Latest / OneLegUpAlex Media / One Leg Up on Journalism With Pulitzer-Prize Journalist Dan Luzadder 8-19-24

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One Leg Up on Journalism With Pulitzer-Prize Journalist Dan Luzadder 8-19-24 · OneLegUpAlex Media

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Here's your host, Alex Garrett.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: All right, and on tonight's show on the Alex Garrett
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: podcast Network, it is the start of the DNC, and
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: what should journalists be doing differently? I mean, we just
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: saw the resignation of Minute Schaffique from Colombia, the president
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: of Columbia, which I was calling for for weeks on end, okay,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: weeks on end. Yet journalism, journalists, mainstreaming didn't do enough
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: to push her out. It had to be the independent
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: voices and of course three deans that have resigned due
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: to anti Semitic text exchanges. I mean, can you imagine
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: that on the college campus. So from that to the
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: trumpet assassination attempt, the media has not pushed hard enough
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: for the real, true facts of everything. But one person
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: who continues to is Dan Lozardo and he is a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: investigative journalist for forty years and I caught up a
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: I'm on my podcast to discuss his new book. All right, Well, folks,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: you know I love the movie The Venturing in Canada.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I just think that movie is a classic. And someone
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: that feels like the Manurian journalist is with me.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Dan.
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  Speaker 2: Now, Dan lose Adder, lose hotter, thanks for joining me today.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks for having me on Dan.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I love this premise of being the Ventory and Journalist.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I guess if you're on the outside and not, you know,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: feeling like the mainstream, you kind of have that target
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: on you. But you go really deep into this new book.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Tell us about why you wrote The Ventory and Journalist.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Laurence write the CIA, The CIA and the corruption of
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: American journalism.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: All right, so, Alex, I've been a journalist for more
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: than forty years. I've been an investigative reporter most of
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: my career, and I've done some pretty high profile stories.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I was freelancing several years ago and I got a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: call from a Freedom magazine, which was owned by the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Church of Scientology. I didn't know anything about Scientology at
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the time, but they were looking for an investigative reporter
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to help them with some things. That were doing a
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: relaunch of their magazine after being out of print for
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: many years, and they were hiring some other journalists. But
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: they asked me to take a look at the media
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: coverage around the church and the accuracy, fairness and balance
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: of all that. And in the course of that, I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: looked at a book written by Lawrence Wright, who had
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  Speaker 1: done a long, long form story in The New Yorker
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  Speaker 1: about the church and then a book and later a documentary,
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  Speaker 1: And as I started looking at those issues, I found
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: something that was much more fascinating than the media coverage
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of scientology. And though I concurred with them that a
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: lot of it had been biased and unfair and unbalanced
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and poor reporting, the work that was done by by
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Lawrence Wright was built as investigative reporting, and so I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: took a look at it from that perspective. But what
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I found that was even more interesting than his writing
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: about the church was that he had participated in a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: program that was created by the CIA and a related
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: intelligence network, an elite group of individuals who supported the CIA,
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  Speaker 1: were involved with it in many ways and used foundations
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to fund activities of the CIA domestically to hide those efforts,
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  Speaker 1: and Lawrence Wright, it turned out, had participated in a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: couple of programs that were designed to propagandize the American people.
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  Speaker 1: That's where I started looking more deeply into the history
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of the creation of the CIA, into programs that had
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: developed to recruit journalists, to recruit publishers, to recruit editors,
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  Speaker 1: and others who were like minded in the creating the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Western culture advocacy, and a lot of times misinformation and
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  Speaker 1: disinformation about what was going on in the rest of
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  Speaker 1: the world.
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  Speaker 2: So the CIA hunting, if you well, that you've been
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: doing to track down all of this, has that literally
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  Speaker 2: made you a Manchurian journalist?
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  Speaker 3: Where are their threats on your life or what?
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  Speaker 4: Now?
