Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Everyone has been talking about the situation in Iran, and
Speaker 2: if you haven't heard about, ten days ago, a young
Speaker 2: woman named Massa Amini was arrested by the Morality police
Speaker 2: for not properly covering her hair, and then she died
Speaker 2: in their custody. Ever since then, Iranians have been pouring
Speaker 2: into the streets demanding justice for her death and freedom
Speaker 2: for Iran's women. Now. So far, the government has answered
Speaker 2: the protesters with brutal violence and has shown no signs
Speaker 2: of reconsidering the law that requires women to cover their hair.
Speaker 2: In fact, last week, the President of Iran was scheduled
Speaker 2: to be interviewed by CNN's Christian Armanport in New York,
Speaker 2: and at the last minute he demanded that she wear
Speaker 2: a headscarf for the interview, even though the interview was
Speaker 2: in New York, and when she refused, he straight up
Speaker 2: to cancel the interview and left just left her looking
Speaker 2: like she was giving therapy to a ghost. So joining
Speaker 2: me now to talk about the interview, the situation in
Speaker 2: Iran is Christian. I'm on, poor Christian, what come for
Speaker 2: the day job? And let's jump straight into it. You
Speaker 2: have interviewed many Iranian presidents. You have never been in
Speaker 2: a situation like this before where they demanded of you
Speaker 2: that you wear the headscoff not in Iran. Walk me
Speaker 2: through the situation and also why you chose to not
Speaker 2: do what the presidents of Iran requested.
Speaker 3: Well, very briefly, like you know, with my team, we
Speaker 3: wanted to do this interview and we were going to
Speaker 3: get the Iranian president's first and exclusive interview on American soil.
Speaker 3: And as you know, because New Yorker is no it's
Speaker 3: gridlock at the UN. This is the UN Week and
Speaker 3: one of the things we like to do is get
Speaker 3: voices from all over the world, including the Iranian president.
Speaker 3: So I've done this now many years, and I've always
Speaker 3: had the first interview with the latest Iranian president and it's.
Speaker 1: Never been an issue.
Speaker 3: There is no law in the United States that requires
Speaker 3: a journalist to wear a scarf for any interview, and
Speaker 3: it was never an issue. And by the way, I
Speaker 3: find out that this guy, he had a breakfast, he
Speaker 3: had a press conference, and he didn't require anybody to
Speaker 3: wear a scarf.
Speaker 1: So you know, come to the evening and.
Speaker 3: It's now eight o'clock and then they say he's praying
Speaker 3: and he's resting, and you know, we're going to do
Speaker 3: it a little bit later. And suddenly an aid came
Speaker 3: and said, we would like the president would like you
Speaker 3: to wear a scarf.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why, no, I.
Speaker 3: Don't have to wear a scarf anyway, cut to the chase,
Speaker 3: it is not law, and as a journalist I made
Speaker 3: instantaneously a journalistic decision based on the principle that A
Speaker 3: it wasn't law, and B you don't get you know,
Speaker 3: strong armed by a foreign government or any government when
Speaker 3: you're trying to sit and conduct a previously arranged interview.
Speaker 2: It seems it seems like and I can't help thinking
Speaker 2: that this was most probably, I guess, in some way,
Speaker 2: shape or form, motivated by the timing. You know you
Speaker 2: are of Iranian descent. Do you think that there was
Speaker 2: an element of him not wanting to appear on camera
Speaker 2: with you for fear of a message it may send
Speaker 2: to a country that's very quickly turning against this dictator.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that I'm sure, but I
Speaker 3: do actually believe that he did not want to be
Speaker 3: seen with a woman whose head was uncovered right at
Speaker 3: the same time that in his own country there was
Speaker 3: an uprising on the streets, and in fact a woman
Speaker 3: had died, a young woman had died because of this
Speaker 3: while in the custody of the morality police. And I
Speaker 3: would just say that this morality police has been around since,
Speaker 3: you know, forty plus years of the Islamic Revolution, but
Speaker 3: under some presidents it's less obvious and less strict, and
Speaker 3: under some it's much more strict. So this particular president
Speaker 3: is one of the very hard variety.
