Fixing the Broken Media

Andre

What are we talking about? Like we're you guys. I do not have the, I think that corporate media, and I don't, I think I stole that term from either David Pakman or somebody, or Luke, whatever. Beasley, Luke, I don't remember what his name is, but they are just out there for the clicks. Like I don't. I'm finding it very hard to even in PR I find it very hard to believe people are like journalists who believe in that whatever their mission statement is, are really doing their job in the States because they're so well paid, because it's all about getting engagement, because it's all about ad dollars more so than the News. I just find it hard to believe I don't deserve. You don't deserve, yeah, I mean, you don't deserve an answer for me, like, I'm sorry.

Chris

I mean, I think you're not wrong in that. I mean, all of those guys are driven by the same metrics, and that's ad revenue.

Andre

But I keep saying that if you're a journalist, you are either a snitch or you love to gossip. There's got to be something in your DNA that is aligned with that, because a normal person isn't on that train. But

Chris

don't you also think that the role of journalism is extremely important?

Andre

Honestly I don't know anymore. Like, I really don't know. Case in point, landslide is a podcast from NPR, yep. Do I have some bias? Because it supports my opinion and my beliefs? Sure. Yeah, sure, but I could also fact check the fact checker or the person reporting the story, but that's that's off the beaten path, right?

Chris

I don't, but how are you going to fact check that? Well, I mean, aren't you going to look for corroborating articles and stuff like that,

Andre

sure, fair, right? I mean, history is history, right? They're looking in the past and But the past is determinant, so it

Chris

isn't a lot of what we consider to be history. Now, doesn't it come from that journalistic viewpoint?

Andre

I don't know Chris, and if you're trying

Chris

to, no, I'm just, I mean, I'm playing devil's advocate to some degree, because I do think that there is a role for a a an unencumbered press in a democracy, that the ability to investigate and report what is going on is important, that the idea that things, I mean, I get top secret and all that, you know, you got to have some things that aren't going to be just completely publicly available. But, you know, I mean, I just feel like there's enough stuff out there. I'd be like, Watergate. I always, I guess, because I've seen that movie a bunch of times. But that's one where, like, those guys were like, hey, something's wrong.

Andre

That's, that's then we're talking about now. Well, no, and

Chris

I, but that's what I'm trying to get at as well, is that, yes, where we are now, where we've allowed the press to get to, or where the press has taken themselves, in a lot of ways, is not valuable, right, right? And and we should not continue to encourage that, right? But I think moving back towards a a less profit driven, I guess, model to some degree, but, but then

Andre

you kill the the industry, right? So

Chris

there's theoretically, yeah, I mean, there are very. You know, profitable nonprofits, right? There are nonprofits that pay their employees well, but, you know, I don't know. Man, I don't know what the answer is. Because, you know, you don't want it to be completely government funded, because then the belief is that there will be government bias, and that the government could control what's coming out of that, and that too, you know, make sense?

Andre

I'll push back the BBC, the CBC, Australia's public networks. I don't know if that's necessarily true,

Chris

but if it's if, if all of the news organizations say in the country were receiving some amount of funding from the government, don't you think that there would be some concern that the government would then leverage that to be like, we don't like what you're reporting, and we're not going to give you your funding if you don't the

Andre

the Fed is nonpartisan. We have a few non partisan like departments and commissions, and we do in our country. Yeah, so I don't have an answer and I understand what you're I don't either. Again, I'm just asking questions, yeah, and you're pissing me off. Well, that's part of my role here on the show. Andre, I

Chris

don't know if you know that this is, this is your show, though, so I'll just let you know I'm

Andre

seeing like I don't have it, like I feel cornered and I don't and I it's

Chris

no, I'm sorry. I don't know

Andre

it's something, it's something that should be solved because it's important, and I don't have an answer. That's, yeah, that's my I think,

Chris

I think I can wholeheartedly agree with that, because I don't have an answer either, but I do think that it is something that we need to figure out, because the way that things are going, it's, again, like it's not helping anyone.

Andre

I mean, I've been like, not teetering, but I've noticed that there are things on social media that are being reported in other places in the world that aren't being covered on corporate media. So Are there benefits to social media? Sure, do the bad things seem to kind of drown out the good things most Absolutely. So I'm there, it's kind of like, yeah, I have a strong position, but I can recognize and acknowledge there are some good things. Doesn't sway my opinion, right?

Chris

I have a funny little anecdote to add, I think, to this, that you will appreciate. So you know your best friend, your boy, Brian Tyler, Cohen, yeah, so he got me. He's the one who actually introduced me to Tim Miller at the bulwark, who I really enjoy. But I stopped listening to BTC, and you know why? Because he, you know, made fun of me for having a shared cell phone player. Anyways, it wasn't even him, I don't think, but so he was on Tim Miller's podcast the other day, and he was explaining that when the whole like way that he got into journalism was that he moved to LA to become an actor.

Andre

Yeah, he looks like he looks a type, and

Chris

that instead of going out and getting a job as, like a waiter or a bartender, he was writing freelance for like the Huffington Post or something like that. Why not? And that's, that's how he got started, and all of that makes perfect sense.

Andre

Yeah, he looks like an actor, he's a good look.

