March 12, 2024 • 58 mins
Good night and good luck and you stay classy, San Diego!
On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Tracie and Emily welcome media studies professor (retired) Jon Shorr to talk about how pop culture has conditioned us to think about journalism, reporters, and “the news.” From Lois Lane to Woodward and Bernstein to Mary Tyler Moore, we discuss the ways comics, movies, and television have introduced us to a profession few of us have direct knowledge of and how our assumptions about gender, race, and sexuality affect our experience of the news.
If you’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, throw on some earbuds and take a listen!
Find more of Jon's work on Burning Bright, a weekly podcast presenting poetry and prose by writers over 50 from Passager Books
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tracy Guy-Dekker and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
Today, my sister EmilyGuy-Burkin and I will be joined
by our friend John Shore, who'sgoing to talk to us about the
news in pop culture.
Let's dive in.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's just
(00:23):
pop culture, what others mightdeem stupid shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come over and think with usas we delve into our deep
thoughts about stupid shit.
Okay, so welcome John.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thank you, it's nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So, folks, while John was teaching high school
English, he realized that hisstudents were much more
interested in, and knowledgeableabout, the TV shows that they'd
seen the night before and themovies they'd seen over the
weekend at the drive-in than inthe great literature he was
trying to teach them about inhis classes.
So he became interested in themass media as literature and as
values shapers and got amaster's degree and a PhD in
(01:03):
related subjects.
He consulted with schoolsystems around the country about
media literacy and taught atthe university level for about
40 years, over 30 of them at theUniversity of Baltimore.
He's retired.
Now he does some freelancewriting and editing and he also
produces a weekly podcast,burning Bright for passenger
books, which is a smallnonprofit publisher of literary
works by older writers, and wewill link to that in the show
(01:26):
notes.
So we're going to talk about thenews in pop culture,
specifically journalism.
So I'll start by just a littlelike what I learned about
journalism from pop culture, andthen Emily will briefly give
hers and then John will turn toyou to ask you.
You know what's at stake hereand why we're talking about it.
(01:46):
So when I, when we, firsttalked about doing this, what
came to mind immediately for meis actually all of the
superheroes who were involved injournalism.
You know, superman's alter egowas a reporter and his
girlfriend was a reporter.
Spider-man is a photographer,right Photojournalist, and Emily
(02:07):
you reminded me of the TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles had a
reporter, like it's sort of asomehow the news that somehow,
pop culture taught me thatjournalism is a thing associated
with superheroes.
That's what I'm going to go withtoday.
What about you, em?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So I got kind of a negative message about
journalists from the pop culturethat I consumed.
So, yes, superman and Lois Lanewere like good journalists, but
J Jonah Jamison, who isSpider-Man's or Peter Parker's
employer, is kind of a sleazyjournalist.
And then I'm thinking aboutCourtney Cox's character in
(02:48):
Scream.
Gale Weathers is shown to bekind of like the news equivalent
of an ambulance chaser, andthen, oh gosh, ron Burgundy from
Anchorman All of the men inthose movies are complete idiots
.
So, and I'm thinking about that,I'm realizing like, from a lot
(03:10):
of pop culture I've gotten likethis negative view of
journalists, although from booksthat I've read it's been a more
positive view, which I thinkhas more to do with the fact
that books are more likely to bewritten by people who either
are or are friends withjournalists.
Yeah, and then the comic bookswould be my guess.
But yeah, I definitely don'tfeel like pop culture has given
(03:34):
me a very leer view of whatjournalism is and how it works,
and you know both the highs andlows, the nobility and the
depravity of the profession.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, yeah.
All right, john.
What's at stake here?
Why are we talking aboutjournalists in pop culture?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think we're talking about them for a couple reasons
.
One is the reason we talk aboutanybody, any representation in
pop culture, and that is becauseone of the things we know as
researchers is that if peoplehave direct experience with
(04:18):
whoever, that forms their viewof them.
So most people have a sense ofwhat school teachers are like
because they've spent time.
If your parents are policeofficers, you know what police
officers are like.
(04:38):
If you have very littleexperience with police officers,
or doctors or lawyers orwhoever it is, your image of
them tends to be formed by mediarepresentations of them.
And we know that across theboard.
And that's also true withjournalists, with reporters,
(05:04):
with editors, withphotojournalists, the paparazzi,
the owners of media businesses.
It's all the same, it's thesame phenomenon, so that's one
reason to pay attention to it.
The second has to do with thefunction of the news media in
our society.
And from the very beginnings,back in colonial days, the
(05:28):
thinking was that in order forpeople to function in a
democratic society, they neededto be able to have access to
information that would let themunderstand and make sense of
what was going on.
So that's two institutions.
The educational institution,public education, is very
(05:49):
important, primarily again fromthe beginning so we can learn to
read, write, think, processinformation, analyze arguments,
all those kinds of things, andthen access to information and
different points of view so wecan make educated decisions
(06:10):
about who we're going to votefor, how we want this country
and the government to run andwhat's our place in it and all
that.
So that's a general background.
Does that make sense?
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So, given that we start looking at kind of what
media representations areactually like, so we can think
about what pop culture teachesus about the news media, and
you've both talked about this.
One of the things that popculture teaches us is that news
(06:50):
people want to get the story,get it right and get it first,
and there are a lot of moviesand television shows that we can
talk about that do that.
A second thing that pop cultureteaches us is that news is a
business and whether we'relooking at the photojournalist,
(07:13):
the paparazzi who are chasingcelebrities and ambulance
chasers to get the picture,because that will sell the
newspaper, that's what peoplewant to see on the six o'clock
news or on whatever it is.
So it's a money game.
The news organizations aregenerally profit making
(07:34):
enterprises.
The owners want to make moneyand secondarily or primarily in
some cases, they want to usetheir power to promote their
agendas, which sometimes arebusiness related agendas,
sometimes their politicalagendas.
(07:54):
So up until recently, the sensewas that the news agenda
outweighed that profit orpropaganda dimension.
With the election of DonaldTrump and the rise of the
conservative media, it'schanging, because conservatives
(08:15):
for a long time have felt likethe news media were controlled
by liberals and we can talkabout why that idea exists.
So that's that.
We talk about some specificpieces of media.
Do you want to go back to that?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I'd like to talk about the brand, if you will of
the journalist pre-Trump.
So, 20th century, the brand ofthe journalist.
I think we heard two differentsides from Emily and me, and
then your background alsoreminded me of moments I was
(08:58):
actually thinking of.
We talked about one episode, wetalked about Muppets from Space
, and there's a scene where MsPiggy comes and says oh, great
news, gonzo's been kidnapped byaliens.
I got the story.
That is what you were justtalking about about the
importance of the news and thebusiness and, in that case, the
(09:19):
prestige for the journaliststhemselves.
So I'd love to talk about thatbrand of the journalist and how
it was built in our imaginations.
If you could kind of point usto specific pop culture moments
not the Muppets, probably- Notthe Muppets, no.
You can absolutely point it out, but if you think that's
(09:41):
appropriate.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, Well, probably the most important movie,
journalism related movie in thepast 50 years was All the
President's Men, based on thebook by Carl Bernstein and Bob
Woodward about Watergate, aboutuncovering Watergate, and that
(10:07):
book and the movie that wasbased on the book Dustin Hoffman
, Robert Redford, Jason Robards,Nancy Marchand various other
people.
That movie kind of created agroundswell for students wanting
to go into journalism.
Journalism programs in collegesand universities all over the
(10:29):
country just were suddenlyoverwhelmed with students who
wanted to be investigativereporters, who wanted to dig up
and dig out stories and make theworld a better place.
It was the same as detectives,but not quite as dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, woodward and Bernstein, I actually haven't
seen that movie.
So this is really even justfrom the zeitgeist from that
movie.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Like that, those two.
They were heroes, right,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
They protected democracy.
Absolutely.
They protected the.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
American people.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yes, and the way they did it according to the book
and according to the movie.
Who knows the reality?
But according to the book andaccording to the movie, they
would investigate, they wouldget leads, they would question
people, then they would get.
They had to get verification.
They couldn't just say, oh,this person said this, so that's
(11:24):
the truth.
This person said this.
Now let's find two or threeother people who agree, who can
triangulate on that single fact.
And the editor of theWashington Post, you know just,
and the sub editors all the wayup said this is the important
(11:44):
thing.
The reporters Bernstein andWoodward said the story is
really important.
And the editors said the storyisn't important at all if it's
not accurate.
And if it's not accurate, welose all of our credibility.
And so what that movie taughtthis generation was Getting the
(12:09):
story is really important, butgetting it right is Even more
important.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So they were.
They were heroes, but they hadintegrity.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, and and again.
Going back to the, the largerpicture of news media and movies
, think about detective shows.
You know, people are going outand trying to find out what
happened, who committed thiscrime, for what reason?
Do you arrest the first person?
(12:42):
Or do you have to come up withevidence?
And what's the nature of thatevidence?
So, so, journalists in thismodel are doing exactly the same
thing.
So, and and, just as withpolice and detective shows,
there are corrupt police anddetectives.
There are police and detectiveswho aren't really corrupt, but
(13:05):
they just want to be able toclose the case.
We just want to be able to bedone with the story and get it
printed.
So you know it, it's aphenomenon, it's a.
It's a more generalizablephenomenon.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
How did that?
But how did I feel like thebrand of journalists from the
high of you know, a groundswellof people wanting to enter a
journalism school, to what hashappened in the past Six to ten
years, like the brand hastotally changed absolutely.
How?
How did that happen in terms ofpop culture on media?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Well, I think one major factor was this, this,
this tension that exists betweeneditorial and ownership,
editorial and business, andHistorically there has been a
Really thick firewall betweenthose two divisions of news
(14:01):
organizations the, theJournalists, job, the reporters
and the editors and thephotographers etc.
Their job is to go out and getthe story and to make it as as
Interesting a story as possiblebut is also also as accurate a
(14:22):
story as possible.
