Speaker 2: still won. So I am a little bit more hopeful
Speaker 2: about that. There is definitely a fair amount of Misteve
Speaker 2: Banna calls of flooding the zone with you know, but
Speaker 2: I don't know that it works quite the same way
Speaker 2: it used to.
Speaker 1: And do you think that's because voters and viewers have
Speaker 1: become more sophisticated because of the barrage of muck, that
Speaker 1: they've become more able to sort of discern reality from fiction.
Speaker 2: I don't know, But I do know that my husband
Speaker 2: sent me a picture of a raccoon eating a piece
Speaker 2: of pizza on top of a garbage can, and I
Speaker 2: immediately wrote back, is that real? So I do think
Speaker 2: like we are much more savvy in a certain way.
Speaker 2: I don't know that seven years ago I would have
Speaker 2: said is that real? I probably would have been like,
Speaker 2: where did you see that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think what we've gone through these phases in
Speaker 1: the Murdoch Trump Waltz that we've seen since twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: It begins with Bill O'Reilly in a kind of lighter
Speaker 1: version of pumping the gas. And then you get to
Speaker 1: Sean Hannity, where he's very much in the tank with Trump.
Speaker 1: They're talking on the phone, He's making up excuses for
Speaker 1: Trump on air. When Trump's numerous liaisons with other women
Speaker 1: come into the public purview, Sean Hannity is saying, well,
Speaker 1: just look at King David. He had five hundred consorts,
Speaker 1: you know, and all these other absurdities to explain away
Speaker 1: the grotesque immorality of it all. And then we wind
Speaker 1: up with Tucker Carlson, who is an open propagandist. He
Speaker 1: creates alternative narratives whether Trump is there or not. And
Speaker 1: so it suggests to me that Trump is, and the
Speaker 1: media cohort next to it can last well beyond Rupert
Speaker 1: Murdoch and well beyond Donald Trump, because it'll always will
Speaker 1: be another Tucker Carlson who realizes, you don't need Trump
Speaker 1: or Murdoch to make this work.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to. I feel like you're making
Speaker 2: me be the hopeful one here, Tim that's not gone.
Speaker 2: No one wants that.
Speaker 1: I'm just I want you to road test if I'm
Speaker 1: being too unhopeful.
Speaker 2: So Look, Chucker Colson, in my mind, was one of
Speaker 2: the scariest as someone who has had seen what he's
Speaker 2: done to people he targeted. He was really, in my mind,
Speaker 2: one of the sort of scariest of those kind of
Speaker 2: people out.
Speaker 1: There, especially because he was really good at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was really good. Look, I think the thing
Speaker 2: that we don't talk about enough, and I'm sorry to
Speaker 2: tell you I'm gonna again be optimistic here. I don't
Speaker 2: know what's happening, but after January sixth, a lot of
Speaker 2: Trump supporters went to jail. They went to jail for
Speaker 2: doing what Trump told them to do, right on us, yes,
Speaker 2: And so what that did is it had a chilling effect,
Speaker 2: maybe not on all of them, but certainly on some
Speaker 2: of them. Right they realized that like you do crime,
Speaker 2: even for your guy, you go to jail. And that's
Speaker 2: why we have people going to jail in this country
Speaker 2: because the idea is and again it doesn't always work, certainly,
Speaker 2: but accountability causes people to stop doing things. And so
Speaker 2: I do think it's worth thinking about. You know, Trump
Speaker 2: has had four indictments and each time he has not
Speaker 2: had huge crowds show up at the courtrooms.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Remember in Georgia. There was a lot of anxiety that
Speaker 2: closed down the streets. They closed down to this, They
Speaker 2: goes on that, and in the end it was really
Speaker 2: not a huge crowd. I also think, and again, there
Speaker 2: was a time and I say this not from like
Speaker 2: reporting I've done, but just from my own experiences online
Speaker 2: as a woman online, there were times during the Trump
Speaker 2: administration when things were really hot, like you could get
Speaker 2: really a lot of death threats in a minute. These guys, yeah,
Speaker 2: these guys were You were just getting death threats and
Speaker 2: death threats and death threats. That seems to have pooled
Speaker 2: down a little bit. And you know, Tucker Carlson, he was.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing about Fox, which I think is
Speaker 2: important to realize is that Fox always wins. They're like
Speaker 2: the house right with these reporters, reporters, with their opinion hosts.