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  Speaker 1: The term Manurian journalist really refers to something different, not
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to me, but to the idea that, as you saw
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  Speaker 1: in the movie The Manchurian Candidate, that someone could be influenced,
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  Speaker 1: either by brainwashing or by other techniques, to do things
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  Speaker 1: that were that they might normally not do, might consider unethical,
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  Speaker 1: might consider illegal, might even rise a course to the
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  Speaker 1: level of assassination. So the idea of the Manchurian journalist
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  Speaker 1: is that there can be journalists out there who are
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  Speaker 1: operating with an agenda that we never see as the
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  Speaker 1: news public, that can have other influences behind them. And
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  Speaker 1: while I'm not suggesting that Lawrence Wright was brainwashed by
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  Speaker 1: the CIA, what he did do was fail to tell
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  Speaker 1: the public about his connections to the CIA and his
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  Speaker 1: connections to these programs that were used to propagandize the
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  Speaker 1: American public. And so was he.
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  Speaker 3: And I know you'll appreciate this.
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  Speaker 2: Was he the Robert Shaw of this whole story.
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  Speaker 3: Is that what I'm hearing here?
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  Speaker 1: Robert's story, Robert G's Story was the executive trial prosecutor
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  Speaker 1: in the Nuremberg War trials, head of the American Bar Association,
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  Speaker 1: head of the International Bar Association, chairman of the Board
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: of Foreign Scholarships for the State Department that handed out
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  Speaker 1: fullbrights and full rights were often used in other countries
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  Speaker 1: to bring people here to create political friendships and elsewhere
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  Speaker 1: in the world. And Story also owned a small bank
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  Speaker 1: in Dallas, Texas, a storefront bank that he'd founded in
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, and Lawrence Wright's father went to work
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  Speaker 1: for that bank as president. In this little storefront bank
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  Speaker 1: without a lot of without a lot of loans, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of necessary resources, also employed a lot of ex
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  Speaker 1: military people who, it became apparent, seemed to be operating
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  Speaker 1: under what they call non official cover there in Dallas.
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  Speaker 1: And as I looked at all this, I began to
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  Speaker 1: wonder why Lawrence Wright had never mentioned Robert's story and
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  Speaker 1: the fact that his father was so closely associated was
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: such a powerful and influential individual. I tried to get
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  Speaker 1: him to answer those questions for me, but he never would.
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  Speaker 4: Interesting I was actually saying, was this right sort of
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  Speaker 4: like a Robert Shaw, remember Shaw in the movie Brainwashed,
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  Speaker 4: you know, with the flick of a playing card.
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  Speaker 3: Was that sort of the thing here with with Right?
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  Speaker 1: It's a I would not say that Lawrence Wright was brainwashed,
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  Speaker 1: But what I would say is he had influences in
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  Speaker 1: his background that that should be known to the public.
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  Speaker 1: And and if those influences were influential in the work
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  Speaker 1: that he did in his Puel Serprise winning book on
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  Speaker 1: al Qaeda Looming Tower, if those influences were there the public,
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  Speaker 1: really I don't know about that. So it was kind
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  Speaker 1: of threats.
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  Speaker 2: Would they use uh for journalists to report what they wanted?
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  Speaker 2: Did you find that there were a lot of threats
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  Speaker 2: used against journalists to report what they wanted them to report?
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  Speaker 1: Not at all. I don't think threats the were the mechanism.
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  Speaker 1: What they did do is create friendships. They created associations
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  Speaker 1: with people who were interested in the same anti communistic
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  Speaker 1: goal antisocialism, Western culture promotion. And the way they did
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: this was they used a network to recruit people into
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  Speaker 1: the publishing industry, so that major publishers who are picking
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  Speaker 1: what writers we read really and what ideas are promoted
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  Speaker 1: to the public. They were recruiting people inside. They may
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  Speaker 1: have been wittingly recruited or unwittingly recruited, but they represented
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  Speaker 1: certain ideas of that were consistent with the intelligence elite
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  Speaker 1: that were involved with the CIA. So in that sense,
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  Speaker 1: rather than threats, it was cooperative reporting helpful. The CIA
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  Speaker 1: can be very beneficial to a reporter if they want
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  Speaker 1: to provide assistance, but not that many reporters developed sources
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  Speaker 1: within the CIA or treated to those special things.
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  Speaker 2: But I don't know, I would hope not in the
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  Speaker 2: sense of you don't want there to be that kind
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  Speaker 2: of connection.
