0:03

Hello there, welcome to another episode

0:05

of the Chuck Todd cast.

0:07

My guest today is Terrapomer.

0:09

Terrace somebody I've known as

0:12

a colleague in political journalism,

0:14

whether it was Politico, whether

0:16

it's Puck, and she's most

0:18

recently gone independent. There's a

0:20

lot of us that have

0:22

recently gone independent, and there's

0:25

plenty of explanations of why

0:27

suddenly being an independent journalist

0:29

feels a bit more

0:31

liberating and frankly... a place

0:33

to be that makes it a

0:35

bit easier to practice journalism.

0:37

Because I think right now, as

0:40

you can see, traditional media is

0:42

struggling to deal with Trump 2.0.

0:44

I think, for instance, it's

0:47

been atrocious how traditional media

0:49

has handled the Trump White

0:51

House's attempts to kick the

0:54

Associated Press, for instance, out

0:56

of the press pool. The

0:58

inability of the press corps

1:00

to unite together to sort

1:02

of stand with AP, because the rationale

1:05

the White House used to kick AP

1:07

out of the press pool was

1:09

unconstitutional. You know, look, I'm not going

1:11

to sit here and say they should protest

1:14

over office space and all this

1:16

stuff, but when the rationale for

1:18

kicking AP out of the press

1:20

pool is the way they describe

1:22

the body of water that borders

1:25

the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi,

1:27

Louisiana, and Texas, the Gulf of

1:29

Mexico as the world calls it,

1:31

and what America called it up

1:33

until about 60 days ago, and

1:36

Gulf of America, which President Trump

1:38

renamed via executive order, the Associated

1:40

Press made it clear they were sort of

1:42

going to use both names at times,

1:44

but mostly refer to it as

1:46

the Gulf of Mexico, considering that

1:49

they're an international news organization, etc.

1:51

uh... the fact that the white

1:53

house used that decision is the

1:55

rationale to kick him out that's

1:57

just simply unconstitutional just like you

1:59

can't fire somebody simply because of how

2:01

they look right there are protections in

2:03

the law for that well the Constitution's

2:06

the ultimate protector on this one so

2:08

it's unconstitutional a pretty

2:10

simple thing to stand for principally and

2:12

yet there's not a single leader of

2:14

a single tradition of media company that

2:16

is willing to stick their head out

2:19

on behalf of the Associated Press if

2:21

anything you saw certain competitive news organizations

2:23

come out with their own decision on

2:25

what they were going to call it

2:27

And in some way, it was almost

2:29

sort of not dissimilar to what happened

2:31

with the Paul Weiss law firm, right,

2:34

when in the memo that the managing

2:36

partner put out when he said, we

2:38

sort of explained why they capitulated

2:40

to the demands of the White House

2:42

when it came to when it came

2:44

to providing pro bono work in

2:46

exchange for them not being targeted

2:49

or not being denied security clearances

2:51

and things like that. What the managing

2:53

partner said is, you know, they tried

2:56

to rally other law firms and instead

2:58

they found that other law firms were

3:00

trying to poach their clients, where

3:02

everybody was out for themselves. Everybody

3:05

was looking for a short-term advantage,

3:07

even if it was going to

3:09

wound or hurt a long-term principle,

3:11

in this case, the principle being

3:14

the First Amendment. Look, whenever

3:16

you've got somebody trying to push back,

3:18

if you don't draw a line in

3:20

the sand... they're going to keep coming

3:22

back for more. All you have to

3:24

do is read the children's book if

3:26

you give a mouse a cookie. And

3:28

you will know how this will

3:31

keep going. And in fact, it

3:33

has. First, it was the Associated

3:35

Press. Then it was office space.

3:37

Now it's sort of deciding, you

3:39

know, where different news organizations sit.

3:41

And when a government is trying

3:43

to pick its press corps, it's

3:45

as if you were allowing, you

3:47

know, a college football team to

3:49

pick its referees. Imagine. make this

3:51

fair with the team on the other

3:54

side. It is, it is certainly, frankly,

3:56

un-American. It's certainly

3:58

unconstitutional. but I

4:00

would I think things that are

4:02

unconstitutional that that is synonymous

4:05

with the phrase on American

4:07

and I will tell you I

4:09

think traditional media made a gigantic

4:11

business mistake by the decision

4:14

not to stand by the

4:16

Associated Press and if anything

4:18

capitulate to the White House because what

4:20

it does is traditional media

4:22

has already lost one part

4:25

of the country either fairly

4:27

or unfairly on ideological charges.

4:29

The folks that are still

4:31

trusting and reading traditional media

4:34

now have to ask themselves, hmm, how

4:36

are they rounding the edges?

4:38

Are they holding back reporting?

4:40

Are they pulling their punches

4:42

simply to maintain access? Are

4:44

they pulling their punches simply

4:46

to maintain their ability to

4:48

work within the confines of

4:50

the US government? And that

4:52

is, that's an uncomfortable place

4:54

to be. I know if I were at one of

4:56

these organizations, I would... probably be

4:58

a louder voice of complaint. And

5:00

look, I was among the journalists

5:03

back 10 years ago when the

5:05

Obama White House attempted to block

5:07

Fox from access to a pooled

5:09

interview. We said we weren't going

5:11

to participate unless Fox was also

5:13

included. Why did we make that

5:15

decision then as leaders of the

5:18

White House press score back then? Simply

5:20

because we knew someday the shoe could be

5:22

on the other foot. And that you might have

5:25

an administration that decided to leave

5:27

us out. and only allow Fox special

5:29

access. And it's been disappointing that

5:32

Fox has not stood up more

5:34

aggressively on behalf of their colleagues

5:36

at the Associated Press or others,

5:38

given the history of and given

5:41

the fact that traditional media companies

5:43

stood by them when there was a

5:45

time that they were going to get

5:47

ostracized by a White House that didn't

5:50

trust their reporting. But it seemed like

5:52

a basic principle. It was an easy

5:54

decision for me and others to

5:56

sort of... sit by there and to

5:58

the Obama White House's credit. They

6:00

certainly didn't want to pick a fight

6:02

with all of us, so they

6:05

capitulated. And I think the fact that

6:07

you have leaders, the current

6:09

leaders of traditional media, not

6:11

willing to do this, for

6:13

a variety of reasons. Some of

6:15

them are because they're owned

6:18

by corporations that have other

6:20

business before this government. The

6:22

most obvious place to look

6:25

these days is the paramount

6:27

merger and CBS. find a

6:30

way to settle this ridiculous

6:32

60 minutes lawsuit that Donald

6:35

Trump filed, rather than stand

6:37

on principles and fight the

6:39

ridiculous lawsuit. ABC did a

6:42

similar thing with George Stephanopoulos.

6:44

Again, sort of in some

6:47

ways undermining its reporters

6:49

by settling and leaving

6:51

the impression that somehow they were

6:53

in the wrong. and that they certainly

6:55

didn't have a First Amendment right in

6:58

this case to being wrong. They did

7:00

and it certainly wasn't defamation by any

7:02

stretch of the imagination. But the point

7:04

is is all of these decisions by

7:07

traditional media in not pushing

7:09

back at the Trump White House has

7:11

not made them stop if anything they're

7:13

getting more aggressive and more aggressive. And

7:15

so when they ask themselves, why are

7:17

they losing audience? Why are they losing

7:19

trust? I would argue they've already lost

7:21

trust with one half of the country.

7:23

Now they're going to lose trust with

7:25

the other half. because they're capitulating and

7:27

they're going to be raising questions, can

7:29

you trust everything they say? So now

7:31

you understand the appeal of frankly declaring

7:33

your independence, right? We've seen politicians do

7:35

it because they don't want to be

7:37

defined by the unpopularity of the Democratic

7:39

Party brand or the Republican Party brand.

7:41

Well, I think many of us journalists

7:44

don't like to be defined by the

7:46

unpopularity of that decision-making by... by

7:48

bosses of said media companies rather

7:50

than being judged by the journalism

7:52

itself. And I do think that

7:54

we're in a period where there's,

7:56

look, we're in the middle of

7:59

recreating. creating a new mainstream

8:01

media. One of the things that

8:03

I said is a Trump victory

8:05

was probably going to be the

8:07

end of this era of mainstream

8:09

media. And some of it has

8:11

to do with technology. You know,

8:13

when Life Magazine stopped being relevant,

8:15

I don't remember a lot of

8:18

articles going, oh boy, there goes

8:20

the end of mainstream media because

8:22

Life Magazine stopped being relevant because

8:24

moving pictures is a lot more

8:26

interesting and easier. to showcase than

8:28

still photos. Still photos are great,

8:30

but moving pictures tell a richer

8:32

story, and of course we all

8:34

want to see the pictures move

8:36

more than we want to see

8:38

the pictures not move. So there

8:40

is, part of this is technological.

8:42

And so, but that doesn't mean

8:44

we're not in the middle of

8:46

something here, and I think that

8:48

we see this sort of fragmentation

8:50

of media. It's actually something similar

8:52

that we've seen at the beginning

8:54

of different technological advancements, right? When

8:57

magazines first started, the ability to

8:59

reproduce a photograph, magazines popped up

9:01

all over the place. And after

9:03

a couple of decades, you started

9:05

to see the consolidation of magazines.

9:07

When radio stations and radio signals

9:09

were first started to, you know,

9:11

radio stations pop up all over

9:13

the place. And then over a

9:15

couple of decades, you had consolidation,

9:17

you had consolidation. television sort of

9:19

became sort of morphed from radio

9:21

and that consolidation continued until we

9:23

had fragmentation right thanks to satellites

9:25

and and and the like and

9:27

that gave us more and we

9:29

had some fragmentation and then we

9:31

got some consolidation and in here

9:33

we now in the era of

9:35

streaming digital video we have fragmentation

9:38

again and at some point I

9:40

think we will have consolidation, right?

9:42

Whether it's sub stack or YouTube,

9:44

these are two of the sort

9:46

of best examples of sort of,

9:48

it's almost as if there was

9:50

a shattering of mainstream media and

9:52

pieces of it are showing up

9:54

everywhere. newsletters and sub stack video

9:56

podcast. Hello, like this one, on

9:58

YouTube and in other places. Which

10:00

inevitably will probably lead to some

10:02

sort of curation, consolidation of some

10:04

point. The question is, what does

10:06

that consolidation look like? When does

10:08

it begin? But this is only

10:10

part of the story. And when

10:12

I went about, when I left

10:14

Meet the Press, one of the

10:17

first things I wanted to focus

10:19

on was dealing with this trust

10:21

in media issue. And to see,

10:23

is this something that could be

10:25

fixed from the top down? Or

10:27

is this something that was going

10:29

to take longer to deal with?