Speaker 4: And he basically came to power by making the crackdown
Speaker 4: on all sorts of social norms, including on women's dress
Speaker 4: and their activity.
Speaker 1: That was a central theme of his campaign.
Speaker 3: And you know, clearly it's all gone, as we say,
Speaker 3: pear shaped, because I don't think he expected that something
Speaker 3: like this would cause the worst.
Speaker 1: Uprising in Iran since two thousand and nine. It's really interesting.
Speaker 3: And your you know, your audience should know and your
Speaker 3: viewers that some eighty percent of the Iranian people are
Speaker 3: under the age of twenty one. Sixty percent of Iranian
Speaker 3: students and university graduates are women. Women have a lot
Speaker 3: of power and they want their full rights.
Speaker 2: I think they have every right to want that, and
Speaker 2: across the world that, you know, I think there may
Speaker 2: be some misconception. Some see this as these women completely
Speaker 2: going up against Islam, when in fact it's not that.
Speaker 2: What they're saying is they have nothing against anybody practicing
Speaker 2: a religion or anyone, you know, dressing the way their
Speaker 2: religion requires. Their qualm seems to be about the government
Speaker 2: forcing people to do it should they not wish to.
Speaker 2: Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Look, that is correct. The fact of the matter is
Speaker 1: that it is the law, at least the social law.
Speaker 1: I don't know it's written in the.
Speaker 3: Legal books, but it is the social and religious law,
Speaker 3: and it has been since the beginning of the revolution,
Speaker 3: which happened in nineteen seventy nine. But interestingly, Trevor, you know,
Speaker 3: the women came out in the streets back then forty
Speaker 3: plus years ago to also call for a change of regime,
Speaker 3: but they were not wearing head scarves, and there was
Speaker 3: no question at that time where at the beginning of
Speaker 3: headscarves being compulsory.
Speaker 1: I know women who went into the streets at that time,
Speaker 1: including members.
Speaker 3: Of my own family, who wanted to get rid of
Speaker 3: one monarchy for what they thought was going to be democracy.
Speaker 3: Then very shortly thereafter, Iya Tolajomedi said, oh no, actually.
Speaker 1: You women you need to be you know, veiled.
Speaker 3: And that has been a bubbling cauldron for the last
Speaker 3: many many years. I had a wonderful woman on my
Speaker 3: show tonight, married John Satrapi. If any of you know
Speaker 3: the graphic novel Persepolists, which she wrote about her childhood,
Speaker 3: she basically said this, Look, the people of Iran wanted democracy.
Speaker 3: The minute you take off the veil, you know, their
Speaker 3: dictatorship will go. So the regime is not going to
Speaker 3: allow that. But she said, she put it this way,
Speaker 3: it's only to keep men's eyes off women. So if
Speaker 3: they're so horny, she said, and they're so unable to
Speaker 3: control themselves, well maybe they should take a cold shower
Speaker 3: or look somewhere else.
Speaker 1: And that's the bottom line. And I'm, you know, sorry
Speaker 1: to say, even in.
Speaker 3: Your country, Trevor, even in the United States, with this
Speaker 3: law that has you know, banned the ability for women
Speaker 3: to make their own choices about their own bodies, it's
Speaker 3: something incredibly important that we have to you know, keep
Speaker 3: an eye on, and that in that moment, I was
Speaker 3: not as a journalist or as a woman going to
Speaker 3: put a headscoff on and somehow bind myself in some
Speaker 3: kind of you know.
