September 19, 2024 • 42 mins
In this conversation, Karol interviews T. Beckett Adams, a columnist and program director of the National Journalism Center. They discuss Beckett's career as a writer and his expertise in politics, culture, and film criticism. They also touch on the state of journalism and the importance of providing accurate and informative commentary. The conversation highlights the need for journalists to tell readers something they didn't know and to avoid sensationalism. The conversation explores the themes of living in bubbles, the erosion of trust in institutions, and the need for personal boundaries and communication. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'd like to start.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Off with an apology for the lack of monologue on
Monday's show. I skip monologue sometimes when I'm on vacation
or traveling, and I let you guys know.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
But this was a bit different.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
After the last few episodes of talking about how elections
make people crazy, Donald Trump was the target of a
second assassination attempt on Sunday. My friend John Cardillo actually
broke the story on X and there was a lot
of confusion about what had happened. The early reports were
that there was a shootout outside the golf course where
(00:44):
he was playing in West Palm Beach that had nothing
to do with the president. After nearly three years in Florida,
our anniversary is coming up in January. I'm not an expert,
but I've spent some time in West Palm Beach and
it's it's not a place where daytime shootouts are a thing,
even in the sketchy areas, So that a story immediately
(01:07):
sounded suspicious to me. And then I got a tip,
a very reliable tip. It was a picture of the
would be shooter as he was being arrested by police.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I posted his photo.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
On my social media on x and some information that
I had about him, and then my day just blew up.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It got millions of views.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
My phone started ringing and didn't stop. I went on
making Kelly's Show on Sunday as the news was breaking,
and then on Clay and Buck the following day. Breaking
news isn't my beat per se, but I have done
it in a few high profile cases in the past.
It's extremely nerve racking. I mean, what if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I'm a columnist.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That's my day job. I write my opinion. I don't
worry too much about being wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Still have facts with my opinions, but I double and
triple check everything, and look, I've had opinions I no
longer hold. But that just means I get to write
another column on how I got to the new opinions
and why I discarded the old ones. Breaking news is
a totally different animal. There's also the avalanche of hate
(02:22):
that comes with being a public figure in general. But
when one of your posts gets millions of views, it
really brings out the crazies, especially if that post is
about an attempted assassination of a presidential candidate. I posted
this on my socials, But if you enjoy someone's work,
not just mine, anybody you follow that is living a
(02:43):
public life, do your best to support them. We get
a lot of bad stuff thrown in us, and look,
I still think it's worth it. I still love what
I do, but some days it does get hard. All
the ways to support my work, mostly for free, is
in my pin tweet on X And another thing you
can do, obviously again not just for me, is retweet
(03:06):
people comment on their stuff, subscribe to their podcast, leave
them reviews. All of it's free, doesn't take a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Of effort, and it's very appreciative.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
The pin tweet on X it involves listening to the
show or subscribing to my substack. Nothing crazy anyway. That's
why I didn't have a monologue. I was knee deep
in the attempted assassination story and I ran out of
time to record it. To make it all up to you,
I'm going to tell you something that isn't otherwise public yet.
Launching this Tuesday, I'm going to start a second podcast,
(03:39):
this one about politics, and I'll be co hosting with
my good friend Mary Catherine Ham. I'm still going to
continue doing this show, which is largely not about politics,
but especially now I need a political outlet too, and
MK and I have very similar worldviews. We hope to
be funny and to bring you perspectives you don't hear
(04:00):
anywhere else. The show is called Normally. It will run
on the same network as this, the Klay, Travis and
Buck Sexton podcast network on iHeartRadio. It will be posted
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and just like this show, you
can hear it anywhere you get your podcasts. We talk
about balance a lot on this show. I think it's
(04:20):
important to take breaks from politics, as I try to
do on the Carol Marcowitz Show, but there's also time
to talk about the political issues, the election, horse race
and so on. We'll be doing that at the Normally
podcast and hope you will subscribe when it's up. Thank
you so much for listening. I appreciate you all so much.
Coming up next an interview with T Beckett Adams.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is T Beckett Adams. Beckett is the program
director of the National Journalism Center, and he's a columnist
at The Hill, National Review and The Washington Examiner.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I Beckett, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Hey, Carol, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So I know that.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
This is something that maybe people tell you a lot,
but you're really one of my favorite people to follow
on X And I was thinking about this, is that
a compliment?
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Are people?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Are people insulted by you know.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Like I associate you in having a really good like
Twitter feed, you know, you.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Know what, I take it as a compliment. Now. I
think back in like twenty twelve, twenty fourteen, it's like,
let me know, because you still have this mindset that
you no, social media so new, but at this point,
so much news is made on Twitter, and one of
the things that's so useful about is it's great for networking.
So you know, and just take it as a compliment.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, And I think you're just you have a really
creative way of getting points across in you know, X
number of characters, and I just really I always think
of you as having like really clever takes on stuff
and not typical.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So there's my you know, compliment and slash insult. You
are good at you are good at the Twitter.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
You know, I'll take it. I mean I liked it
better when it was one hundred and forty characters because
it was it was It was a good discipline, especially
if you were trying to tell a joke, to see
if you can do it in one hundred and forty characters.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, or at least to eighty.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
But like this new you can write you know, six paragraphs.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I can't wrap my mind around it.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
It's essentially just Facebook.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, right, So how did you get into this world?
How did you become a writer?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Oh? Geez, let's see if I can do the readers.
I just version of it. I fall into journalism and
political commentary entirely by accident. I've always liked politics. I've
always been extremely fascinated by it because it's the most
insane circus and it's all real with actual consequences. So,
you know, it's a lot of performing without a net,
(06:46):
as it were. But you know, I graduated in around
two thousand and eight, so there's a little bit of
an economic tightening around then, and as it turns out,
having a BA wasn't a surefire way to get a job.
As you know, people couldn't even hold their homes, let
alone get decent jobs. So I fell into it entirely
by accident, because back then finding an internship that paid
(07:09):
was also extremely rare as a unicorn, especially in the
sort of DC area. I was going to school in Virginia,
so I kind of emigrated upwards to where the jobs were,
and I found this group called the National Journalism Center,
which I am now the program director of, and I
was I was still doing some schooling, and so I
didn't really have the time to do a full time gig,
whether it's retail or food service. Food service is my
(07:32):
real background, and so I was like, I just need
some cash flow. So I found this internship that paid.
It was in journalism, and I could write well enough,
and I was really upfront with them. I was like, look,
I just need the money. That's really what I need it.
Long story short, turns out I was good at it
and I really enjoyed it. And now what fourteen fourteen
years later, here I am as a columnist and I
(07:52):
now trained journalists.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
So you started there as your entry level internship or
it was like.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
A of paid internship.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
It was a pay It was a paid internship, which
again is the only reason I applied. I just I
just because they provided a monthly stipend. I'm like, that's
I'll be bad. And then I really enjoyed it and
it got me closer to politics. You know. We got
to have that first moment when you get to go
into press gallery in the capital. It was like, this
is really cool, you know, and they point out, you know,
the bullet holes or the Erycan nationalists open fire on
(08:22):
Congress back in the day was like nineteen fifty four
the top of my head, but just like it was
really exciting. And then being able to cover presidential elections
and primaries and et cetera, et cetera, and it's like
and so I'm stuck with it's sticking with it, not
stuck with it, And that's how you look at it.
I really enjoy it. I love it. And part of
the reason I went back to the NJAC to actually
start training and working with aspiring journalists is because I
(08:44):
do love journalism and I have no misgivings about how
bad the industry is right now. It's it's a mess.
It's it's got a credibility crisis for a reason, and
so part of my being at the NJAC is to
try to get in the ground level and like train people, like,
let's fix things one right.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Fixing the problems. How I'm original.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I haven't heard of that before.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
They're right.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So what do you consider your beat?
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Politics? Culture? Although I don't I'm not really I've never
been a culture warrior type. I've never been an activist type.
I don't think I've ever been to a political rally.
I've done the March for Life, but like, honestly, in
high school, that was just excuse to get to DC.
It's fun, I mean, but I do like to There's
some stuff I do find really fascinating about the American
(09:30):
experience and where are we going? Where have we been?
And then if I get really lucky, I get to
do my secret passion project, which is doing film criticism.
But that's film criticism is very difficult. I think it
requires a specific kind of creativity which is learned, I think,
or I mean, it can be learned, but I think
some people are just kind of born with it. But
(09:50):
you know, I have the opportunity to do that. But
mostly focusing in politics and the intersection of politics and media,
especially what's the.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Difference between film reviews and film criticism.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Uh, that's a good question. I don't know. I mean
there's a difference I think between sort of in doing
a review kind of gives a quick and dirty it's
like the letter but you know the website letterbox, we
can go and how many stars do you give it?
You know, it's a website you can go to to
do very very brief reviews, almost like as short as
they are in like Rotten Tomatoes. Give it how many
(10:23):
stars out of five and a quick one or two
summary of what you liked or why you hated it.
Film criticism, I think, is a lot more like a
literary criticism, and that you break it down into its
parts and you review how each thing plays together against
the themes of the movie, with how it's produced, et cetera,
et cetera. So I did. I got to. I had
this great experience earlier this year. I had never watched
(10:43):
The Searchers with John Wayne. I had never gotten around
to seeing it. So I finally did it. Turned out
actually watched it on his birthday weekend. It was a weird,
little serendipitous thing, and it is so good. It is
such a good really, it's like I've seen some john
Ford stuff before, so I can't say it's his best
piece because I haven't seen all this stuff. But it
is remarkably good, so good. It's one of those movies
(11:04):
that you kind of stop and sit about and think about.
