July 12, 2022 • 29 mins
Join your host James Brown for part 2 of a 2 part episode with the best selling author, television host, public speaker, and former CIA undercover operative, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy. Dive in with them as they explore how technology influences truth, what Amaryllis' go to news sources are, sacrifice, teaching our children about being citizens of the world and so much more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The law. When I hear someone say the words here's
what really happened, my ears automatically park up. I think
it's because I'm hungry for truth. I want to know
what really happened. I don't want to be ignorant or
kept in the dark or protected from the reality of
(00:22):
any situation. Sometimes the truth is in the some text,
and sometimes it's not there at all. This is part
two of a very special two part episode featuring the
best selling author, television host, public speaker, and former CIA
undercover operative Amorilis Fox Kennedy. Because when you actually understand
(00:53):
the human emotions and motivations behind the future plans, behind
why in a hack is going to take place, or
what what the beliefs are that your adversary is carrying
that if you were to address, might actually allow you
to bring an end to to an ongoing conflict. Those
(01:16):
are the things that give us an edge in being
able to bring an end to violence um and bring
an end to to sending our own young women and
men overseas to fight wars that they don't need to
be fighting. And that kind of insight is just impossible
(01:39):
to get from from wire taps and from satellite images.
So in my opinion, human relationships are more important than
ever I think of intelligence work when it's done at
its very best, and there's certainly been many, many, many
instances of abuse in the history of the United States
and just about every other country intelligence services. So there's
(02:03):
a very very real and present need for oversight and
for in my opinion, far more transparency and accountability to
the public. But when it is done at its very best,
intelligence work, really, human intelligence work operates as a kind
of secret diplomatic force. You know. Sometimes I think of
it as as the covert side of the State Department,
(02:26):
because what human intelligence officers are doing is actually building
back channel diplomatic relationships with our adversaries, with you know,
members of foreign terrorist organizations, with members of of adversarial governments.
And those are the relationships that many times over prevented
(02:49):
the Cold War from going hot, prevented nuclear missiles from
being exchanged, saved the future of the world, I mean really,
with no no hyperbole, and continue to do so every day. So, UM,
I think it's really important for us too to remember
that when the president looks at options, um, the alternative
(03:15):
to military force in many cases is the building of
those kinds of relationships, and the calling on those relationships
too to find another option, to find another path to
peace that does not involve the exchange of military force. UM.
And in a nuclear armed world, UM, that could be
the difference between life and death for us. All. So,
(03:37):
the stakes are really high, and I really believe that
the human intelligence mission is critical to maintaining peace. I
do think it should be done with more with more
focus on on human relationships and less focus on um
(04:01):
military adventurism that came came up after nine eleven. But
I think that that shift is underway. UM. I think
the intelligence community is reading that back and returning to
their core competency, which is to build these covert back
channels to be able to communicate with and eventually bring
(04:24):
an end to conflict with some of our most lethal
adversaries around the world. I've heard about Bob spreading ideologies
over the likes of Twitter, and I know this is
somewhat of a little question, but what's your take on
technology influencing the truth? A loaded question for sure, UM,
(04:45):
at least a very very relevant one. You know. I
will say that I have lived as a child and
then as an officer and then as a journalist in
many countries that UH censor openly censored their press UM
(05:06):
and now their social media because of what they feel
is the danger of misinformation UM, but also because of
the desire of those in power to um suppress and
challenge any dissent UM. When I lived in in UH China,
(05:29):
you know, many of my colleagues there and and UH
many of the regular people that I met on a
daily basis, from taxi drivers to artists, used VPNs in
order to get around what they call the Great Chinese
Firewall and and access things as fundamental and simple as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Wikipedia.
(05:53):
UM that we're all shut down on a regular basis
because of the government's fear UM that articles about Taneman
Square or even things as as seemingly frivolous as comparing
She the Premier to Winnie the Pooh um were considered
(06:16):
a threat to the stability of the nation um, the
power of the government, and you could be, you know,
receive a knock on the door and be dragged to
a covert prison um just for engaging in that kind
of communication online. And it is a very slippery slope
UM to get to that point for nations. You know,
(06:39):
it's easy to see the really extreme examples like that
or like Myan mar Um. You know, the first time
that I was there, there was a newspaper called The
New Light of Myanmar that had the most preposterous propaganda
that I've ever seen in my entire life, and it
seemed completely laughable to me as a teenager. I read
it and just thought, how could anybody read this and
(06:59):
not just think it was complete rubbish? I mean, it's
just you know, the fanged serpent of the United States,
you know, those those kinds of epithets all the way
through the articles, and you presented a serious journalism um.