10:31

And the conclusion I came to

10:33

is that the big sort of,

10:35

you know, we had sort of

10:37

two big moments that I think

10:39

that radically changed journalism, particularly political

10:41

journalism, and put us in this

10:43

position today where we have this

10:45

distrust, where we have an information

10:47

ecosystem where all politics is national.

10:49

The first is the OJ Simpson

10:51

trial. And I'm going to get

10:53

to the OJ Simpson trial, but

10:56

I want to plant that flag

10:58

right here and explain how OJ

11:00

Simpson sort of got us, you

11:02

know, without the OJ Simpson trial,

11:04

maybe Donald Trump isn't elected president.

11:06

But the second big change in

11:08

disruption. Arguably began when a man

11:10

named Craig decided that classifieds ought

11:12

to be free. And I'm referring

11:14

of course to Craig's List and

11:16

the gentleman being Craig Newmark, a

11:18

conversation I've had with him by

11:20

the way and something that he's

11:22

aware of. In fairness to him,

11:24

had he known that Craig's List

11:26

was going to lead to essentially

11:28

the destruction of just about every

11:30

local news organization with a circulation

11:32

of 50,000 or less, he might

11:34

not have pursued free classifieds. But

11:37

as he says, guess what somebody

11:39

else would have, right? This is

11:41

what happens, right? Technology, things can

11:43

change, business models can evaporate and

11:45

change overnight. You know, there used

11:47

to be a robust block of

11:49

ice industry. And so we figured

11:51

out refrigeration and we didn't need.

11:53

blocks of ice in order to

11:55

preserve our foods. So in many

11:57

ways this is sort of a

11:59

form of creative destruction if you

12:01

will in the world of capitalism.

12:03

So here we are. But what

12:05

did that do? Well the loss

12:07

of local news, what it did

12:09

was, you know, I take it

12:11

with my first job. My first

12:13

job was at the hotline. And

12:16

we were a trade publication in

12:18

the 90s that aggregated local political

12:20

news. Well, if I were trying

12:22

to aggregate local political news today,

12:24

I wouldn't have very many locally

12:26

local sources to do that with.

12:28

Most political coverage these days actually

12:30

emanates out of Washington. Not that

12:32

long ago, just a generation ago,

12:34

it was the reverse. In fact,

12:36

the folks that worked in Washington

12:38

were all associated with a local

12:40

or regional paper. in the early

12:42

90s, for instance, Knight Ritter was

12:44

a massive newspaper conglomerate. And they

12:46

had a pretty large Washington Bureau,

12:48

and in essence, they had one

12:50

journalist assigned to each paper that

12:52

they had, Philofian Choir was a

12:55

Knight Ritter paper, Miami Herald, Kansas

12:57

City Star, St. Paul Pioneer Press,

12:59

San Jose, Mercury News. I could,

13:01

Fort Worth Star Telegraph, I could

13:03

go on. And there'd be one

13:05

reporter in Washington dedicated to that

13:07

newspaper. So what does that mean?

13:09

Congress passed a big law, take

13:11

Joe Biden's large energy bill, the

13:13

Inflation Reduction Act, it was named,

13:15

was really more of an energy

13:17

bill more than anything else, but

13:19

still, each one of those Stories

13:21

would have had a local lead

13:23

to it. Local explanation of how

13:25

the local members of Congress voted,

13:27

perhaps how some of the money

13:29

would be spent locally, would be

13:31

divvied up locally, what some of

13:33

the local elected officials were hoping

13:36

they get out of this bill,

13:38

you get my drift. And what

13:40

did that do? Well, that informed

13:42

local citizens about what their government

13:44

was up to. Well, fast forward

13:46

30 years. and the Washington Bureaus

13:48

are almost non-existent for domestic news

13:50

organizations. The very largest ones have

13:52

large Washington DC presence. Some international

13:54

news organizations do, but you know

13:56

most of the sort of mid-sized

13:58

news organizations around the country do

14:00

not have a dedicated Washington presence

14:02

anymore. There's some startups trying to

14:04

do this. Our friends at notice

14:06

are doing some of these things

14:08

for some smaller local startups and

14:10

trying to become the Washington Bureau

14:12

for them. Some college journalism programs

14:15

do this sort of sporadically semester

14:17

by semester. So there's definitely some

14:19

attempts to fill in the gaps.

14:21

But when you look at the

14:23

sort of the knowledge gap about

14:25

Washington, I would argue this is

14:27

probably the biggest one. And so

14:29

this is why you know. If

14:31

part one of my attempt at

14:33

starting a media company and going

14:35

independent, my journalism going independent, well

14:37

look, part one is that, right?

14:39

My public persona, using whatever capital

14:41

I have to try to bring

14:43

some attention, whether it's an important

14:45

political analysis or frankly what we're

14:47

doing here in the media space.

14:49

But part two of my enterprise

14:51

here is to try to find

14:54

a way. to supercharge the expansion

14:56

of local news. I think we

14:58

need a thousand new community-based information

15:00

sources. And I use the word

15:02

information, not news. I think the

15:04

word news has become polarizing. I

15:06

have a vision here that if

15:08

we can sort of rebuild trust

15:10

on a local level, starting with

15:12

news organizations locally, whose North Star

15:14

is to help you live your

15:16

life. that that's what and that's

15:18

always been the partnership between local

15:20

and national. I've come to the

15:22

conclusion that national media has never

15:24

really had trust that it was

15:26

local if you will local journalists

15:28

that gave the national media trust

15:30

you know my my long-time colleague

15:32

Tom Brokaw said when he first

15:35

got assigned by NBC to cover

15:37

the civil rights movement from Atlanta,

15:39

NBC wasn't trusted by locals. In

15:41

fact, it was distrusted by locals.

15:43

Anytime the national media came into

15:45

the South to cover some of

15:47

these confrontations over civil rights. But

15:49

the local media, when their coverage

15:51

matched what national coverage was doing,

15:53

it was sort of almost like

15:55

a... a character witness, if you

15:57

will. Local media was our character

15:59

reference. And if local media reported

16:01

something, the nationals were saying there

16:03

would be a bit more trust

16:05

and a bit more credibility given

16:07

to that report. Well, we've lost

16:09

our local character references. They're gone.

16:11

And in many ways, if you're

16:14

wondering why it feels like all

16:16

politics is national, it's because we

16:18

don't start from a local prison

16:20

anymore. Look, when I go to

16:22

a... a restaurant in my neighborhood.

16:24

I want locally sourced ingredients. That

16:26

makes me feel good. Oh, locally

16:28

sourced ingredients. That's great. Well, guess

16:30

what? I want my political news

16:32

locally sourced. And I think that

16:34

if we can create an information

16:36

ecosystem that has more journalists on

16:38

the ground, fewer political journalists in

16:40

Washington and more political journalists everywhere

16:42

else in the country, you're going

16:44

to get... a locally sourced version

16:46

of this stuff. And then people

16:48

will understand and feel like they

16:50

have an idea of what the

16:52

federal government is doing for them.

16:55

Right now they don't have a

16:57

clue and I don't blame them

16:59

because they only hear about it

17:01

nationally. It's very reported in very

17:03

general terms. National coverage of these

17:05

big... government decisions is usually done

17:07

from the widest possible prison you

17:09

have. So sometimes people think, well,

17:11

that doesn't apply to me. I

17:13

don't know what that means for

17:15

me. Well, they don't know what

17:17

it means for them because there's

17:19

nobody, none of their friends and

17:21

neighbors are charged with reporting on

17:23

what it means for them. hopes

17:25

I have is that we can

17:27

that I can put together a

17:29

group of people where we can

17:31

help super there's a lot of

17:34

great local startups around the country

17:36

local news entrepreneurs that are out

17:38

there but they need some help

17:40

and I think if we can

17:42

if I could we could put

17:44

together some national organizations to do

17:46

this look I want to find

17:48

a revenue stream that's similar to

17:50

classifieds in order to fund this

17:52

I think nonprofit can help get

17:54

stuff started, but it's not a

17:56

sustainable way to keep local news

17:58

thriving. We have to find a

18:00

revenue stream. My dream, of course,

18:02

is, and I sort of, I

18:04

said this in the New York

18:06

Times piece about the launch of

18:08

my media company, is, I'd love

18:10

all local news ownership to look

18:13

like the Green Bay Packers, meaning

18:15

that it was community-owned that there

18:17

isn't an individual owner or there

18:19

isn't a corporate owner, because I

18:21

do think, you know, corporate-owned media

18:23

companies. their first responsibility is to

18:25

their shareholders, not the general public.

18:27

And they have a fiduciary responsibility

18:29

to their shareholders. So you already

18:31

have potentially a conflict there. I

18:33

think if you have sort of

18:35

the way the Green Bay Packers

18:37

are community-owned, right, if we had

18:39

a community-owned Washington Post, or you're

18:41

a community-owned Miami Herald, or a

18:43

community-owned, still, you've got to make

18:45

a profit. There'd be a local

18:47

board of directors helping to oversee

18:49

the business, but what's in the

18:51

best interest of the community of

18:54

the community. I look at the

18:56

current media landscape. It's a mess.

18:58

It's very partisan. It's being exploited

19:00

and manipulated by the political parties.

19:02

If we have any hope of

19:04

fixing this, we can whine all

19:06

we want about the big tech

19:08

companies. And they are, look, they're

19:10

not good actors here, right? They're

19:12

vying for the attention economy. They've

19:14

created algorithms that. Personally, I believe

19:16

makes them publishers and makes them

19:18

much more vulnerable and have some

19:20

liability when it comes. I don't

19:22

think Section 230 provides the... the

19:24

umbrella coverage for them of avoiding

19:26

being publishers. I think the minute

19:28

they've created an algorithm to decide

19:30

what to amplify that shows up

19:33

on my feed, they've become a

19:35

publisher and therefore then they sort

19:37

of have to be held to

19:39

the same standards that other national

19:41

news organizations are held to when

19:43

it comes to advertising and things

19:45

like that. Truth in advertising in

19:47

particular. But I haven't heard a

19:49

lawyer make that argument yet, but

19:51

I'm convinced that when it is

19:53

seen through the prism that the

19:55

minute these tech companies use algorithms

19:57

in order to keep me on

19:59

their platform longer than I want

20:01

to be, because they've amplified something

20:03

that emotionally gets me all charged

20:05

up, that's made them a publisher.

20:07

That's an editorial decision. That is

20:09

something that I think needs to

20:12

be re-looked at. Would I love

20:14

to see these algorithms either regulated

20:16

or eliminate it all together? I

20:18

would. But the fact of the

20:20

matter is, while a majority of

20:22

this country would like to see

20:24

big tech regulated, half the country

20:26

doesn't trust liberal politicians to do

20:28

it and half the country doesn't

20:30

trust conservative politicians to do it.