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  Speaker 3: Am I right on that or not? Or is it
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  Speaker 3: okay to develop a connection with the CIA? It just
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  Speaker 3: doesn't sound right to me as a journalist.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly right. This was the subject of congressional hearings back
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  Speaker 1: in the seventies because because people were concerned about the
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  Speaker 1: fact that journalists who might be working for the CIA
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  Speaker 1: developing intelligence would compromise other journalists who were not so involved.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you remember Terry Anderson who has taken hostage
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  Speaker 1: in the Middle East and held for so long. He
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: was a journalist who had been accused by Middle Eastern
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  Speaker 1: influences of being an American spy. There were hearings in
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties following his release, and Ted Kopple tests
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  Speaker 1: to fight about that issue and the danger of the
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  Speaker 1: CIA or other intelligence operations within the US using journalists
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  Speaker 1: because it creates danger for those who are not involved,
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  Speaker 1: who who the foreign influences might think are involved. And
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  Speaker 1: certainly we've seen arrests of journalists in Russia, most recently
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  Speaker 1: the release of the reporter who had been imprisoned there,
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  Speaker 1: and so it is not only unethical for these things
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  Speaker 1: to occur, but it is also dangerous for others who
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  Speaker 1: are independent journalists legitimately trying to perform their job.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I imagine you're writing this in a time where maybe
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  Speaker 2: the press is looked at as being quote unquote fake news.
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  Speaker 2: You've heard that term a lot, but is that how
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  Speaker 2: do I say, sensatialized a term? Considering there was actually
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  Speaker 2: news that might have been faked based on the CIA
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  Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies, I feel like that news was
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: truly maybe maybe not fictional, but directed in a certain
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  Speaker 2: way that the fake news mantra is trying to say
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  Speaker 2: it is today.
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  Speaker 3: If that makes.
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  Speaker 1: Sense, I think we have a different situation here actually,
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  Speaker 1: But I think we do need to be concerned about
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  Speaker 1: fake news more. We need to be concerned about the
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  Speaker 1: polarization of news and the and failure by journalists to
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  Speaker 1: dig into certain stories.
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  Speaker 3: And oh, let me ask that question again.
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  Speaker 2: I think I have a better way to ask it, Dan.
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  Speaker 2: We're in the age where everybody seems to be calling
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  Speaker 2: out the fake news. Maybe a presidential Canada and a
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  Speaker 2: former president does that as well. But did the CIA
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  Speaker 2: actually push out any fictional news through these journalists back
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  Speaker 2: in the day.
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  Speaker 1: I think they pushed out a lot of different perspectives
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  Speaker 1: on what we should be doing about Western culture, about
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  Speaker 1: who we were, about anti communism, about various things that
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  Speaker 1: help convince the American public to believe in a certain
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  Speaker 1: way or to follow certain ideas. If you're able to control,
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  Speaker 1: let's say, or influence rather the publishing industry, you're able
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  Speaker 1: to pick writers to help people you are familiar with
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  Speaker 1: or cooperative with, pick writers who represent those Western ideas
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  Speaker 1: rather than writers who might raise questions about the internal
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: workings of the democratic government, for instance. But what we
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  Speaker 1: have today is we have disinformation and misinformation being reported
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  Speaker 1: for political purposes. I don't see the intelligence community being
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  Speaker 1: directly involved in that. They're involved in a different way,
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  Speaker 1: in a higher mind and a thing less directed toward
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  Speaker 1: toward propaganda. The way we think of it today, we
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  Speaker 1: have foreign influences, hacking organizations, providing disinformation and fake news.