Speaker 2: Well, as always, I appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker 2: join us on the show. I appreciate you. You know,
Speaker 2: I've grown up watching you cover all of these stories,
Speaker 2: and as always I appreciate the work that you do
Speaker 2: out there. Thank you so much for joining us on
Speaker 2: the Daily Show once again.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Be sure to watch Christian's I'm On Poor show. It
Speaker 2: is on CNN I, which airs weekdays on PBS in
Speaker 2: the United States. We're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 2: we'll be right back after this. Earlier today, I spoke
Speaker 2: with award winning broadcast journalist Solidad O'Brian. We chatted about
Speaker 2: the media's coverage of the election of Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: so much more. Sol It out o brian, Welcome to
Speaker 2: the Daily Social Distancing Show.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: You're one of my favorite people to talk to about
Speaker 2: this topic, in particular because you've worked in TV journalism
Speaker 2: TV news for what three decades now. Everybody from CNN
Speaker 2: to MSNBC, etc. You've also been very critical of how
Speaker 2: the media has handled not just the election, but news
Speaker 2: in general, let's start with the election and talk about that.
Speaker 2: What do you think the news and the media have
Speaker 2: gotten wrong in covering the election.
Speaker 5: I think it's always a mistake to platform lies, and
Speaker 5: I think the mistake that's been made is to uncritically
Speaker 5: quote or tweet quote the president who is lying. We
Speaker 5: know he's lying. We count actually the thousands of lies
Speaker 5: that he tweets and says every single day, and so
Speaker 5: to just quote the president and give him a platform
Speaker 5: for something that we all agree or no is a
Speaker 5: lie is a huge mistake. And that continued on during
Speaker 5: the election and the past four years. So that's been terrible.
Speaker 5: But I think post election has gotten better. Post election day, let's.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about that. Because America is
Speaker 2: in a tough place, right, It's it's an interesting country
Speaker 2: because there is the idea that it's not a monarchy,
Speaker 2: right they say, this is this is a society, it's
Speaker 2: a democracy. The president is a civil servant just like
Speaker 2: every other one. But then there's also a certain reverence.
Speaker 2: It's the president. This is the president, and so even
Speaker 2: though Donald Trump is lying, the president is speaking. And
Speaker 2: so you can feel journalists have this thing where they
Speaker 2: go the President told me that my mother is responsible
Speaker 2: for the stolen votes, and I asked my mom and
Speaker 2: she did not agree, But that's what the President said.
Speaker 2: It like, how how do you think the media has
Speaker 2: to figure out how to navigate that relationship? Because I
Speaker 2: can see a lot of them don't want to seem
Speaker 2: disrespectful of the president, but at the same time, because
Speaker 2: he's now the president, he can just lie and then
Speaker 2: the media has to say what his lie was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's been a reverence for the office, right, even
Speaker 5: though the person is the office wasn't particularly reverent himself
Speaker 5: or deserving of the reverence. And I think it's one
Speaker 5: of the reasons that we saw, oh my gosh, the
Speaker 5: New York Times beginning to call the presidents lies lies.
Speaker 5: I'm going to take full credit for that. I I'm
Speaker 5: going to take predek for that. It took something like
Speaker 5: three years. But things that were lies were lies they
Speaker 5: wouldn't want to say, or things that were racist just
Speaker 5: saying this is racist. This statement is racist. And I
Speaker 5: do believe it's because of that very thing. There's a
Speaker 5: sense that whether you like the guy or hate the guy,
Speaker 5: the office itself deserves a certain reverence and so I
Speaker 5: think that really did slow the media down. Plus, I
Speaker 5: would argue, when you want to have access, you have
Speaker 5: a president who's reading everything you're writing and everything you're tweeting,
Speaker 5: you have to be very careful about how you frame
Speaker 5: things or there's a good chance you're not going to
Speaker 5: get access.