The business side is to say howcan we monetize that
information, how can we sellmore papers, how can we get more
people to watch the news?
And so over time you know thatthat Shifted some.
(14:42):
So if you think about televisionnews and pretty faces, right,
you can have a wonderfulreporter or a wonderful anchor
who can take information fromlots of places and process it.
But there there came to be thismindset in in television news
(15:03):
that People would rather watch,would rather look at a visually
appealing news person than avisually unappealing news person
.
So an example of that I don'tknow if you've seen the movie
broadcast news Holly Hunter,william Hurt, albert Brooks,
jack Nicholson was in it.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I think I have seen it, but it's been a long, long
time.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, I'm, yeah, albert Brooks was this.
You know this dynamic Reporterand you know.
But if you can picture AlbertBrooks, he's not that much to
look at and whenever he was ontelevision he perspired, he was
just sweating profusely.
But a wonderful reporter,william Hurt, if you can picture
(15:46):
William Hurt was this handsome,very together.
You know he had, he had abroadcast announcer voice and he
could talk like this and so hebecame the face of the news, not
because of his ability as ajournalism, as a journalist, but
because of his ability toattract especially female
viewers who were, you know, 29to 55 year old.
(16:11):
Women historically have been areally major piece of Business
and marketing.
They're the people who buy somany things and influence the
men in their lives to buy somany things.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So I'm thinking Like the, the big difference between
like Woodward and Bernstein, andthen like talking about like,
like broadcast news, the, thefilm is the difference between
print and television journalism,and I feel like the the rise of
the 24-hour news channel hasalso affected it, because you
(16:50):
know, I, it's been my dream thatat some point in my life I can
say stop the presses thingbecause of you know the pop
culture.
But With print news it feelslike there's more time to get
things right, because if itdoesn't go into today's paper
can go into Maros, whereas withthe television news, especially
(17:12):
if it's on 24 hours a day, youneed to get it out quickly, you
need to fill the time or youneed to be ready when the camera
goes.
You know you can't.
You can't put a filler articlein like you can with print news,
and I feel like that has made amajor difference in how we view
the news just in general.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Right.
So so I think you brought uptwo, at least two things.
One has to do with the amountof material you need.
So if you're doing, if back inthe days of time and Newsweek
and Life magazine they had a,they had a week or, you know, in
some cases a month to do to getthe story right, and so it
(17:58):
could be a Really in-depth storythat you know talked of 30, 40
sources and it was edited andre-edited, revised, etc.
With the daily newspaper, it'snot, it's not just television,
but it's, you know, it's radio,it's, it's, it's print, but it's
a time function.
(18:18):
So the daily newspaper, thereisn't that luxury for most
stories.
With television, you know, same, it's daily.
So the six o'clock news, thenoon news, the 11 o'clock news.
So there's that.
Now, when you're, when you'redoing a news story, you're out
talking to a lot of people,whether it's print or television
(18:41):
, whether you're taking yournotes with a camera, with a
microphone or with a notebookand a pen.
You're writing all this stuffdown, you're talking to all
these people and then graduallyyou figure out when the the fact
, which facts are reliable,which facts are a little
questionable and which facts arenot reliable at all, and you
(19:03):
start to make choices.
You make editing choices.
Then you think about what orderdo we want to put these facts
in?
What's the lead, what's the duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,
duh, duh, duh, duh.
And you, you come up with astory, the same way that you
create any product.
If suddenly there's a 24-hournews channel, which which
(19:25):
happened in the 90s I get thoseof the the late 80s, early 90s
that that trend started Now acouple things happen.
One is you need news to fill thetime, which means you'll run
almost anything, just becauseyou can't say, yeah, we're
(19:46):
working on that story, go gowatch the young and the restless
and come back at 230.
Well, maybe we'll have a, we'llhave something.
For they can't do that right,and the reason they can't do
that is because of the businessof broadcasting.
If they lose their audience,they, the audience, isn't there
(20:07):
for the commercials and, on somelevel With profit-making news
organizations, the only reasonthey're, the primary reason for
the news, is to keep peopletuned in for the ads, and that's
true television in general.
Whether cable broadcastanything, the reason For the
(20:28):
programming is to is to attracta certain audience that will
then watch certain commercials.
If you think about a newspaper,the average daily newspaper is
70% ads, 30% content.
We don't even think about thatas as readers, but that's the
(20:50):
fact.
It's there, so that will turnthe page and See the ad that's
next to the, the continuation ofthe article.
So one piece of it is fillingthe space and the other piece is
because you have to fill thespace.
You don't have the luxury toFact-check in the same way.
(21:10):
So if you think about CNN orFox or MSNBC or whichever
whichever, when you look atthere's always oh, oh,
something's happening.
We're gonna go there now live.
That's great, they can go therelive.
Very often what they're goingthere live for is irrelevant.
Right or you know, or it's justsomebody's opinion.
(21:33):
It's not an important fact.
It's just an opportunity forsome senator walking down the
Capitol steps to say here's whatI think about that, and CNN and
MSNBC and Fox want that becausethey need to fill the time,
(21:53):
something I think is interestingto think about in terms of,
like the way that news haschanged over the past 50 years.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
And then you know the the addition of television news
and what you're talking aboutwith, like pretty people.
If delivering the news is wherea journalists ego lies Because
I'm thinking with, like Woodwardand Bernstein their ego lies in
ferreting out the story,getting it accurate and writing
(22:20):
it well.
Their names are household namesnow, but I don't, like I don't
have a good sense of whether aninvestigative journalist wants
to be a household name or not.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I can't speak for all of you journalists, but no, but
one of the things thatreporters think about is the
beat they're on, is this, youknow, are they on the police
beat, the courthouse beat, theschool beat, the education beat,
which is likely to get morefront page time?
(22:57):
And the more front page timeyou get, or the more often
you're on the television news,not as a reporter who fed
information to somebody elsewho's going to read it, but for
you to be on there with yourface, like you know, medium
close-up, what that means ismore recognition.
(23:20):
What more recognition means isyou can demand a higher salary.
What more recognition means isthat a newspaper or television
station or news channel at thenext higher level is going to be
more likely to notice you andoffer you a job.
So all of these things are atplay and again, that's not just
(23:46):
the nature of the news media.
You know these examples are,but in many different
professions visibility mattersin certain ways.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I'm thinking about this in part because I'm
journalist adjacent I writeabout money.
So, like I'm not a journalistbut have some similar skills and
thinking about where my egolies when it comes to my writing
and in previous jobs I used tobe a high school English teacher
and like my ego about being ahigh school English teacher and
(24:19):
how that is going to bedifferent for different
professions, like what are thethings that you're proud of?
And then how that also changesbetween, like, print journalism
and television journalism.
Because, like the exampleyou're giving with, in broadcast
news, like you know, albertBrooks is proud of his ability
to, you know, be an excellentreporter, but it doesn't matter
(24:43):
because William Hurt is proud ofhis face and the fact that it
brings the ladies around.
So like getting into that, intolike what, what, where the ego
is, and what that's going to howthat's going to affect how
journalism works Well.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I'm not sure that journalists are different from
anybody else in that respect.
I think, you know, as, as humanbeings, we're on an ego
continuum, as we are on so manyother continuums continuum, and
so there are people who are veryegotistical in any profession,
(25:21):
in any relationship, right andthere are people who aren't, who
are more interested in otherthings or, for various reasons,
are shy or, you know,introverted, whatever it might
be.
They're more social, you know,social product oriented than
than personality oriented.
So I'm not sure that thatmatters.
One of the things, though, thatthat does matter is
(25:47):
noticeability, visibility.
I'm not quite sure what theterm is.
If a New York Times reporterwalks into a scene where there's
something happening and startstalking to people, basically
nobody notices him or her, rightthey?
You may know that name if youread the New York Times or the
(26:09):
Boston Globe or the BaltimoreSun, but you wouldn't recognize
that person's face or voice If,on the other hand, that that
reporter or that anchor person,yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
When Anderson Cooper shows up, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And when Anderson Cooper shows up, the story stops
being whatever the story wasand starts being oh my God,
anderson Cooper's here.
So it works both ways.
And you know and we know thisagain from from you know
celebrities in general that thatwhen you become famous you lose
(26:47):
your anonymity and, dependingon your ego, you know that may
be a good thing in certain waysbut it also means you can't go
grocery shopping anymore.
There were cases years ago,back when soap operas had huge
audiences in the early days oftelevision, when an actor from a
(27:07):
soap opera was interviewed andsaid he can't.
He can't walk down the streetanymore because women come up to
him and hit him with theirpurses and say how could you do
that to that poor woman?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I'd love to talk a little bit about gender and the
role of gender in the brand ofjournalists.
I'm thinking about Woodward andBernstein, whose names we know
in part because of the movie Imean what they did actually in
Watergate but also because ofthe movie, the book in the movie
, and then also, like my kid isalmost 12, but when she was
(27:45):
little she had that like badgirls of history or something
like that, and Nellie Bly wasone of the one of the characters
sort of featured, who was areally skilled and brave
investigative journalist in theearly days of print, you know,
went undercover in a mentalinstitution just really
remarkable things whose name Ihad never heard until I got this
(28:08):
like story, this storybook forkids.
So anyway, what I'm thinkingabout is the role of sexism in
sort of keeping Nellie Bly'sstory from pop culture to a
certain extent, but also also inthe way that and I'm actually
maybe more interested in thisthe way that we perceive, as you
(28:31):
know, in the zeitgeist, as weperceive female journalists that
you know, walter Cronkite wasthe voice of the news, a
specifically male voice, and hissuccessors have been male, and
my sort of picture from media offemale journalists is more of
that broadcast.
She's hired for her looksrather than her skill, and I
(28:55):
know that is not fair to femalejournalists.
And yet that is the impressionthat I have internalized and I'd
love to hear from you, john andM, if you want to share, like
why is that in my head?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Why is that in my?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
head.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
I want to jump in before John answers.
Just that.