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  Speaker 1: We don't have the vigorous journalistic community that we had,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: say twenty years ago, because journalism is in decline, severe decline,
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  Speaker 1: and we rely mostly on national news now we don't
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: do as much community news. So rather than propagandize people
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: about Western cultural values, we see propaganda for political purposes,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: for influence of elections, for those sorts of things. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: this is something that's a great concern. But what was
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: being done before is also a concern. When you have
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the war on the War on Terror was at its height,
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  Speaker 1: and we were reading lots of stories about how great
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the threat was to America. There may have been a
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: lot of exaggeration about that, and that exaggeration may have
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  Speaker 1: been encouraged by the intelligence community because the state of war,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the state of being on a lo for terror feeds
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: certain organizations and the security network that the intelligence community
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: is interested in seeing. And so Robert Story was very
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: influential in determining that the State of Texas would not
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: do a separate murder investigation into the Kennedy assassination. Robert
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Story was also with the Chief Justices of the Supreme
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Court when he went to the jail to interview Jack Ruby,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: who had where shot Lee Harvey Oswald children. So Story
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: was very influential in these matters, and his presence was
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: never really disclosed publicly. It took a lot of research
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: to find out where he was and how he was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: involved in these things. So that led me into questions
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: about the Kennedy assassination. And of course I was also
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: interested in the law Lawrence Wright's take on the Kennedy assassination,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and so much that he declared that Lee Harvey Oswald,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the loan gunmen, was solely responsible for killing Kennedy, when
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: I think there is an ample evidence to show that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: there were other people involved.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Interesting, So Lawrence right kind of being a parrot if
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: you will, in that regard. You know, I got to
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: ask you, Dan, when you go through this book, the
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Manturian journalist. Are we going to find shocking stories of
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: you know, New York Times USA today, all these big
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: media outlets having journalists with these ties, and not only that,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: if they learned about these ties, did they still stay
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: on his journalists or were they fired?
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you're going to find a number of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: shocking stories in there. The book raises questions about individual journalists,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: including Bob Woodward from the Washington Post. There As I
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: was working and researching these issues, I touched on Watergate
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and the demise of Richard Nixon and found that there
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: had been published an account of Bob Woodward's involvement with
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: naval intelligence before he was a reporter for the Washington
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Post and so and so. This had never been disclosed
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: except by an author named Lynn Colodney, and I interviewed Lynn.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: He's since passed, but he interviewed Woodward, and Bob Woodward
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: never denied his intelligence background nor that he was not
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that story in the Manitarian Journalist and the association of
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: other journalists with the agency, including the editor of the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Louisville Courier journal editors with the Washington others who had
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: ties that were not clear to the American public and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: clearly could have influenced their decisions on stories, how they
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: were how they were presented, what stories were allowed, and
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: what stories were discarded.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Very very interesting now when it comes to election cycles,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, have you found that journalism, you know, does
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: a disservice when talking about the issues of the election,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: like are they not telling us everything we need to
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: know about each candidate?
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I think we have many problems with journalism today
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  Speaker 1: and whether or not there is intentional distortion. There is
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: too much polarization and too much opinion in what is
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: being billed as news. You know, I think that there
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: are a lot of things we're not hearing about the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: election because of the state of journalism today. We have
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: reports that are out there doing national news. They're doing
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: their reporting, working their sources, but we have one time
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: had even medium sized newspapers in the country had reporters
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: staffing political campaigns, flying with the candidates, going wherever they
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: were reporting on what they heard for their individual newspapers.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: And if it was reporting in the Cleveland Post, if
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: there was reporting in the Cleveland Plaine Dealer about certain
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: things about the campaign, we read about those things in
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the Cleveland paper. But then it was stream. We don't
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: have those kinds of things today. There are far fewer reporters.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: The Indianapolis Star, where I work, for example, on the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: investigative team for many years, had a very large and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: full newsroom. It has very few reporters today actively engaged
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: in news. And that's the situation that I think I like.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I like that you brud that up because I want
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: to ask you, as soon as you're finish your thought,
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: if you like being independent journalist first being on a
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: part of a media outlet, I feel like you like
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: the independent versus the tie to a media outlet.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, there are upsides and there are downsides on both,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: but the being an independent journalist has its advantages. And
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we want our journalists all to be independent, even those
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: that are working for major newspapers, say, or television outlets.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: We want them to be still independent and to speak
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: their mind and to tell their truths to editors just