Speaker 2: Franklin, Yeah, that's but that's something I find strange about
Speaker 2: American journalism for the most part, Like I live in
Speaker 2: a country where you didn't have access. That's just how
Speaker 2: it worked, you know. I've lived in countries around the
Speaker 2: world where it's like you, you don't have access. Is
Speaker 2: not what journalists have access find the things that are
Speaker 2: not given to you with access, because access, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: often comes with misinformation. I mean, you know, American journalists,
Speaker 2: they've had access to so many things. They had access
Speaker 2: to the lives about Vietnam, that was the access. So
Speaker 2: I wonder sometimes, like why are American journalists so obsessed
Speaker 2: with access when that access could be misinformation? It should
Speaker 2: be journalism, shouldn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think there's a quid pro quote that comes with access, right,
Speaker 5: and that is either you're going to slide something nice
Speaker 5: about me in your next article or your next column,
Speaker 5: you're gonna quote me or you're you know, let's a
Speaker 5: I scratch your back, you scratch my back. I get
Speaker 5: some interesting, breaking news, and then you get to feed
Speaker 5: off of that for a while. You know what you're
Speaker 5: seeing right now?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: The pundits have gone away. No one wants to hear
Speaker 5: from the pundits. They're wrong, They're a mess. Who cares
Speaker 5: failed Crossman TV? We don't need them, know what they're doing.
Speaker 5: TV news organizations are camped out talking to the head
Speaker 5: of elections in maricopatality right, Like that is journalism. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that is reporting. That is not access someone calling you up.
Speaker 5: You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It's just doing
Speaker 5: the work. And I would argue most journalists are not
Speaker 5: access journalists. They're not going to write a book about
Speaker 5: their time at the White House. I'm not going to
Speaker 5: tell you funny stories about hanging out with John Bayner.
Speaker 5: They go every day and go into communities and try
Speaker 5: to figure out what the accurate story is, and sometimes
Speaker 5: they get it right. Sometimes mistakes are made, and I
Speaker 5: think most journalists do a really good job. But when
Speaker 5: you're going for access, I do think it's kind of
Speaker 5: screws up your perspective, and yeah, you don't need access
Speaker 5: to do good reporting.
Speaker 1: You really don't.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you bring that up because it feels
Speaker 2: like when people talk about the media, what we often mean,
Speaker 2: especially in America, is cable news. I mean, for the
Speaker 2: most parts, you know, because you are completely correct. If
Speaker 2: you read your news, you find there's amazing journalists who
Speaker 2: break most of the stories that inform how we even
Speaker 2: see the world. But when it comes to cable news,
Speaker 2: pundits seem to be more important than facts. Like you know,
Speaker 2: you just bring people. You're just gonna be like, I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna bring on this one person to say why
Speaker 2: Latinos like Trump, and then I'm gonna bring on another
Speaker 2: person to say why Latinos don't like Trump. Now, you
Speaker 2: guys fight. Thank you for tuning into the news. That's
Speaker 2: a great formula for creating conflicts for the screen, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't really inform people. It's just people's opinions and
Speaker 2: pundits just trying to guess something. And then, by the way,
Speaker 2: if they get it wrong, there's no ramification. They can
Speaker 2: just be like, oh, yeah, this is why I was wrong.
Speaker 2: It's not because of me. It's because the information didn't
Speaker 2: match what I was saying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and also I figure the important piece you're missing
Speaker 5: is it's cheap. It's cheap you pay all those people.
Speaker 5: They are on every show they rotate through. You've seen
Speaker 5: the nine person set, right, it doesn't cost any money.
Speaker 5: You know, it's expensive going into the field with a
Speaker 5: crew for the next three days and shooting and doing interviews,
Speaker 5: and then writing your story and bringing it back and
Speaker 5: editing your story. That costs a lot of money. And
Speaker 5: actually you can hire a guy or two for that
Speaker 5: same cost, right, and they'll be on your set for
Speaker 5: the next year. That contributor contract is for every show
Speaker 5: that they want to be on over the next year.