Speaker 2: They always win. So like they fire Bill O'Reilly and
Speaker 2: Bill O'Reilly went on to have a podcast and not
Speaker 2: really do anything, and they fired Tucker, who was their
Speaker 2: biggest rainmaker. And Tucker is doing a thing on X
Speaker 2: but it's not really it's sort of no consequence. And
Speaker 2: Tucker's gone from like this major voice to so if
Speaker 2: we were a year ago and Tucker were still on
Speaker 2: the air, he'd be telling Matt Gates what to do.
Speaker 2: There was a time last year when Tucker Carlson was
Speaker 2: telling Republicans in Congress that they needed to start a commission.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what it was called, but a commission
Speaker 2: to investigate the January sixth Commission. So he was like
Speaker 2: giving direct orders to mentor legislators. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 2: So I actually think Tucker Carlson was unique because he
Speaker 2: was much smarter than most of those people and really
Speaker 2: uniquely dangerous.
Speaker 1: And that happy note, We're going to take another break
Speaker 1: to hear from your sponsor. My friend the Optimist will
Speaker 1: be coming back, and we will be back shortly. I'm
Speaker 1: back with Molly Jong, fast writer, podcast host and professional gadfly. So, Molly,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about the road behind us and the
Speaker 1: road we've just emerged from in terms of the media
Speaker 1: colliding with the Murdoch Empire and with political haymaking. Rupert
Speaker 1: stepped out of the game, at least temporarilier. He'll be
Speaker 1: more behind the scenes. What do you think about going
Speaker 1: into the twenty twenty four election in terms of the
Speaker 1: media's relationship through overcoming disinformation and propaganda in the interests
Speaker 1: of fact gathering, while also being plain about when people
Speaker 1: are trying to spin them or lie to them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a bill of particulars that are hard for a
Speaker 1: lot of media organizations to balance.
Speaker 2: Well. One of the things that I'm the most concerned
Speaker 2: about is the false equivalencies, and that I think really
Speaker 2: the road to another Trump presidency is lined with you know,
Speaker 2: I listened to a really straight news reported podcast. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to mention it because I'm going to be
Speaker 2: really critical now, and these are very smart, really mainstreamy
Speaker 2: straight reporters, but they are addicted to the ada I think.
Speaker 1: I know the podcast, I think to the idea of
Speaker 1: both sides sort of having equal ways.
Speaker 2: Right, and just that somehow the you know, Trump tried
Speaker 2: to end democracy, he tried to end it, right, and
Speaker 2: Biden news three years older than Trump. These two things
Speaker 2: are not equivalent, and so I do think that is
Speaker 2: a big problem. I also think Republicans, and not even Republicans,
Speaker 2: this sort of far right heritage crew have worked the
Speaker 2: refs so hard that every time a mainstream medium political
Speaker 2: editor is looking over a piece he's saying like, do
Speaker 2: we seem too liberal? Does this seem to have a
Speaker 2: liberal bias? And again that is not how this is
Speaker 2: supposed to go. Right. You need have a democracy bias,
Speaker 2: not a political biab.
Speaker 1: Well, and the healthy question is do we have it right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And accounting for how biases can shape what you think
Speaker 1: right or wrong is I do think there's a good, strong,
Speaker 1: honorable legacy in mainstream news gathering about assuming you're ignorant,
Speaker 1: assuming you need to dig a little further to get
Speaker 1: towards where the truth resides, and that trying to do
Speaker 1: that on breaking news in an anodyne, programmatic way serves
Speaker 1: a purpose. I think the problem in the Trump era
Speaker 1: is that process ran up against a man who's a
Speaker 1: pathological liar and who had self interest ahead of everything else,
Speaker 1: and the media, I think had a hard time figuring
Speaker 1: out how you package what he was about using traditional methods,
Speaker 1: and I think going into twenty twenty four it's possibly
Speaker 1: even more pressing than it wasn't twenty sixteen that the
Speaker 1: media learned to shed some of its traditions so people
Speaker 1: can understand the reality around them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I mean I also think
Speaker 2: this guy is unprecedented. Right, You're not covering a normal politician.
Speaker 2: But they had said I would say, like the Republican
Speaker 2: parties talked to talk to fascism, right or tap to
Speaker 2: an anti democratic I mean, right now we have Al
Speaker 2: Obama fighting with the Supreme Court about their refusal to
Speaker 2: redraw the maps. This Supreme Court, which is a very
Speaker 2: Trump heavy six ' three court, right.
Speaker 1: Which believes in federalism and letting the states have more.