And then I actually did a criticism where I broke
it down into its parts because I think it's very
sort of it's a symbolism and poetry and how the
movie begins and how it ends, and so I think
that's different between The Dreamer. Two thumbs up, although to
say also it was good with criticism as or yeah,
criticism as well.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
My dirty yeah, my dirty secret is that I don't
watch movies I want to, like I do, I do,
I really want to, but they're so bad and they're
so bad. So often the more critically acclaimed it is,
I feel like, the worse.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
It is, I feel like, see, it's so funny because
I had an experience that got a little missy. We
were showing the kids sound the music for the first time.
Oh yeah, I never cared for it when I was
a kid. It always that was.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
A good one.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Oh, I mean it's good. Yeah, it's appreciated. It's a
well put together movie, but like it as a fourteen
year old or an eight year old boy. It's not
really your bag of potatoes. It's right, a bunch of
kids singing and dancing. But I'm watching it with my
kids who are five and four because you know, the
past and all. I get a little missie. Not because
of the movie, but because of the sort of level
of expertise and competency in the movie that costumes of music,
(12:08):
the way it looks and ever. It's like, I feel
like we don't have a lot of this. We have
this weird sort We have either indie dramas about like
incestuous step people, or you have big block you know,
big blockbuster, big budget movies that's like the fourteenth Avengers film,
and it's like you see somebody like the music, and
there's this sort of artistry and care and there's like
(12:30):
there's something to it. I feel like, I mean, it
still exists in some forms, but you know, I think
it is telling that. So this goes back to knowing
what I write and like to write about. You know,
I think there is something to glean from the fact
that the year that best soute of the music won
Best Picture four years later, the movie that one best
picture was Men n Cowboys. So these change very quickly
(12:51):
and really clearly in the culture. And then watching this
movie and it was just like the first fifteen minutes
there's three songs, and you got the nuns and the
convent all that stuff. It's like, this is great. When
did we make movies like this or we like, we're
on like the third the third u at Moana? What
is it the item?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
We are coming up with a second Molana? But yeah, Frozen, Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
What's sad is that those are sort of good movies
and that's why they have to remake them because all
the other movies are so bad.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Every time I watch like the It's just a while
ago now, but that everything all at once Staff movie, Yeah,
I just I was like, what in.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
The hell you're like? I hated it. I hated it.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Okay, well I can't. I see I see that. I
get that. That's one of those things where I get it.
I get it, you do.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, the hot Enjeorge, just all of it.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I always gotta fun. I mean, I'm not I'm not
trying to do the thing where we don't make good
stuff anymore. We do, but I I do think we do.
It does exist. I mean, it wasn't so long ago.
Well okay, this is perspective, but like the Lord of
the Rings trilogy wasn't that long. That was after the millennium.
And I do remember seeing it in the theater and
having like, oh wow, this is this is different. I
(14:06):
haven't seen something like this.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's twenty years ago.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Right, It is a while ago, but I mean that's
twenty years isn't completely out.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
No.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
I thought nineteen seventeen was technically very proficient, very and
you'll see that.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Okay, I'll try it.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
It's Sam I can't remember his last name, Mendez, I owe,
the director. I can't remember, but he did some of
the New Bond movies. I liked it a lot. It's
not the greatest film ever written. And some people did
like it precisely because it's so technically proficient. They thought
it was basically the entire movie is one tracking shot.
There's essentially no cuts in the entire movie, and people
thought that was distracting and gimmicky. But I mean it's
(14:42):
a good looking movie and it did actually you know,
there are moments where like, wow, this is this, this
is moving, this is this race? I'm having a visual
experience right now. Then there are other times, like I
tried to watch the New Flash and it's so funny
because there's this crisis in Hollywood right now with computer
animation where I don't know if people are quitting or
(15:03):
they're the demands are great for the amount of time
because it looks so bad. It's funny to see a
movie that came out last year and then you watched
Jurassic Park, which came out in the nineties, and dress
Park looks so good, it looks amazing, and it was
well in the more than two decades ago. And movie
that came out last year looked awful.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
What was that? Is it cutting down on staff? What
could that be? Well?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I know, huge problem with Disney is the workloads are
too great and the time constraints are too small that
essentially they are there. They have sort of created these
They sort of created a sweatshop a model for doing CGI.
Whereas back in the Jurassic Park ILM, Industrial Light and Magic,
which was George Lucas created it was the special effects workshop.
They were sort of a niche workshop. They were they
(15:49):
sort of go to if you needed something really difficult
and you wanted it to look good. So you know
the T one thousand and the Terminator two movies, this
Ilam Death becomes Her. You ever see that. It's a funny.
Oh yeah, that's ilm did a lot of special effects
on this stuff, and there used to be sort of
like if you wanted it done well, this is the
place to go, and I assume it's hostile, so interesting,
(16:09):
and there was also a reliance as well unpractical effect.
So in dress at Park they're not all CGI. There
are a lot of them are actual light sized and puppets,
gigantic animatronics and it looks good because it is real.
But in Disney, I know what a lot of the
Marble movies they had a problem whether like you know,
you would have reshoots and the schedules will get shortened,
and then you have this sweatshop of like fifteen animators
are like we need it in a week, and they're
(16:30):
like it's not gonna because it's a tri triangle. You
can have a good, faster, cheap and Dizney what's all
three in Disney consumption right, and Disney is infamously cheap.
I mean it's it's been a Hollywood joke for literal
decades at this point, and so they throw it out
and then you see the new whatever new Marble movie.
You're like, what this It doesn't look as good a
stuff that came out thirty years ago. So it's a
(16:51):
fun it's a it's it's demorned and it's cheap.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
She just sing, Beckett, could your calling be filmed off?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
I think I'm too old for that.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Feels like it might be, though. You're just like lit
up to talk about movies.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
I love talking about it. I love movies. I love
saying movies. I would love to write more about movies,
but I have not the creative confidence quite yet to
make that my calling. I just dip my toe in
it every now.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
And then I think, leap right in, right in, I'm
gonna take your job, and you know, maybe on the side,
so I'm not trying to like cause strife here.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
She might have some some thoughts about that, and that's
always fun because you know, finding movies that the two
of us like to get. She likes uh, French dramas
and I don't, so so I was trying to find
that happy medium, like would you like to watch a
traumatic wor movie and she's like, no, I would.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Not well better than like, would you like to watch
superhero movie?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Four?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Eishaw.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
I'm completely marveled out. I can't do it anymore. I
just can.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I do, I really do. There there was a lot
of grind in the beginning. I mean, everyone has to
pay their dues. In journalism, you get to start out
basically as a content farmer. The norm in a lot
of these newsrooms is, you know, you got to write
four to five pieces a day, and we're talking like
four hundred, six hundred word pieces that just news blurbs. Yeah,
(18:21):
and you know, it's kind of a sink or swim situation.
Either you get good at it, or you just don't
and you moved to a different area, or you get fired.
And I got I got really good at writing quickly,
writing fast, maybe not creatively, but very common. I can
do EIGHTP style like nobody else. But the style is
very sort of devoid of creativity. So it's so funny
about Hemingway is that he took that and he made
(18:43):
it creative, which is where because he was an AP
reporter but not everyone's hemingway h so you yet you
get good at it, you get fast at it, and
they pay your dues, and then eventually you can develop
an expertise on a beat such that you develop opinions
that are actually informed, because that's that's the real trick
to commentary. The best bit of advice ever I've ever
(19:03):
heard was from Peggy Nowton, a former Reagan speech writer.
She's called a wellster journal I'm not saying that for
your benefit, I know, you know, I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yes, yeah, I still get excited to see Peggy Noonon.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Like when I her out somewhere, I still get a
little starstruck and like I were friendly.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
She knows who I am.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And yet I'm still like Peggy noon you know.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah. See, best best bit of advice I ever heard
was from her, which is, if they're doing commentary, you
have to tell the readers something they didn't know. And
that's that. I think she said that before the sort
of worth of social media even so, like the idea
that you have an opinion, like yet get in lunch, right, yeah,
do you have something that I don't know? So I've
always tried to take that incorporate that into my columns
(19:43):
that you know, what is it about this thing? Is
there some sort of historic context people might know? And
like that. It's always fun because I get to my
background in college is I did history. That's why I majored,
and so it's always fun to flex that muscle a little.
And it was especially fun slash frustrating during the Trump
era and everything was unprecedented. Oh yeah, I've never been
(20:03):
here before.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
It's like, yeah, here's the war, you know, like see,
we have been here for right, right, And.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
It was always fun to kind of lean on that
and like maybe not tele reader or something they didn't know,
but maybe remind them about something they made. Like I
mentioned earlier about the Puerto Rican National it's shooting up
to Congress back in the I want to I want
to say nineteen fifty four. I don't know why I
keep them back to the year. So, you know, having
that knowledge and then seeing January sixth, which was bad,
I have to say it because otherwise if you don't,
(20:31):
people were like, did you support it? Though obviously not
I lived in DC, thank you very much, but like
have people like this is the most violent day. There's
like no people actually opened fire on Congress and there
were fire bombings. There were bombs whether underground, like it's
been we've seen bad. Not to excuse bad, Yeah, like
you have to keep things in perspective like where have
we been? And it's it helps you to know where
(20:53):
can we go if you know where we've been?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Right, Not to excuse the January sixth to anything, but no,
the idea that like, I mean, if you ask the
average person, they think that all those people were armed,
and I'm like, nobody was armed.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
There were no arms, nobody was carrying anything.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like the only person killed was killed by you know.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Capitol police.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So but I think people got told a story that
just you know, wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And that's sort of the problem.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Also when you are when you have history and you're
not telling the whole story to people, I think it's
easy to get lost in the this has never happened before,
this is unprecedented when it's pretty precedented.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Right, And so it's a question of in journalism, you
want to be factual and you want to be accurate.