Speaker 5: It's a sub cost. It's very easy, and it costs
Speaker 5: you no money. Yeah, and then you also have this
Speaker 5: built in sense of urgency and sense of drama that
Speaker 5: I think everybody feels every story needs. That actually takes
Speaker 5: some work when you're gonna do it in a tape spot.
Speaker 5: So I truly believe a big factor in that is
Speaker 5: just cost.
Speaker 1: Is just money.
Speaker 2: You've been someone who's been critical of the media for
Speaker 2: a while, especially like and not broadly obviously, you know
Speaker 2: you've given props where props are do, but you have
Speaker 2: points out the shortcomings when you look at the news,
Speaker 2: especially cable news, we have to acknowledge that there is
Speaker 2: there is like a certain price to pay for like neutrality,
Speaker 2: for instance, like cable news and likes to bring people
Speaker 2: on to go like this person believes that black people
Speaker 2: are human beings, but this person doesn't agree. Let's talk
Speaker 2: to them and see why they say that. This neutrality
Speaker 2: on the surface seems to be about impartiality, but really
Speaker 2: what it creates as a world where there is no fact.
Speaker 2: There is nothing we agree on. It's all up for discussion.
Speaker 2: And again, it's great for ratings, but it's not good
Speaker 2: for informing people. How do you think news networks can
Speaker 2: find that balance, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: their business is now, but they're also claiming to inform people.
Speaker 2: Is there a balance that can be achieved?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I actually think people really want context. I think
Speaker 5: it's one of the reasons that podcasts are so successful now.
Speaker 5: People want to understand. So wait, walk me through the
Speaker 5: history a little bit, and who are these people and
Speaker 5: what's their point of view? Exactly right? They want to
Speaker 5: hear the well told story, rolled out and explained versus
Speaker 5: this guy Rick Santorum, who's going to make up something
Speaker 5: because he's not an expert in it a lot except
Speaker 5: for being a failed congressman versus pick your other congressman
Speaker 5: on the other side. And I think this death of
Speaker 5: expertise is really problematic. When we started doing we do
Speaker 5: a show about policy called Matter of Fact, We're not Live,
Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, what are we going
Speaker 5: to do? The President is tweeting every morning and we
Speaker 5: pretape our show on a Thursday for Sunday. So we
Speaker 5: decided we would lean in very hard to context. What
Speaker 5: is the First Amendment? What does jerrymandering mean? And where
Speaker 5: did it come from? How is it possible that you
Speaker 5: can live on an income, a minimum wage income, and
Speaker 5: not be able to afford a two bedroom apartment. And
Speaker 5: because of that, we actually very rarely talk politics. We
Speaker 5: talk about policy. We talk about people I have no idea,
Speaker 5: if they're Republicans, if they're Democrats, if they're independents, if
Speaker 5: they vote, they tell us what's happening in their lives,
Speaker 5: and we talk about the policy. And because it's not
Speaker 5: framed as this versus this, I think it's a much
Speaker 5: more interesting conversation and it does really well. We do
Speaker 5: better than most of the cable shows.
Speaker 2: If the election is called, and if Joe Biden becomes president,
Speaker 2: then at some point he will be taking office. At
Speaker 2: some point he will move into the White House, which
Speaker 2: means at some point Donald Trump will no longer be
Speaker 2: president of the United States if that were to happen.
Speaker 2: And what would your advice be to newsrooms, because I
Speaker 2: strongly suspect that they're going to try to keep covering
Speaker 2: Trump despite the fact that he's no longer in office.
Speaker 2: They're going to be like, what did he say today?
Speaker 2: Former President Trump said that Burrito's a part of the problem.
Speaker 2: What would your advice be to use networks post Donald Trump?
Speaker 2: And people who are watching the news post Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: All that will matter is does his comments? Do his
Speaker 5: comments bring ratings? And I'm going to argue they don't.
Speaker 5: You can see the poor food for Fox News anchors.