And yet what you don't realize until you spend time
(07:23):
in countries that are slowly sliding in that direction is
that you slide slowly enough that you you don't realize
that you're there or getting there until you're there. And
I fear that once we introduce any means of censorship,
we're kind of like the frog in the slowly heating water,
(07:47):
where we don't realize we're boiling to death, um, because
it just feels like a warm and comforting bath. Um.
And it seems to me that the you know, the
decision to to comfort ourselves by ah by shutting down
(08:09):
bots that are speaking some inaccurate pieces of data or
or seating information for nefarious purposes. You know there there
are plenty of of trolls who are doing the same thing.
And the problem with shutting down that kind of speech
(08:30):
is that it is very difficult once a power like
that is instituted, to prevent it from growing and growing
until it's operated in an unchecked way. And what I've
learned living in these countries is that you have to
make sure that whenever you create any kind of power, UM,
(08:52):
you imagine it in the hands of of the kind
of leader you would be most terrified to see in
power in your country, because you never know when that
leader will be elected. UM. And we've seen many people's
experience that in both directions, on both sides of the aisle.
They're they're kind of worst idea of a leader recently
(09:16):
in in this country, certainly for many people, President Trump
was that wake up call for many of his supporters.
They have found, um, you know, our current leadership to
to not be to their liking. And so when you
allow for censorship tools UM to be built and deployed,
(09:40):
you have to envision them in the hands of the
kind of leader that would be censoring information that you
find valuable. And we've seen in Putin's Russia, for example,
that now you know, even even calling the war and
you crane a war is considered terrorist speech, and terrorist speech,
(10:05):
you know, carries a prison term. It is very easy
to take the the idea of national security and weaponize
it in order to shut down speech that is critical
of particular policies. And while it's easy to support that
as a kind of comforting idea, when when the person
(10:29):
in power is somebody that you support, I think it's
very very dangerous because those same precedents continue to apply,
and those same tools continue to exist and be available
when the next person is in power and the person
after that. And it's very difficult to ensure that every
(10:49):
leader from now on democratically elected and in not democratically elected,
because remember, there are leaders, you know, throughout other agencies
of government that are appointed but still have access to
many of these tools. It's very difficult to ensure that
never in the future will any of those leaders elected
(11:10):
or not um use those tools to shore up their
own policies. And suppress criticism of of their own um,
of their own agenda. And so for that reason, I
prefer to see a completely free marketplace of ideas. And
(11:30):
I know that that can be scary for some. Um
they say, you know, well, what about these bots that
are being put into our you know, inserted into our
democratic discourse by our adversaries foreign and domestic. And to that,
I say, you know, let them insert those bots, and
(11:51):
let us show those enemies, foreign and domestic that we
are strong enough as a democracy and as a country
to metabolize them and to to allow the open discourse
around those ideas, um, to show how, you know, incorrect
(12:14):
they are, to highlight where they are not credible in
in free discussion and free debate. Because when you discredit
an idea in free discussion, free discussion, and free debate,
you truly kill it. Whereas when you suppress it, in
many people's minds, you not only don't discredit it, but
(12:34):
you actually fan its flames. People begin to wonder, well,
why is it being suppressed? What are they hiding? And actually,
I think we're really doing our adversaries work for them
in many senses every time that we try to censor
their words and and actually create more of that suspicion
(12:55):
and encourage more of our citizens to turn to other
sources for free information. You know, as soon as you
allow United States citizens to feel that they have to
turn to foreign sources for free information, then you've lost
the moral high ground that America was built on. You know,
(13:17):
we are the city on the hill in terms of
freedom of speech, free discussion, free debate. You look at
Skookie versus Illinois. You know, the right for hateful Nazis
to march in a in a Jewish area of town
in the United States of America protected under law. And
(13:38):
this notion of you know, I might hate what you
were saying, but I would die for your right to
say it. I think that is an ideal that allows
for the free discourse that prevents civil war. Um And
I fear that when we begin to suppress it, we
(13:59):
are doing our adversarious work for them. A house divided
cannot stand and we're seeing the outcome of that right now.
Um So, in my view, the best defense against the
kind of um misinformation that's being sewn by bots is
(14:20):
to allow it to be met with robust and open
discourse and debate and be properly discredited in an open forum.