So there's that. But the other thing too is you
want to be a.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Classiction and I would hope that's what they want to be.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
But I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Well, right, well that's the idea. And also the classic
rule of journalism ethics is you want to do no harm.
The thing is, if you were constantly ratcheting up your
audiences and telling we're in uncharted territory when we're really not,
you answer, you're scaring your readers, and then readers might
become desperate. Readers might start to accept narrators that aren't true,
and then you know, we have before marched into war
(22:07):
based on things that weren't true because you got people
all whipped up into a frenzy. So that's sort of
my thing is jar six. Yes, it was bad. Also,
why are people inflating the death count from it? People
like you said there is even confirmed death that was
a rioter protests yeah, and by people like no, there
were police who died months later, and it was probably related,
and like the DC foreigner said, specifically to be related.
(22:30):
Like con also things like it's bad, why are you
are you trying to run up the numbers? Like, you
don't have to run up the numbers. It's already bad.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's a film, you can see it exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
So my my sore of frustration is like you like,
people should be aware and concerned and vote and act accordingly,
but also don't scare them and whip them into like
uh astoric frenzy? Is that dangerous as well?
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I'll be back with more with t becket Atoms in
just a moment.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Well, I just feel like when I see somebody reading
The New York Times, I sort of feel bad for
them because like they're going to find out the truth
in a few months when it's okay, like you know,
just things like I mean, anything right, and just the
COVID years obviously are are such a great.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Example of that.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
But you know, New York Times readers had no idea
that a lab leak was even a remotely possible possibility
because that was unacceptable to talk about. So they only
found out much later that that was actually the reality
of what happened, you know, most likely and other things.
They just they find out things way too late. The
shock over Joe Biden being in bad shape, I think,
(25:12):
was another example of you know, the conservative world was
all over it, and New York Times readers were like,
what does happened? I had no idea, you know, I
thought it was all right wing nonsense, but.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Right I think there's two competing things there. One and
there are stories that if that's just the New York Times,
it's a lot of sort of corporated larger. I feel
like the older newsrooms get the lazier and flabbier they get.
But there are two competing reasons. One is that sometimes
it is politically inconvenient. They don't want to go near
it because it might help the bad guy, and not
necessarily even that they're a pro democratic is that they
(25:46):
truly fear the other side, so they were like, let's
not go near this because this might help them. The
other thing, too, is that they simply don't know. They
are in their own little bubbles. You've heard about it.
So one of my favorites, it's not actually a favorites,
not hah, but wasn't during the twenty six It doesn't
affect the mess thing. It doesn't affect them personally, that
doesn't really exist. So you see when people talk about
(26:07):
violence and cities, they're like my dae, yes, yes right.
The one of the more jarry examples of this was
during twenty sixteen when I don't know what happened, but
all those psychopathics or neo Nazi pepees got activated during
the first twenty sixteen election, and all of these reporters
got inundated with anti Semitic messages and hate mail and
(26:31):
all that. Yeah, and then the New York Times and
the washingt Post and all them started doing a turn
about anti semitism on social media. Well you're like jowing
a goldberg and.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Bed Yeah were like yeah, yeah, yeah, we've been saying.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
But it didn't affect the New York Times or the
Washington Post person right now. They didn't cure Yeah there,
that's just that's just conservative infighting, not absolutely. And then
like no, then like yeah, time supports start getting it,
and then you get the trend pieces about whoa whoa
whoa anthei symptism might be a yeah on social media,
and it's like it was for I was getting anti
Semitic stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I'm not Yeah, I was getting all the You're like,
I got that.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Well, I figured it. I think it's so I was
getting like all the gas chamber means and stuff. I
was I'm German, Irish cat, I know, yeah, I figured out.
I think the assumptions I'm in media, therefore I'm probably Jewish,
so I think that's just like yeah, I know, I know. Yeah,
It's like maybe it was like a little anti Semitic sandwich.
You know. It was like, right, you assume you're Jewish,
(27:23):
so be you're some epe mail. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
So it was interesting because there was a story about
Maggie Haberman got anti Semitic hate mail mail to her house,
and she and I are actually friendly. This is not
a not a shot in her but she got in
semitic mail to her house and then and she wrote
about how you know it was Trump related because it
(27:46):
was after twenty sixteen, And then I realized I got
that same letter in like twenty fourteen, right, you know,
just same same style, same everything to my house. I
tweeted about it at the time. That's why I had
the date so clear, and so maybe he didn't have
anything to do with Donald Trump at all.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
But you know, it got tied to him anyway.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
I mean at that point, like I was saying, I
don't know how much you can you can blame on him, right,
you know, I do know in twenty sixty it did
get bad, like it racks it up hard.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
A lot of yeah, a lot of a lot of them.
No writers in National Review, especially a lot of my
colleagues at the Washington Examiner, especially the ones who were
known to be Jewish, like yeah, stuff, I don't know
if something got activated. I mean Donald Trump never was
like hey, Neil, nota she's get the jew We never
read anything like that.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, no, of course.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yeah, but you know, mean it got ugly in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
But it's not so great right now. Let me tell you,
I don't know when that store.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
What was that? He says, not a problem, So I'll
take that, take him out of his word. I mean,
that was a fascinating sort of conversation to follow, where
a number of colleagues of mine who are Jewish were like,
you can just walk into a church and nobody asked questions.
I was like, yes, is there something I oh, there's
a part of the American experience that I wasn't a
where I did not know that. Yes, so it's like
you're kind of trying to learn stuff, but also like
(29:05):
your mouthshut to not look ignorant. So there's that.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So what do you think is our largest cultural problem
if we're talking about some of the bad stuff going on?
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I think two, Well, yeah, I have two. One is
the loneliness and despair of the American I think there's
a reason suicide and overdoses are such a problem. Death
of despair is a huge problem. I think we've this
is part of I mean, I can't blame boomers altogether,
but a lot of resentment or contempt for boomers has
(29:36):
to do with the fact that they sort of gleefully
destroyed a lot of cultural institutions because they thought it
was for you know, rasures or whatever. Yeah, and they
didn't replace it with anything. And so you have a
lot of things kind of got smashed apart, whether there
were clubs or churches as a sort of cultural community
center in small community or a small cities and towns,
(29:58):
people falling away from that, we have really had anything
in real life to replace it, which and then you
have their know the birth well, yeah, the birth of
the special media and the Internet. So I don't think
the internet and social media necessarily bad. They're tools people
naturally gravitate towards them. But I don't think going all
the way full circle to our first conversation Dot Claire
Twitter conversations and being on Twitter's substitute for being absolute
(30:20):
people in real life, so I congre right, I mean,
and people kind of get inside their own heads. You know.
One of my favorite lines is from Shakespeare's Caesar. He's uh,
warning about not brutus cash is I can't remember whoever
led the conspiracy. Cannot remember his name is a fine
time to forget it when I'm trying to quote it.
(30:40):
But he says that he thinks too much such men
are dangers. So social media really you get inside your
own ed and other and you attract people who are
also thinking that. So instead of having a friend in
real life like we used to have, would be like,
you sound like a crazy person. Man, Are you okay?
I don't get that. You don't give a yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you're right, you're right. Yeah. So lowliness and spirit I
(31:00):
don't see any way that gets fixed quickly. The other
thing that actually really scares me as well as the
competency crisis. I think we're losing a lot of generational knowledge,
a lot of it stopped being shared and passed on,
and I think the longer it goes without being addressed,
you're going to start having real problems in terms of infrastructure,
in terms of transportation, in terms of basic safety. I
(31:21):
don't think it's any mistake that we're seeing a lot
of this sort of stuff at Boeing. I mean Boeing
didn't wake up with right side and just decide I'm
gonna suck.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I think it's been a slow, steady devaluing of competency.
And the only way I can see getting away from
that is some sort of institution of I mean, ruthless meritocracy,
no room for no.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I think that's where we have to go. But I
don't think we will.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
We can't even get to like they will teach algebra
to kids in eighth grade in California because it's racist.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I don't know that we're getting to ruthless meritocracy anytime. See,
but you know the figure's problem.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Hey, how many bridge collaps and plane crashes do you
get before people are like Okay, you know what, let's
maybe like focus again on engineering instead of whether.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's no, yeah, and did we get there.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I just I feel like they're going to be like
that this had nothing to do with anything. It's not
because people don't know what to do anymore. It's, you know,
double down on fighting racism through not teaching math. I
really do think that they're not going to give up,
maybe as sanity spreads, because it has you know, so
again the math is a racist In California, it ended
(32:28):
up being sort of left of center parents who spoke
up and fought back and kind of realized how crazy
it was, and that's really the only hope. But they pressure,
the far left pressures more.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Than anybody else.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
The left moderates to kind of fall in line, and
it's really hard to get them to break.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
I mean, historically it's usually a major crisis spurs a
counter reaction. So at some point we'll see a counter reaction.