Speaker 5: Right when he's been on the phone with them for
Speaker 5: thirty minutes, they're like, well, mister President, I know you're
Speaker 5: very busy, mister President. I know you've got to go,
Speaker 5: mister President, And then he won't get up the phone
Speaker 5: so you know, I think if they think they can
Speaker 5: get ratings, doesn't matter what advice I give them, because
Speaker 5: they will go for the ratings. But I think you're
Speaker 5: gonna find that there are not ratings there to be had,
Speaker 5: that actually he's not great ratings. He's not ratings gold.
Speaker 5: He was ratings gold when he was wow a wacky
Speaker 5: over the top who knows what he's gonna do. But
Speaker 5: theng and dance is getting very very old. Everybody understands it,
Speaker 5: and it's kind of brambly old grandpa uncle who's like,
Speaker 5: it's the kind of person you're like, Okay, nice to
Speaker 5: see you, and then you move seven seats away. Yes,
Speaker 5: you don't want to be part of that. And I
Speaker 5: think that he's falling into that category. And I can
Speaker 5: tell you only by watching. I feel sorry, which I
Speaker 5: rarely do for the Fox News anchors, but I feel
Speaker 5: sorry for them as they're trying to get him off
Speaker 5: the phone and he won't go.
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you this. I am glad that
Speaker 2: you have a show. I'm glad that you have a
Speaker 2: podcast because, as you say, people are enjoying the context,
Speaker 2: and I appreciate the context that you bring. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining us on the show, and I
Speaker 2: hope to see you again.
Speaker 1: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Don't forget Solidad's public affairs show Matter of Fact as
Speaker 2: Sunday's on Hurst, and be sure to check out her
Speaker 2: new podcast, Very Opinionated. We're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 2: but we'll be right back after this. Welcome back. Jais
Speaker 2: So my guest tonight is the first African American female reporter,
Speaker 2: columnist and editor for the Washington Post. Her new book
Speaker 2: is called Trailblazer, A Journalist's Fight to make the Media
Speaker 2: look more like America. Please welcome Dorothy Butler, Gilliam, everybody.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here. This is one
Speaker 2: of those stories that genuinely hit me so hard because
Speaker 2: it feels like you have lived through some of the
Speaker 2: most seminal moments in American history and you were also
Speaker 2: reporting on it. You worked for fifty years in this business.
Speaker 2: What do you think was the biggest change that you
Speaker 2: saw in your time in journalism as the first African
Speaker 2: American woman working at the Washington Post.
Speaker 6: I think the biggest change was after the urban uprisings
Speaker 6: of the sixties when the Kerner Commission, which was a
Speaker 6: commission that was named by the President said the media
Speaker 6: had in many ways contributed to the fact that the
Speaker 6: urban riots occurred, and that was because they had not
Speaker 6: integrated their reporting and their editing staffs, and many ways
Speaker 6: they said they were just showing US America only through
Speaker 6: white eyes. So I started at the Post in nineteen
Speaker 6: sixty one. When I went back in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 6: it was a little different because there were more reporters
Speaker 6: of color, right, more females, but still it was very white,
Speaker 6: male dominated.
Speaker 2: You came into this world at a time when it
Speaker 2: was just something that did not happen. You walked into
Speaker 2: a newsroom where there were only two other reporters who
Speaker 2: were black. You were the first African American woman in
Speaker 2: this space. And reading in the book was one of
Speaker 2: the I mean, just the most harrowing passages where they
Speaker 2: had a policy of not reporting when black people were murdered.
Speaker 2: One editor even called those cheap deaths that shouldn't be reported.
Speaker 2: How do you even begin to work in that kind
Speaker 2: of environment? And did you help the editors understand why
Speaker 2: it was crucial to report all news.
Speaker 6: I tried to help them, and I think the way
Speaker 6: I began working in that environment is because doctor Martin
Speaker 6: Luther King was beginning to say to young black people,
Speaker 6: go into white corporations and excel. So it felt like
Speaker 6: I was almost part of the freedom movement by going
Speaker 6: and becoming the first African American woman at the Washington Post.