Chris

He does, yeah, yeah,

Andre

but I guess you're just my points, like, I

Chris

don't okay. But So here's another question that I have for you, and this will probably piss you off even more, how much of this do you think is somewhat to blame on like television, and the role of, kind of like having these anchors in these TV personalities, as opposed to where you previously had investigative reporters and stuff like that who basically hid behind a typewriter. You didn't have to see them, but however they were able to then present the information. I don't think, do you think that? Like, I don't think, no, I

Andre

don't think the two are connected. I think that,

Chris

you don't think that it draws a different type of person to do media, the corporate media, the way that it's done today, versus the type of journalism that was done, say, in the 70s. No, at newspapers, no.

Andre

Well, there's reasons, I would say no, because a lot of the people that are in journalism today are legacy journalists, or they went to the right school to the right people. So yeah, I think that's part of the threat that could be pulled. The second part is,

Chris

go heels.

Andre

The second part is,

Chris

they have a school of journalism, don't they? Yeah, they do. It sounds very popular one, if I recall correctly. I

Andre

think Brown has turned out the most journalists, or famous journalists. But I also like,

Chris

I also think, okay, Yale has turned out the most creepy senators. Tell me about it. I. I stop with my non set looking

Andre

at you. Ted Cruz, I think that the consolidation of media is the problem more so than the personalities, right? Because there, but I'm not trying to knock like, the there's a few people from the, like, a YouTube channel. I've seen the perfect game. I'm sure they do other stuff. They do great reporting on things, like in Puerto Rico, or, like, you know, why is fast fashion killing things? So that's informative, right? I don't know how they say funded. I don't want to look because if I move the furniture and I find the hole in the carpet, I'm going to be pissed. You're

Chris

going to find out that that's where JD Vance has been hanging out.

Andre

There's JD Vance. So I, I don't. I think there's some value. There's value in things I don't I'm not saying we should eradicate everything that Andre: doesn't like. I'm saying we need to ask better questions and expect different results. Yeah, if you get too far off your mission, you should probably reevaluate.

Chris

And I think, I mean, I agree with you that things are off kilter enough that we absolutely need to figure out how to how to fix it. I guess I was asking questions to help understand how we maybe got here and Casey, and in the hopes that that would help you and I maybe come to some sort of solution.

Andre

Case in point, the Donald Trump at the NABJ.

Chris

Oh, yeah, the nabaja, yeah, the NA, the NABJ. He

Andre

got murdered by questions. And I was like, Yo,

Chris

which assassination attempt Do you think he preferred more?

Andre

I mean,

Chris

yeah, I'm thinking the one that that actually threatened his life. He probably, if he had to pick between doing one of those over again? He'd take that one. I

Andre

don't think so. But he I mean, if that's what journalism is, and you take a position of influence in our society all day, all day,

Chris

two of the three ladies on that panel f*cking crushed it. Yo.

Andre

He had nothing. It's like he he

Chris

had the one chick from Fox News. That was all he had, and she and the best part was he couldn't f*cking hear a word she said because of whatever problems they were having with the mic. And I swear, if somebody did that on purpose again, just chef's kiss to be like, I can't hear her. I can't hear her. What's going on? Like making him look like such a crotchety old man in front my favorite part, though, is the line where he's talking about, I don't even remember, but he says, and this is a room of mostly black journalists, one

Donald Trump

of the big problems. And a lot of the journalists in this room, I know, and I have great respect for a lot of the journalists in this room are black. I will tell you that coming coming, and I'm like, do you? And

Chris

they literally laughed at him because they're like, motherf*cker, we're all black. That's the whole point of this. I God, mostly black journalists. Also after he decided that, you know, he was going to play the what race is Kamala card, the way that he pronounced the word black,

Donald Trump

she was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know, is she Indian, or is she black? Because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she went. She became a black just to be

Chris

clear and over again, was that not the most racist?

Andre

I don't I don't care what people tell me. He's a racist piece of sh*t. He's

Chris

so racist. And then the f*cking Twitter interview with Elon Musk, where he's going on and on about the picture of Kamala on the cover of this, and

Andre

he says, Magnus, she looks like my wife. I'm like, so remember we talked about the Teen Titans show and how people are mad because Starfire is black, yeah. And I. One of the reasons, the main reasons, because it can't sexualize her, yeah, I'm telling you what man like, hands down, there is a weird fixation with sexualization in our society. And it's like, Yo, this guy wants to be the president, and he's like, trying to get his spank bank filled up. And he's like, Oh, she looks like, my wife. Like, what are we doing here? Like, I can't take you seriously.

Chris

But I mean, when it comes to the things sexually that Donald Trump has said he's a f*ck. This is he's a rapist this, but this is at the very bottom of that list, basically, right? Like, the dude said he'd f*ck his own daughter.

Andre

I just, I don't.

Chris

I don't. The guy said, grab him by the pussy. I don't like all this sh*t. I'm just saying, like saying Kamala is hot on the cover of Time magazine is not even scratching the list of top 50 worst things that Donald Trump has said since he started running for president.

Andre

Fair. I just it's

Chris

still f*cked up, because ultimately what it is is him trying to basically, like, strip her of everything except for sexuality.

Andre

And I just think that's weird, yo. It's super

Chris

weird, but he thinks that's a power dynamic.

Andre

I'm gonna say this. I know that Tim walls is like, he threw out weird. Maybe he's like a normal person. I've been saying weirdo, weird sh*t for a long time, so I'm glad the DNC and the Democrats are finally like speaking plainly to people. It's great. It's amazing.

Chris

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