The problem is this is where the fear kind of
comes into it. You can have something like nine to
eleven and that not be a inciting event for national
unity and yeah, I hadn't do it, so like, what
how much worse does it need to get before people
(33:08):
are like, okay, we need to drop the nonsense. Almost
I don't know what the rating on the show is.
Speaker 7 (33:13):
You can you can see all the bed Where can
you adopt the bullshit and actually serious like yeah, like
how many bridges?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
How many planes? Before people are like, I don't care
if the Engineering Corps selects America. I want the best engineers.
I want ruthless efficiency. I don't know. That usually comes
around again, historically speaking, this comes around when there's something
bad enough happens, like the Johnston flood, like you're still setting.
A whole lot of people get killed, and it turns
out because the engineers didn't know what they were doing,
(33:40):
you might actually get a big fat counter reaction.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Well we're not.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
We're not at that point though.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
So in our book Stolen Youth, we covered how this
was going on in the medical field. And I don't
think we're ever going to see, you know, a bridge
collapse sort of, you know what I mean, We're never
going to see that that happen in the medical field
quite as clearly. But for example, they every year they
have experts talk about premature birds and nick you babies
(34:09):
on these panels, and one year, they realized all their
experts were white men, so they had to change it.
So it was no longer the very very best, producing
the most latest, you know, technology and results and best practices.
It was now not the very very best. And we're
never going to know exactly how many.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
People were harmed by that.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
That's going to be always kind of something we'd never
find out.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Yeah, So that's actually another great area that I just courage.
We have. Another scary one is the sort of evaluating
of standards in the medical field, like that can get
real data's real fast. I know at Washington Free Beek
and they've been doing great work following insanity at UCLA
and how they have essentially broken down any sort of
standards that they have for their medical field. So your point, like,
this is the other issue too, is the basic disappearance
(34:57):
and a lot of it is self created, the the
destruction of media credibility and trust in institutions like COVID.
Speaking at COVID, Yeah, like who trusts public health organizations? Right? People?
Some people do, but certainly not the way it was not.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I mean I have to be at it.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
I used to trust them. I used to just be like,
whatever you know, obviously they're going to be bipartisan.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Why wouldn't they be.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Now it turns out, wow, not at all, And I
can't trust them.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
I mean I used to have COVID. I had no
negative bigon a faucity. I didn't really know anything about it.
After COVID, I definitely have opinion of them, Yes, not
a positive one, right. But the issue with the credibility
we have it between these rooms. We have that with
massive organizations or institutions like health institutions, people don't trust them.
So if you're going to have that inciting event, it'd
be helpful to have someone who could record it. But
(35:44):
the day is, nobody believes anyone. So you could have
let's say, a massive bridge collapse, but you're not going
to trust the Washington Posts coverage of it. Hey, fact,
you're gonna have to go listen to Joe Rogan to
find out I know what actually. So the thing is,
when I get that inciting event, I don't know when,
I don't know how bad it's going to have to be,
and then it's going to be slowed by the fact
that people don't trust what they're here. That's as simple
(36:05):
is that people don't trust a lot of what they hear,
and things like COVID really sort of cements that. I mean,
the idea that the lab leak was always a reasonable
hypothesis and then immediately be called a crank and a loon, right,
and then.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Later somehow less racist to say, somebody ate a bat
and that's how it happened.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Like I've said this, it's so funny that they're like, no,
the more the more she made less racist. Thing is
not to say it was the result of a boxed experiment,
but actually, you know those people eat stuff out, and
I'm like, how is that less racist?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Like the New York Times lead health for portions talking
about how the blableek theory was clearly racist. You're like, right, oh,
she was worse.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
They come out and they go, actually, you know this
is probably what happened. You're like, what is happening? Yeah,
I'm supposed to triist you now, but right then? Or
was I supposed to just then but not now? You know,
it's hard to rebuild it. It's easy to lose bion,
hard hard to get it back.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
I feel like, you know, this incident over the weekend
with Natasha Frost is a great example, not just a journalist.
It's just for your your view, yeah yeah, and tell
us yeah you see Lake about nine hundred pages of
private conversation Jewish Australians post November seventh, and she was
half hard in the summer, so thank you October. Yeah.
(37:22):
Somewhow wormed her way into the group and then she
recorded all the data, downloaded and shared it with opposition groups.
That is obviously unethical. That's her. But the bigger thing
for me is how vague and not forthcoming the New
York Times is being right.
Speaker 7 (37:39):
She's a New York Times reporter and yeah in Australia
and the New York Times, I won't say anything about
I know they removed her contact information from the website
and they're like, you know, we've dealt with them, Like, well,
how have you dealt with them?
Speaker 4 (37:50):
They're like, to your business, worry about it business? Yea.
The people don't trust you. This stuff I have covered,
and this is real quick. I've covered Congress and I've
covered newsrooms, and I've always had a much easier time
getting a straight answer wow out of a member of
the Senate or the House than I had ever gotten
from a budsman or an official spokesperson for any of
the newspapers. They do not talk. They do you not explain.
(38:12):
They think it's beneath them. They have to explain what
is going on. Even if it comes down to like
explain your selection of pictures. It's as simple as, oh,
we have that that photo was licensed A good problem. Yeah,
but they won't tell you.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
They're like, well, I don't need to tell you. Just
swop higgy. No, people don't trust you. Do you think
that Alex Jones grew in a vacuum, like there's a
reason he has an audience? Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yeah, that's my want.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I think loss of trust is such a problem and
it's going to take I mean, I don't know if
it's ever going to get recovered, actually, because anybody who
remembers this time period, it's maybe very hard to get over.
I used to be a trusting person. I used to
you know, kind of okay. I didn't like the left media,
the liberal media. I didn't like the New York Times,
Quashion Post, whatever, But I didn't think they were I
don't know, I guess I didn't think they were liars
(39:00):
by design, And now I think they are. I think
they're they're not trying to inform their audience, and that's
a major problem, I really do you know, Like I said,
I think New York Times readers are often far behind
on what the news actually is from people who read
other sources.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
So yeah, I think it's a problem. I mean with
all generations within they say, zom studying just the young reporters.
It's the idea that it is our job to shape
the narrative, the good narrative.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
And then you have bad news about our side, and
you know, right, and then the question, well, it's not
even necessarily they're trying to just get elected.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
But no, if we give if we say this thing
that's damaging to our site, the bad guys might win, right,
And now they justify they actually think they're the good guys.
But the obvious question is like, well, what's the good narrative? Yeah,
you can't just tell me the story. And as far
as trust is concerned, I mean, trust is cyclical. You know,
you'd think that American generations going forward would never trust
the presidency again after Nixon, But people a hundred percent
(39:57):
believe that Obama was going to change the world. Yea, yeah,
including the boomers who are alive for Nigson may seeing
what happened. They know Preson's capable of lying right and
obfuscating and being a This is.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
A different party, Beckett. This is you know, this is
the good party.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
So obviously it's possible.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So it's possible.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Within our lifetimes that yeah, World Health Organization once again
claims the mantle of a trusted bipartisan institution. It's possible.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I'm going to be around her mind people not to
trust them, but we'll see. Thank you so much, this
has been such a great talk. I end here with
your best tip for my listeners on how they can
improve their lives. Let's get some optimism here. How do
people make their lives better?
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Okay, so TI tips one. It is usually best even
if it leads to a little conflict. Usually best to
say immediately when you're starting to feel annoyed or aggravated
about something, do not let it sit infester. I've learned
this in my merriage.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Immedially for spouses, or this is just in general in general.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Actually it's great with coworkers because otherwise if you yeah,
if you try to rationalize it, like I don't want
the conflict right now, I'm busy right now. Then it's
possible you sit in that investors, and then it becomes contempt.
And that's if you want in any relationship in your life.
So find a diplomatic, impolite way immediately to say I'm
aggravated or I'm unhappy with this thing, I don't think
this thing X y Z do it as fast as possible.
(41:20):
And the other one ruthless enforcement of your time boundaries.
I know, I know the Celenials like talking about boundaries
and stuff. No, if you and work, if close of
business is five o'clock, you got you have to observe it.
Because you keep pushing it, you will become known as
somebody who doesn't have any serve of working hours. You
work all the time and anytime that you aren't ruthlessly
(41:41):
enforcing that. Your job will take what it can because
it doesn't care. So you have to. If it's after five,
that email can wait, the text can wait, unless somebody
is like leading and needing.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Okay, yes you can. You're a doctor, fine, you know right,
You're a writer, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
You know. In journalism, if you're on the breaking news desk,
I'm sorry your kind that's an all situation, that's an
on call. But you get to a point where you're
maybe an instructor or a columnist that you have to
you really got to maintain that, especially if you're married
with kids.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
It's great.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Eventually becomes so when does your workday actually end?
Speaker 2 (42:13):
You're next thing you know, it's Tyley Coulli com stalled someday.