Also, like the fictionalrepresentations of thinking like
Lois Lane, there is thedramatic irony that you love,
like we know that Clark Kent isSuperman and she doesn't, and
there is this sense of like howshe's not a very good reporter
if she can't read it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, he just takes his glasses off.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, and she is the only woman in the newsroom.
So like there is this sense oflike she's the hard nosed, like
you know really feisty, which Ihate that word.
You know woman who is hardcharging, but you know her
little lady brain can't.
Yeah, clark Kent, superman thesame person.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Okay, so there's one thing from why it's in my head.
But anyway, yeah, John, what doyou think?
Where's this like?
Not the sexism that generatesit, but the pop, pop culture
that reinforces it.
Where is it coming from?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, it's coming from the culture that you're
talking about, walter Cronkite.
In the in the 50s and 60s,women were not viewed as
professionals, you know.
They were housewives, mothers,sex objects, etc.
Right, and the, the women'smovement beginning in the early
(30:31):
70s started to change that andnow we see a lot more women
reporters, anchors, and let'snot just talk about gender,
let's talk about race, forexample, you know, let's talk
about gay versus straight.
(30:53):
You know, these categories ofpeople that used to be relegated
to, to a lesser status, rightby any other name, right.
As the culture has shifted,people from those categories
(31:14):
have been brought in more andbeen allowed to enter the
mainstream.
So we see it with women, we seeit with African Americans, we
see it with Asians, we see itwith gays.
We, you know an on and on andon transgender.
We see that we, there's no waywe would have seen that in in
(31:37):
the news media and, you know,except as a freak story up until
relatively recently.
So I don't think it's it's fairto to measure where we are now
by looking at Walter Cronkiteand Huntley and Brinkley in the
(31:58):
50s and 60s.
I think we have to look at 2024and say what's out there and to
what degree is it betterreflecting the culture than the
50s and 60s representations ofpeople in general?
And clearly we're not done.
(32:19):
It's a work in progress.
But it wasn't until relativelyrecently that either a network
or a local newscast could have afemale anchor or co anchor, or
a black anchor or co anchor.
(32:40):
And even if the managementthought it was a good idea, they
were afraid that there would beenough viewers who wouldn't
take that woman seriously.
Because as men you know, wegrew up culturally learning not
to take women seriously.
You take men seriously, and soif a woman is delivering this
(33:04):
really important information tous, by definition it must not be
that important.
So it's one of those push-pullsituations where we want it to
happen, but it can't happenuntil the culture catches up
with it.
But one of the ways the culturecatches up with it is by people
(33:25):
in power putting those rolemodels out there for other
people to see.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And so it happened, but it's gradual.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Something that's interesting that I'm thinking
about is talking about ego injournalism, and the reason why I
brought that up is that oftenwe're shown in pop culture that
journalists care aboutthemselves more than they care
about the news, and so theexamples that I can think of off
the top of my head are, like Imentioned, gail Weathers and
(33:57):
Scream.
Now, granted, that's not thatrecent, it's 1997.
But then Ms Piggy in MuppetsFrom Space, 1989.
Yeah, same era, about the sametime.
And then that episode ofLucifer Tracy with the paparazzo
, the young man who is black,who he wants to be first to get
(34:18):
the first picture, and that'sfrom 2016.
So again, eight years ago.
But it does in some ways seemlike there is this pop cultural
undercutting of the idea thatyou can get good news from a
marginalized and that they areout for themselves rather than
for the news, the nobility of it, the importance of information,
(34:42):
all of that, and those are allthree very separate examples.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, very separate, but I think you're getting at
something that I'm also thinkingabout, which is that talking
about the news on deep thoughtsabout stupid shit is kind of new
for us, right, because it ispop culture, but it's also,
until recently, not exquisitelyentertainment, or at least
that's not the category that weput it into.
So I'm curious for us to add tothe conversation not just the
(35:10):
people actually anchoring thenews desk locally or nationally,
but also those entertainmentpieces that are being produced
about anchors and who are thosefolks, and I think that's kind
of what Emily's pointing at.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Sure, so it's not new .
The front page 1931, his GalFriday.
Back in the early 30s, citizenKane was about journalism.
Yeah 1941, you know the, stillon many people's charts, still
the greatest movie ever made.
(35:45):
So there's all of that stuff.
Good night and good luck aboutEdward R Murrow.
So you have those.
Then there are shows likeNetwork 1976, I don't know if
you can.
You know Faye Dunnaway, peterFinch, william Holden it was a
Patty Chayevsky movie but therewas the news dynamic but also
(36:08):
the ownership, and that's themovie in which the Peter Finch
character, howard Beale, saysI'm mad as hell, I'm not going
to take it anymore.
He basically has a nervousbreakdown on the air and
editorial wants to pull himimmediately.
Ownership says this is great,let's put him up there every
(36:30):
night.
Being crazy, he says he's goingto commit suicide on television
.
This is outrageous.
Ownership says let's keep himthere because think of the
number of people that'll watch.
So these things have been goingon.
Then you have shows like theMary Tyler Moore show.
(36:50):
Right, the Morning Show.
But shows like the Mary TylerMoore show are set in a newsroom
, at least partially.
But it's not about the news,it's a family show.
The family happens to be thepeople she works with and
(37:12):
there's the father figure, edAsner, lou Grant, the goofy
brothers, ted Baxter and Murray,and her best friend Rhoda, and
all these people.
But there's another wholesubgenre of comedy shows that
are set in a profession.
(37:33):
Welcome back, cotter.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Right, it's a teacher show.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Well, it's not really about being a teacher, it's
about being a comedian right,and you can go through all these
shows, whether it's doctorshows, lawyer shows.
That's just the setting, butthat's not what they're about.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
I want to linger on Mary Tyler Moore, actually,
because I think that's aparticularly interesting one, in
that Mary was the protagonistand Murphy Brown's another one.
Yes, murphy Brown's a great oneand in some ways those are like
Like Murphy Brown's, almost likean iteration of Mary Tyler
Moore, where they made her eventougher and even more effective
(38:18):
as a journalist.
I think, because I think thatTed Baxter and the I can't think
of the anchor's name Are verysimilar characters, even right,
and there was a sense.
I didn't watch Mary Tyler Moore.
I haven't seen all of theseries, right, but I certainly
watched it a bit as a kid andMary was the journalist with
(38:40):
integrity, right.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
And.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Ted was just the good looks, which completely
subverted the kind of sexistpicture that I was talking about
having internalized, as didMurphy Brown.
Right, I think the one guy thatMurphy worked with was actually
good, but the other guy wasjust a pretty face and a nice
voice.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, he was the anchor.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Which is really interesting to me, that I had
this sexist furniture in my headdespite, like we grew up on
Murphy Brown, like our dad had abig crush on Candice Bergen,
and so we watched it every week.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Who wouldn't have a big crush on him?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, that's okay.
All right.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So I'm interested in pulling this apart a little bit
that we have these clear, verypopular pieces of pop culture
that gave us these competence.
Competent female journalistssubverted the sexism and yet can
we like tease all that yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Jump in them.
Can I speak to that?
Something I think isinteresting is that Murphy Brown
and the Mary Tyler Moore showare not about journalism, like
John just said, and that's partof the reason why we don't like.
When I think of Murphy Brown, Ithink of Dan Quayle, I think of
her baby that she named Avery,I think of Eldon the painter, I
(40:03):
think of the place where theywent to get drinks, I think of
the newsroom, not the studio,and similarly with Mary Tyler
Moore, I don't really think ofthe journalism of it, and I
think that's part of what'sgoing on.
There is that, like pop culturewill allow us to have these
(40:23):
female journalists withintegrity, who are good at what
they do and competence, but onlyif we don't get to see them in
that setting, or at least notfocus on it Like.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
our focus is their private lives.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yes, interesting, and so I think that that's part of
it, because it's just the onestep forward, two steps back
kind of thing, where like oh,yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, you can
have a career woman, you canhave someone who's hard driving,
who's like good at her job andall of that, but we're going to
focus on our love life.
What do you think of?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
that John.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I think a couple things about that.
I think you're making a bit ofa generalization, but I don't
disagree with you.
The morning show do you knowthe morning show?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I don't know that one .
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Okay, jennifer Aniston, and Was that on Apple
TV.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
That's the one that's streaming on Apple.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, but basically these two very competent news
women.
Complications ensue, but it'salso about their private lives
as well as their public lives.
But I think there's one otherthing going on here that's worth
considering.
There's a psychological theorythat says that we absorb
(41:37):
information that supports ourbiases and points of view and we
ignore or reject informationthat contradicts them Sure, sure
.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Confirmation bias yes yes, confirmation bias.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
So there are instances of these other people
in responsible roles, but formany of us, we tend not to let
them through as readily thatplays out, however, it's going
to play out over time and again.
It's shifting, but culturechanges much more gradually.
(42:17):
People who are being mistreatedin society are always upset
that change doesn't happenovernight, and the rest of us,
who aren't being mistreated inthat particular context can step
back and say well, yeah, it isbetter than it's better than it
(42:37):
was five years ago, and that'sbetter than it was 10 years ago
or 25 years ago.
Well, that's true, and it's notfast enough.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Right, right.
Something that you're sufferingless than you used to suffer is
not actually it's not actuallyparticularly comforting.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
The train is going in the right direction, but it's
going 20 miles an hour insteadof 85 miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
While you suffer.
Yeah Right, yeah Well, we'regetting close to our time.
I want to make sure, John arethere any points?
That you wanted that you joinedthe studio with us today, that
you wanted to make sure that yousaid that we haven't gotten to
yet.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Well, I'd like to talk for a minute about why
people historically think thatnews people are liberal.
Yeah, let's talk about that andthat apparent bias, and this may
be part of my apparent bias,but when you're doing the news,
I don't mean reading a script onthe air, but when you're a
reporter, when you're an editor,it's about getting information.