Speaker 2: Work, leeves in federalism, which believes in originalism, which isn't
Speaker 2: even a thing, which believes that you know that women
Speaker 2: can be beaten by their husbands if it's smaller than
Speaker 2: a thumb. Obviously, I'm speaking hyperbolically here, but I do
Speaker 2: think that, you know, this Republican Party has really turned
Speaker 2: on democratic norms. So I think there is a feeling
Speaker 2: in mainstream media that you cannot be hysterical, that you
Speaker 2: cannot be emotional, that you must be calm and look
Speaker 2: at things squarely, which is true. But if Donald Trump
Speaker 2: gets re elected, we may no longer have elections. So
Speaker 2: I don't know how you can be calm and look
Speaker 2: squarely at the end of democracy that way.
Speaker 1: I mean I think this tension is between quote unquote
Speaker 1: fact based reporting and accurate reporting, because not all accurate
Speaker 1: reporting only involves the fact pattern and involves interpreting intent,
Speaker 1: and Trump has long broadcast his intent in a way
Speaker 1: that isn't simply about fact checking, and the media I
Speaker 1: think has lacked certainly. I think in twenty fifteen and
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen early warning systems portraying that and educating people
Speaker 1: about it. I think the reality of his presidency put
Speaker 1: mainstream media back on its feet, and there's another bite
Speaker 1: of the apple coming in. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the coverage of the January sixth insurrection showed the media
Speaker 1: in better form. But in that case, everyone could agree
Speaker 1: that breaking into the capital overtly and being violent on
Speaker 1: the steps of the Capitol was a bad thing, regardless
Speaker 1: of the spin that was tried to put around interpreting
Speaker 1: that event. I think Trump still roll forward with this
Speaker 1: idea that because he's a presidential candidate, he gets treated
Speaker 1: with a certain amount of distance and introspection that doesn't
Speaker 1: actually reflect what he's about and what he's doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I also think that that
Speaker 2: they're just the framing. It's so hard to get out
Speaker 2: of the framing. One of the things that I do
Speaker 2: think the media has done that's really good is they
Speaker 2: no longer we'll say things like I mean, I was
Speaker 2: thinking about this weekend where Trump threatened General Milly with execution.
Speaker 1: Executing a former general. Yes, way that czars and pharaohs
Speaker 1: of the past did it.
Speaker 2: Not a very normal thing for a healthy democracy When
Speaker 2: he said that, I think previous iterations of the mainstream
Speaker 2: media covering Trump would have had does Milly deserve to die?
Speaker 2: You know as a headline. Now, what I think is
Speaker 2: interesting is there's just sort of been silence, which actually
Speaker 2: think is awesome, so bad, but in a different way.
Speaker 2: So remember Trump in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, the number
Speaker 2: was that he had about two billion dollars in free
Speaker 2: media from saying crazy stuff and having it reported credulously.
Speaker 2: So now I think we have another problem, but it's
Speaker 2: a different problem, which is he's not getting that free media,
Speaker 2: but people aren't seeing what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He's not getting the air you know to float his balloon.
Speaker 1: But people also aren't being critical of what he's doing
Speaker 1: and covering the sort of the dimensions of it in
Speaker 1: a robust enough way. Yeah, So what is the structure
Speaker 1: that solves this problem in your mind? I have a
Speaker 1: thought about that. But what is an overarching approach to
Speaker 1: this that you think would remedy this.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, you tell me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think part of it is just being
Speaker 1: more aggressive about how things are packaged for viewers and
Speaker 1: for readers and for listeners. I think you can have
Speaker 1: very short, just the facts, ma'am, kinds of synopsies of
Speaker 1: events that give people a general handle on what occurred
Speaker 1: that doesn't need to take sides. But I don't think
Speaker 1: that should exist is the only take. I think that's
Speaker 1: why commentary exists. I think that's why news analysis exists,
Speaker 1: and I think papers and broadcasters with the ability to
Speaker 1: do it should be more aggressive about packaging those things
Speaker 1: together to give their audience a fuller picture of what
Speaker 1: the world's really about, and do it in a highly responsible,
Speaker 1: but very aggressive way. I think that that's the traditional
Speaker 1: role of the meeting. I think the media just has
Speaker 1: to adapt to the fact that there's more disinformation and
Speaker 1: propaganda out there that has to be taken on head
Speaker 1: on and chewed up and exposed for what it is.
Speaker 1: I think the other thing is that social media companies
Speaker 1: have to be brought to heal. I think they have
Speaker 1: to be treated the same way as traditional media organizations.
Speaker 1: I think they have to police their platforms for garbage
Speaker 1: and disinformation and hate speech in the same way that
Speaker 1: traditional publications have done it. I think those are two
Speaker 1: strong steps towards getting there. But that might be too simplistic.