Thank you, Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
He's t Beckett Adams read him in The Hill National Review,
watching an examiner follow his amazing X extreme I don't know,
I don't know what to call it anymore, Twitter profile,
Twitter whatever.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Thank you so much, Beckett. Nice to have you.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'd like to start.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Off with an apology for the lack of monologue on
Monday's show. I skip monologue sometimes when I'm on vacation
or traveling, and I let you guys know.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
But this was a bit different.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
After the last few episodes of talking about how elections
make people crazy, Donald Trump was the target of a
second assassination attempt on Sunday. My friend John Cardillo actually
broke the story on X and there was a lot
of confusion about what had happened. The early reports were
that there was a shootout outside the golf course where
(00:44):
he was playing in West Palm Beach that had nothing
to do with the president. After nearly three years in Florida,
our anniversary is coming up in January. I'm not an expert,
but I've spent some time in West Palm Beach and
it's it's not a place where daytime shootouts are a thing,
even in the sketchy areas, So that a story immediately
(01:07):
sounded suspicious to me. And then I got a tip,
a very reliable tip. It was a picture of the
would be shooter as he was being arrested by police.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
I posted his photo.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
On my social media on x and some information that
I had about him, and then my day just blew up.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It got millions of views.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
My phone started ringing and didn't stop. I went on
making Kelly's Show on Sunday as the news was breaking,
and then on Clay and Buck the following day. Breaking
news isn't my beat per se, but I have done
it in a few high profile cases in the past.
It's extremely nerve racking. I mean, what if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
I'm a columnist.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That's my day job. I write my opinion. I don't
worry too much about being wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Still have facts with my opinions, but I double and
triple check everything, and look, I've had opinions I no
longer hold. But that just means I get to write
another column on how I got to the new opinions
and why I discarded the old ones. Breaking news is
a totally different animal. There's also the avalanche of hate
(02:22):
that comes with being a public figure in general. But
when one of your posts gets millions of views, it
really brings out the crazies, especially if that post is
about an attempted assassination of a presidential candidate. I posted
this on my socials, But if you enjoy someone's work,
not just mine, anybody you follow that is living a
(02:43):
public life, do your best to support them. We get
a lot of bad stuff thrown in us, and look,
I still think it's worth it. I still love what
I do, but some days it does get hard. All
the ways to support my work, mostly for free, is
in my pin tweet on X And another thing you
can do, obviously again not just for me, is retweet
(03:06):
people comment on their stuff, subscribe to their podcast, leave
them reviews. All of it's free, doesn't take a lot.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Of effort, and it's very appreciative.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
The pin tweet on X it involves listening to the
show or subscribing to my substack. Nothing crazy anyway. That's
why I didn't have a monologue. I was knee deep
in the attempted assassination story and I ran out of
time to record it. To make it all up to you,
I'm going to tell you something that isn't otherwise public yet.
Launching this Tuesday, I'm going to start a second podcast,
(03:39):
this one about politics, and I'll be co hosting with
my good friend Mary Catherine Ham. I'm still going to
continue doing this show, which is largely not about politics,
but especially now I need a political outlet too, and
MK and I have very similar worldviews. We hope to
be funny and to bring you perspectives you don't hear
(04:00):
anywhere else. The show is called Normally. It will run
on the same network as this, the Klay, Travis and
Buck Sexton podcast network on iHeartRadio. It will be posted
on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and just like this show, you
can hear it anywhere you get your podcasts. We talk
about balance a lot on this show. I think it's
(04:20):
important to take breaks from politics, as I try to
do on the Carol Marcowitz Show, but there's also time
to talk about the political issues, the election, horse race
and so on. We'll be doing that at the Normally
podcast and hope you will subscribe when it's up. Thank
you so much for listening. I appreciate you all so much.
Coming up next an interview with T Beckett Adams.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Join us after the break.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is T Beckett Adams. Beckett is the program
director of the National Journalism Center, and he's a columnist
at The Hill, National Review and The Washington Examiner.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
I Beckett, so nice to have you on.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Hey, Carol, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So I know that.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
This is something that maybe people tell you a lot,
but you're really one of my favorite people to follow
on X And I was thinking about this, is that
a compliment?
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Are people?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Are people insulted by you know.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Like I associate you in having a really good like
Twitter feed, you know, you.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Know what, I take it as a compliment. Now. I
think back in like twenty twelve, twenty fourteen, it's like,
let me know, because you still have this mindset that
you no, social media so new, but at this point,
so much news is made on Twitter, and one of
the things that's so useful about is it's great for networking.
So you know, and just take it as a compliment.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yeah, And I think you're just you have a really
creative way of getting points across in you know, X
number of characters, and I just really I always think
of you as having like really clever takes on stuff
and not typical.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So there's my you know, compliment and slash insult. You
are good at you are good at the Twitter.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
You know, I'll take it. I mean I liked it
better when it was one hundred and forty characters because
it was it was It was a good discipline, especially
if you were trying to tell a joke, to see
if you can do it in one hundred and forty characters.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, or at least to eighty.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
But like this new you can write you know, six paragraphs.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I can't wrap my mind around it.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
It's essentially just Facebook.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, right, So how did you get into this world?
How did you become a writer?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Oh? Geez, let's see if I can do the readers.
I just version of it. I fall into journalism and
political commentary entirely by accident. I've always liked politics. I've
always been extremely fascinated by it because it's the most
insane circus and it's all real with actual consequences. So,
you know, it's a lot of performing without a net,
(06:46):
as it were. But you know, I graduated in around
two thousand and eight, so there's a little bit of
an economic tightening around then, and as it turns out,
having a BA wasn't a surefire way to get a job.
As you know, people couldn't even hold their homes, let
alone get decent jobs. So I fell into it entirely
by accident, because back then finding an internship that paid
(07:09):
was also extremely rare as a unicorn, especially in the
sort of DC area. I was going to school in Virginia,
so I kind of emigrated upwards to where the jobs were,
and I found this group called the National Journalism Center,
which I am now the program director of, and I
was I was still doing some schooling, and so I
didn't really have the time to do a full time gig,
whether it's retail or food service. Food service is my
(07:32):
real background, and so I was like, I just need
some cash flow. So I found this internship that paid.
It was in journalism, and I could write well enough,
and I was really upfront with them. I was like, look,
I just need the money. That's really what I need it.
Long story short, turns out I was good at it
and I really enjoyed it. And now what fourteen fourteen
years later, here I am as a columnist and I
(07:52):
now trained journalists.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
So you started there as your entry level internship or
it was like.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
A of paid internship.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
It was a pay It was a paid internship, which
again is the only reason I applied. I just I
just because they provided a monthly stipend. I'm like, that's
I'll be bad. And then I really enjoyed it and
it got me closer to politics. You know. We got
to have that first moment when you get to go
into press gallery in the capital. It was like, this
is really cool, you know, and they point out, you know,
the bullet holes or the Erycan nationalists open fire on
(08:22):
Congress back in the day was like nineteen fifty four
the top of my head, but just like it was
really exciting. And then being able to cover presidential elections
and primaries and et cetera, et cetera, and it's like
and so I'm stuck with it's sticking with it, not
stuck with it, And that's how you look at it.
I really enjoy it. I love it. And part of
the reason I went back to the NJAC to actually
start training and working with aspiring journalists is because I
(08:44):
do love journalism and I have no misgivings about how
bad the industry is right now. It's it's a mess.
It's it's got a credibility crisis for a reason, and
so part of my being at the NJAC is to
try to get in the ground level and like train people, like,
let's fix things one right.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Fixing the problems. How I'm original.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I haven't heard of that before.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
They're right.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So what do you consider your beat?
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Politics? Culture? Although I don't I'm not really I've never
been a culture warrior type. I've never been an activist type.
I don't think I've ever been to a political rally.
I've done the March for Life, but like, honestly, in
high school, that was just excuse to get to DC.
It's fun, I mean, but I do like to There's
some stuff I do find really fascinating about the American
(09:30):
experience and where are we going? Where have we been?
And then if I get really lucky, I get to
do my secret passion project, which is doing film criticism.
But that's film criticism is very difficult. I think it
requires a specific kind of creativity which is learned, I think,
or I mean, it can be learned, but I think
some people are just kind of born with it. But
(09:50):
you know, I have the opportunity to do that. But
mostly focusing in politics and the intersection of politics and media,
especially what's the.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Difference between film reviews and film criticism.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Uh, that's a good question. I don't know. I mean
there's a difference I think between sort of in doing
a review kind of gives a quick and dirty it's
like the letter but you know the website letterbox, we
can go and how many stars do you give it?
You know, it's a website you can go to to
do very very brief reviews, almost like as short as
they are in like Rotten Tomatoes. Give it how many
(10:23):
stars out of five and a quick one or two
summary of what you liked or why you hated it.
Film criticism, I think, is a lot more like a
literary criticism, and that you break it down into its
parts and you review how each thing plays together against
the themes of the movie, with how it's produced, et cetera,
et cetera. So I did. I got to. I had
this great experience earlier this year. I had never watched
(10:43):
The Searchers with John Wayne. I had never gotten around
to seeing it. So I finally did it. Turned out
actually watched it on his birthday weekend. It was a weird,
little serendipitous thing, and it is so good. It is
such a good really, it's like I've seen some john
Ford stuff before, so I can't say it's his best
piece because I haven't seen all this stuff. But it
is remarkably good, so good. It's one of those movies
(11:04):
that you kind of stop and sit about and think about.