I think history proofs that suppression is never the answer.
What would be your go to sources? That's a great question,
and UM the answer, unfortunately is almost no domestic news
(14:48):
source right now. UM really works for me. I find
them all to be very partisan, some more than other,
but it's extremely difficult at this point to find UM,
to find credible news coverage without any kind of partisan
(15:12):
filter UM. In my opinion, in the mainstream domestic United
States media landscape, I try to go to primary sources
as much as possible, and that means actually looking at
the domestic press in countries that are involved in whatever
(15:36):
situation I'm looking at, and of course accounting for the
censorship and propaganda that is often seated in those domestic media.
It's very valuable, for instance, to look at domestic news
sources in both Ukraine and Russia, recognizing that both of
(15:58):
those countries have very strong UM incentives to tell you know,
the most inspiring and propaganda filtered version of events to
their own populations in the middle of this conflict. UM,
but reading both of them allows you to see what
(16:18):
their propaganda lines are UM. To fact check each of
them yourself UM, and then to look for third party
UH sources that don't have UM national agendas as much
as possible. These exist around the world. You know, they're
journalists without borders. Are wonderful. Belling Cat b E L
(16:41):
l I, N G C A T I find to
be an extraordinary organization for this kind of news coverage UM.
Belling Cat is A is an informal alliance of UM
journalists and and you know regular joes UM who are
(17:02):
covering news stories on the ground UM or at home
from their desk, by pulling together UM as many corroborating
cell phone videos from social media and so forth, UM,
comparing them with satellite imagery, comparing them with with UH
(17:22):
press reports from UM media outlets, and government announcements, and
comparing all of them in order to UM try to
highlight what is actually verifiable from open source intelligence sources.
So I encourage everybody to check out Bellancat. Increasingly, I'm
(17:44):
looking to these kinds of loosely affiliated UH networks of
journalists and and citizen activists to UM pull together and
verify the vast amount of of data that is now available.
Rather than reading the kind of pre digested pre chewed,
(18:13):
you know, analysis that is being offered in much of
the domestic press. You know, I like to see primary sources.
I like to see the initial facts and compare them
to my own experience on the ground and many of
these countries, UM, compare them to my own background in
(18:34):
many similar conflicts in other parts of the world, and
do the kind of the analysis and the data crunching
for myself. And then after that, I like to see
what different journalists, you know, what conclusions they have come to.
Sometimes they're the same, sometimes they're different. But for me,
it's important to to do that analytical work and that
(18:54):
analytical thinking for myself first. So Bell and Cat is
a wonderful one of one of those networks to check out.
UM Journalists Without Borders NPRS Ground Truth Project is another
really really strong example of that UM and and they
have been supporting young emerging journalists on the ground in
(19:19):
conflict zones, in little covered areas of the world UM
and more recently even in in uh lesser covered areas
of the United States, so that we are able to
actually hear um the impressions and the truth from those
who are living it in the communities on the ground.
(19:40):
Rather than those who you know, fly in for two
days to cover something with very little understanding of the
local context, UM, who are so much more likely to
just take whatever the same um, you know, the same
impression as all of their colleagues, which is why we
get such kind of monotone analysis often in in the
(20:04):
mainstream media. You know, my advice to anyone who asked
me this is usually just to to trust your own
ability to synthesize information. UM, you know, don't don't be
lazy about it, don't look for the kind of pre
masticated product, but but go out and um and source
(20:26):
as much of the information as you can think through
your own impressions about the story, and then by all
means um you know, read as widely as you can
the opinions of others and what their own analysis with
how they digested it, and you know, many of them
(20:46):
will make points that you haven't thought of. But oftentimes
when you do that, you'll see that in the mainstream
analysis there are really critical details, sometimes not even details.
Sometimes the entire gist of the story, um will be missed,
not acknowledged, because in many cases journalists are just writing
(21:08):
a kind of cliff note version of another journalist story,
and they're writing a cliff notes version of another journalist story,
and you're in the end, you know, playing your your
the recipient at the end of a game of telephone UM.
And there's no need for that. Today. We live in
a time where, uh, almost all of the events that
(21:32):
professional journalists are covering, UM are unfolding in a way
that can be observed by those uh, those with an
Internet connection. You know, people on the ground are are
filming conflicts as they happen in a way that has
never happened before in human history. You know, if you
look at the cell phone coverage of civilian casualties in
(21:54):
Ukraine versus in the early days of Iraq, it is
just night and day because of the widespread availability of
cell phones with high quality cameras UM. And so we're
seeing this kind of citizen journalism emerge from all over
every corner of the world, and it's it's incumbent on us.