Speaker 6: I didn't think I was a trailblazer at that point.
Speaker 6: I just was doing a job that I loved. I
Speaker 6: had had four years in the Black press, and the
Speaker 6: Black press has been very important in America, both in
Speaker 6: terms of reporting on civil rights, but going places where
Speaker 6: white reporters wouldn't go, where white newspapers wouldn go, So
Speaker 6: that experience also helped to prepare me for my work
Speaker 6: at the Washington Post. One of the first stories that
Speaker 6: I remember a lot was when I went to the
Speaker 6: University of Mississippi as part of the team from the
Speaker 6: Post to cover the integration of Ole miss And that
Speaker 6: was the most horrendous thing you can imagine, because Mississippi
Speaker 6: was one of those places where it was a lynching state.
Speaker 6: It was the heart of segregation, and the university was
Speaker 6: like this bastion of white supremacy. So it was chaotic
Speaker 6: on the campus. But what hurt, in addition was that
Speaker 6: I had no place that I could get a room
Speaker 6: because they didn't have hotels for black people.
Speaker 7: So I slept in a black funeral home and a
Speaker 7: funeral home. Yeah, I slept with the dead.
Speaker 2: Trevor, this is so insane that you have lived through
Speaker 2: that time. I'm honestly fast needed to know in that
Speaker 2: time when this was happening. Were you optimistic? Did you
Speaker 2: think that you would see America change? Or was the
Speaker 2: resistance to integration so strong that you thought it would
Speaker 2: last forever?
Speaker 6: The integration was so strong that I never thought I
Speaker 6: would see a black president.
Speaker 7: Wow, that was a huge step forward in many ways.
Speaker 6: But of course with America it can help the liberal
Speaker 6: and then it can swing to conservatism, and you see
Speaker 6: what we have now.
Speaker 2: I see what we have now?
Speaker 1: I do.
Speaker 2: Indeed, you reported on so many stories, and your inclusion
Speaker 2: in the newsroom was powerful because it really felt like
Speaker 2: when you read the book, you lived through two of
Speaker 2: really the most important eras in American history, in modern history, definitely,
Speaker 2: and that was women's movement for equal rights and black
Speaker 2: people's movements for civil rights. Which of the two did
Speaker 2: you feel like had more momentum when you were in them?
Speaker 2: Did you feel like, oh, this is going to happen
Speaker 2: all this one won't or did it feel like both
Speaker 2: were just moving forward?
Speaker 6: It felt that like the freedom writers and the freedoms
Speaker 6: I called the whole civil rights movement the freedom movement. Yes,
Speaker 6: it felt like it was going to open doors for
Speaker 6: so many other people because after the Civil Rights movement,
Speaker 6: after the Black Power era. That's when Glorious sim wrote
Speaker 6: her article that said, after Black power, women power, and
Speaker 6: so after the women power, it's the blacks who were.
Speaker 7: The pioneering minority. And so after women.
Speaker 6: Power, then you had the oppression against gay people being
Speaker 6: really looked at and studied and acknowledged. Then you had
Speaker 6: the oppression against the disabled. So it's many ways, it's
Speaker 6: the black movement. I think that was the most important
Speaker 6: movement because all people all over the world were singing,
Speaker 6: we shall overcome in China and all around the world,
Speaker 6: people who had been oppressed were saying, if that happened
Speaker 6: in America, you know, why can't it happen here.
Speaker 2: It's so powerful when you speak about how when you
Speaker 2: first got to the post, your mission was not to
Speaker 2: be a reporter that focused on black issues, but just
Speaker 2: a reporter who excelled. You didn't want to be pigeonholed
Speaker 2: as a black reporter, but then you came to realize
Speaker 2: that it was crucial for you to take up that
Speaker 2: mantlein reports on black issues. Why do you think it's
Speaker 2: so important for mainstream media to look more like actual
Speaker 2: America and not just have the voice of predominantly white men.