20:32

So unfortunately, I don't think you're

20:34

going to see it happen that

20:36

way. And so the only other

20:38

way to fix this information ecosystem

20:40

is to flush it with better

20:42

information. And the best way to

20:44

do that is to start from

20:46

the bottom up. And I think

20:48

if we have in the next

20:50

five years, 1000 new community-based news

20:53

organizations that begin by covering information

20:55

that helps you live your life,

20:57

whether it's about getting more access

20:59

to youth sports and high school

21:01

sports, so if you're late for

21:03

a game, you can catch your

21:05

kid without missing something. I think

21:07

you can create a great advertiser

21:09

market on that front, or you

21:11

have somebody that's helping you micro

21:13

forecast, micro forecasting a weather. We've

21:15

never had better data to do

21:17

this than ever before. It's the

21:19

one good thing Washington Post does

21:21

locally is capital weather gang. That's

21:23

something worth replicating around the country.

21:25

I think you could make sure

21:27

you hire and a reporter to

21:29

figure out how to save people

21:32

money. The old days, the newspaper

21:34

gave us coupons and circulars and

21:36

where we could go find sales.

21:38

Well, the 21st century of this

21:40

ought to be a really smart

21:42

and savvy consumer reporter that's helping

21:44

you figure out how to save

21:46

money just in your community. And

21:48

then from there, you start to

21:50

build trust, you start to knit

21:52

a community together. and you're doing

21:54

it without some sort of political

21:56

motivation, right? And when you put

21:58

that together, then suddenly you're going

22:00

to get journalists that are covering

22:02

Washington through the prism of what's

22:04

important to the community, not through

22:06

the prism of what's important for

22:08

one party to win or the

22:11

other party to win. So look,

22:13

this is a short little rant

22:15

here about the state of media

22:17

and about why you're seeing so

22:19

many of us come into the

22:21

independent space. I think it's pretty

22:23

clear traditional media and the ownership

22:25

structure is broken. I'm not sure

22:27

it's fixable in the moment because

22:29

many of these traditional media companies

22:31

are publicly traded companies and I

22:33

think it's there unfortunately maybe 5%

22:35

of the bottom line of some

22:37

of these places so it's almost

22:39

not worth the investment for many

22:41

of them to fix it. So

22:43

if you care about The democracy,

22:45

I think you sort of have

22:47

to take matters in your own

22:49

hands and we've got to sort

22:52

of go back, be entrepreneurs and

22:54

fix this information ecosystem from the

22:56

bottom up. I think that can

22:58

be done in the meantime. We've

23:00

got a lot of really smart

23:02

journalists who've decided they don't want

23:04

to be defined by frankly the

23:06

bad brands of some of these

23:08

traditional media companies. They want to

23:10

let their work stand on their

23:12

own. So after the break, my

23:14

conversation with Terrapal Mary, who is

23:16

one of those journalists who's declared

23:18

her independence. of Independence. It's a

23:20

terrapal Mary, formerly of Puck, and

23:22

in fact, this is basically that

23:24

I'm finishing a home in a

23:26

way. I believe I was a

23:28

guest in your podcast a few

23:31

months back, so now it's my

23:33

turn to host you. So welcome

23:35

to the World of Independent Media.

23:37

You got here a little bit

23:39

sooner than I did. How's the

23:41

water? I'm still getting used to

23:43

it. Yeah, well I sort of

23:45

been tiptoeing my way in here

23:47

for a while. I was at

23:49

Puck, which is New Media, obviously,

23:51

as well. I joined as one

23:53

of their first... you know reporter

23:55

so I kind of left the

23:57

the masthead I left Politico and

23:59

I'd worked at ABC News as

24:01

a White House correspondent I was

24:03

really like trading on my name

24:05

in a way my journalism and

24:07

my reputation which is something that

24:10

you've obviously built over decades Chuck

24:12

so you shouldn't have a problem

24:14

with that at all and it

24:16

just felt like the next natural

24:18

step I was already I already

24:20

had a podcast in a newsletter

24:22

and now I'm doing it for

24:24

myself I have a podcast still

24:26

with Spotify and I have a

24:28

newsletter newsletter the red letter on

24:30

substack. I hope you all subscribe

24:32

and I'm on YouTube and that

24:34

was kind of exciting for me

24:36

to do a partnership deal with

24:38

YouTube and like to me I

24:40

realize that YouTube had become so

24:42

influential especially in this past election.

24:44

I go home and I see

24:46

my dad is a boomer watching

24:48

YouTube shows on you know on

24:51

his TV one show after another

24:53

after another and so a boomer

24:55

on YouTube I haven't got my

24:57

boomer mom on YouTube yet an

24:59

older crowd you'd be surprised the

25:01

demo is a bit older so

25:03

I just and I was making

25:05

Instagram videos my my cousin was

25:07

like my age my 30s was

25:09

telling me why aren't you on

25:11

TikTok why aren't you on Instagram

25:13

that's how I get my news

25:15

and it's like I just realized

25:17

that everyone around me was not

25:19

getting the news where I was

25:21

producing it so I had to

25:23

go to them I look I

25:25

you know it's interesting I've been

25:27

going through this process over the

25:30

last couple of months it was

25:32

crystal clear to me the worst

25:34

thing to do would be to

25:36

work for one employer right you

25:38

realize as. Now look, I think

25:40

you had an advantage, you brought

25:42

up the advantage I had, right?

25:44

I've built years of brand equity,

25:46

and so it's certainly easier for

25:48

me. You've had some, your career

25:50

is about half as long as

25:52

mine, as to do simply with

25:54

the biological age, the difference between

25:56

them. Right. And but you had

25:58

it, and look, not everybody, you

26:00

know, the good news in this

26:02

world is that the barrier to

26:04

entry is low. as it should

26:06

be, right? In a small D

26:09

democracy, there should be this feeling

26:11

that a press corps can pop

26:13

up anywhere and the barrier entry

26:15

is low. But you certainly do

26:17

need to have some standing, right?

26:19

And I think that that's the

26:21

challenge in navigating this new independent

26:23

system. What do you mean by

26:25

standing like standard? I have some

26:27

reputation, some success in sort of

26:29

the, you know, in order to...

26:31

I think start with a, you

26:33

know, to start building an audience

26:35

quicker. I actually, I kind of

26:37

disagree with that, Chuck, actually, because

26:39

some of the people that are

26:41

the top influencers right now, and

26:43

I'm saying like news influencers that

26:45

people go to for news, considering

26:47

them to be journalists, like V.

26:50

Sefer, she's a top liberal commentator,

26:52

she's up there with Tucker Carlson

26:54

and like Ben Shapiro in terms

26:56

of influencers on the various, you

26:58

know, news sources on... You don't

27:00

draw a line between an influencers...

27:02

Yeah, I totally get what you're

27:04

saying, but like, she was a

27:06

caterer. I knew her through my

27:08

friend who was also a caterer

27:10

in New York, in DC, sorry,

27:12

and she was not in the

27:14

business. People trust her more than

27:16

they trust NBC. Like, you know

27:18

what I mean? And honestly, like,

27:20

if you go and watch her

27:22

do reporting, like, she knows how

27:24

to investigate, she has an opinion

27:26

that she has a perspective, but

27:29

some people would argue that a

27:31

lot of people on the networks

27:33

also have opinions and perspectives and

27:35

she's incredibly You know, you saw

27:37

Moshe Wununu do this, you saw

27:39

Jessica Yellen, there are various other

27:41

people who have come before us

27:43

and done this. I don't actually

27:45

believe that you have to have

27:47

a brand in some ways. I

27:49

think it hurts. Sometimes I don't

27:51

want to play up my credentials

27:53

from having worked in mainstream media

27:55

because the fact that people don't

27:57

trust the mainstream media right now,

27:59

it makes them more suspicious of

28:01

you. I'll see in comments like,

28:03

but you worked here and you

28:05

worked there. It's like, I want

28:08

you to take me from who

28:10

I am and my journalism and

28:12

the stories I've broke, but I

28:14

don't, I'm also creating a community

28:16

with people who don't go to

28:18

traditional sources and I'm creating a

28:20

community based on trust and so

28:22

they're just getting to know me.

28:24

It's like dating, you know what

28:26

I mean? Like they are getting

28:28

to know me. I'm getting to

28:30

know them. We are building a

28:32

community of trust together and I'm

28:34

in it for the long haul.

28:36

And so it takes a long

28:38

time. Like it's not a flash

28:40

in the pan kind of thing

28:42

with social media. You are you

28:44

are creating something that's bigger and

28:46

longer lasting. So I don't necessarily

28:49

agree that you have to be

28:51

a big brand. I've seen a

28:53

lot of people who aren't big

28:55

brands before have millions and millions

28:57

of people follow them and consider

28:59

them to be news sources. some

29:01

critical of it because I think

29:03

some of the success is very

29:05

impressive. Some of it is success

29:07

built on dishonesty, right? There's always

29:09

that, right? There's a fine line,

29:11

there's a few grifters out there,

29:13

actually quite a few grifters out

29:15

there, because they see away. If

29:17

I can just hack an algorithm

29:19

on Facebook or YouTube, I can

29:21

make some extra dollars, right? So

29:23

there's certainly is that, but let's

29:25

a lot of work though, Chuck.