(22:17):
I think to seek out as much as we can
the kinds of journalism conglomerates that are drawing on that
citizen journalism UM, rather than just taking talking points from
you know, establishment sources. Those are important too. You've got
to compare and contrast them both. But you know, remember
that when governments are at war, UM, they have an
(22:40):
interest in in what people around the world think of
that war. UM, whether there are allies or our adversaries.
The defense departments in all of those countries, and the
and the press establishment that works with them, UM has
an interest in whether you, as a citizen of the
United States or whatever country you of in whether you
(23:01):
support them, and whether you urge your politicians to continue
to provide weapons and and other forms of support for
their conflict. So UM, you know, by all, by all means,
read those mainstream accounts from from every country, but read
them as an intelligent consumer of information, and remember that
(23:23):
in the end, the ground truth that you're getting from
from people who live in those communities, who are documenting
for their own friends and family, or just as because
they feel the obligation to the global community to share
what is happening on their street corner, UM are often
(23:45):
going to be the most truthful source that you can find,
especially when you're able to corroborate it with commercially available
satellite imagery. Five or six other video accounts from other
social media cell phone deos that were taken from different
angles of the same event. Those kinds of things provide
(24:05):
really strong corroboration and then allow you to draw your
own version of events rather than reading analysis that UH
somebody else has has injected their their own point of view. UM.
So that's what I try to do as much as possible,
but it's it's a it's an ongoing work in progress.
I'm One thing I would like to do is pull
(24:27):
together some of the best resources within that kind of
approach UM and make them available UM online for for
people who are interested in doing their own kind of
UM news research and digestion. So if I do that,
I'll let you know and what the u r L is.
So what's next for you? I just finished a book
(24:50):
that I can't wait to tell you more about. For
young adults, all I can say for now is that
it's about challenging them to uh to fix the world
that they're about to inherit UH and profiling the amazing,
amazing courage and accomplishments of teenagers all over the world
who are doing just that. UM. I'm really excited about it,
(25:12):
so inspired by the young people who are out there
fixing the mess that our generation and many before have
left them uh and so proud of what they're accomplishing.
So I shall tell you more about that. Uh watch
this space more news as I have it, um. But
the project that I'm most excited to share is an
(25:36):
I Heart podcast. I think I'm gonna be uh an
I heart sister to you uh, and that will be
a weekly look at what is happening in the world
and why it matters at your kitchen table. I think
this is so important. You know. One of the things
(25:56):
that drives me crazy about our media landscape to day is,
you know, the coverage of what's happening outside of our
country is limited to either uh its role in whatever
partisan food fight is happening between our politicians on on
a weekly basis, or you know, relegated to the the
(26:22):
realm of old, bald white men sitting in front of
their fake you know, bookcases as talking heads on news channels,
you know, using acronyms and foreign policy terms that they
probably came up with themselves and only they use and
nobody understands or cares about. And as a result, you know,
(26:46):
most people in this country don't really think about world
events as as a top priority item when it comes
to what they care about and what they think that
their representatives should care about. UM. And that is a
real mistake for many of us, because in the end,
(27:06):
you know, what we don't know can hurt us. And
we've seen that time and time again, UM, from nine
eleven right on up through to the gas prices that
we're dealing with today, right, UM. Things that happened thousands
of miles away from home have very very real impacts
in our lives, UM, financially, uh, politically, in terms of
(27:33):
our security, and and even in terms of our morality
and our our spiritual direction as a country. For me,
the chance to talk in a very kitchen table, let's
just tell the truth about what's happening and have a
discussion about it with common sense and nuance and no
(27:58):
kind of partisan filter. Based on the experience that I've
had on the ground and so many parts of the
world that are currently affecting our own domestic landscape, we
really jumped at it. What an exciting opportunity, UM, to
be able to share those stories on a weekly basis, UM,
and to be able to you know, continue my service
(28:22):
in some sense to this country, UM, instead of breaking
down what's happening in far flung parts of the world
for the president, which is what I did when I
worked at CIA. UM, I'm going to get to do
it for everyone else, and for me that that's the
only thing that could be more exciting than doing it
(28:42):
for the president him or herself. UM is to do it,
is to do it for y'all. So I'm really excited
to kick that off, and I hopefully will come back
and let you know as soon as it's up and
running and and people can check it out. You've just
(29:06):
listened to the unimaginable. I'm your host, James Brown. Until
next time.