And then I actually did a criticism where I broke
it down into its parts because I think it's very
sort of it's a symbolism and poetry and how the
movie begins and how it ends, and so I think
that's different between The Dreamer. Two thumbs up, although to
say also it was good with criticism as or yeah,
criticism as well.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
My dirty yeah, my dirty secret is that I don't
watch movies I want to, like I do, I do,
I really want to, but they're so bad and they're
so bad. So often the more critically acclaimed it is,
I feel like, the worse.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
It is, I feel like, see, it's so funny because
I had an experience that got a little missy. We
were showing the kids sound the music for the first time.
Oh yeah, I never cared for it when I was
a kid. It always that was.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
A good one.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Oh, I mean it's good. Yeah, it's appreciated. It's a
well put together movie, but like it as a fourteen
year old or an eight year old boy. It's not
really your bag of potatoes. It's right, a bunch of
kids singing and dancing. But I'm watching it with my
kids who are five and four because you know, the
past and all. I get a little missie. Not because
of the movie, but because of the sort of level
of expertise and competency in the movie that costumes of music,
(12:08):
the way it looks and ever. It's like, I feel
like we don't have a lot of this. We have
this weird sort We have either indie dramas about like
incestuous step people, or you have big block you know,
big blockbuster, big budget movies that's like the fourteenth Avengers film,
and it's like you see somebody like the music, and
there's this sort of artistry and care and there's like
(12:30):
there's something to it. I feel like, I mean, it
still exists in some forms, but you know, I think
it is telling that. So this goes back to knowing
what I write and like to write about. You know,
I think there is something to glean from the fact
that the year that best soute of the music won
Best Picture four years later, the movie that one best
picture was Men n Cowboys. So these change very quickly
(12:51):
and really clearly in the culture. And then watching this
movie and it was just like the first fifteen minutes
there's three songs, and you got the nuns and the
convent all that stuff. It's like, this is great. When
did we make movies like this or we like, we're
on like the third the third u at Moana? What
is it the item?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
We are coming up with a second Molana? But yeah, Frozen, Yes.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
What's sad is that those are sort of good movies
and that's why they have to remake them because all
the other movies are so bad.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Every time I watch like the It's just a while
ago now, but that everything all at once Staff movie, Yeah,
I just I was like, what in.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
The hell you're like? I hated it. I hated it.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
Okay, well I can't. I see I see that. I
get that. That's one of those things where I get it.
I get it, you do.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
Yeah, the hot Enjeorge, just all of it.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I always gotta fun. I mean, I'm not I'm not
trying to do the thing where we don't make good
stuff anymore. We do, but I I do think we do.
It does exist. I mean, it wasn't so long ago.
Well okay, this is perspective, but like the Lord of
the Rings trilogy wasn't that long. That was after the millennium.
And I do remember seeing it in the theater and
having like, oh wow, this is this is different. I
(14:06):
haven't seen something like this.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
That's twenty years ago.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Right, It is a while ago, but I mean that's
twenty years isn't completely out.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
No.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
I thought nineteen seventeen was technically very proficient, very and
you'll see that.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Okay, I'll try it.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
It's Sam I can't remember his last name, Mendez, I owe,
the director. I can't remember, but he did some of
the New Bond movies. I liked it a lot. It's
not the greatest film ever written. And some people did
like it precisely because it's so technically proficient. They thought
it was basically the entire movie is one tracking shot.
There's essentially no cuts in the entire movie, and people
thought that was distracting and gimmicky. But I mean it's
(14:42):
a good looking movie and it did actually you know,
there are moments where like, wow, this is this, this
is moving, this is this race? I'm having a visual
experience right now. Then there are other times, like I
tried to watch the New Flash and it's so funny
because there's this crisis in Hollywood right now with computer
animation where I don't know if people are quitting or
(15:03):
they're the demands are great for the amount of time
because it looks so bad. It's funny to see a
movie that came out last year and then you watched
Jurassic Park, which came out in the nineties, and dress
Park looks so good, it looks amazing, and it was
well in the more than two decades ago. And movie
that came out last year looked awful.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
What was that? Is it cutting down on staff? What
could that be? Well?
Speaker 4 (15:27):
I know, huge problem with Disney is the workloads are
too great and the time constraints are too small that
essentially they are there. They have sort of created these
They sort of created a sweatshop a model for doing CGI.
Whereas back in the Jurassic Park ILM, Industrial Light and Magic,
which was George Lucas created it was the special effects workshop.
They were sort of a niche workshop. They were they
(15:49):
sort of go to if you needed something really difficult
and you wanted it to look good. So you know
the T one thousand and the Terminator two movies, this
Ilam Death becomes Her. You ever see that. It's a funny.
Oh yeah, that's ilm did a lot of special effects
on this stuff, and there used to be sort of
like if you wanted it done well, this is the
place to go, and I assume it's hostile, so interesting,
(16:09):
and there was also a reliance as well unpractical effect.
So in dress at Park they're not all CGI. There
are a lot of them are actual light sized and puppets,
gigantic animatronics and it looks good because it is real.
But in Disney, I know what a lot of the
Marble movies they had a problem whether like you know,
you would have reshoots and the schedules will get shortened,
and then you have this sweatshop of like fifteen animators
are like we need it in a week, and they're
(16:30):
like it's not gonna because it's a tri triangle. You
can have a good, faster, cheap and Dizney what's all
three in Disney consumption right, and Disney is infamously cheap.
I mean it's it's been a Hollywood joke for literal
decades at this point, and so they throw it out
and then you see the new whatever new Marble movie.
You're like, what this It doesn't look as good a
stuff that came out thirty years ago. So it's a
(16:51):
fun it's a it's it's demorned and it's cheap.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
She just sing, Beckett, could your calling be filmed off?
Speaker 4 (17:00):
I think I'm too old for that.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Feels like it might be, though. You're just like lit
up to talk about movies.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
I love talking about it. I love movies. I love
saying movies. I would love to write more about movies,
but I have not the creative confidence quite yet to
make that my calling. I just dip my toe in
it every now.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
And then I think, leap right in, right in, I'm
gonna take your job, and you know, maybe on the side,
so I'm not trying to like cause strife here.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
She might have some some thoughts about that, and that's
always fun because you know, finding movies that the two
of us like to get. She likes uh, French dramas
and I don't, so so I was trying to find
that happy medium, like would you like to watch a
traumatic wor movie and she's like, no, I would.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Not well better than like, would you like to watch
superhero movie?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Four?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Eishaw.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
I'm completely marveled out. I can't do it anymore. I
just can.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4 (18:01):
I do, I really do. There there was a lot
of grind in the beginning. I mean, everyone has to
pay their dues. In journalism, you get to start out
basically as a content farmer. The norm in a lot
of these newsrooms is, you know, you got to write
four to five pieces a day, and we're talking like
four hundred, six hundred word pieces that just news blurbs. Yeah,
(18:21):
and you know, it's kind of a sink or swim situation.
Either you get good at it, or you just don't
and you moved to a different area, or you get fired.
And I got I got really good at writing quickly,
writing fast, maybe not creatively, but very common. I can
do EIGHTP style like nobody else. But the style is
very sort of devoid of creativity. So it's so funny
about Hemingway is that he took that and he made
(18:43):
it creative, which is where because he was an AP
reporter but not everyone's hemingway h so you yet you
get good at it, you get fast at it, and
they pay your dues, and then eventually you can develop
an expertise on a beat such that you develop opinions
that are actually informed, because that's that's the real trick
to commentary. The best bit of advice ever I've ever
(19:03):
heard was from Peggy Nowton, a former Reagan speech writer.
She's called a wellster journal I'm not saying that for
your benefit, I know, you know, I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yes, yeah, I still get excited to see Peggy Noonon.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Like when I her out somewhere, I still get a
little starstruck and like I were friendly.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
She knows who I am.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And yet I'm still like Peggy noon you know.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah. See, best best bit of advice I ever heard
was from her, which is, if they're doing commentary, you
have to tell the readers something they didn't know. And
that's that. I think she said that before the sort
of worth of social media even so, like the idea
that you have an opinion, like yet get in lunch, right, yeah,
do you have something that I don't know? So I've
always tried to take that incorporate that into my columns
(19:43):
that you know, what is it about this thing? Is
there some sort of historic context people might know? And
like that. It's always fun because I get to my
background in college is I did history. That's why I majored,
and so it's always fun to flex that muscle a little.
And it was especially fun slash frustrating during the Trump
era and everything was unprecedented. Oh yeah, I've never been
(20:03):
here before.
Speaker 6 (20:04):
It's like, yeah, here's the war, you know, like see,
we have been here for right, right, And.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
It was always fun to kind of lean on that
and like maybe not tele reader or something they didn't know,
but maybe remind them about something they made. Like I
mentioned earlier about the Puerto Rican National it's shooting up
to Congress back in the I want to I want
to say nineteen fifty four. I don't know why I
keep them back to the year. So, you know, having
that knowledge and then seeing January sixth, which was bad,
I have to say it because otherwise if you don't,
(20:31):
people were like, did you support it? Though obviously not
I lived in DC, thank you very much, but like
have people like this is the most violent day. There's
like no people actually opened fire on Congress and there
were fire bombings. There were bombs whether underground, like it's
been we've seen bad. Not to excuse bad, Yeah, like
you have to keep things in perspective like where have
we been? And it's it helps you to know where
(20:53):
can we go if you know where we've been?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Right, Not to excuse the January sixth to anything, but no,
the idea that like, I mean, if you ask the
average person, they think that all those people were armed,
and I'm like, nobody was armed.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
There were no arms, nobody was carrying anything.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Like the only person killed was killed by you know.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Capitol police.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
So but I think people got told a story that
just you know, wasn't true.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
And that's sort of the problem.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Also when you are when you have history and you're
not telling the whole story to people, I think it's
easy to get lost in the this has never happened before,
this is unprecedented when it's pretty precedented.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Right, And so it's a question of in journalism, you
want to be factual and you want to be accurate.