29:28

It's a lot of work to

29:30

make a few extra $1,000. I

29:32

think what you're seeing is a

29:34

lot of activists on both sides,

29:36

claiming to be journalists, more so

29:38

than anything else. I want to

29:40

get to that. I'm going to

29:42

put a pin in that conversation,

29:44

because I'm going to stick to

29:46

the trust thing a minute, because

29:48

I do want to talk about

29:50

sort of the, what I would

29:52

call the intentional. fake journalists, meaning

29:54

they're partisan actors that have literally

29:56

gotten funding from official sources in

29:58

order to create like the Michigan

30:00

Chronicle and things like that. But

30:02

we'll... Oh, they're getting money from

30:04

packs. Yeah, no, no, no. It's

30:07

a very, it's a very... But

30:09

I want to go back to

30:11

the trust issue, because that's how

30:13

I've been spending the last year

30:15

and a half trying to figure

30:17

out, crack this trust code, like

30:19

what, and I actually have come

30:21

to the conclusion that National Media

30:23

never had trust. And that you

30:25

can go back to the civil

30:27

rights movement. I've had these conversations

30:29

with Tom Broca and he talks

30:31

about when he got, when he

30:33

was became, got assigned to the

30:35

Atlanta Bureau. Essentially, he got moved

30:37

from LA to Atlanta in the

30:39

early to mid-60s to cover the

30:41

civil rights movement in Atlanta. And

30:43

the hatred that everybody locally had

30:45

of NBC and any of the

30:48

national reporters that did this. And

30:50

it was the local reporters confirming

30:52

what national reporters were reporting that

30:54

over time. gave what I thought

30:56

was sort of associated credibility or

30:58

associated trust, meaning if you trust

31:00

your local journalist and they're reporting

31:02

the same thing the national, then

31:04

you might, all right, I don't

31:06

know if I know that guy,

31:08

but man, the journalists that I

31:10

know in my community or that

31:12

the journalists that my kid goes

31:14

to the school with his kid,

31:16

he seems to be reporting this,

31:18

so there must be something to

31:20

this. And I've concluded that over

31:22

the last 20 years, the gutting

31:24

of local news is probably... did

31:27

the most damage to trust in

31:29

media overall because we had no

31:31

more character with witnesses locally. We

31:33

didn't have fellow journalists in the

31:35

community covering from the community perspective

31:37

what was happening in Washington and

31:39

instead it came across as if

31:41

we were telling them what was

31:43

happening in their communities and nobody

31:45

else in their community was was

31:47

reporting it from their perspective and

31:49

I so I do I look

31:51

at all this and think that

31:53

that in order to truly fix

31:55

this trust issue, we've got to

31:57

re-animate and help rebuild local. Yeah,

32:00

I agree with you. I mean, I

32:02

would do affiliate work when I was

32:04

at ABC, when I first started on

32:06

air. And so, you know, I would

32:08

be the journalist from Washington doing the

32:11

affiliate work. And the affiliates take their

32:13

reporting extremely serious. They have a lot

32:15

of trust. And yeah, you're the girl

32:17

from Washington telling them what's going on.

32:19

And there is a little bit of

32:21

distress. I think there's a number of

32:24

reasons why people don't trust the national

32:26

media. It's very slick. The anchors are

32:28

very good looking. It's very polished. They're

32:30

very removed. They are like celebrities. Whereas

32:32

the people that you watch on TV,

32:34

it's a little bit in your local

32:36

community, you recognize them, you see them.

32:39

They're a little flawed. They're a little

32:41

imperfect. They sound like you. They look

32:43

like you. They have your vernacular. They

32:45

speak in your voice, in your tones.

32:47

And I think that's kind of the

32:49

special thing about the social media as

32:51

well. to resonate what I've noticed is

32:54

authenticity on social media. People don't want

32:56

perfect. They don't want slick. They don't

32:58

want highly produced. They'd rather see you.

33:00

just warts and all and that is

33:02

where they build the trust because they

33:04

feel like they know who you are.

33:07

They want to know a little bit

33:09

about who you are as a person.

33:11

One of the most popular podcasts I

33:13

did was when I interviewed my own

33:15

mother about why she was independent, why

33:17

she wasn't sure who to vote for,

33:19

why she couldn't decide between voting for

33:22

Trump or Kamla Harrison. She's in North

33:24

Carolina swing voter. That was one of

33:26

my most popular podcast and it's like...

33:28

mostly I think because people got to

33:30

know me and my mother and our

33:32

and how we are poor and how

33:34

we feel about my brother and my

33:37

father and like our lives and when

33:39

I even when I'm listening to my

33:41

favorite podcast host I'm actually sometimes a

33:43

little bit more interested about them in

33:45

their lives and the topics they're talking

33:47

about and so I think like we

33:49

have as journalists we you know we're

33:52

big j journalists and we stand there

33:54

behind a mic and we sit at

33:56

an anchor desk and all these things

33:58

but what we're really doing is creating

34:00

a barrier between us in the community

34:02

And like I what I do now

34:05

that I'm an independent journalist is like

34:07

I just interviewed Mark Cuban and what

34:09

I said, it was like, hey, guys,

34:11

send me your questions for Cuba and

34:13

I'll ask them. That's what people want.

34:15

Like, why do we as the editors

34:17

or the editorial board decide what gets

34:20

between the people and the people we're

34:22

interviewing? Aren't we supposed to be the

34:24

conduits between them? Oh, I've always said

34:26

that that's what, I mean, what we

34:28

are. I mean, I've always, you know,

34:30

I had my philosophy at Meath Press

34:32

as sort of one half of the

34:35

job was explaining Washington, Washington, Washington, Washington,

34:37

Washington, and trying to have more of

34:39

a conversation with folks outside of Washington

34:41

to get a better. You ask why

34:43

do people, why do we want to

34:45

know the personal lives? Because when I

34:48

hear somebody's background, it helps me understand

34:50

how they come to the conclusions that

34:52

they come to. I've always said I

34:54

view myself as a political anthropologist more

34:56

than anything else. Yeah, that's a good

34:58

word for it. In that I'm always

35:00

curious of different cultures and civilizations in

35:03

this country and sort of, you know,

35:05

why they vote the way they do

35:07

and there is regionalism and sometimes it

35:09

has to do with religion and sometimes

35:11

it just has to do with how

35:13

the economy is made up in a

35:15

certain area. Sometimes it just has to

35:18

do with the historical migration patterns of

35:20

a state or a district or something

35:22

like that. And so there's no doubt

35:24

that, you know... I've always said I

35:26

was lucky to grow up in Miami

35:28

and I didn't know that at the

35:31

time because I grew up in Miami

35:33

in the 70s and 80s. I always

35:35

say I was born in Miami and

35:37

I ended up graduating high school in

35:39

Miami. And the point of that being

35:41

is I was born in a small

35:43

southern city. I graduated high school in

35:46

this dynamic place that was frankly had

35:48

a huge, you know, today's problems in

35:50

Miami or tomorrow's problems in America. And

35:52

that's always been the case. We went

35:54

through this racial reckoning between Cubans, blacks,

35:56

and whites in the 80s. The rest

35:58

of the country in some ways is

36:01

having this now, right? We experienced the

36:03

first massive wave of migration and immigration

36:05

back in the 70s and 80s. We

36:07

had an English-only law in Miami that

36:09

passed in 1980. It passed. the county,

36:11

in Dade County, it's one of these

36:13

things that people are like, really? Well,

36:16

no one's actually been hearing to it

36:18

because when I'm in Miami, it also

36:20

went away pretty quickly. The point, and

36:22

so I, you know, it turns out,

36:24

and I ended up growing up in

36:26

a bipartisan community, and I had, I'm

36:29

thankful for that because it's made me

36:31

better today. Like I understand, I feel

36:33

like I understand what's happening in the

36:35

rest of America today. based simply on

36:37

that upbringing where we, where we, where,

36:39

so I was sort of born into

36:41

polarization. Somebody born in New York City,

36:44

I get that, someone born, I do

36:46

think it's important to find out how

36:48

people have lived their lives, particularly in

36:50

reporters, in order to understand maybe how

36:52

they're, you know, because, you know, your

36:54

lived experience is everything. You know, I

36:56

always say you talk about bias. I

36:59

always do this. I check my pulse.

37:01

Okay. We're born with original bias, right.

37:03

Right. who you were born to, when

37:05

you were born. All of those things

37:07

contribute to the life you end up

37:09

living. How people treat you. And all

37:12

of that matters. And then all of

37:14

that will have an impact on how

37:16

you react, on how you cover stories.

37:18

You know, for me, it's as simple

37:20

as I always have had a bias

37:22

towards the issue of Cuba. Why? I

37:24

grew up with it. That's all. I

37:27

grew up with it. So I was

37:29

the one guy in the White House

37:31

press room asking about Cuba policy, but

37:33

no one else would. No, I just.

37:35

Well, no, I think it is. It's

37:37

a geographic bias. That's what I mean.

37:39

My point is, we all, there's by,

37:42

we all have bias. The question is,

37:44

is it a political bias? Is it

37:46

geographic bias? Is it economic bias? Is

37:48

it gender bias? Is it gender bias?

37:50

You know, we can go on and

37:52

on, but there's always a bias that

37:54

sort of is back there. You know.

37:57

I always find it funny when somebody

37:59

from the left says you're not fair

38:01

or somebody from the right says not

38:03

fair. It's not fair. It's like, well,

38:05

where are you coming from? What's fair?

38:07

What's your definition of fair? Anybody that

38:10

says you're right? Right? If you're a

38:12

conservative. It's hard. is actually hard as

38:14

an independent journalist who doesn't have a

38:16

left or right perspective. I do think

38:18

that's more difficult because I see it

38:20

myself. Have you had people say that,

38:22

you know, look, Megan Kelly admits that

38:25

she goes, she took a side, right?

38:27

And it's one way to build an

38:29

audience. It's a lot easier to build

38:31

an audience. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They know

38:33

they're coming back for their dopamine hits.

38:35

You're reinforcing how they see the world.

38:37

You are giving them their echo chamber.

38:40

And I'm not for that. Like, I

38:42

actually want you to come to my

38:44

page and be like, wait, what's she

38:46

doing today? This is totally different. Like,

38:48

one day, it's like Mark Cuban's warning

38:50

that Elon Musk wants this recession. The

38:53

next day, it's the story behind the

38:55

scenes of how you know, Kamala Harris

38:57

had to beg Joe Biden for an

38:59

for an for an endorsement. I take

39:01

shots at both sides, equal opportunity of

39:03

assassin. Like, I truly, well, like, I'm

39:05

just more, like, if it's a good

39:08

story, I'm gonna follow it, but that's

39:10

not necessarily what people want. Like, a

39:12

lot of people do want their, their

39:14

biases confirmed to them. But I also

39:16

think like, if you build it, they

39:18

will come. There are some people who

39:20

want independent journalists who are genuinely interested

39:23

in holding just general power to account.

39:25

Doesn't matter about it. Let me ask

39:27

you this question. the traditional media, mainstream

39:29

media, however legacy media, whatever term you

39:31

want to use. I've had people say

39:33

the word legacy media means you're taking

39:36

a shot, so call it traditional media,

39:38

okay, whatever. You and I both know

39:40

what we're talking about here. I think

39:42

they've made a massive mistake in not

39:44

pushing back at, and not rallying around

39:46

AP. And when I say they, I

39:48

mean the big. the owners of these

39:51

media companies. The journalists are trying to

39:53

push back, but their bosses are telling

39:55

them to hold back, right? We know

39:57

this. And here's what I think they

39:59

don't fully appreciate in traditional media and

40:01

the media execs. You've already alienated half

40:03

the country on the right. Now, those

40:06

that still trust you now have to

40:08

ask, huh, are you holding back? Are

40:10

you rounding the edges? You're not going

40:12

to, you're pulling a punch because you're

40:14

afraid of backlash on your football deal.