The law. When I hear someone say the words here's
what really happened, my ears automatically park up. I think
it's because I'm hungry for truth. I want to know
what really happened. I don't want to be ignorant or
kept in the dark or protected from the reality of
(00:22):
any situation. Sometimes the truth is in the some text,
and sometimes it's not there at all. This is part
two of a very special two part episode featuring the
best selling author, television host, public speaker, and former CIA
undercover operative Amorilis Fox Kennedy. Because when you actually understand
(00:53):
the human emotions and motivations behind the future plans, behind
why in a hack is going to take place, or
what what the beliefs are that your adversary is carrying
that if you were to address, might actually allow you
to bring an end to to an ongoing conflict. Those
(01:16):
are the things that give us an edge in being
able to bring an end to violence um and bring
an end to to sending our own young women and
men overseas to fight wars that they don't need to
be fighting. And that kind of insight is just impossible
(01:39):
to get from from wire taps and from satellite images.
So in my opinion, human relationships are more important than
ever I think of intelligence work when it's done at
its very best, and there's certainly been many, many, many
instances of abuse in the history of the United States
and just about every other country intelligence services. So there's
(02:03):
a very very real and present need for oversight and
for in my opinion, far more transparency and accountability to
the public. But when it is done at its very best,
intelligence work, really, human intelligence work operates as a kind
of secret diplomatic force. You know. Sometimes I think of
it as as the covert side of the State Department,
(02:26):
because what human intelligence officers are doing is actually building
back channel diplomatic relationships with our adversaries, with you know,
members of foreign terrorist organizations, with members of of adversarial governments.
And those are the relationships that many times over prevented
(02:49):
the Cold War from going hot, prevented nuclear missiles from
being exchanged, saved the future of the world, I mean really,
with no no hyperbole, and continue to do so every day. So, UM,
I think it's really important for us too to remember
that when the president looks at options, um, the alternative
(03:15):
to military force in many cases is the building of
those kinds of relationships, and the calling on those relationships
too to find another option, to find another path to
peace that does not involve the exchange of military force. UM.
And in a nuclear armed world, UM, that could be
the difference between life and death for us. All. So,
(03:37):
the stakes are really high, and I really believe that
the human intelligence mission is critical to maintaining peace. I
do think it should be done with more with more
focus on on human relationships and less focus on um
(04:01):
military adventurism that came came up after nine eleven. But
I think that that shift is underway. UM. I think
the intelligence community is reading that back and returning to
their core competency, which is to build these covert back
channels to be able to communicate with and eventually bring
(04:24):
an end to conflict with some of our most lethal
adversaries around the world. I've heard about Bob spreading ideologies
over the likes of Twitter, and I know this is
somewhat of a little question, but what's your take on
technology influencing the truth? A loaded question for sure, UM,
(04:45):
at least a very very relevant one. You know. I
will say that I have lived as a child and
then as an officer and then as a journalist in
many countries that UH censor openly censored their press UM
(05:06):
and now their social media because of what they feel
is the danger of misinformation UM, but also because of
the desire of those in power to um suppress and
challenge any dissent UM. When I lived in in UH China,
(05:29):
you know, many of my colleagues there and and UH
many of the regular people that I met on a
daily basis, from taxi drivers to artists, used VPNs in
order to get around what they call the Great Chinese
Firewall and and access things as fundamental and simple as Facebook, Google, Twitter, Wikipedia.
(05:53):
UM that we're all shut down on a regular basis
because of the government's fear UM that articles about Taneman
Square or even things as as seemingly frivolous as comparing
She the Premier to Winnie the Pooh um were considered
(06:16):
a threat to the stability of the nation um, the
power of the government, and you could be, you know,
receive a knock on the door and be dragged to
a covert prison um just for engaging in that kind
of communication online. And it is a very slippery slope
UM to get to that point for nations. You know,
(06:39):
it's easy to see the really extreme examples like that
or like Myan mar Um. You know, the first time
that I was there, there was a newspaper called The
New Light of Myanmar that had the most preposterous propaganda
that I've ever seen in my entire life, and it
seemed completely laughable to me as a teenager. I read
it and just thought, how could anybody read this and
(06:59):
not just think it was complete rubbish? I mean, it's
just you know, the fanged serpent of the United States,
you know, those those kinds of epithets all the way
through the articles, and you presented a serious journalism um.