(43:40):
It's about asking questions,it's about asking follow-up
questions, it's about beingcritical of the information
you're getting, it's aboutprocessing.
And if you think about liberalreligions versus conservative
religions, whatever thedenomination, there's that
difference.
Liberals tend to be interestedin asking questions and finding
(44:06):
things out and maybe havingtheir minds changed by what they
find out, where conservatives,whether it's political or
religious or economic, are muchmore interested in holding fast
to their belief system, so thatalmost by definition,
(44:30):
journalists are going to beliberals.
But I'm a reporter, therefore Isupport democratic candidates.
It's not that kind of liberal,but there's a liberality, a
liberalness in the function.
Then, on top of that, iseducation level and in
(44:53):
contemporary society, newspeople, journalists, tend to be
college graduates and college.
One of the main functions ofcollege is to teach you how to
think, how to question, how toanalyze, and there's this
(45:13):
increasing again rift betweeneducated and noneducated, and so
everything reinforceseverything else, and if you're a
conservative who didn't go tocollege, it's really easy to
just take that and say, yeah,look at them, they're everything
(45:37):
you know.
They're everything I'm not.
They're everything I don't wantto be.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
That actually reminds me of something.
I've seen several thingsrecently talking about why there
are so few right wing comediansand part of it, and you can go
on YouTube and find all kinds ofvideos where people will show
right wing comedians.
All have the same joke, whichis I identify as a fighter jet.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
My pronouns are.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
My pronouns are yeah, or my pronouns are guess my ass
.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Or whatever they are.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
USA, yeah and so, and I'm thinking that there is a
similarity there in that comedyrequires good comedy requires a
kind of curiosity, a kind ofobservation that good journalism
also requires, like you need tobe open to looking at things in
(46:31):
a different way.
Yes, if you want to make a joke,that that is like because jokes
you need to surprise in orderto to to make a joke that is
successful.
And similarly with withjournalism, if you want to get
to a story that you didn't knowbeforehand, you have to be open
(46:52):
to learning things you didn'tknow before.
That, to me, is veryfascinating because I think that
there's a very there's asimilarity there with the
comments you see all the timelike why are comedians so
liberal and why is the newsmedia so liberal.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
The distinction that I'm hearing that both of you are
making is about a comportmenttoward the world and toward
truth which is not political.
It's actually a way ofunderstanding how the world
works and and how, and one'splace in it, and being willing
to revise one's understandingabout one's place in it, which
(47:28):
is liberal, but in the lowercase L use of that word and
there and therefore also oftengoes with liberal in the
uppercase L of the word, andit's a really yeah, I think it's
an interesting and importantdistinction that it's not about
a political polarity.
(47:49):
It really is about a way ofinteracting with the world and
with truth and oneself.
Yeah, cool, all right.
Any final thoughts before I tryand see if I can reflect back
some of the highlights of ourconversation.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
I'm.
I don't need to say anotherthing.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
You're good, cool, all right.
So let me see if I can reflectback and each of you please feel
free to like, fill in nuance,correct, edit.
So we're talking.
We are talking today about therole of, or the.
I deemed it the brand, so I'mgoing to stick with that the
brand.
The journalists have the brandawareness and, specifically like
(48:33):
the attitude that the publichas toward the brand of
journalists as we see it in popculture, and we've seen it shift
from a high of, after all, thepresident's men and the stories
of Woodward and Bernstein, wheredroves of young people wanted
to become journalists becauseWoodward and Bernstein were
(48:54):
American heroes who protecteddemocracy with integrity and a
commitment to the truth.
Through the recent years, since2016, where we've seen just a
real muddying of the brand ofjournalists who we're not sure
(49:15):
as a people, we're not sure ifwe could trust them, we're not
sure they actually haveintegrity, we're not sure they
actually have the Americanpeople's goodwill at heart,
we're not sure they whatrelationship they have with the
truth and sometimes they have.
We didn't say this today, butyou know, the idea of you know
alternative facts from the pasteight years is something that
(49:38):
was inconceivable in the days ofWoodward and Bernstein.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
If I could just just jump, jump in there about
alternative facts.
I think one of the shifts rightnow is the shift from here is
the information to.
I want the information to tosupport my position right.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
So confirmation bias has become out of the background
and into the foreground.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
We're saying it out loud and explicitly and if it
doesn't support my position,then not only do I not want it,
but I am going to try toconvince people that it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Yeah, that it's inaccurate.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, it's inaccurate .
Yes.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
So that's sort of the shift that you came into the
studio kind of describing andthen when we looked back at some
of the pop culture moments ofit, we saw we see, we see them
the shift from print tobroadcast radio and then
broadcast where the journalistmaybe we knew their name, but
the idea of the celebrity of thejournalist became sort of a
(50:43):
factor in this shift so that weas the public came to believe,
have come to believe, that atleast for some journalists,
maybe many of them, maybe most,there's a ego in the celebrity,
whether it's about getting itfirst or getting it best, or you
know, anderson Cooper showingup and changing what the story
(51:04):
is actually about.
That the actual celebrity of thejournalist has changed the way
we think about journalism,especially if we go all the way
back to, like his girl Friday,where we may not even, you know,
know the journalist names, andyou also brought to our
attention the different roles inpresenting the news.
So there's, there's, there'sthe journalists themselves, but
(51:25):
then there's also the person forwhom the business is the
primary driver, the owner in thecase of was it.
What movie was it with?
The was it network?
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Well network is an example.
There are many of them.
Broadcast news is an example.
Citizen Kane is an example.
Citizen Kane, charles FosterKane, owns this big New York
newspaper and it's during theSpanish-American war in Cuba and
he sends a reporter and thereporter says there's really no
(51:57):
story here and Kane says youfurnish the pictures, I'll
furnish the war.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, so that's an old tension that pop culture has
been waiting for a long time.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
I was going to say one more thing about television
news and anchors.
And there was this movementstarted in the late 80s about
family, the news anchors as yourfriends.
And we've seen billboards,we've seen signs on the sides of
(52:34):
buses tune into the 530 Newsand it shows the three anchors
and the sportscaster smilingbecause and we go there not
because the news is better, ispresented more effectively, but
because we like those people,right, right, they are our
friends.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
I'm thinking about because my eldest was born in
2010.
And so I would end up watchingthe, I guess the Today Show,
with one with Matt Lauer and AnnCurry, because that would be
when, when he'd be nursing and Igot to.
I liked watching it, and MattLauer's ouster because of the Me
Too movement also didn'tsurprise me, based on having
(53:16):
watched it regularly, because Iwasn't watching for him, but the
persona he gave off wasappealing.
I just for I found him smarmyfrom the beginning, but anyway.
But I'm just thinking about thefact that I kept watching it,
not because I wanted the newsyou can use, or like you know
(53:37):
best fall recipes, or you knowthe things, but because I liked
the people there and wanted tosee them.
And granted, morning news isnot that is usually for for the
people who have schedules, orthe moms who are staying at home
, or the parents are staying athome or whatever, but it's still
.
Or you know people in dentistwaiting rooms, it still is.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
They are journalists, yeah, yeah journalists and it's
a chatty format, because chattyis is about personality and
about bringing people into theconversation, even though you,
as you as a nursing mother, arenot part of the conversation,
but but you like to on somelevel.
You think you are.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So those examples today showwe're thinking about this is a
little bit of a departure for uson deep thoughts, but we have
multiple layers here that we'retalking about.
So we're because because thejournalists, the those TV shows
are a piece of media, and alsothere is pop culture, media
(54:38):
about that, and so we talkedabout that distinction as well
and the ways in which,specifically around
representation, specificallyaround female representation,
with Mary Tyler Moore and MurphyBrown, and we saw some examples
where the pop culture about themedia, about the news media,
gave us these strong femalecharacters as reporters and then
(55:00):
also had us focus on their lovelives or on their personal
lives in one way or another.
And it was a.
It's a give and take, it's apush pull, it's both.
And what pieces am I forgetting?
The highlights from ourconversation?
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Where the idea of liberal bias comes from.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yes, yes, as a liberal bias, as not about a
political polarity but about acomportment toward the world,
truth and one's relation to both.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, unrelated to that.
But going back to what Emilysaid about Matt Lauer and
sensing something, in the series, the morning show on Apple, the
Steve Carell character is MattLauer and something very similar
happens.
It doesn't play out quite thesame way but it is clearly that
(55:52):
story and that's something elsethat in these entertainment
shows about the news media, aswith entertainment shows about
many other professions, if whensomething happens in the
profession, some controversy,very often within a couple
seasons of it, you see thatstory playing out in a more or
(56:15):
less fictionalized way on theentertainment versions of the
profession.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Yeah, that's what we're thinking about.
Yeah Well, this was fun.
Thank you, john, for joining us.
Listener, if you are enjoyingJohn's voice as much as I am,
please go check out his podcast.
It's called Burning Bright.
We'll put a link to thatpodcast in the show notes and
next time M.
What are we talking about?
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Next time I'm going to bring you my deep thoughts
about the fifth element.
Oh cool, it must be found.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
All right, I really enjoyed that movie when I
watched it, and you and I havetalked about Lilu and some of
her problematics when we talkedabout Born Texas yesterday, so I
look forward to unpacking itfurther and do you have any
listener comments you wanted toshare?
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Yes, I have a comment from James about the Buffy
episode that we did with KateMoody.
And James says I just watchedthe Buffy episode I was made to
love you, which is the one thatKate Moody really went into
about kind of in-cell culture.
And James says damn, he reallyis like 100% in-cell.
Before it was even coined Iforgot how much I deserve a
girlfriend.
She's supposed to loveeverything I love.
(57:31):
It's sort of played for laughs,but not really Uncomfortable
laughs maybe, but then the samecharacter returns next season as
a rapist and serial killer.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
So yeah, kate was onto something, she was onto
something.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
She really was.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, all right.
Well, john, thank you again forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
We will see you next week.