40:16

You're pulling a punch because you're afraid

40:18

of backlash on your football deal. You're

40:21

pulling a punch because you're afraid of

40:23

backlash on your Hollywood deals, right? It's

40:25

like you might as well collapse your

40:27

news department, right? those on the left

40:29

are in the center who are just

40:31

looking, maybe came to you for other

40:34

reasons, and now they're wondering the same

40:36

thing. I mean, this is, they've in

40:38

a weird way seated this turf to

40:40

people like you and I, because I,

40:42

you know, nobody owns me, and I'm

40:44

not afraid. I mean, in some ways,

40:46

I may have hurt myself by criticizing

40:49

my, my now former bosses in a

40:51

very high profile moment, and it's simply

40:53

because they didn't like the heat, right.

40:55

or reporting without fear or favor. And

40:57

if traditional media organizations can't do that

40:59

because their bosses don't have their back,

41:01

I mean, this decision not to push

41:04

back what they did to AP, all

41:06

it is done is empowered the White

41:08

House press shop to push even further,

41:10

right? We know the rules of that

41:12

stuff. You've got to draw a line.

41:14

You've got to stand on some principles.

41:17

And right now, I don't think traditional

41:19

media is stating, and I want to

41:21

exempt our fellow journalists in that room.

41:23

A lot of them want to fight

41:25

harder. Most of them have had bosses

41:27

begging them not to. Yeah, that's interesting.

41:29

I just think also the White House

41:32

Correspondence Association had a really rough week

41:34

this week, you know, with the idea

41:36

that they're changing the room, which, you

41:38

know, I can see updates from time

41:40

to time. Also, like, why wasn't Brightbar

41:42

in the room, but Huffington Post was?

41:44

Like, you would argue they had about

41:47

this. They had the same following and

41:49

they just got in. So I understand

41:51

that, but who knows how this change

41:53

is going to, what this change is

41:55

going to be like. The people who

41:57

are really going to be impacted are

41:59

the TV journalists because they need that

42:02

on air jousting, but like the print

42:04

reporters. they don't they don't even really

42:06

need to technically be in that I

42:08

think the White House press want to

42:10

be honestly there's not other than finding

42:12

out how the White House wants to

42:15

spin stories the White House press briefing

42:17

is not a news source it is

42:19

simply right it is simply a temperature

42:21

check right yeah that's all it is

42:23

it's just a thermost check it's holding

42:25

them to account though it's holding them

42:27

to account before the public right it's

42:30

a temperature check but it doesn't it

42:32

doesn't ever give news anymore. It's more

42:34

of like, oh, that's interesting that they're

42:36

going down that road, or it's interesting

42:38

who they are not backing, or it's,

42:40

you know, it's all about having to

42:42

read between the lines of what's not

42:45

said or stuff like that. And, you

42:47

know, it's pretty clear that, and we've

42:49

seen this evolution, you know, you go

42:51

back to Mike McCurry in the 90s,

42:53

and even early Ari Fleisher post 9-11,

42:55

both of them tried to use the

42:58

podium to deliver information. a little bit

43:00

more than to deliver spin, right? And

43:02

the further we got away, arguably from

43:04

a national security crisis or anything like

43:06

that, the further, the more it just

43:08

became, frankly, a TV show for the

43:10

press secretary. Yeah, I mean, like if

43:13

you had a big scoop, Chuck, you

43:15

wouldn't ask. questions about the scoop before

43:17

you publish it in the White House

43:19

briefing. Of course not. Never. Yeah. So

43:21

like the real news is often like

43:23

dug up behind the scenes and then

43:25

you know you privately ask and you

43:28

break. Well I used to say the

43:30

real news is always based on your

43:32

sourcing on Capitol Hill. If you want

43:34

to know what's going on in the

43:36

White House go to Capitol Hill. They're

43:38

the leakers. They're the best. Yeah, that's

43:41

true. Yeah, I agree with you. And

43:43

I also have to say, though, the

43:45

White House Correspondence Association, like being in

43:47

these really tenuous times, like, I also

43:49

think they can make a mistake with

43:51

this comedian. You know, I completely agree.

43:53

Read the room. Go get Shane Gillis.

43:56

Just, you know, and the thing is

43:58

that the White House Correspondence Association was

44:00

smarter in the mid-odds, right, when we

44:02

had a moment after 9-11, and got

44:04

Ray Charles. rather than a comedian. But

44:06

the point is, you read the room,

44:08

you know the president's gonna come. Here's

44:11

the thing. Look, I'm not comfortable with

44:13

the whole idea of a bunch of

44:15

reporters dressing up in tuxedos while Americans

44:17

are trying to figure out where they're

44:19

going to get their next job. Eating

44:21

bad chicken. I think it's a, in

44:23

one of the most mediocre hotel ballrooms

44:26

you could find on the East Coast,

44:28

right? And the only reason they continue

44:30

to use that place is that there's

44:32

nothing bigger. That's cheaper. That's not true

44:34

right I didn't know that. No that's

44:36

the reason why they stick to that

44:39

hotel and that and that I'm not

44:41

going to disparage any brands right now

44:43

because for all we know one of

44:45

them may want to support you or

44:47

one of them may want to support

44:49

me right now I'm just happy. But

44:51

it is a I do think the

44:54

whole spectacle right of what it became

44:56

right it all started when a journalist

44:58

back in the late 80s decided to

45:00

invite I think it was not Donna

45:02

Rice but the woman who was famous

45:04

for like stealing classified documents and shoving

45:06

them in her pants and I think

45:09

it was Vaughn Hall I think was

45:11

the name of the woman and it

45:13

sort of snowballed from there and then

45:15

it suddenly became nerd prom. It wasn't

45:17

this in the 70s and 80s and

45:19

even in the early 90s and then

45:22

but Clinton sort of Hollywooded it up

45:24

but what the why those correspondence association

45:26

was pretty smart about doing was always

45:28

trying to match the entertainment with the

45:30

cultural, shall we say, comfort zone of

45:32

the sitting president. And I think this

45:34

was a mistake. Okay, whatever you think,

45:37

you know, like I said, go get

45:39

Bill Burr, go get Shane Gillis. You

45:41

know, I think you're right. It would

45:43

have reflected the other half of the

45:45

country. It reflects the times. I mean,

45:47

and also, just what Amber often said

45:49

that they are murderers. It's just so

45:52

off the wall. And I'm talking to

45:54

people, obviously, inside of the White House

45:56

press corps, and they're just saying, like,

45:58

we actually need PR right now. Like,

46:00

we need public relations, a press corps,

46:02

because of how badly they've taken a

46:04

beating over this. 100% and they haven't.

46:07

back to there's no leadership in the

46:09

and there's no K Graham okay yeah

46:11

there's no true somebody who isn't afraid

46:13

to stand up and to sort of

46:15

back up the journalists you need a

46:17

good owner you need a good publisher

46:20

you need a strong publisher strong owner

46:22

and right now that is you know

46:24

I guess the times is about the

46:26

only one that hasn't been corrupted by

46:28

a court, you know, the, the, what

46:30

do you think about Lorraine Hall jobs,

46:32

though? People are comparing her to K

46:35

Graham right now. Who's this? Um, could

46:37

be. I mean, she's certainly doing it

46:39

at the Atlantic and we're going to

46:41

find out, right? But, um, I also,

46:43

you know, the Atlantic in some ways,

46:45

has always been a resistance publication. right?

46:47

It was founded as an abolitionist publication

46:50

in the late 19th century so I

46:52

actually believe in many ways this is

46:54

their tradition this is in some ways

46:56

their brand and if they acted any

46:58

other way they would actually probably alienate

47:00

their actual subscriber base you know I

47:03

mean this is they've always their principle

47:05

has always been this right there a

47:07

little bit there so I think it's

47:09

in their ethos when you look at

47:11

them and who knows maybe Atlantic is

47:13

going to be morphing into a more

47:15

you know, on par with the post

47:18

or the times of the journal, right,

47:20

on this. Well, their subscriber base has

47:22

just exploded thanks to signal gate. Well,

47:24

there's no doubt that helps quite a

47:26

bit. And let's go to that, because

47:28

you did something that I think is

47:30

his, was very smart, but at the

47:33

same time can be a source burn,

47:35

which is you talked about how Mike

47:37

Waltz was courting as many members of

47:39

the traditional press score as he could.

47:41

in order to make sure his name

47:43

was out there because we all know

47:46

how does Donald Trump decide your somebody

47:48

worth hiring if you do well in

47:50

press interviews and that's and you sort

47:52

of called him out this pretending he

47:54

didn't know how Jeffrey Goldberg's number could

47:56

have possibly gotten in there and you're

47:58

like hey this guy's been recording the

48:01

press for a year and a, the

48:03

mainstream press for a year and a

48:05

half. So I can't, I think I

48:07

know how this happened. Yeah, I mean,

48:09

exactly. I didn't think of it as

48:11

a source burn because I was like,

48:13

it's a booking that didn't happen. I'm

48:16

still happy to talk to the sources.

48:18

But I just felt like. If he

48:20

appeared on my show, then I could

48:22

have just pointed to it, but there

48:24

was like a 20-minute window that I

48:26

could make work, and I didn't actually

48:28

really follow up on it, because at

48:31

the time, I was like, he's a

48:33

two-term congressman from Florida who voted to

48:35

certify the election for Joe Biden, who

48:37

voted to certify the election for Joe

48:39

Biden. Trump's going to pick him out

48:41

of everybody to be the national security

48:44

advisor or some big role in the

48:46

administration. he wasn't the only one, like

48:48

everyone from like the VP down was

48:50

trying to talk to journalists. So this

48:52

whole idea that like the cardinal sin

48:54

was talking to reporters, it's like that's

48:56

what you do to survive in Trump

48:59

world and to make it really. And

49:01

that's what Trump does himself. So yeah,

49:03

I hope that people didn't see it

49:05

that way. I just wanted to clear

49:07

the error because truly this is a

49:09

person who was trying to build his

49:11

profile and it works. Well, you know,

49:14

what I mean, I'm just saying, and

49:16

I'm like, good on you. When you're

49:18

on the outside, you can do some

49:20

interesting things. You could be a little

49:22

bit more real and honest. There's no

49:24

one there, there was no editor there

49:27

being like, Tara, I don't think that's,

49:29

you know, you don't, you're not allowed

49:31

to do that. And I'm like, I'm

49:33

writing now a letter, I write, I'm

49:35

like, you know, you're not allowed to

49:37

do that, and do that. I'm like,

49:39

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, know

49:42

exactly how we do our job. So

49:44

whatever I can show without, you know,

49:46

while protecting my sources and my relationships,

49:48

I want to do because I think

49:50

that will build trust not just in

49:52

my community, but in the broader journal.