And yet what you don't realize until you spend time
(07:23):
in countries that are slowly sliding in that direction is
that you slide slowly enough that you you don't realize
that you're there or getting there until you're there. And
I fear that once we introduce any means of censorship,
we're kind of like the frog in the slowly heating water,
(07:47):
where we don't realize we're boiling to death, um, because
it just feels like a warm and comforting bath. Um.
And it seems to me that the you know, the
decision to to comfort ourselves by ah by shutting down
(08:09):
bots that are speaking some inaccurate pieces of data or
or seating information for nefarious purposes. You know there there
are plenty of of trolls who are doing the same thing.
And the problem with shutting down that kind of speech
(08:30):
is that it is very difficult once a power like
that is instituted, to prevent it from growing and growing
until it's operated in an unchecked way. And what I've
learned living in these countries is that you have to
make sure that whenever you create any kind of power, UM,
(08:52):
you imagine it in the hands of of the kind
of leader you would be most terrified to see in
power in your country, because you never know when that
leader will be elected. UM. And we've seen many people's
experience that in both directions, on both sides of the aisle.
They're they're kind of worst idea of a leader recently
(09:16):
in in this country, certainly for many people, President Trump
was that wake up call for many of his supporters.
They have found, um, you know, our current leadership to
to not be to their liking. And so when you
allow for censorship tools UM to be built and deployed,
(09:40):
you have to envision them in the hands of the
kind of leader that would be censoring information that you
find valuable. And we've seen in Putin's Russia, for example,
that now you know, even even calling the war and
you crane a war is considered terrorist speech, and terrorist speech,
(10:05):
you know, carries a prison term. It is very easy
to take the the idea of national security and weaponize
it in order to shut down speech that is critical
of particular policies. And while it's easy to support that
as a kind of comforting idea, when when the person
(10:29):
in power is somebody that you support, I think it's
very very dangerous because those same precedents continue to apply,
and those same tools continue to exist and be available
when the next person is in power and the person
after that. And it's very difficult to ensure that every
(10:49):
leader from now on democratically elected and in not democratically elected,
because remember, there are leaders, you know, throughout other agencies
of government that are appointed but still have access to
many of these tools. It's very difficult to ensure that
never in the future will any of those leaders elected
(11:10):
or not um use those tools to shore up their
own policies. And suppress criticism of of their own um,
of their own agenda. And so for that reason, I
prefer to see a completely free marketplace of ideas. And
(11:30):
I know that that can be scary for some. Um
they say, you know, well, what about these bots that
are being put into our you know, inserted into our
democratic discourse by our adversaries foreign and domestic. And to that,
I say, you know, let them insert those bots, and
(11:51):
let us show those enemies, foreign and domestic that we
are strong enough as a democracy and as a country
to metabolize them and to to allow the open discourse
around those ideas, um, to show how, you know, incorrect
(12:14):
they are, to highlight where they are not credible in
in free discussion and free debate. Because when you discredit
an idea in free discussion, free discussion, and free debate,
you truly kill it. Whereas when you suppress it, in
many people's minds, you not only don't discredit it, but
(12:34):
you actually fan its flames. People begin to wonder, well,
why is it being suppressed? What are they hiding? And actually,
I think we're really doing our adversaries work for them
in many senses every time that we try to censor
their words and and actually create more of that suspicion
(12:55):
and encourage more of our citizens to turn to other
sources for free information. You know, as soon as you
allow United States citizens to feel that they have to
turn to foreign sources for free information, then you've lost
the moral high ground that America was built on. You know,
(13:17):
we are the city on the hill in terms of
freedom of speech, free discussion, free debate. You look at
Skookie versus Illinois. You know, the right for hateful Nazis
to march in a in a Jewish area of town
in the United States of America protected under law. And
(13:38):
this notion of you know, I might hate what you
were saying, but I would die for your right to
say it. I think that is an ideal that allows
for the free discourse that prevents civil war. Um And
I fear that when we begin to suppress it, we
(13:59):
are doing our adversarious work for them. A house divided
cannot stand and we're seeing the outcome of that right now.
Um So, in my view, the best defense against the
kind of um misinformation that's being sewn by bots is
(14:20):
to allow it to be met with robust and open
discourse and debate and be properly discredited in an open forum.
I think history proofs that suppression is never the answer.