So there's that. But the other thing too is you
want to be a.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
Classiction and I would hope that's what they want to be.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
But I haven't seen a lot of evidence of that.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Well, right, well that's the idea. And also the classic
rule of journalism ethics is you want to do no harm.
The thing is, if you were constantly ratcheting up your
audiences and telling we're in uncharted territory when we're really not,
you answer, you're scaring your readers, and then readers might
become desperate. Readers might start to accept narrators that aren't true,
and then you know, we have before marched into war
(22:07):
based on things that weren't true because you got people
all whipped up into a frenzy. So that's sort of
my thing is jar six. Yes, it was bad. Also,
why are people inflating the death count from it? People
like you said there is even confirmed death that was
a rioter protests yeah, and by people like no, there
were police who died months later, and it was probably related,
and like the DC foreigner said, specifically to be related.
(22:30):
Like con also things like it's bad, why are you
are you trying to run up the numbers? Like, you
don't have to run up the numbers. It's already bad.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
It's a film, you can see it exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
So my my sore of frustration is like you like,
people should be aware and concerned and vote and act accordingly,
but also don't scare them and whip them into like
uh astoric frenzy? Is that dangerous as well?
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(24:26):
I'll be back with more with t becket Atoms in
just a moment.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Well, I just feel like when I see somebody reading
The New York Times, I sort of feel bad for
them because like they're going to find out the truth
in a few months when it's okay, like you know,
just things like I mean, anything right, and just the
COVID years obviously are are such a great.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Example of that.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
But you know, New York Times readers had no idea
that a lab leak was even a remotely possible possibility
because that was unacceptable to talk about. So they only
found out much later that that was actually the reality
of what happened, you know, most likely and other things.
They just they find out things way too late. The
shock over Joe Biden being in bad shape, I think,
(25:12):
was another example of you know, the conservative world was
all over it, and New York Times readers were like,
what does happened? I had no idea, you know, I
thought it was all right wing nonsense, but.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Right I think there's two competing things there. One and
there are stories that if that's just the New York Times,
it's a lot of sort of corporated larger. I feel
like the older newsrooms get the lazier and flabbier they get.
But there are two competing reasons. One is that sometimes
it is politically inconvenient. They don't want to go near
it because it might help the bad guy, and not
necessarily even that they're a pro democratic is that they
(25:46):
truly fear the other side, so they were like, let's
not go near this because this might help them. The
other thing, too, is that they simply don't know. They
are in their own little bubbles. You've heard about it.
So one of my favorites, it's not actually a favorites,
not hah, but wasn't during the twenty six It doesn't
affect the mess thing. It doesn't affect them personally, that
doesn't really exist. So you see when people talk about
(26:07):
violence and cities, they're like my dae, yes, yes right.
The one of the more jarry examples of this was
during twenty sixteen when I don't know what happened, but
all those psychopathics or neo Nazi pepees got activated during
the first twenty sixteen election, and all of these reporters
got inundated with anti Semitic messages and hate mail and
(26:31):
all that. Yeah, and then the New York Times and
the washingt Post and all them started doing a turn
about anti semitism on social media. Well you're like jowing
a goldberg and.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Bed Yeah were like yeah, yeah, yeah, we've been saying.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
But it didn't affect the New York Times or the
Washington Post person right now. They didn't cure Yeah there,
that's just that's just conservative infighting, not absolutely. And then
like no, then like yeah, time supports start getting it,
and then you get the trend pieces about whoa whoa
whoa anthei symptism might be a yeah on social media,
and it's like it was for I was getting anti
Semitic stuff.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
I'm not Yeah, I was getting all the You're like,
I got that.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Well, I figured it. I think it's so I was
getting like all the gas chamber means and stuff. I
was I'm German, Irish cat, I know, yeah, I figured out.
I think the assumptions I'm in media, therefore I'm probably Jewish,
so I think that's just like yeah, I know, I know. Yeah,
It's like maybe it was like a little anti Semitic sandwich.
You know. It was like, right, you assume you're Jewish,
(27:23):
so be you're some epe mail. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
So it was interesting because there was a story about
Maggie Haberman got anti Semitic hate mail mail to her house,
and she and I are actually friendly. This is not
a not a shot in her but she got in
semitic mail to her house and then and she wrote
about how you know it was Trump related because it
(27:46):
was after twenty sixteen, And then I realized I got
that same letter in like twenty fourteen, right, you know,
just same same style, same everything to my house. I
tweeted about it at the time. That's why I had
the date so clear, and so maybe he didn't have
anything to do with Donald Trump at all.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
But you know, it got tied to him anyway.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
I mean at that point, like I was saying, I
don't know how much you can you can blame on him, right,
you know, I do know in twenty sixty it did
get bad, like it racks it up hard.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
A lot of yeah, a lot of a lot of them.
No writers in National Review, especially a lot of my
colleagues at the Washington Examiner, especially the ones who were
known to be Jewish, like yeah, stuff, I don't know
if something got activated. I mean Donald Trump never was
like hey, Neil, nota she's get the jew We never
read anything like that.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Yeah, no, of course.
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yeah, but you know, mean it got ugly in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
But it's not so great right now. Let me tell you,
I don't know when that store.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
What was that? He says, not a problem, So I'll
take that, take him out of his word. I mean,
that was a fascinating sort of conversation to follow, where
a number of colleagues of mine who are Jewish were like,
you can just walk into a church and nobody asked questions.
I was like, yes, is there something I oh, there's
a part of the American experience that I wasn't a
where I did not know that. Yes, so it's like
you're kind of trying to learn stuff, but also like
(29:05):
your mouthshut to not look ignorant. So there's that.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
So what do you think is our largest cultural problem
if we're talking about some of the bad stuff going on?
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I think two, Well, yeah, I have two. One is
the loneliness and despair of the American I think there's
a reason suicide and overdoses are such a problem. Death
of despair is a huge problem. I think we've this
is part of I mean, I can't blame boomers altogether,
but a lot of resentment or contempt for boomers has
(29:36):
to do with the fact that they sort of gleefully
destroyed a lot of cultural institutions because they thought it
was for you know, rasures or whatever. Yeah, and they
didn't replace it with anything. And so you have a
lot of things kind of got smashed apart, whether there
were clubs or churches as a sort of cultural community
center in small community or a small cities and towns,
(29:58):
people falling away from that, we have really had anything
in real life to replace it, which and then you
have their know the birth well, yeah, the birth of
the special media and the Internet. So I don't think
the internet and social media necessarily bad. They're tools people
naturally gravitate towards them. But I don't think going all
the way full circle to our first conversation Dot Claire
Twitter conversations and being on Twitter's substitute for being absolute
(30:20):
people in real life, so I congre right, I mean,
and people kind of get inside their own heads. You know.
One of my favorite lines is from Shakespeare's Caesar. He's uh,
warning about not brutus cash is I can't remember whoever
led the conspiracy. Cannot remember his name is a fine
time to forget it when I'm trying to quote it.
(30:40):
But he says that he thinks too much such men
are dangers. So social media really you get inside your
own ed and other and you attract people who are
also thinking that. So instead of having a friend in
real life like we used to have, would be like,
you sound like a crazy person. Man, Are you okay?
I don't get that. You don't give a yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you're right, you're right. Yeah. So lowliness and spirit I
(31:00):
don't see any way that gets fixed quickly. The other
thing that actually really scares me as well as the
competency crisis. I think we're losing a lot of generational knowledge,
a lot of it stopped being shared and passed on,
and I think the longer it goes without being addressed,
you're going to start having real problems in terms of infrastructure,
in terms of transportation, in terms of basic safety. I
(31:21):
don't think it's any mistake that we're seeing a lot
of this sort of stuff at Boeing. I mean Boeing
didn't wake up with right side and just decide I'm
gonna suck.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I think it's been a slow, steady devaluing of competency.
And the only way I can see getting away from
that is some sort of institution of I mean, ruthless meritocracy,
no room for no.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I think that's where we have to go. But I
don't think we will.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
We can't even get to like they will teach algebra
to kids in eighth grade in California because it's racist.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I don't know that we're getting to ruthless meritocracy anytime. See,
but you know the figure's problem.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
Hey, how many bridge collaps and plane crashes do you
get before people are like Okay, you know what, let's
maybe like focus again on engineering instead of whether.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's no, yeah, and did we get there.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
I just I feel like they're going to be like
that this had nothing to do with anything. It's not
because people don't know what to do anymore. It's, you know,
double down on fighting racism through not teaching math. I
really do think that they're not going to give up,
maybe as sanity spreads, because it has you know, so
again the math is a racist In California, it ended
(32:28):
up being sort of left of center parents who spoke
up and fought back and kind of realized how crazy
it was, and that's really the only hope. But they pressure,
the far left pressures more.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Than anybody else.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
The left moderates to kind of fall in line, and
it's really hard to get them to break.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
I mean, historically it's usually a major crisis spurs a
counter reaction. So at some point we'll see a counter reaction.