49:54

community because there are still a lot

49:57

of really great reporters out there working

49:59

at mainstream outlets because they have to

50:01

because they have kids that they didn't

50:03

you know they didn't make a lot

50:05

of money XYZ I'm just so happy

50:07

to be single and have like be

50:09

able to do something like this you

50:12

know but there are various reasons why

50:14

other people can't leave mainstream media right

50:16

but I think it's worth it to

50:18

explain like hey this is the transactional

50:20

like not transactional but this is how

50:22

it's done What's

50:29

a resource though that you don't have

50:31

as an independent journalist that you wish

50:33

you did but it's frankly just That

50:35

barrier is is is too big to

50:38

build right now I mean, more money.

50:40

I mean, if I had more money,

50:42

then I'd probably go and travel more

50:44

to places and do kind of more

50:47

investigative journalism. But I did just start

50:49

a few months ago. So I assume

50:51

my subscription baseball belt. I hope you'll

50:53

subscribe to the Red Letter on Substock

50:55

and support me. But yeah, my subscription

50:58

base once, YouTube, and I'll be able

51:00

to do more interesting work, investigative, like

51:02

I've always been kind of an investigative

51:04

journalist at heart. So I think more

51:07

accountability journalism, more investigative journalism, more investigative

51:09

journalism. that I built over years and

51:11

I covered the first administration of Trump.

51:13

I've known him since I was 22.

51:15

I know you've probably known him even

51:18

longer. But like, I, you know. I'm

51:20

using those sources, those relationships right now,

51:22

but of course, like with more money,

51:24

I can spend more time, have more

51:27

support, have producers that are helping me,

51:29

maybe editorial assistant that does some stuff,

51:31

so I can just churn out more

51:33

stuff. Like, you know, more, more resources

51:35

means more time and more free time

51:38

to really do reporting. But I'm okay

51:40

with the grind right now, because it's

51:42

actually like, like, it fills my cop.

51:44

I love it. There's nothing better than

51:47

working for working for yourself. I've never

51:49

really experienced a day off on occasional

51:51

Saturdays, you know, that's always right. To

51:53

me, if you're in, if you're in

51:55

the news business, you're kind of always

51:58

on, you know, I've always said it's

52:00

that way. Yeah, and I always say

52:02

that sort of, I think I have

52:04

an idea of what it's like to

52:06

be a doctor in that you're kind

52:09

of on call, which also means you've

52:11

always kind of kind of be closer

52:13

to sober than not, right? You know,

52:15

because you never know. I remember the

52:18

night of Bin Laden, let's just say

52:20

a few of my colleagues had had

52:22

a little too much and still went

52:24

on the air. I had, I'll never

52:26

forget, I left. This was right after

52:29

the White House Correspondence Association dinner on

52:31

a Sunday night. It was, well, so

52:33

it was the day after that. Right.

52:35

So they were drinking on that. Oh,

52:38

because there's the boozy branches. Yes. There

52:40

you go. Okay. It was the busy

52:42

branches. Now I remember, I'm not a

52:44

big drinker, but I had half a

52:46

beer and I remember setting it down

52:49

on my staircase, right? And I came

52:51

back at like 11 in the morning

52:53

the next day and I finished that

52:55

warm beer, you know, felt like I

52:58

had to do something to toast, to

53:00

toast the thing. But it is sort

53:02

of one of those that there is

53:04

no off day hot day hot. How

53:06

are you, have you even thought about

53:09

preventing burnout? And if so, have you

53:11

thought about it? Yeah, no, I absolutely

53:13

think about it. I've creating a Sabbath.

53:15

I'm not Jewish, but I guess the

53:18

Christians believe in Sabbath as well. So

53:20

yeah, I'm creating a day, that is

53:22

my Sabbath. Saturday is better for me

53:24

than Sunday, because Sunday is really a

53:26

prep day for the rest of the

53:29

week. I send out a newsletter on

53:31

Sundays. But yeah, I think you have

53:33

to choose one day where you are

53:35

truly disconnected, focused on yourself, your friends,

53:38

your family, doing food shopping, taking care

53:40

of yourself. Again, though, like I hope

53:42

as I grow that I will have

53:44

more people who are able to help.

53:46

balance life. But until then, like, these

53:49

are, this is like any small business,

53:51

like, you're just gonna have to grind

53:53

it out in the beginning, and one

53:55

day it'll be an empire, you know,

53:57

and that's just life. But I think

54:00

it's really worth it. And I think

54:02

you always will enjoy these moments of

54:04

the hustle in the beginning, because those

54:06

are the best, those are the best

54:09

moments. Like, the little winds are huge,

54:11

like, I took a screen grab, like,

54:13

and you have to like embrace every

54:15

little win and moment. Otherwise you'll get

54:17

burned out. It's you have to fill

54:20

yourself up with the with the accomplishments.

54:22

Otherwise, yeah, you can't because it's all

54:24

right. I'm going to ask you these

54:26

questions that I get all the time,

54:29

which is number one. What do you

54:31

read every day? Oh, I actually read

54:33

my former employer Politico. I used to

54:35

write the playbook. I still read it.

54:37

Even though they hired a guy from

54:40

the UK that everyone's critical. I like

54:42

Jack. I knew I'm not with the

54:44

political room. I like his, I like

54:46

his. He's not. Yeah. Yes, it's very

54:49

British. He's cheap. He's, you know, he's

54:51

sweet. I like him. I like Brits.

54:53

But yeah, so he's fine. And also,

54:55

honestly, it's just, it was just really

54:57

an aggregator anyway. You know, so it's

55:00

a nice aggregator of all the news

55:02

of the day and overnight and starts

55:04

you off. I love Mike Allen's play,

55:06

you know. Why am I calling a

55:09

playbook? Because it used to be Mike

55:11

Allen's playbook. Exactly, Apsie's morning newsletter. I

55:13

used to read Punch Bowl, but I

55:15

just feel like it's a little too

55:17

in the weeds, even for me as

55:20

a journalist. Well, I'd argue that's why

55:22

they charge so much money, because it's

55:24

for a small... It is not meant

55:26

to be for the masses, right? No.

55:29

It is actually meant to be for

55:31

those professionally working in and around Capital

55:33

Hill. like the lobbying class and yeah

55:35

so it's probably a little bit more

55:37

i i used to get into some

55:40

before but i just haven't opened it

55:42

in a really long time i just

55:44

i just feel like if you can

55:46

get through those few newsletters yeah and

55:48

then you click around you go to

55:51

a few home pages you look on

55:53

X that's that's pretty much how i

55:55

start my morning and then try to

55:57

keep up for the rest of day

56:00

what about you what do you learn

56:02

what social media apps do you get

56:04

info from? There's, you know, we're all,

56:06

we're all having to be on these

56:08

social media apps for various reasons, because

56:11

you have to be platform neutral, you're

56:13

always looking for, you know, to, I

56:15

always say, you know, there's, don't, don't

56:17

be a snob about any platform. But

56:20

certain platforms are information vehicles. and certain

56:22

ones aren't. What's the ones that you

56:24

get the most, where you learn the

56:26

most? I used to learn from X,

56:28

but I don't anymore. It's just like

56:31

me in a place where I go

56:33

to see people bullying me. But I'm

56:35

a... I'm 37, so I'm very much

56:37

Instagram. And so I go there and

56:40

I get a plethora of news. They

56:42

figured out my brain. It's like self-help,

56:44

meets, like my friends on vacation and

56:46

their babies meets, you know, I get

56:48

Moshe, when new news stuff, I get

56:51

Jessica yelling, I get some of my

56:53

colleagues that work in news on there.

56:55

And, you know, it's interesting, like I've

56:57

got to say, having produced stuff for

57:00

socials, On Instagram, the stuff that's really

57:02

highly produced, like the stuff that I

57:04

have packaged and put it on there,

57:06

it doesn't do well. The stuff that

57:08

does the best on Instagram and all

57:11

the apps are when I just look

57:13

into them. into the phone and talk

57:15

like I'm talking on Face Time and

57:17

maybe add in some captions and subtitles

57:20

and posting that online does way better

57:22

and I kind of get it there's

57:24

something about like the authenticity of it

57:26

and and seeing it and and most

57:28

is a good aggregator like I'm looking

57:31

for aggregators the breaking stuff you're gonna

57:33

get an alert on your phone and

57:35

yeah that stuff's a commodity I mean

57:37

I always said my job was never

57:40

to report the news first. like I

57:42

always thought I was in the I

57:44

was always thought I was in the

57:46

business of the breaking why I used

57:48

to call it yeah you know explaining

57:51

why is it happening well you know

57:53

explain it what is it all you

57:55

know the so whole what does it

57:57

all mean the news itself is you

57:59

know is just that oh what exactly

58:02

a lot of people do the why

58:04

yeah I do more of the what

58:06

we're trying to find out what or

58:08

trying to do new angles. I guess

58:11

I could be more of an explainer,

58:13

but I kind of like, I've always

58:15

been like a bit of a scoop

58:17

artist. I come from a tabloid background.

58:19

I worked at the New York Post.

58:22

I like to break news. I like

58:24

to think of different angles. and I

58:26

let people like you who have, you

58:28

know, depth of historical knowledge and context

58:31

do a lot of the explaining. And

58:33

not that I don't think I can't.

58:35

I have been reporting for long enough

58:37

to do it. And I should say,

58:39

I think you've earned your, I think

58:42

you've earned your stripes. Yeah, I should

58:44

probably lean. You know, truthly, I probably

58:46

should lean into it more than I

58:48

do, but I get so much excited

58:51

by like breaking a story. It is

58:53

kind of like it's an adrenaline rush.

58:55

I like calling sources. I like reporting.

58:57

I like, I love just like feeling

58:59

like I've got some information that no

59:02

one else has and it really drives

59:04

me. And whether it is a commodity

59:06

or not, I mean, I'm sure I'll

59:08

figure that out my business plan, but

59:11

it's a part of my DNA. So

59:13

I think whatever makes you, you should

59:15

stick with that. And so until that's

59:17

no longer a part of me or

59:19

has been scrubbed out of me, I'm

59:22

probably going to keep doing it. and

59:24

like all day long just calling people

59:26

and having other people package it. Well

59:28

I always say that's what what makes

59:31

you know what what makes a good

59:33

journalist are you constantly curious? Exactly exactly

59:35

and you strike me as somebody who's

59:37

constantly curious and you assume you don't

59:39

have that no matter what the story

59:42

is now there's something more there's still

59:44

more to signal gate what do you

59:46

think do you think there's more Chuck?