Do you like stickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up
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It really is that easy, butdon't wait, there's a limited
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Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
(58:13):
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
I'm Tracy Guy-Dekker and you're listening to Deep
Thoughts About Stupid Shit,because pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
Today, my sister EmilyGuy-Burkin and I will be joined
by our friend John Shore, who'sgoing to talk to us about the
news in pop culture.
Let's dive in.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's just
(00:23):
pop culture, what others mightdeem stupid shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come over and think with usas we delve into our deep
thoughts about stupid shit.
Okay, so welcome John.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thank you, it's nice to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So, folks, while John was teaching high school
English, he realized that hisstudents were much more
interested in, and knowledgeableabout, the TV shows that they'd
seen the night before and themovies they'd seen over the
weekend at the drive-in than inthe great literature he was
trying to teach them about inhis classes.
So he became interested in themass media as literature and as
values shapers and got amaster's degree and a PhD in
(01:03):
related subjects.
He consulted with schoolsystems around the country about
media literacy and taught atthe university level for about
40 years, over 30 of them at theUniversity of Baltimore.
He's retired.
Now he does some freelancewriting and editing and he also
produces a weekly podcast,burning Bright for passenger
books, which is a smallnonprofit publisher of literary
works by older writers, and wewill link to that in the show
(01:26):
notes.
So we're going to talk about thenews in pop culture,
specifically journalism.
So I'll start by just a littlelike what I learned about
journalism from pop culture, andthen Emily will briefly give
hers and then John will turn toyou to ask you.
You know what's at stake hereand why we're talking about it.
(01:46):
So when I, when we, firsttalked about doing this, what
came to mind immediately for meis actually all of the
superheroes who were involved injournalism.
You know, superman's alter egowas a reporter and his
girlfriend was a reporter.
Spider-man is a photographer,right Photojournalist, and Emily
(02:07):
you reminded me of the TeenageMutant Ninja Turtles had a
reporter, like it's sort of asomehow the news that somehow,
pop culture taught me thatjournalism is a thing associated
with superheroes.
That's what I'm going to go withtoday.
What about you, em?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
So I got kind of a negative message about
journalists from the pop culturethat I consumed.
So, yes, superman and Lois Lanewere like good journalists, but
J Jonah Jamison, who isSpider-Man's or Peter Parker's
employer, is kind of a sleazyjournalist.
And then I'm thinking aboutCourtney Cox's character in
(02:48):
Scream.
Gale Weathers is shown to bekind of like the news equivalent
of an ambulance chaser, andthen, oh gosh, ron Burgundy from
Anchorman All of the men inthose movies are complete idiots
.
So, and I'm thinking about that,I'm realizing like, from a lot
(03:10):
of pop culture I've gotten likethis negative view of
journalists, although from booksthat I've read it's been a more
positive view, which I thinkhas more to do with the fact
that books are more likely to bewritten by people who either
are or are friends withjournalists.
Yeah, and then the comic bookswould be my guess.
But yeah, I definitely don'tfeel like pop culture has given
(03:34):
me a very leer view of whatjournalism is and how it works,
and you know both the highs andlows, the nobility and the
depravity of the profession.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, yeah.
All right, john.
What's at stake here?
Why are we talking aboutjournalists in pop culture?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think we're talking about them for a couple reasons
.
One is the reason we talk aboutanybody, any representation in
pop culture, and that is becauseone of the things we know as
researchers is that if peoplehave direct experience with
(04:18):
whoever, that forms their viewof them.
So most people have a sense ofwhat school teachers are like
because they've spent time.
If your parents are policeofficers, you know what police
officers are like.
(04:38):
If you have very littleexperience with police officers,
or doctors or lawyers orwhoever it is, your image of
them tends to be formed by mediarepresentations of them.
And we know that across theboard.
And that's also true withjournalists, with reporters,
(05:04):
with editors, withphotojournalists, the paparazzi,
the owners of media businesses.
It's all the same, it's thesame phenomenon, so that's one
reason to pay attention to it.
The second has to do with thefunction of the news media in
our society.
And from the very beginnings,back in colonial days, the
(05:28):
thinking was that in order forpeople to function in a
democratic society, they neededto be able to have access to
information that would let themunderstand and make sense of
what was going on.
So that's two institutions.
The educational institution,public education, is very
(05:49):
important, primarily again fromthe beginning so we can learn to
read, write, think, processinformation, analyze arguments,
all those kinds of things, andthen access to information and
different points of view so wecan make educated decisions
(06:10):
about who we're going to votefor, how we want this country
and the government to run andwhat's our place in it and all
that.
So that's a general background.
Does that make sense?
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So, given that we start looking at kind of what
media representations areactually like, so we can think
about what pop culture teachesus about the news media, and
you've both talked about this.
One of the things that popculture teaches us is that news
(06:50):
people want to get the story,get it right and get it first,
and there are a lot of moviesand television shows that we can
talk about that do that.
A second thing that pop cultureteaches us is that news is a
business and whether we'relooking at the photojournalist,
(07:13):
the paparazzi who are chasingcelebrities and ambulance
chasers to get the picture,because that will sell the
newspaper, that's what peoplewant to see on the six o'clock
news or on whatever it is.
So it's a money game.
The news organizations aregenerally profit making
(07:34):
enterprises.
The owners want to make moneyand secondarily or primarily in
some cases, they want to usetheir power to promote their
agendas, which sometimes arebusiness related agendas,
sometimes their politicalagendas.
(07:54):
So up until recently, the sensewas that the news agenda
outweighed that profit orpropaganda dimension.
With the election of DonaldTrump and the rise of the
conservative media, it'schanging, because conservatives
(08:15):
for a long time have felt likethe news media were controlled
by liberals and we can talkabout why that idea exists.
So that's that.
We talk about some specificpieces of media.
Do you want to go back to that?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I'd like to talk about the brand, if you will of
the journalist pre-Trump.
So, 20th century, the brand ofthe journalist.
I think we heard two differentsides from Emily and me, and
then your background alsoreminded me of moments I was
(08:58):
actually thinking of.
We talked about one episode, wetalked about Muppets from Space
, and there's a scene where MsPiggy comes and says oh, great
news, gonzo's been kidnapped byaliens.
I got the story.
That is what you were justtalking about about the
importance of the news and thebusiness and, in that case, the
(09:19):
prestige for the journaliststhemselves.
So I'd love to talk about thatbrand of the journalist and how
it was built in our imaginations.
If you could kind of point usto specific pop culture moments
not the Muppets, probably- Notthe Muppets, no.
You can absolutely point it out, but if you think that's
(09:41):
appropriate.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, Well, probably the most important movie,
journalism related movie in thepast 50 years was All the
President's Men, based on thebook by Carl Bernstein and Bob
Woodward about Watergate, aboutuncovering Watergate, and that
(10:07):
book and the movie that wasbased on the book Dustin Hoffman
, Robert Redford, Jason Robards,Nancy Marchand various other
people.
That movie kind of created agroundswell for students wanting
to go into journalism.
Journalism programs in collegesand universities all over the
(10:29):
country just were suddenlyoverwhelmed with students who
wanted to be investigativereporters, who wanted to dig up
and dig out stories and make theworld a better place.
It was the same as detectives,but not quite as dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, woodward and Bernstein, I actually haven't
seen that movie.
So this is really even justfrom the zeitgeist from that
movie.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Like that, those two.
They were heroes, right,absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
They protected democracy.
Absolutely.
They protected the.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
American people.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
Yes, and the way they did it according to the book
and according to the movie.
Who knows the reality?
But according to the book andaccording to the movie, they
would investigate, they wouldget leads, they would question
people, then they would get.
They had to get verification.
They couldn't just say, oh,this person said this, so that's
(11:24):
the truth.
This person said this.
Now let's find two or threeother people who agree, who can
triangulate on that single fact.
And the editor of theWashington Post, you know just,
and the sub editors all the wayup said this is the important
(11:44):
thing.
The reporters Bernstein andWoodward said the story is
really important.
And the editors said the storyisn't important at all if it's
not accurate.
And if it's not accurate, welose all of our credibility.
And so what that movie taughtthis generation was Getting the
(12:09):
story is really important, butgetting it right is Even more
important.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So they were.
They were heroes, but they hadintegrity.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, and and again.
Going back to the, the largerpicture of news media and movies
, think about detective shows.
You know, people are going outand trying to find out what
happened, who committed thiscrime, for what reason?
Do you arrest the first person?
(12:42):
Or do you have to come up withevidence?
And what's the nature of thatevidence?
So, so, journalists in thismodel are doing exactly the same
thing.
So, and and, just as withpolice and detective shows,
there are corrupt police anddetectives.
There are police and detectiveswho aren't really corrupt, but
(13:05):
they just want to be able toclose the case.
We just want to be able to bedone with the story and get it
printed.
So you know it, it's aphenomenon, it's a.
It's a more generalizablephenomenon.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
How did that?
But how did I feel like thebrand of journalists from the
high of you know, a groundswellof people wanting to enter a
journalism school, to what hashappened in the past Six to ten
years, like the brand hastotally changed absolutely.
How?
How did that happen in terms ofpop culture on media?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
Well, I think one major factor was this, this,
this tension that exists betweeneditorial and ownership,
editorial and business, andHistorically there has been a
Really thick firewall betweenthose two divisions of news
(14:01):
organizations the, theJournalists, job, the reporters
and the editors and thephotographers etc.
Their job is to go out and getthe story and to make it as as
Interesting a story as possiblebut is also also as accurate a
(14:22):
story as possible.
The business side is to say howcan we monetize that
information, how can we sellmore papers, how can we get more
people to watch the news?
And so over time you know thatthat Shifted some.
(14:42):
So if you think about televisionnews and pretty faces, right,
you can have a wonderfulreporter or a wonderful anchor
who can take information fromlots of places and process it.
But there there came to be thismindset in in television news
(15:03):
that People would rather watch,would rather look at a visually
appealing news person than avisually unappealing news person
.