What would be your go to sources? That's a great question,
and UM the answer, unfortunately is almost no domestic news
(14:48):
source right now. UM really works for me. I find
them all to be very partisan, some more than other,
but it's extremely difficult at this point to find UM,
to find credible news coverage without any kind of partisan
(15:12):
filter UM. In my opinion, in the mainstream domestic United
States media landscape, I try to go to primary sources
as much as possible, and that means actually looking at
the domestic press in countries that are involved in whatever
(15:36):
situation I'm looking at, and of course accounting for the
censorship and propaganda that is often seated in those domestic media.
It's very valuable, for instance, to look at domestic news
sources in both Ukraine and Russia, recognizing that both of
(15:58):
those countries have very strong UM incentives to tell you know,
the most inspiring and propaganda filtered version of events to
their own populations in the middle of this conflict. UM,
but reading both of them allows you to see what
(16:18):
their propaganda lines are UM. To fact check each of
them yourself UM, and then to look for third party
UH sources that don't have UM national agendas as much
as possible. These exist around the world. You know, they're
journalists without borders. Are wonderful. Belling Cat b E L
(16:41):
l I, N G C A T I find to
be an extraordinary organization for this kind of news coverage UM.
Belling Cat is A is an informal alliance of UM
journalists and and you know regular joes UM who are
(17:02):
covering news stories on the ground UM or at home
from their desk, by pulling together UM as many corroborating
cell phone videos from social media and so forth, UM,
comparing them with satellite imagery, comparing them with with UH
(17:22):
press reports from UM media outlets, and government announcements, and
comparing all of them in order to UM try to
highlight what is actually verifiable from open source intelligence sources.
So I encourage everybody to check out Bellancat. Increasingly, I'm
(17:44):
looking to these kinds of loosely affiliated UH networks of
journalists and and citizen activists to UM pull together and
verify the vast amount of of data that is now available.
Rather than reading the kind of pre digested pre chewed,
(18:13):
you know, analysis that is being offered in much of
the domestic press. You know, I like to see primary sources.
I like to see the initial facts and compare them
to my own experience on the ground and many of
these countries, UM, compare them to my own background in
(18:34):
many similar conflicts in other parts of the world, and
do the kind of the analysis and the data crunching
for myself. And then after that, I like to see
what different journalists, you know, what conclusions they have come to.
Sometimes they're the same, sometimes they're different. But for me,
it's important to to do that analytical work and that
(18:54):
analytical thinking for myself first. So Bell and Cat is
a wonderful one of one of those networks to check out.
UM Journalists Without Borders NPRS Ground Truth Project is another
really really strong example of that UM and and they
have been supporting young emerging journalists on the ground in
(19:19):
conflict zones, in little covered areas of the world UM
and more recently even in in uh lesser covered areas
of the United States, so that we are able to
actually hear um the impressions and the truth from those
who are living it in the communities on the ground.
(19:40):
Rather than those who you know, fly in for two
days to cover something with very little understanding of the
local context, UM, who are so much more likely to
just take whatever the same um, you know, the same
impression as all of their colleagues, which is why we
get such kind of monotone analysis often in in the
(20:04):
mainstream media. You know, my advice to anyone who asked
me this is usually just to to trust your own
ability to synthesize information. UM, you know, don't don't be
lazy about it, don't look for the kind of pre
masticated product, but but go out and um and source
(20:26):
as much of the information as you can think through
your own impressions about the story, and then by all
means um you know, read as widely as you can
the opinions of others and what their own analysis with
how they digested it, and you know, many of them
(20:46):
will make points that you haven't thought of. But oftentimes
when you do that, you'll see that in the mainstream
analysis there are really critical details, sometimes not even details.
Sometimes the entire gist of the story, um will be missed,
not acknowledged, because in many cases journalists are just writing
(21:08):
a kind of cliff note version of another journalist story,
and they're writing a cliff notes version of another journalist story,
and you're in the end, you know, playing your your
the recipient at the end of a game of telephone UM.
And there's no need for that. Today. We live in
a time where, uh, almost all of the events that
(21:32):
professional journalists are covering, UM are unfolding in a way
that can be observed by those uh, those with an
Internet connection. You know, people on the ground are are
filming conflicts as they happen in a way that has
never happened before in human history. You know, if you
look at the cell phone coverage of civilian casualties in
(21:54):
Ukraine versus in the early days of Iraq, it is
just night and day because of the widespread availability of
cell phones with high quality cameras UM. And so we're
seeing this kind of citizen journalism emerge from all over
every corner of the world, and it's it's incumbent on us.