59:48

Um, I think there's, um, so there's

59:50

so many Occam's razors to this, you

59:53

know, if you told me that Jake

59:55

Sullivan's contact list ended up in Mike

59:57

Walsh's phones, it wouldn't shock me. Like,

59:59

do you see where I'm going here,

1:00:02

like the accidental, you know, the transfer

1:00:04

over? Like, to me, there's all sorts

1:00:06

of scenarios that might be a lot

1:00:08

more embarrassing, that in some ways are

1:00:10

worse, because it's sort of an embarrassment.

1:00:13

You know, the fact is, and what

1:00:15

does not gotten a lot of attention

1:00:17

is they never went through the first

1:00:19

round of transition sort of security briefings,

1:00:22

sort of security briefings, right? There really

1:00:24

is, you know, was an entire... sort

1:00:26

of congressionally mandated financial, you know, with

1:00:28

that is funded, to a presidential transition

1:00:30

in order to make sure people are

1:00:33

using secure communications to understand which apps

1:00:35

are hackable and which aren't, and why

1:00:37

even though signal is pretty good at

1:00:39

protecting if you're on a phone that

1:00:42

isn't protected, then it doesn't matter. how

1:00:44

good signal is as an encrypting thing.

1:00:46

So I do think this is a

1:00:48

story of their of the transition arrogance

1:00:50

that they all had in that they

1:00:53

didn't for you know obviously Trump's absolutely

1:00:55

he it's clear to me that he

1:00:57

thinks his entire first term was undermined

1:00:59

by this. Kabul of people all over

1:01:02

the place. Maybe it was inside his

1:01:04

own cabinet at times, maybe it was

1:01:06

inside his own West Wing at times,

1:01:08

inside his own Justice Department, right? So

1:01:10

he was so determined to prevent that

1:01:13

that they sort of went the other

1:01:15

way, right? And didn't get any sort

1:01:17

of security briefings, didn't get any of

1:01:19

these things that they should have had.

1:01:22

So, you know, I think that's... that's

1:01:24

something I'd be pursuing a lot more

1:01:26

of as well. Yeah, there's a lot

1:01:28

of ego, a lot of testosterone, like

1:01:30

Hegsef kind of like flexing his powers

1:01:33

from infantry guide to now being able

1:01:35

to like target, you know, countries like

1:01:37

this world of warcraft stuff. I mean,

1:01:39

it's just like, there's just so much,

1:01:41

so many personality issues that I see

1:01:44

in the organization as well. And just

1:01:46

the fact that like Trump is not

1:01:48

willing to fire anyone. I mean, But

1:01:50

he never has. I mean, the greatest

1:01:53

myth of all was the idea that

1:01:55

the guy in the apprentice is, was

1:01:57

really Donald Trump. He's afraid, you know,

1:01:59

one of the interesting things is how

1:02:01

he's, he actually would rather have two

1:02:04

sets of White House staff than to

1:02:06

have to fire anybody. My favorite anecdote

1:02:08

on this goes back to 2011 when

1:02:10

there were two, when he, when literally,

1:02:13

Donald Trump had Roger Stone. doing preliminary

1:02:15

work for running for president. And then

1:02:17

he also had Michael Cohen doing preliminary

1:02:19

work for running for president. Michael Cohen

1:02:21

didn't know what Roger Stone was doing.

1:02:24

Roger Stone didn't know what Michael Cohen

1:02:26

was doing. I think it was Sam

1:02:28

Nunnberg, who was working with Michael Cohen

1:02:30

at the time, who I think ended

1:02:33

up stumbling upon. And then they, and

1:02:35

literally, Trump was going in one direction

1:02:37

with one of his team. And, you

1:02:39

know, and this is the Trump way,

1:02:41

right? He likes to pit. people against

1:02:44

each other. He likes to have all

1:02:46

sorts of, he never wants to be

1:02:48

boxed in. He always wants an exit

1:02:50

strategy, you know, whatever it is. And

1:02:53

so he's, you know, so in that

1:02:55

sense, you know, I, you know, personality

1:02:57

is personnel and is sort of covering

1:02:59

this White House these days. Right. Okay,

1:03:01

can I ask you a question, Chuck?

1:03:04

Can't help myself. How are you feeling

1:03:06

about being independent right now? So, I

1:03:08

would say about three weeks ago it

1:03:10

started to feel good. I was very

1:03:13

nervous. I didn't know how much of

1:03:15

my identity was wrapped up in NBC

1:03:17

versus my, you know, I used to

1:03:19

say, I used to say my first

1:03:21

name was meat, right? And I did

1:03:24

feel as if I had to speak

1:03:26

for that institution first and then I

1:03:28

was representative of that institution and I

1:03:30

would be careful in what I say

1:03:32

and careful in how I worded things.

1:03:35

So you just don't know. This was

1:03:37

the interest level and what I'm doing

1:03:39

was, was, was really high and it

1:03:41

sort of was reassuring. And then you

1:03:44

sort of see the abdication of what

1:03:46

our colleagues are doing and it's like,

1:03:48

you know, look if I'm going to

1:03:50

be the middle-aged man, you know, yet

1:03:52

another middle-aged man screaming into the void,

1:03:55

fine, I will be. I at least

1:03:57

think I have the credentials to scream

1:03:59

accurate things into the void and hopefully

1:04:01

contribute something. I mean, I've always enjoyed

1:04:04

politics because ultimately... I'm sort of old-fashioned,

1:04:06

right? We created politics to settle disputes

1:04:08

without violence. Politics is not... meant to

1:04:10

be satisfactory to every side. Politics is

1:04:12

meant to be a compromise. The whole

1:04:15

point of it is compromise. And so

1:04:17

I love that aspect of it. And

1:04:19

I hate when we're sort of starting

1:04:21

to erode it. We're not even engaging

1:04:24

in the idea of, all right, well,

1:04:26

let's sit down and see if we

1:04:28

can. negotiate a midpoint here because ultimately

1:04:30

it's the only way anything succeeds. You

1:04:32

try to do anything rash and there's

1:04:35

going to be a huge backlash and

1:04:37

it could very well be that that's

1:04:39

what the Trump administration is going to

1:04:41

be experiencing. I think we're in a

1:04:44

period of backlash. We have not voted

1:04:46

for a president since Obama oh eight.

1:04:48

We've been voting against right we've been

1:04:50

voting against things that we don't we

1:04:52

don't want and we know what we're

1:04:55

for. Let me ask something that I

1:04:57

read about you that you. Polish citizenship?

1:04:59

Yeah. So I'm obsessed with Poland right

1:05:01

now because they feel like they're on

1:05:04

the front lines of trying to save

1:05:06

NATO and trying to preserve this bulwark

1:05:08

against Russian aggression. How much family do

1:05:10

you have? How nervous are they? The

1:05:12

Poles that I know are like not

1:05:15

only nervous but man they're ready to

1:05:17

pick up arms and say let's go.

1:05:19

What's your experience? Okay, so my mom

1:05:21

is born in Poland. She became an

1:05:24

American in 2001 or 2002 to vote

1:05:26

for George Bush. Talk about like last

1:05:28

one in, you know. But by the

1:05:30

way, you know, I mean, literally, I'll

1:05:32

never forget this, there were the two

1:05:35

most supportive countries to the United States

1:05:37

and Iraq were the UK and Poland.

1:05:39

Right exactly. I mean, there's a strategic

1:05:41

reason for it. I mean where they

1:05:43

are placed in you know the map

1:05:46

in Europe It's all they've always been

1:05:48

invaded. They've always been toppled whether it's

1:05:50

Germany or Russia They've just there's always

1:05:52

been a conflict where my family is

1:05:55

from is actually La Viv now But

1:05:57

it was called La Viva when it

1:05:59

was Poland. They moved obviously west towards

1:06:01

Poland My mom was born grandmother was

1:06:03

in a camp in Hamburg as a

1:06:06

child. So she was used as like

1:06:08

a test. baby like they used bear

1:06:10

drugs and stuff and they tested them

1:06:12

out on them in these war camps.

1:06:15

So we, she speaks Polish, my mom

1:06:17

speaks Polish and people would think, oh

1:06:19

you're Italian, Tarapul Mary, my dad is

1:06:21

Italian-American, but our family goes back to

1:06:23

like 1885, they just all are bunch

1:06:26

of Italians that lived in Hoboken forever.

1:06:28

So it's really my mom's side I

1:06:30

feel closest to, I've always heard war

1:06:32

stories in the house, you know, my

1:06:35

Nazis's obviously invaded, conscripted my grandfather. to

1:06:37

not see youth. My grandfather was also

1:06:39

locked up by the commies for five

1:06:41

years. So it was also like there's

1:06:43

so many like there's so much intensity

1:06:46

and anxiety and it's kind of like

1:06:48

I'm not Jewish but like I understand

1:06:50

the Jewish anxiety as well because it's

1:06:52

in the DNA of our people like

1:06:55

it just comes down from like years

1:06:57

and years of being abused. They've been

1:06:59

abused either on the east by the

1:07:01

German or the west by the Germans.

1:07:03

Exactly. They're just like an anxious people

1:07:06

in general. And my grandmother like cries

1:07:08

and watches the war in Ukraine, my

1:07:10

bobjat. And so, you know, I think,

1:07:12

but at the same time, like, we're

1:07:15

a family that's split, like half of

1:07:17

them are. to super Trumpy and the

1:07:19

other half and the Polish half most

1:07:21

of them are Trumpy except for my

1:07:23

Bopsia and my mom and the rest

1:07:26

of the polls are Trumpy and then

1:07:28

my you know my dad's very Trumpy

1:07:30

as well he's like magga before maga

1:07:32

was a thing. Hanodine Combs Rush Limbaugh

1:07:34

he turned off Fox when they called

1:07:37

the election for Biden and never turned

1:07:39

it on again which is how we

1:07:41

found you too like you know it's

1:07:43

a I come from a mixed family

1:07:46

and my mom votes for Trump then

1:07:48

Biden And then Kamala, like, it's kind

1:07:50

of random. So they vote with their

1:07:52

pocketbooks. You know, I'm the first person

1:07:54

my family to graduate from college. I'm

1:07:57

first generation American. So like they're. There's

1:07:59

a lot of different plays in there,

1:08:01

but I think for them, like just

1:08:03

being Polish, they're very much aware of

1:08:06

that border and what that means. You know,

1:08:08

one thing I learn. We don't sit around and

1:08:10

talk about NATO, though. No, and I understand

1:08:12

that, but I have a friend of mine

1:08:14

who's, I have a friend of mine, older

1:08:16

friend of mine who's Polish, and he. He's

1:08:18

been flying the Ukrainian flag and

1:08:20

he goes, and he explained to

1:08:22

me, he goes, this is actually

1:08:24

a little uncomfortable for me at

1:08:26

first. And I said, why is

1:08:29

that? He says, because us Poles

1:08:31

usually hate the Ukrainians. Like there's

1:08:33

this like rivalry. You know, there's

1:08:35

this like inherent rivalry and it's

1:08:37

just sort of like, oh, yeah. But

1:08:39

the enemy of my enemy is my

1:08:41

brother, forget friend, right? And, you know,

1:08:43

the thing they have in common is

1:08:45

the evil Russians, right? Right. I didn't

1:08:47

know this. Tell me a little, what,

1:08:49

is there anything reasoning why Poles and

1:08:51

Ukrainians had sort of this

1:08:54

historical rivalry? Okay, well, first of

1:08:56

all, my grandmother always goes to meet

1:08:58

Tara, listen to me, Trump does not

1:09:00

understand Putin, and she's like, she just

1:09:03

thinks that Trump is getting played, like

1:09:05

every day she says that. She's not

1:09:07

alone in that one. There's a lot of

1:09:09

people who think that. Yeah, exactly.