So an example of that I don'tknow if you've seen the movie
broadcast news Holly Hunter,william Hurt, albert Brooks,
jack Nicholson was in it.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
I think I have seen it, but it's been a long, long
time.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, I'm, yeah, albert Brooks was this.
You know this dynamic Reporterand you know.
But if you can picture AlbertBrooks, he's not that much to
look at and whenever he was ontelevision he perspired, he was
just sweating profusely.
But a wonderful reporter,william Hurt, if you can picture
(15:46):
William Hurt was this handsome,very together.
You know he had, he had abroadcast announcer voice and he
could talk like this and so hebecame the face of the news, not
because of his ability as ajournalism, as a journalist, but
because of his ability toattract especially female
viewers who were, you know, 29to 55 year old.
(16:11):
Women historically have been areally major piece of Business
and marketing.
They're the people who buy somany things and influence the
men in their lives to buy somany things.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
So I'm thinking Like the, the big difference between
like Woodward and Bernstein, andthen like talking about like,
like broadcast news, the, thefilm is the difference between
print and television journalism,and I feel like the the rise of
the 24-hour news channel hasalso affected it, because you
(16:50):
know, I, it's been my dream thatat some point in my life I can
say stop the presses thingbecause of you know the pop
culture.
But With print news it feelslike there's more time to get
things right, because if itdoesn't go into today's paper
can go into Maros, whereas withthe television news, especially
(17:12):
if it's on 24 hours a day, youneed to get it out quickly, you
need to fill the time or youneed to be ready when the camera
goes.
You know you can't.
You can't put a filler articlein like you can with print news,
and I feel like that has made amajor difference in how we view
the news just in general.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Right.
So so I think you brought uptwo, at least two things.
One has to do with the amountof material you need.
So if you're doing, if back inthe days of time and Newsweek
and Life magazine they had a,they had a week or, you know, in
some cases a month to do to getthe story right, and so it
(17:58):
could be a Really in-depth storythat you know talked of 30, 40
sources and it was edited andre-edited, revised, etc.
With the daily newspaper, it'snot, it's not just television,
but it's, you know, it's radio,it's, it's, it's print, but it's
a time function.
(18:18):
So the daily newspaper, thereisn't that luxury for most
stories.
With television, you know, same, it's daily.
So the six o'clock news, thenoon news, the 11 o'clock news.
So there's that.
Now, when you're, when you'redoing a news story, you're out
talking to a lot of people,whether it's print or television
(18:41):
, whether you're taking yournotes with a camera, with a
microphone or with a notebookand a pen.
You're writing all this stuffdown, you're talking to all
these people and then graduallyyou figure out when the the fact
, which facts are reliable,which facts are a little
questionable and which facts arenot reliable at all, and you
(19:03):
start to make choices.
You make editing choices.
Then you think about what orderdo we want to put these facts
in?
What's the lead, what's the duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,
duh, duh, duh, duh.
And you, you come up with astory, the same way that you
create any product.
If suddenly there's a 24-hournews channel, which which
(19:25):
happened in the 90s I get thoseof the the late 80s, early 90s
that that trend started Now acouple things happen.
One is you need news to fill thetime, which means you'll run
almost anything, just becauseyou can't say, yeah, we're
(19:46):
working on that story, go gowatch the young and the restless
and come back at 230.
Well, maybe we'll have a, we'llhave something.
For they can't do that right,and the reason they can't do
that is because of the businessof broadcasting.
If they lose their audience,they, the audience, isn't there
(20:07):
for the commercials and, on somelevel With profit-making news
organizations, the only reasonthey're, the primary reason for
the news, is to keep peopletuned in for the ads, and that's
true television in general.
Whether cable broadcastanything, the reason For the
(20:28):
programming is to is to attracta certain audience that will
then watch certain commercials.
If you think about a newspaper,the average daily newspaper is
70% ads, 30% content.
We don't even think about thatas as readers, but that's the
(20:50):
fact.
It's there, so that will turnthe page and See the ad that's
next to the, the continuation ofthe article.
So one piece of it is fillingthe space and the other piece is
because you have to fill thespace.
You don't have the luxury toFact-check in the same way.
(21:10):
So if you think about CNN orFox or MSNBC or whichever
whichever, when you look atthere's always oh, oh,
something's happening.
We're gonna go there now live.
That's great, they can go therelive.
Very often what they're goingthere live for is irrelevant.
Right or you know, or it's justsomebody's opinion.
(21:33):
It's not an important fact.
It's just an opportunity forsome senator walking down the
Capitol steps to say here's whatI think about that, and CNN and
MSNBC and Fox want that becausethey need to fill the time,
(21:53):
something I think is interestingto think about in terms of,
like the way that news haschanged over the past 50 years.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
And then you know the the addition of television news
and what you're talking aboutwith, like pretty people.
If delivering the news is wherea journalists ego lies Because
I'm thinking with, like Woodwardand Bernstein their ego lies in
ferreting out the story,getting it accurate and writing
(22:20):
it well.
Their names are household namesnow, but I don't, like I don't
have a good sense of whether aninvestigative journalist wants
to be a household name or not.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
I can't speak for all of you journalists, but no, but
one of the things thatreporters think about is the
beat they're on, is this, youknow, are they on the police
beat, the courthouse beat, theschool beat, the education beat,
which is likely to get morefront page time?
(22:57):
And the more front page timeyou get, or the more often
you're on the television news,not as a reporter who fed
information to somebody elsewho's going to read it, but for
you to be on there with yourface, like you know, medium
close-up, what that means ismore recognition.
(23:20):
What more recognition means isyou can demand a higher salary.
What more recognition means isthat a newspaper or television
station or news channel at thenext higher level is going to be
more likely to notice you andoffer you a job.
So all of these things are atplay and again, that's not just
(23:46):
the nature of the news media.
You know these examples are,but in many different
professions visibility mattersin certain ways.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I'm thinking about this in part because I'm
journalist adjacent I writeabout money.
So, like I'm not a journalistbut have some similar skills and
thinking about where my egolies when it comes to my writing
and in previous jobs I used tobe a high school English teacher
and like my ego about being ahigh school English teacher and
(24:19):
how that is going to bedifferent for different
professions, like what are thethings that you're proud of?
And then how that also changesbetween, like, print journalism
and television journalism.
Because, like the exampleyou're giving with, in broadcast
news, like you know, albertBrooks is proud of his ability
to, you know, be an excellentreporter, but it doesn't matter
(24:43):
because William Hurt is proud ofhis face and the fact that it
brings the ladies around.
So like getting into that, intolike what, what, where the ego
is, and what that's going to howthat's going to affect how
journalism works Well.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
I'm not sure that journalists are different from
anybody else in that respect.
I think, you know, as, as humanbeings, we're on an ego
continuum, as we are on so manyother continuums continuum, and
so there are people who are veryegotistical in any profession,
(25:21):
in any relationship, right andthere are people who aren't, who
are more interested in otherthings or, for various reasons,
are shy or, you know,introverted, whatever it might
be.
They're more social, you know,social product oriented than
than personality oriented.
So I'm not sure that thatmatters.
One of the things, though, thatthat does matter is
(25:47):
noticeability, visibility.
I'm not quite sure what theterm is.
If a New York Times reporterwalks into a scene where there's
something happening and startstalking to people, basically
nobody notices him or her, rightthey?
You may know that name if youread the New York Times or the
(26:09):
Boston Globe or the BaltimoreSun, but you wouldn't recognize
that person's face or voice If,on the other hand, that that
reporter or that anchor person,yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
When Anderson Cooper shows up, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
And when Anderson Cooper shows up, the story stops
being whatever the story wasand starts being oh my God,
anderson Cooper's here.
So it works both ways.
And you know and we know thisagain from from you know
celebrities in general that thatwhen you become famous you lose
(26:47):
your anonymity and, dependingon your ego, you know that may
be a good thing in certain waysbut it also means you can't go
grocery shopping anymore.
There were cases years ago,back when soap operas had huge
audiences in the early days oftelevision, when an actor from a
(27:07):
soap opera was interviewed andsaid he can't.
He can't walk down the streetanymore because women come up to
him and hit him with theirpurses and say how could you do
that to that poor woman?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I'd love to talk a little bit about gender and the
role of gender in the brand ofjournalists.
I'm thinking about Woodward andBernstein, whose names we know
in part because of the movie Imean what they did actually in
Watergate but also because ofthe movie, the book in the movie
, and then also, like my kid isalmost 12, but when she was
(27:45):
little she had that like badgirls of history or something
like that, and Nellie Bly wasone of the one of the characters
sort of featured, who was areally skilled and brave
investigative journalist in theearly days of print, you know,
went undercover in a mentalinstitution just really
remarkable things whose name Ihad never heard until I got this
(28:08):
like story, this storybook forkids.
So anyway, what I'm thinkingabout is the role of sexism in
sort of keeping Nellie Bly'sstory from pop culture to a
certain extent, but also also inthe way that and I'm actually
maybe more interested in thisthe way that we perceive, as you
(28:31):
know, in the zeitgeist, as weperceive female journalists that
you know, walter Cronkite wasthe voice of the news, a
specifically male voice, and hissuccessors have been male, and
my sort of picture from media offemale journalists is more of
that broadcast.
She's hired for her looksrather than her skill, and I
(28:55):
know that is not fair to femalejournalists.
And yet that is the impressionthat I have internalized and I'd
love to hear from you, john andM, if you want to share, like
why is that in my head?
Speaker 3 (29:09):
Why is that in my?
Speaker 1 (29:09):
head.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
I want to jump in before John answers.
Just that.
Also, like the fictionalrepresentations of thinking like
Lois Lane, there is thedramatic irony that you love,
like we know that Clark Kent isSuperman and she doesn't, and
there is this sense of like howshe's not a very good reporter
if she can't read it.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, he just takes his glasses off.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yeah, and she is the only woman in the newsroom.
So like there is this sense oflike she's the hard nosed, like
you know really feisty, which Ihate that word.
You know woman who is hardcharging, but you know her
little lady brain can't.