Speaker 6: It's because you can't really talk about a community that
Speaker 6: you don't in some way represent, that you don't in
Speaker 6: some way know, that you don't in some way have
Speaker 6: more than a stereotyped a notion of what it's all about.
Speaker 6: And because with white supremacy in America, that whole narrative
Speaker 6: has also been accompanied by an anti black narrative, and
Speaker 6: very often, and that's been since the beginning.
Speaker 7: This is twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6: We have African Americans or black people have been in
Speaker 6: America four hundred years. We were here a year before
Speaker 6: the Mayflower but you know two and a half centuries
Speaker 6: of that was the era of slavery, and then that
Speaker 6: the era of Jim crow so or segregation in the South. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so the whole feeling that this is this whole anti
Speaker 6: black narrative that has been a part of the DNA
Speaker 6: almost of America as much as white supremacy, that has
Speaker 6: not really been acknowledged.
Speaker 7: It's been kind of glossed over.
Speaker 6: And you pay attention to have you know, the violence,
Speaker 6: that violence gets, yes, but in terms of what motivated,
Speaker 6: and a lot of it is about poverty.
Speaker 7: You know, poverty is very violent.
Speaker 6: And as you were saying in the segment with the billionaires,
Speaker 6: you know, it's very real what's happening in this country,
Speaker 6: and it's been happening for a while.
Speaker 2: Fifty years of writing, fifty years of finding ways to
Speaker 2: report stories even in spaces where you weren't allowed. I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the most shocking end I find funny at
Speaker 2: the same time stories is when you talked about how
Speaker 2: when yourself and colleagues would go to marches, you would
Speaker 2: have to disguise yourselves because you couldn't be journalists in
Speaker 2: public as black people. You would dress up as clergy,
Speaker 2: you dress up as priests and so forth, and nuns,
Speaker 2: and you would hide type writers under your clothing, which
Speaker 2: I didn't even know how they fit. But when you
Speaker 2: look at America today, how do you find that balance
Speaker 2: for yourself of both where America has come from and
Speaker 2: where America still needs.
Speaker 7: To go Okay.
Speaker 6: First, I should say that those reporters who wrapped their
Speaker 6: old royal typewriters got this in old clothes when they
Speaker 6: went to the South because they didn't want the white
Speaker 6: sheriffs to arrest them. And so they would also disguise
Speaker 6: themselves as ministers, and they carried bibles under their arms,
Speaker 6: and so that was a way of trying to get
Speaker 6: to the story and knowing that they couldn't go as reporters.
Speaker 6: But where I see things today, I think it's the
Speaker 6: time when media is more important than ever. It was
Speaker 6: very difficult when the President started talking about fake news.
Speaker 6: It was very difficult because you know, those of us
Speaker 6: who came up in the in the legacy media, we
Speaker 6: knew about all of the issues of ethics that we
Speaker 6: had to adhere to in order to be.
Speaker 7: High by the Washington Post and in order to work there.
Speaker 6: We knew that we didn't take gifts from anybody. We
Speaker 6: knew that we had to always pay our own way.
Speaker 6: We knew that we had studied in colleges and universities,
Speaker 6: and so to have our whole process dismissed the fake
Speaker 6: news was not only detrimental to the US, but it
Speaker 6: was detrimental internationally because whatever we say about the faults
Speaker 6: of America, it still has been the bastion of democracy.
Speaker 6: And so when you have something as crucial, you know,
Speaker 6: as freedom of the press being detegrated by the top
Speaker 6: official of the land, it has a very destabilizing effect
Speaker 6: in the whole world.
Speaker 2: I could genuinely talk to you for hours, but luckily
Speaker 2: I have the book to keep me company. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for being on the show. Trailblaze Off is
Speaker 2: available now. A truly fascinating story Dorothy Butler William Everybody.
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