Speaker 1: Come up.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the question is is section two thirty
Speaker 2: good or you know, should media company is not be
Speaker 2: responsible for what is published on there?
Speaker 1: I mean Section two thirty was invented at a time
Speaker 1: when media platforms were being built from scratch, and it
Speaker 1: was a way to give startups without a lot of
Speaker 1: money a way to get content that they didn't have
Speaker 1: to police so they could get their feet on the ground.
Speaker 1: Those same platforms, a number of them emerged as major
Speaker 1: multimedia forces that I think now should police what's on
Speaker 1: their pages, or their platforms or their airwaves. And I
Speaker 1: think that Section two thirty shouldn't give Facebook or Twitter
Speaker 1: a free past towards again bringing up this ugly word,
Speaker 1: but being better gatekeepers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 1: When you look at where we are right now, do
Speaker 1: you see a media organization doing it in a way
Speaker 1: that you think is right. Is there a media organization
Speaker 1: that you think has a good playbook?
Speaker 2: That's a hard question. There are a lot of journalists
Speaker 2: that I really say back writing a lot of really
Speaker 2: interesting stuff. You know, what is so interesting about the
Speaker 2: moment we are in is more and more everything becomes decentralized. Right, So, like,
Speaker 2: there are people I always read at the New York Times,
Speaker 2: people I always read about any Fair, people I always
Speaker 2: read at The Atlantic, people I always read at the
Speaker 2: Washington Post. There are people I love at the New Yorker.
Speaker 2: So I would say what's pretty interesting is like these
Speaker 2: sort of brands have in my mind. I don't read
Speaker 2: something necessarily because of where it is. I read it
Speaker 2: because of who wrote it.
Speaker 1: So the personal filter becomes more important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's not always true, And I'll read
Speaker 2: all the sort of politics vertical at the Washington Post
Speaker 2: and the New York Times or but I tend to
Speaker 2: like their opinion writers who I just skip them.
Speaker 1: I always like to end the pods with asking people
Speaker 1: about what they've learned, what they know now that they
Speaker 1: didn't know before. Molly does Rupert Murdoch dissent from the
Speaker 1: top of Fox and the evolution of Fox over the
Speaker 1: last decades teach you anything about the way that the
Speaker 1: media ecosystem in the Murdoch ero works.
Speaker 2: I just think you can never underestimate the way that
Speaker 2: some people just want to watch the world burn.
Speaker 1: Wow, So you sees though you are actually the pessimist
Speaker 1: after all this back and forth about who's the opertor
Speaker 1: who's the pessimist. I mean, I don't necessarily disagree. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think part of the Republican political agenda is to
Speaker 1: defenestrate the federal government, and Donald Trump would just like
Speaker 1: to burn the house down rather not being given re entry.
Speaker 1: So I think that's true. But the extent to which
Speaker 1: people will sort of enjoy the conflagration is a trippy
Speaker 1: element of all that.
Speaker 2: I also think Donald Trump just wants to stay out
Speaker 2: of jail. I mean, you know, I think that at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, the man just thinks like
Speaker 2: this will keep him out of jail, and we cannot
Speaker 2: underestimate the kind of motivator that is for him.
Speaker 1: That's a discusion for the next time you come on
Speaker 1: to talk with me, Mollie, because we're out of time today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Molly jong Fast is a special correspondent for Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: and the hosts of the Fast Politics podcast. You can
Speaker 1: find her on Twitter at Molly jong Fast. Here at
Speaker 1: crash Course, we believe that collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising,
Speaker 1: and always instructive. In today's Crash Course, I learned that
Speaker 1: I may be perceived by some as a pessimist, even
Speaker 1: though I've always thought of myself as an optimist. But
Speaker 1: given the media sworld that we're in now, I have
Speaker 1: to say I feel very pessimistic. What did you learn?
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can tweet at
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Opinion handle at Opinion or me at Tim
Speaker 1: O'Brien using the hashtag Bloomberg Crash Course. You can also
Speaker 1: subscribe to our show wherever you're listening right now and
Speaker 1: leave us a review. It helps more people find the show.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by the indispensable Anna Maserakas, Moses
Speaker 1: Ondam and me, our supervib producers Magnus Hendrickson, and we
Speaker 1: had editing help from Sage Bauman, Katie Boyce, Jeff Grocott,
Speaker 1: Mike Nize, and Christine Vanden. Bilart Blake Maple says, our
Speaker 1: sound engineering and our original theme song was composed by
Speaker 1: Luis Gara. I'm Tim O'Brien. We'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with another crash course.