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: as they tell them to the public. That's very important.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: And the you know, the idea that that we don't
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: have this kind of vigor in journalism, that we are
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: losing the depth and texture of some of the reporting
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that goes on is a matter that we all should
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: be concerned about, and right along with the disinformation and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the misinformations that's there, the polarization of perspectives by various
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: major TV news channels, it leaves us with a state
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of journalism that is not really contributing to democracy the
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: way that we hoped and anticipated.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: By saying all the flaws of the journalism and how
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: they weren't really trustworthy back in the day, how will
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: that help us trust today's journalists if you will.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that what I think what we see
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: is we need to know how our history has been reported,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: and we need to know that there may have been
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: flaws and holes in that story, and that there may
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: have been influence. It doesn't mean that we couldn't trust
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the reporting that generally we were hearing. So if you
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: bring this down to a local level. In when I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: was active in newspapers, if I reported a story on
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: an event, let's say as simple as a traffic accident,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: I needed to be sure that I was accurate in
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: all aspects of that story. I needed to have the
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: individual's name right, their age correct, their address correct, so
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that they weren't confused with someone else. I had to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: have the details correct. You could depend on that to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: be credible because newspapers at the time, if the mistake
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: was made, they were likely to hear about it in
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: their local community, and a correction would be published. That
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: established a record of history. I can go back thirty
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: five years or forty years into old newspapers and look
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: at stories and be fairly certain that these were reported
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: accurately and fairly. Now, some of the political issues and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the geopolitical issues may have been influenced in other ways.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Some of what is recorded in history by what was
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: reported at the time may have had some distortions in it.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Some of those distortions are straightened out in history over
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: time because people contradict them or raise questions in some cases.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: But generally today we don't have that same kind of
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: contribution of accurate reporting. We have something else. We have
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: journalism up by commentary and people's perspective. That's not really reporting,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that's uh, that's opinion page stuff from the days of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: newspaper journalism when I got started.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you about teaching.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: Is I feel like what you can tell us and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: show us is sort of a lesson. Have you been
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: a professor in journalism as well, or what can what
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: can journalism schools do differently for the up and coming
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: journalists in the world.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: You know that that's a very interesting question. I taught
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: at Indiana University at their Indianapolis campus part time while
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I was an investigative reporter for the Indianapolis Star, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: I taught at Metro State University in Denver while I
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: was working at the Denver Rocky Mountain News, the late
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: great newspaper that was folded by Scripts Howard News. The
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: journalism students then still had the opportunity to get into
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: newspapers that were still vigorously hiring people, still had the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: institutional knowledge that was being reported or was being shared
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: with other journalists inside newsrooms, to develop techniques, to develop
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: ways to build sources to do better reporting. Journalism schools
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: were good at providing basic foundation information for reporters, but basically,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: what you really learned about journalism you learned on the job.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: But what they did was they did prepare people to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: find jobs and to staff newspapers and television stations and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: radio stations with people who are interested in reporting. Now,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: journalism schools are struggling to find a place for people
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: to go with their journalistic work. So there is as
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: journalism has declined, as there have become fewer jobs, smaller newspapers,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: newspapers shutting down those sorts of things. We're not developing
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that institutional knowledge, we're not really providing opportunities. And journalism
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: schools have adapted by going toward public relations or other
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: sorts of things, the social media reporting, those kinds of
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: things that all fall short of the kind of journalism
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that I think that we need in this country and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the kind of journalism that I grew up with.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: A few more things.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: I see you. We're inducted in the Scripts Howard Hall
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: of Fame. So I'm talking about Hall of Fame journalists
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: How cool is that? Congratulations on that?
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, you know that. And the Pulitzer and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the American Bar Association Award for looking into corruption in
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the federal courts. Those are all meaningful to me only,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I think because they represent or reflect on stories that
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: were successful, that were contributing. I've never entered a contest
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in my life. Newspapers did that for me with my work,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and so it was never the awards that I was after.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: It was more of the satisfaction of knowing that I
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: was bringing things to the public that maybe some journalists
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: were not. That was I think that's where the satisfaction
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: was in those sorts of things.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Now you mentioned Woodward, you were dissatisfied. I guess with
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: what Carl Bernstein wrote in the nineteen seventy seven Rolling Stone,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: where he didn't really go depth into the CIA and
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: links between them and the press, is that right? Did
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: he not do enough in the expose that you wanted
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: to take it further?