1:09:11

Yeah. Although she was actually really turned

1:09:13

off by MS NBC because she followed

1:09:16

the Mueller investigation and with the Russian

1:09:18

collusion and when there was no result,

1:09:20

she stopped watching it. She was a

1:09:22

huge fan of Rachel Maddo and just

1:09:24

stopped all together. Every day, the big stuff

1:09:27

is coming. The big stuff is coming. When

1:09:29

you over promise and under deliver

1:09:31

and you know, you're going to break trust.

1:09:33

Exactly. That's what the community

1:09:35

is based on exactly. So, um. You

1:09:37

know, it's hard to say. Yeah,

1:09:40

like I said, our family is

1:09:42

from Levant, which was conquered by

1:09:44

many people, Austrians, Germans, Germans, German,

1:09:46

the Austria-Hungarian Empire. My grandmother speaks

1:09:48

Ukrainian, Russian, Polish. You have to

1:09:50

speak all the languages. In order

1:09:52

to survive, really, right? Yeah, the

1:09:54

borders have constantly changed and because

1:09:57

of the changes, like, yeah, you

1:09:59

have enemies. But for the most

1:10:01

part, like, I don't think my family

1:10:03

thinks that way because, again, like, my

1:10:05

grandmother left, like, before the war, I

1:10:08

mean, before the wall fell, and she's

1:10:10

just like, she obviously is constantly on

1:10:12

phone calls to Poland, she watches TV

1:10:15

Polonia all day long, but we, they're

1:10:17

definitely more of like allies of Ukraine,

1:10:19

and like, Ukraine was Russia for a

1:10:22

long time. Like, we're also be at

1:10:24

union. Yeah, there are a lot of

1:10:26

people who are like, the Ukrainian state

1:10:29

wasn't, it wasn't a state until 1991

1:10:31

and they'll say things like that. But

1:10:33

those are, I'm actually more concerned about

1:10:36

my brother's generation. My brother is 27,

1:10:38

28. He doesn't understand why people fear

1:10:40

Russia. And that's because he listens to

1:10:43

like Tucker Carlson every day. That's his

1:10:45

main news source and bench of fear

1:10:47

like, those are his top news sources.

1:10:50

And I was like, talk to Bobji,

1:10:52

like she'll explain to why people fear

1:10:54

Russia. And that's the problem. You know,

1:10:57

for me, I don't know why the,

1:10:59

the, the trail of dead opposition leaders

1:11:01

to Putin isn't enough to convince you

1:11:04

this isn't a good place, right? I

1:11:06

do believe this is a weak country,

1:11:08

but it's a weak country with nuclear

1:11:11

weapons, or as John McCain called it,

1:11:13

you know, it's a gas station with

1:11:15

nuclear weapons, right? And it's sort of,

1:11:18

right. But it is. It

1:11:20

is not a, it is not a, this

1:11:22

is not a democratic society, this is not

1:11:24

a free society. And you can, you can,

1:11:27

you can feel the fear, you hear the

1:11:29

fear, it is, it is real. Let me

1:11:31

ask you this, would you travel to Moscow

1:11:33

right now? No, I would be terrified, would

1:11:35

you? I think, no, because I think we

1:11:38

would, we would, we would be, we would

1:11:40

be targets. And I don't think the, you

1:11:42

know. The totally the most unmorring thing has

1:11:44

been this issue with Russia for me like

1:11:46

wait a minute. What? Which side are we

1:11:49

are we suddenly? on, number one, and then

1:11:51

number two, this feeling of, does the president

1:11:53

believe he's the president for all Americans or

1:11:55

just the people that support him? And I

1:11:58

think this is a, this is, you know,

1:12:00

is, will he fight hard to get any

1:12:02

U.S. citizen out of custody or only ones

1:12:04

that voted for him? Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

1:12:06

that's a really, really good question. I hope

1:12:09

it's not tested, obviously. None of us want

1:12:11

to see anybody kidnapped. If you wanted to

1:12:13

get out of prison, you'd have to start

1:12:15

putting out really pro- Trump, you know, voices

1:12:17

and material and stuff like that. You have

1:12:20

to just like appeal to his flattery. Like

1:12:22

it does actually easy to get him on

1:12:24

your side, but as a journalist, like you

1:12:26

don't do that. You just don't get rid

1:12:28

of your principles that way. Look, if I'm

1:12:31

Rob Legoyovich, fine. Where do everybody find you?

1:12:33

Let's do it again. Subscribe to all the

1:12:35

things. Get it all good. Let's see how

1:12:37

your plugs are. Okay. Okay. First, please subscribe

1:12:39

to my newsletter, the red letter on substock.

1:12:42

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber. And on

1:12:44

YouTube, you can find me at Tara Palmeri.

1:12:46

That's T-A-R-A-P-L-M-E-R-I. And that's an open YouTube, right?

1:12:48

That's not a pay for a pay-for-for-for-for-for-for-for-for-for-for- for.

1:12:51

Why should somebody pay? Why should somebody sign

1:12:53

up for premium? Oh, I mean, I have

1:12:55

lots of scoops and stuff on there and

1:12:57

information that you can't get elsewhere. So that's

1:12:59

why you should pay for the substock. And

1:13:02

the more resources you get, the more likely

1:13:04

you can travel more. The more likely you

1:13:06

can travel more. The more likely you can

1:13:08

be on the ground. Oh, for me personally,

1:13:10

yeah, my work will get better and better

1:13:13

with more and more resources. And yeah, and

1:13:15

I think you'll enjoy it. communicate with me

1:13:17

and tell me what you like and don't

1:13:19

like. It's an open line. So thank you,

1:13:21

Chuck, for having me and supporting me and

1:13:24

I'm supporting you from the sidelines. I don't,

1:13:26

I don't think you'll need my top. I

1:13:28

think you're in the right place. You know,

1:13:30

we'll keep doing this. Keep going. Well, congrats

1:13:32

to you. It's hard work. It's a lot

1:13:35

easier to go. to another network, that's for

1:13:37

sure, don't you think? Sure. I mean, it

1:13:39

is, and it's, look, it's always easy to

1:13:41

fit into a system. It's, you know, but

1:13:44

at the same time, it can be harder

1:13:46

to do the job you want to do

1:13:48

well. And yeah. I certainly did feel like

1:13:50

it was harder to do the job I

1:13:52

wanted to do. Yeah. Yeah, when I saw

1:13:55

you over the summer, I just kind of

1:13:57

got the sense that you were kind of

1:13:59

ready to like go out on your own

1:14:01

and you were sort of, you were feeling

1:14:03

like look, I really want to solve this

1:14:06

problem of the information ecosystem. I mean, I

1:14:08

truly believe that our trust issues are not

1:14:10

about you and I or how all this

1:14:12

stuff. I really believe it's the lack of

1:14:14

local brethren. I really do. And I that

1:14:17

is that is something that I want to

1:14:19

help rebuild what I We'll see if you

1:14:21

know I have a thesis I think youth

1:14:23

sports can bring America together and can create

1:14:26

and can sort of remind people that communities

1:14:28

are more than just red and blue. And

1:14:30

I do think that that's sort of we

1:14:32

got to sort of get back to that

1:14:34

place in some form or another. But in

1:14:37

the meantime, hey we're going to deal and

1:14:39

cover politics as it is and not as

1:14:41

it is not as folks wish it were.

1:14:43

We have to do that. Well, I hope

1:14:45

you enjoyed that conversation with Tara. I did

1:14:48

not know that much about her background there

1:14:50

in Eastern Europe, but it's always interesting to

1:14:52

learn a little bit more about the journalists

1:14:54

that I know many of you are going

1:14:56

to be subscribing to and want to know

1:14:59

more of. One thing about Tara, she doesn't

1:15:01

hide anything. And I think you can be

1:15:03

sure that what you're reading is what... she's

1:15:05

hearing and what she's reporting. With that, I'm

1:15:07

going to let this episode go. I'm not

1:15:10

going to I'm going to save a question

1:15:12

that I was the a question in the

1:15:14

Ask Chuck segment for my next episode. In

1:15:16

fact, my next episode is going to be

1:15:19

heavy on mailbag. So get those questions in.

1:15:21

Ask Chuck at the Chuck. podcast.com. I already

1:15:23

I already have a

1:15:25

slew already, but I'm

1:15:27

going to try to

1:15:30

answer hopefully a half a half

1:15:32

a dozen. I know,

1:15:34

I get a little

1:15:36

windy with my answers,

1:15:38

right? Because I want

1:15:41

to give you some

1:15:43

pretty thorough answers. you some

1:15:45

But thorough want to But

1:15:47

at least a half

1:15:49

a dozen, a if not

1:15:52

maybe even not maybe questions

1:15:54

answered in the next

1:15:56

episode. So with that,

1:15:58

I hope you enjoyed

1:16:00

this one on sort of

1:16:03

the state of media

1:16:05

and where journalism is

1:16:07

heading. is And then

1:16:09

the next time, time. It will

1:16:12

will be a slew

1:16:14

of your questions, the

1:16:16

stuff that's been on

1:16:18

your mind over the

1:16:20

last couple of weeks.

1:16:23

that, With that, thanks

1:16:25

for listening. Don't forget

1:16:27

to subscribe like and

1:16:29

all those things all those

1:16:31

that help keep this

1:16:34

podcast up and running. and

1:16:36

running. And I'll see you

1:16:38

next time time, we

1:16:40

upload we upload again.