The problem is this is where the fear kind of
comes into it. You can have something like nine to
eleven and that not be a inciting event for national
unity and yeah, I hadn't do it, so like, what
how much worse does it need to get before people
(33:08):
are like, okay, we need to drop the nonsense. Almost
I don't know what the rating on the show is.
Speaker 7 (33:13):
You can you can see all the bed Where can
you adopt the bullshit and actually serious like yeah, like
how many bridges?
Speaker 4 (33:19):
How many planes? Before people are like, I don't care
if the Engineering Corps selects America. I want the best engineers.
I want ruthless efficiency. I don't know. That usually comes
around again, historically speaking, this comes around when there's something
bad enough happens, like the Johnston flood, like you're still setting.
A whole lot of people get killed, and it turns
out because the engineers didn't know what they were doing,
(33:40):
you might actually get a big fat counter reaction.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Well we're not.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
We're not at that point though.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
So in our book Stolen Youth, we covered how this
was going on in the medical field. And I don't
think we're ever going to see, you know, a bridge
collapse sort of, you know what I mean, We're never
going to see that that happen in the medical field
quite as clearly. But for example, they every year they
have experts talk about premature birds and nick you babies
(34:09):
on these panels, and one year, they realized all their
experts were white men, so they had to change it.
So it was no longer the very very best, producing
the most latest, you know, technology and results and best practices.
It was now not the very very best. And we're
never going to know exactly how many.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
People were harmed by that.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
That's going to be always kind of something we'd never
find out.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Yeah, So that's actually another great area that I just courage.
We have. Another scary one is the sort of evaluating
of standards in the medical field, like that can get
real data's real fast. I know at Washington Free Beek
and they've been doing great work following insanity at UCLA
and how they have essentially broken down any sort of
standards that they have for their medical field. So your point, like,
this is the other issue too, is the basic disappearance
(34:57):
and a lot of it is self created, the the
destruction of media credibility and trust in institutions like COVID.
Speaking at COVID, Yeah, like who trusts public health organizations? Right? People?
Some people do, but certainly not the way it was not.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I mean I have to be at it.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
I used to trust them. I used to just be like,
whatever you know, obviously they're going to be bipartisan.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Why wouldn't they be.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Now it turns out, wow, not at all, And I
can't trust them.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
I mean I used to have COVID. I had no
negative bigon a faucity. I didn't really know anything about it.
After COVID, I definitely have opinion of them, Yes, not
a positive one, right. But the issue with the credibility
we have it between these rooms. We have that with
massive organizations or institutions like health institutions, people don't trust them.
So if you're going to have that inciting event, it'd
be helpful to have someone who could record it. But
(35:44):
the day is, nobody believes anyone. So you could have
let's say, a massive bridge collapse, but you're not going
to trust the Washington Posts coverage of it. Hey, fact,
you're gonna have to go listen to Joe Rogan to
find out I know what actually. So the thing is,
when I get that inciting event, I don't know when,
I don't know how bad it's going to have to be,
and then it's going to be slowed by the fact
that people don't trust what they're here. That's as simple
(36:05):
is that people don't trust a lot of what they hear,
and things like COVID really sort of cements that. I mean,
the idea that the lab leak was always a reasonable
hypothesis and then immediately be called a crank and a loon, right,
and then.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Later somehow less racist to say, somebody ate a bat
and that's how it happened.
Speaker 4 (36:22):
Like I've said this, it's so funny that they're like, no,
the more the more she made less racist. Thing is
not to say it was the result of a boxed experiment,
but actually, you know those people eat stuff out, and
I'm like, how is that less racist?
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:38):
Like the New York Times lead health for portions talking
about how the blableek theory was clearly racist. You're like, right, oh,
she was worse.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
They come out and they go, actually, you know this
is probably what happened. You're like, what is happening? Yeah,
I'm supposed to triist you now, but right then? Or
was I supposed to just then but not now? You know,
it's hard to rebuild it. It's easy to lose bion,
hard hard to get it back.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
I feel like, you know, this incident over the weekend
with Natasha Frost is a great example, not just a journalist.
It's just for your your view, yeah yeah, and tell
us yeah you see Lake about nine hundred pages of
private conversation Jewish Australians post November seventh, and she was
half hard in the summer, so thank you October. Yeah.
(37:22):
Somewhow wormed her way into the group and then she
recorded all the data, downloaded and shared it with opposition groups.
That is obviously unethical. That's her. But the bigger thing
for me is how vague and not forthcoming the New
York Times is being right.
Speaker 7 (37:39):
She's a New York Times reporter and yeah in Australia
and the New York Times, I won't say anything about
I know they removed her contact information from the website
and they're like, you know, we've dealt with them, Like, well,
how have you dealt with them?
Speaker 4 (37:50):
They're like, to your business, worry about it business? Yea.
The people don't trust you. This stuff I have covered,
and this is real quick. I've covered Congress and I've
covered newsrooms, and I've always had a much easier time
getting a straight answer wow out of a member of
the Senate or the House than I had ever gotten
from a budsman or an official spokesperson for any of
the newspapers. They do not talk. They do you not explain.
(38:12):
They think it's beneath them. They have to explain what
is going on. Even if it comes down to like
explain your selection of pictures. It's as simple as, oh,
we have that that photo was licensed A good problem. Yeah,
but they won't tell you.
Speaker 6 (38:23):
They're like, well, I don't need to tell you. Just
swop higgy. No, people don't trust you. Do you think
that Alex Jones grew in a vacuum, like there's a
reason he has an audience? Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Yeah, that's my want.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I think loss of trust is such a problem and
it's going to take I mean, I don't know if
it's ever going to get recovered, actually, because anybody who
remembers this time period, it's maybe very hard to get over.
I used to be a trusting person. I used to
you know, kind of okay. I didn't like the left media,
the liberal media. I didn't like the New York Times,
Quashion Post, whatever, But I didn't think they were I
don't know, I guess I didn't think they were liars
(39:00):
by design, And now I think they are. I think
they're they're not trying to inform their audience, and that's
a major problem, I really do you know, Like I said,
I think New York Times readers are often far behind
on what the news actually is from people who read
other sources.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
So yeah, I think it's a problem. I mean with
all generations within they say, zom studying just the young reporters.
It's the idea that it is our job to shape
the narrative, the good narrative.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
And then you have bad news about our side, and
you know, right, and then the question, well, it's not
even necessarily they're trying to just get elected.
Speaker 4 (39:34):
But no, if we give if we say this thing
that's damaging to our site, the bad guys might win, right,
And now they justify they actually think they're the good guys.
But the obvious question is like, well, what's the good narrative? Yeah,
you can't just tell me the story. And as far
as trust is concerned, I mean, trust is cyclical. You know,
you'd think that American generations going forward would never trust
the presidency again after Nixon, But people a hundred percent
(39:57):
believe that Obama was going to change the world. Yea, yeah,
including the boomers who are alive for Nigson may seeing
what happened. They know Preson's capable of lying right and
obfuscating and being a This is.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
A different party, Beckett. This is you know, this is
the good party.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
So obviously it's possible.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
So it's possible.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Within our lifetimes that yeah, World Health Organization once again
claims the mantle of a trusted bipartisan institution. It's possible.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
I'm going to be around her mind people not to
trust them, but we'll see. Thank you so much, this
has been such a great talk. I end here with
your best tip for my listeners on how they can
improve their lives. Let's get some optimism here. How do
people make their lives better?
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Okay, so TI tips one. It is usually best even
if it leads to a little conflict. Usually best to
say immediately when you're starting to feel annoyed or aggravated
about something, do not let it sit infester. I've learned
this in my merriage.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Immedially for spouses, or this is just in general in general.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Actually it's great with coworkers because otherwise if you yeah,
if you try to rationalize it, like I don't want
the conflict right now, I'm busy right now. Then it's
possible you sit in that investors, and then it becomes contempt.
And that's if you want in any relationship in your life.
So find a diplomatic, impolite way immediately to say I'm
aggravated or I'm unhappy with this thing, I don't think
this thing X y Z do it as fast as possible.
(41:20):
And the other one ruthless enforcement of your time boundaries.
I know, I know the Celenials like talking about boundaries
and stuff. No, if you and work, if close of
business is five o'clock, you got you have to observe it.
Because you keep pushing it, you will become known as
somebody who doesn't have any serve of working hours. You
work all the time and anytime that you aren't ruthlessly
(41:41):
enforcing that. Your job will take what it can because
it doesn't care. So you have to. If it's after five,
that email can wait, the text can wait, unless somebody
is like leading and needing.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Okay, yes you can. You're a doctor, fine, you know right,
You're a writer, it's okay.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
You know. In journalism, if you're on the breaking news desk,
I'm sorry your kind that's an all situation, that's an
on call. But you get to a point where you're
maybe an instructor or a columnist that you have to
you really got to maintain that, especially if you're married
with kids.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
It's great.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Eventually becomes so when does your workday actually end?
Speaker 2 (42:13):
You're next thing you know, it's Tyley Coulli com stalled someday.
Thank you, Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (42:20):
He's t Beckett Adams read him in The Hill National Review,
watching an examiner follow his amazing X extreme I don't know,
I don't know what to call it anymore, Twitter profile,
Twitter whatever.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Thank you so much, Beckett. Nice to have you.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
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