Yeah, clark Kent, superman thesame person.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Okay, so there's one thing from why it's in my head.
But anyway, yeah, John, what doyou think?
Where's this like?
Not the sexism that generatesit, but the pop, pop culture
that reinforces it.
Where is it coming from?
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, it's coming from the culture that you're
talking about, walter Cronkite.
In the in the 50s and 60s,women were not viewed as
professionals, you know.
They were housewives, mothers,sex objects, etc.
Right, and the, the women'smovement beginning in the early
(30:31):
70s started to change that andnow we see a lot more women
reporters, anchors, and let'snot just talk about gender,
let's talk about race, forexample, you know, let's talk
about gay versus straight.
(30:53):
You know, these categories ofpeople that used to be relegated
to, to a lesser status, rightby any other name, right.
As the culture has shifted,people from those categories
(31:14):
have been brought in more andbeen allowed to enter the
mainstream.
So we see it with women, we seeit with African Americans, we
see it with Asians, we see itwith gays.
We, you know an on and on andon transgender.
We see that we, there's no waywe would have seen that in in
(31:37):
the news media and, you know,except as a freak story up until
relatively recently.
So I don't think it's it's fairto to measure where we are now
by looking at Walter Cronkiteand Huntley and Brinkley in the
(31:58):
50s and 60s.
I think we have to look at 2024and say what's out there and to
what degree is it betterreflecting the culture than the
50s and 60s representations ofpeople in general?
And clearly we're not done.
(32:19):
It's a work in progress.
But it wasn't until relativelyrecently that either a network
or a local newscast could have afemale anchor or co anchor, or
a black anchor or co anchor.
(32:40):
And even if the managementthought it was a good idea, they
were afraid that there would beenough viewers who wouldn't
take that woman seriously.
Because as men you know, wegrew up culturally learning not
to take women seriously.
You take men seriously, and soif a woman is delivering this
(33:04):
really important information tous, by definition it must not be
that important.
So it's one of those push-pullsituations where we want it to
happen, but it can't happenuntil the culture catches up
with it.
But one of the ways the culturecatches up with it is by people
(33:25):
in power putting those rolemodels out there for other
people to see.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
And so it happened, but it's gradual.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Something that's interesting that I'm thinking
about is talking about ego injournalism, and the reason why I
brought that up is that oftenwe're shown in pop culture that
journalists care aboutthemselves more than they care
about the news, and so theexamples that I can think of off
the top of my head are, like Imentioned, gail Weathers and
(33:57):
Scream.
Now, granted, that's not thatrecent, it's 1997.
But then Ms Piggy in MuppetsFrom Space, 1989.
Yeah, same era, about the sametime.
And then that episode ofLucifer Tracy with the paparazzo
, the young man who is black,who he wants to be first to get
(34:18):
the first picture, and that'sfrom 2016.
So again, eight years ago.
But it does in some ways seemlike there is this pop cultural
undercutting of the idea thatyou can get good news from a
marginalized and that they areout for themselves rather than
for the news, the nobility of it, the importance of information,
(34:42):
all of that, and those are allthree very separate examples.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Yeah, very separate, but I think you're getting at
something that I'm also thinkingabout, which is that talking
about the news on deep thoughtsabout stupid shit is kind of new
for us, right, because it ispop culture, but it's also,
until recently, not exquisitelyentertainment, or at least
that's not the category that weput it into.
So I'm curious for us to add tothe conversation not just the
(35:10):
people actually anchoring thenews desk locally or nationally,
but also those entertainmentpieces that are being produced
about anchors and who are thosefolks, and I think that's kind
of what Emily's pointing at.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Sure, so it's not new .
The front page 1931, his GalFriday.
Back in the early 30s, citizenKane was about journalism.
Yeah 1941, you know the, stillon many people's charts, still
the greatest movie ever made.
(35:45):
So there's all of that stuff.
Good night and good luck aboutEdward R Murrow.
So you have those.
Then there are shows likeNetwork 1976, I don't know if
you can.
You know Faye Dunnaway, peterFinch, william Holden it was a
Patty Chayevsky movie but therewas the news dynamic but also
(36:08):
the ownership, and that's themovie in which the Peter Finch
character, howard Beale, saysI'm mad as hell, I'm not going
to take it anymore.
He basically has a nervousbreakdown on the air and
editorial wants to pull himimmediately.
Ownership says this is great,let's put him up there every
(36:30):
night.
Being crazy, he says he's goingto commit suicide on television
.
This is outrageous.
Ownership says let's keep himthere because think of the
number of people that'll watch.
So these things have been goingon.
Then you have shows like theMary Tyler Moore show.
(36:50):
Right, the Morning Show.
But shows like the Mary TylerMoore show are set in a newsroom
, at least partially.
But it's not about the news,it's a family show.
The family happens to be thepeople she works with and
(37:12):
there's the father figure, edAsner, lou Grant, the goofy
brothers, ted Baxter and Murray,and her best friend Rhoda, and
all these people.
But there's another wholesubgenre of comedy shows that
are set in a profession.
(37:33):
Welcome back, cotter.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Right, it's a teacher show.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Well, it's not really about being a teacher, it's
about being a comedian right,and you can go through all these
shows, whether it's doctorshows, lawyer shows.
That's just the setting, butthat's not what they're about.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
I want to linger on Mary Tyler Moore, actually,
because I think that's aparticularly interesting one, in
that Mary was the protagonistand Murphy Brown's another one.
Yes, murphy Brown's a great oneand in some ways those are like
Like Murphy Brown's, almost likean iteration of Mary Tyler
Moore, where they made her eventougher and even more effective
(38:18):
as a journalist.
I think, because I think thatTed Baxter and the I can't think
of the anchor's name Are verysimilar characters, even right,
and there was a sense.
I didn't watch Mary Tyler Moore.
I haven't seen all of theseries, right, but I certainly
watched it a bit as a kid andMary was the journalist with
(38:40):
integrity, right.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
And.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Ted was just the good looks, which completely
subverted the kind of sexistpicture that I was talking about
having internalized, as didMurphy Brown.
Right, I think the one guy thatMurphy worked with was actually
good, but the other guy wasjust a pretty face and a nice
voice.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Yeah, he was the anchor.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Which is really interesting to me, that I had
this sexist furniture in my headdespite, like we grew up on
Murphy Brown, like our dad had abig crush on Candice Bergen,
and so we watched it every week.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Who wouldn't have a big crush on him?
Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, that's okay.
All right.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
So I'm interested in pulling this apart a little bit
that we have these clear, verypopular pieces of pop culture
that gave us these competence.
Competent female journalistssubverted the sexism and yet can
we like tease all that yeah.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
Jump in them.
Can I speak to that?
Something I think isinteresting is that Murphy Brown
and the Mary Tyler Moore showare not about journalism, like
John just said, and that's partof the reason why we don't like.
When I think of Murphy Brown, Ithink of Dan Quayle, I think of
her baby that she named Avery,I think of Eldon the painter, I
(40:03):
think of the place where theywent to get drinks, I think of
the newsroom, not the studio,and similarly with Mary Tyler
Moore, I don't really think ofthe journalism of it, and I
think that's part of what'sgoing on.
There is that, like pop culturewill allow us to have these
(40:23):
female journalists withintegrity, who are good at what
they do and competence, but onlyif we don't get to see them in
that setting, or at least notfocus on it Like.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
our focus is their private lives.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Yes, interesting, and so I think that that's part of
it, because it's just the onestep forward, two steps back
kind of thing, where like oh,yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, you can
have a career woman, you canhave someone who's hard driving,
who's like good at her job andall of that, but we're going to
focus on our love life.
What do you think of?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
that John.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I think a couple things about that.
I think you're making a bit ofa generalization, but I don't
disagree with you.
The morning show do you knowthe morning show?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I don't know that one .
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Okay, jennifer Aniston, and Was that on Apple
TV.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
That's the one that's streaming on Apple.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, I haven't seen it.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, but basically these two very competent news
women.
Complications ensue, but it'salso about their private lives
as well as their public lives.
But I think there's one otherthing going on here that's worth
considering.
There's a psychological theorythat says that we absorb
(41:37):
information that supports ourbiases and points of view and we
ignore or reject informationthat contradicts them Sure, sure
.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
Confirmation bias yes yes, confirmation bias.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
So there are instances of these other people
in responsible roles, but formany of us, we tend not to let
them through as readily thatplays out, however, it's going
to play out over time and again.
It's shifting, but culturechanges much more gradually.
(42:17):
People who are being mistreatedin society are always upset
that change doesn't happenovernight, and the rest of us,
who aren't being mistreated inthat particular context can step
back and say well, yeah, it isbetter than it's better than it
(42:37):
was five years ago, and that'sbetter than it was 10 years ago
or 25 years ago.
Well, that's true, and it's notfast enough.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Right, right.
Something that you're sufferingless than you used to suffer is
not actually it's not actuallyparticularly comforting.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
The train is going in the right direction, but it's
going 20 miles an hour insteadof 85 miles an hour.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
While you suffer.
Yeah Right, yeah Well, we'regetting close to our time.
I want to make sure, John arethere any points?
That you wanted that you joinedthe studio with us today, that
you wanted to make sure that yousaid that we haven't gotten to
yet.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Well, I'd like to talk for a minute about why
people historically think thatnews people are liberal.
Yeah, let's talk about that andthat apparent bias, and this may
be part of my apparent bias,but when you're doing the news,
I don't mean reading a script onthe air, but when you're a
reporter, when you're an editor,it's about getting information.
(43:40):
It's about asking questions,it's about asking follow-up
questions, it's about beingcritical of the information
you're getting, it's aboutprocessing.
And if you think about liberalreligions versus conservative
religions, whatever thedenomination, there's that
difference.
Liberals tend to be interestedin asking questions and finding
(44:06):
things out and maybe havingtheir minds changed by what they
find out, where conservatives,whether it's political or
religious or economic, are muchmore interested in holding fast
to their belief system, so thatalmost by definition,
(44:30):
journalists are going to beliberals.