(22:17):
I think to seek out as much as we can
the kinds of journalism conglomerates that are drawing on that
citizen journalism UM, rather than just taking talking points from
you know, establishment sources. Those are important too. You've got
to compare and contrast them both. But you know, remember
that when governments are at war, UM, they have an
(22:40):
interest in in what people around the world think of
that war. UM, whether there are allies or our adversaries.
The defense departments in all of those countries, and the
and the press establishment that works with them, UM has
an interest in whether you, as a citizen of the
United States or whatever country you of in whether you
(23:01):
support them, and whether you urge your politicians to continue
to provide weapons and and other forms of support for
their conflict. So UM, you know, by all, by all means,
read those mainstream accounts from from every country, but read
them as an intelligent consumer of information, and remember that
(23:23):
in the end, the ground truth that you're getting from
from people who live in those communities, who are documenting
for their own friends and family, or just as because
they feel the obligation to the global community to share
what is happening on their street corner, UM are often
(23:45):
going to be the most truthful source that you can find,
especially when you're able to corroborate it with commercially available
satellite imagery. Five or six other video accounts from other
social media cell phone deos that were taken from different
angles of the same event. Those kinds of things provide
(24:05):
really strong corroboration and then allow you to draw your
own version of events rather than reading analysis that UH
somebody else has has injected their their own point of view. UM.
So that's what I try to do as much as possible,
but it's it's a it's an ongoing work in progress.
I'm One thing I would like to do is pull
(24:27):
together some of the best resources within that kind of
approach UM and make them available UM online for for
people who are interested in doing their own kind of
UM news research and digestion. So if I do that,
I'll let you know and what the u r L is.
So what's next for you? I just finished a book
(24:50):
that I can't wait to tell you more about. For
young adults, all I can say for now is that
it's about challenging them to uh to fix the world
that they're about to inherit UH and profiling the amazing,
amazing courage and accomplishments of teenagers all over the world
who are doing just that. UM. I'm really excited about it,
(25:12):
so inspired by the young people who are out there
fixing the mess that our generation and many before have
left them uh and so proud of what they're accomplishing.
So I shall tell you more about that. Uh watch
this space more news as I have it, um. But
the project that I'm most excited to share is an
(25:36):
I Heart podcast. I think I'm gonna be uh an
I heart sister to you uh, and that will be
a weekly look at what is happening in the world
and why it matters at your kitchen table. I think
this is so important. You know. One of the things
(25:56):
that drives me crazy about our media landscape to day is,
you know, the coverage of what's happening outside of our
country is limited to either uh its role in whatever
partisan food fight is happening between our politicians on on
a weekly basis, or you know, relegated to the the
(26:22):
realm of old, bald white men sitting in front of
their fake you know, bookcases as talking heads on news channels,
you know, using acronyms and foreign policy terms that they
probably came up with themselves and only they use and
nobody understands or cares about. And as a result, you know,
(26:46):
most people in this country don't really think about world
events as as a top priority item when it comes
to what they care about and what they think that
their representatives should care about. UM. And that is a
real mistake for many of us, because in the end,
(27:06):
you know, what we don't know can hurt us. And
we've seen that time and time again, UM, from nine
eleven right on up through to the gas prices that
we're dealing with today, right, UM. Things that happened thousands
of miles away from home have very very real impacts
in our lives, UM, financially, uh, politically, in terms of
(27:33):
our security, and and even in terms of our morality
and our our spiritual direction as a country. For me,
the chance to talk in a very kitchen table, let's
just tell the truth about what's happening and have a
discussion about it with common sense and nuance and no
(27:58):
kind of partisan filter. Based on the experience that I've
had on the ground and so many parts of the
world that are currently affecting our own domestic landscape, we
really jumped at it. What an exciting opportunity, UM, to
be able to share those stories on a weekly basis, UM,
and to be able to you know, continue my service
(28:22):
in some sense to this country, UM, instead of breaking
down what's happening in far flung parts of the world
for the president, which is what I did when I
worked at CIA. UM, I'm going to get to do
it for everyone else, and for me that that's the
only thing that could be more exciting than doing it
(28:42):
for the president him or herself. UM is to do it,
is to do it for y'all. So I'm really excited
to kick that off, and I hopefully will come back
and let you know as soon as it's up and
running and and people can check it out. You've just
(29:06):
listened to the unimaginable. I'm your host, James Brown. Until
next time.
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