But I'm a reporter, therefore Isupport democratic candidates.
It's not that kind of liberal,but there's a liberality, a
liberalness in the function.
Then, on top of that, iseducation level and in
(44:53):
contemporary society, newspeople, journalists, tend to be
college graduates and college.
One of the main functions ofcollege is to teach you how to
think, how to question, how toanalyze, and there's this
(45:13):
increasing again rift betweeneducated and noneducated, and so
everything reinforceseverything else, and if you're a
conservative who didn't go tocollege, it's really easy to
just take that and say, yeah,look at them, they're everything
(45:37):
you know.
They're everything I'm not.
They're everything I don't wantto be.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
That actually reminds me of something.
I've seen several thingsrecently talking about why there
are so few right wing comediansand part of it, and you can go
on YouTube and find all kinds ofvideos where people will show
right wing comedians.
All have the same joke, whichis I identify as a fighter jet.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
My pronouns are.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
My pronouns are yeah, or my pronouns are guess my ass
.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Or whatever they are.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
USA, yeah and so, and I'm thinking that there is a
similarity there in that comedyrequires good comedy requires a
kind of curiosity, a kind ofobservation that good journalism
also requires, like you need tobe open to looking at things in
(46:31):
a different way.
Yes, if you want to make a joke,that that is like because jokes
you need to surprise in orderto to to make a joke that is
successful.
And similarly with withjournalism, if you want to get
to a story that you didn't knowbeforehand, you have to be open
(46:52):
to learning things you didn'tknow before.
That, to me, is veryfascinating because I think that
there's a very there's asimilarity there with the
comments you see all the timelike why are comedians so
liberal and why is the newsmedia so liberal.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
The distinction that I'm hearing that both of you are
making is about a comportmenttoward the world and toward
truth which is not political.
It's actually a way ofunderstanding how the world
works and and how, and one'splace in it, and being willing
to revise one's understandingabout one's place in it, which
(47:28):
is liberal, but in the lowercase L use of that word and
there and therefore also oftengoes with liberal in the
uppercase L of the word, andit's a really yeah, I think it's
an interesting and importantdistinction that it's not about
a political polarity.
(47:49):
It really is about a way ofinteracting with the world and
with truth and oneself.
Yeah, cool, all right.
Any final thoughts before I tryand see if I can reflect back
some of the highlights of ourconversation.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
I'm.
I don't need to say anotherthing.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
You're good, cool, all right.
So let me see if I can reflectback and each of you please feel
free to like, fill in nuance,correct, edit.
So we're talking.
We are talking today about therole of, or the.
I deemed it the brand, so I'mgoing to stick with that the
brand.
The journalists have the brandawareness and, specifically like
(48:33):
the attitude that the publichas toward the brand of
journalists as we see it in popculture, and we've seen it shift
from a high of, after all, thepresident's men and the stories
of Woodward and Bernstein, wheredroves of young people wanted
to become journalists becauseWoodward and Bernstein were
(48:54):
American heroes who protecteddemocracy with integrity and a
commitment to the truth.
Through the recent years, since2016, where we've seen just a
real muddying of the brand ofjournalists who we're not sure
(49:15):
as a people, we're not sure ifwe could trust them, we're not
sure they actually haveintegrity, we're not sure they
actually have the Americanpeople's goodwill at heart,
we're not sure they whatrelationship they have with the
truth and sometimes they have.
We didn't say this today, butyou know, the idea of you know
alternative facts from the pasteight years is something that
(49:38):
was inconceivable in the days ofWoodward and Bernstein.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
If I could just just jump, jump in there about
alternative facts.
I think one of the shifts rightnow is the shift from here is
the information to.
I want the information to tosupport my position right.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
So confirmation bias has become out of the background
and into the foreground.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
We're saying it out loud and explicitly and if it
doesn't support my position,then not only do I not want it,
but I am going to try toconvince people that it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
Yeah, that it's inaccurate.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, it's inaccurate .
Yes.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
So that's sort of the shift that you came into the
studio kind of describing andthen when we looked back at some
of the pop culture moments ofit, we saw we see, we see them
the shift from print tobroadcast radio and then
broadcast where the journalistmaybe we knew their name, but
the idea of the celebrity of thejournalist became sort of a
(50:43):
factor in this shift so that weas the public came to believe,
have come to believe, that atleast for some journalists,
maybe many of them, maybe most,there's a ego in the celebrity,
whether it's about getting itfirst or getting it best, or you
know, anderson Cooper showingup and changing what the story
(51:04):
is actually about.
That the actual celebrity of thejournalist has changed the way
we think about journalism,especially if we go all the way
back to, like his girl Friday,where we may not even, you know,
know the journalist names, andyou also brought to our
attention the different roles inpresenting the news.
So there's, there's, there'sthe journalists themselves, but
(51:25):
then there's also the person forwhom the business is the
primary driver, the owner in thecase of was it.
What movie was it with?
The was it network?
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Well network is an example.
There are many of them.
Broadcast news is an example.
Citizen Kane is an example.
Citizen Kane, charles FosterKane, owns this big New York
newspaper and it's during theSpanish-American war in Cuba and
he sends a reporter and thereporter says there's really no
(51:57):
story here and Kane says youfurnish the pictures, I'll
furnish the war.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
Yeah, so that's an old tension that pop culture has
been waiting for a long time.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
I was going to say one more thing about television
news and anchors.
And there was this movementstarted in the late 80s about
family, the news anchors as yourfriends.
And we've seen billboards,we've seen signs on the sides of
(52:34):
buses tune into the 530 Newsand it shows the three anchors
and the sportscaster smilingbecause and we go there not
because the news is better, ispresented more effectively, but
because we like those people,right, right, they are our
friends.
Speaker 3 (52:55):
I'm thinking about because my eldest was born in
2010.
And so I would end up watchingthe, I guess the Today Show,
with one with Matt Lauer and AnnCurry, because that would be
when, when he'd be nursing and Igot to.
I liked watching it, and MattLauer's ouster because of the Me
Too movement also didn'tsurprise me, based on having
(53:16):
watched it regularly, because Iwasn't watching for him, but the
persona he gave off wasappealing.
I just for I found him smarmyfrom the beginning, but anyway.
But I'm just thinking about thefact that I kept watching it,
not because I wanted the newsyou can use, or like you know
(53:37):
best fall recipes, or you knowthe things, but because I liked
the people there and wanted tosee them.
And granted, morning news isnot that is usually for for the
people who have schedules, orthe moms who are staying at home
, or the parents are staying athome or whatever, but it's still
.
Or you know people in dentistwaiting rooms, it still is.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
They are journalists, yeah, yeah journalists and it's
a chatty format, because chattyis is about personality and
about bringing people into theconversation, even though you,
as you as a nursing mother, arenot part of the conversation,
but but you like to on somelevel.
You think you are.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
Yeah, yeah.
So those examples today showwe're thinking about this is a
little bit of a departure for uson deep thoughts, but we have
multiple layers here that we'retalking about.
So we're because because thejournalists, the those TV shows
are a piece of media, and alsothere is pop culture, media
(54:38):
about that, and so we talkedabout that distinction as well
and the ways in which,specifically around
representation, specificallyaround female representation,
with Mary Tyler Moore and MurphyBrown, and we saw some examples
where the pop culture about themedia, about the news media,
gave us these strong femalecharacters as reporters and then
(55:00):
also had us focus on their lovelives or on their personal
lives in one way or another.
And it was a.
It's a give and take, it's apush pull, it's both.
And what pieces am I forgetting?
The highlights from ourconversation?
Speaker 3 (55:12):
Where the idea of liberal bias comes from.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yes, yes, as a liberal bias, as not about a
political polarity but about acomportment toward the world,
truth and one's relation to both.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Yeah, unrelated to that.
But going back to what Emilysaid about Matt Lauer and
sensing something, in the series, the morning show on Apple, the
Steve Carell character is MattLauer and something very similar
happens.
It doesn't play out quite thesame way but it is clearly that
(55:52):
story and that's something elsethat in these entertainment
shows about the news media, aswith entertainment shows about
many other professions, if whensomething happens in the
profession, some controversy,very often within a couple
seasons of it, you see thatstory playing out in a more or
(56:15):
less fictionalized way on theentertainment versions of the
profession.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Yeah, that's what we're thinking about.
Yeah Well, this was fun.
Thank you, john, for joining us.
Listener, if you are enjoyingJohn's voice as much as I am,
please go check out his podcast.
It's called Burning Bright.
We'll put a link to thatpodcast in the show notes and
next time M.
What are we talking about?
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Next time I'm going to bring you my deep thoughts
about the fifth element.
Oh cool, it must be found.
Speaker 1 (56:52):
All right, I really enjoyed that movie when I
watched it, and you and I havetalked about Lilu and some of
her problematics when we talkedabout Born Texas yesterday, so I
look forward to unpacking itfurther and do you have any
listener comments you wanted toshare?
Speaker 3 (57:09):
Yes, I have a comment from James about the Buffy
episode that we did with KateMoody.
And James says I just watchedthe Buffy episode I was made to
love you, which is the one thatKate Moody really went into
about kind of in-cell culture.
And James says damn, he reallyis like 100% in-cell.
Before it was even coined Iforgot how much I deserve a
girlfriend.
She's supposed to loveeverything I love.
(57:31):
It's sort of played for laughs,but not really Uncomfortable
laughs maybe, but then the samecharacter returns next season as
a rapist and serial killer.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
So yeah, kate was onto something, she was onto
something.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
She really was.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Yeah, all right.
Well, john, thank you again forjoining us.
Speaker 2 (57:51):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
We will see you next week.
Do you like stickers?
Sure, we all do.
If you head over toguygirlsmediacom slash, sign up
and share your address with us,we'll send you a sticker.
It really is that easy, butdon't wait, there's a limited
quantity.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
(58:13):
incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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