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I think he could have gone further. I tried to
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: talk to him, but I was not able to successfully
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: communicate with him. He wrote in the Rolling Stone in
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies about what was known as Operation Mockingbird,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: which was a dedicated program within the CIA to influence
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: journalists to recruit them to and he in his story
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: talked about some four hundred journalists across the country who
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: were either involved with intelligence wittingly or unwittingly. But he
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: never talked about his partner, Bob Woodward. And when I
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: talked to Lynn Collodney, who I found to be extremely
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: credible in his work to be well documented and by
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the way it's collected by the University of Texas. It's
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: accessible there if anyone wants to take a look at
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: at what Lynn Colodney did in his book Silent Coup
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and the references he made to Woodward, including the transcripts
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of interviews he did with Woodward. But he commented to
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: me when I interviewed him that he thought Bob or
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: he thought Carl Bernstein did not talk about Woodward but
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: knew about his intelligence connections and speculated that maybe that
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: was sort of the ace in Bernstein's pocket, if you
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: know what I mean?
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: Now, does that well?
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you, does that discredit all the reporting,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: all the awards that they got for the Watergate paper,
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: you know, all the Watergate reporting.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: They did for the Post?
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: That that doesn't discredit what they did, does it?
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Well? I think it's important to know what the Washington
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Post was doing. It doesn't necessarily discredit all of those things.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: But if Bob Woodward had revealed or there were stories
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: about his intelligence background with the Navy and certainly being
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: a briefer to Alexander Hagen the word White House, had
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: those things been well known at the time, there might
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: have been questions raised or should have been raised within
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the Washington Post about who his sources were. You remember
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in the Watergate saga, which was memorialized by Robert Redford
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and Dustin Hoffman and all the president's men in the movie,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: they were earnestly seeking sources and there was a secret,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: deep throat source for Woodward feeding him information. All of
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: those stories I think could be tested to some degree,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and I would love to talk to Bob Woodward about
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: his background and to know something about whether or not
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: he thought that influenced him in his reporting, or whether
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: there were intelligence connections he had that were interested in
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: seeing Richard Nixon leave office. One of the things that
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: I brought up in the issues about Lawrence Ryden and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Robert's story was the idea of influencing political directions by coups,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: either by violence or by other means. Colomney was of
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the opinion that Nixon's demise had as much to do
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: with his efforts to bring peace and detente, just like
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Kennedy was trying to do at the time he was
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: assassinated and put and to restrict and encourage a more
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: peaceful world. We are a nation that has thrived on
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: building a war machine since World War Two and that's
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: an important perspective that doesn't get enough attention in journal.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Kennedy assassination, the attemptation of Ronald Reagan, and now those
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: two were covered very differently than this attempted assassination of Trump,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: and that the mainstream media hasn't really even dug their
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: heels into any of this. I feel like, I feel
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: like as a podcaster, i'd report on what they're not.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's a very accurate assessment. And the you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I was surprised at the lack of vigor and reporting
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: on this assassination attempt There is more to know what
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: is the FBI really finding out? And when you have
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: a situation where journalism is not as vigorous as it
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: once was, where reporters don't dig into these matters as
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: thoroughly than we lose to history important facts and information,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: it's a It's an important observation you made, I think.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know many people covered the hearing
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: of Kim Cheto, but they should have, right, I mean,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: they should have. But to your thing of what's not
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: being done today, You've written this book, you have had
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: forty years, but you got to be chasing another investigative story.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: What's on the of Dan Lozardo's Sorry, Dan Wizard's investigative journalism.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: What's next?
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm working on a documentary film right now from
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: a series of crimes that occurred in Speedway, Indiana in
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight. They were crimes that were very high profile,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: five murders and a series of bombings. An individual was
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: sent to prison for the bombings, and the investigation that
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I've done into that raises severe questions of whether or
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: not his conviction helped cover up rampant police corruption that
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: was involved in these cases, which all occurred over a
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: period of six months and have prevented the murders from
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: being solved. That's one thing I've got underway. And then
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I've also finished writing a book about the legend of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: al Capone and how history has mischaracterized the Chicago Mob
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: because al Capone never ran the Chicago Mob, as people
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: broadly believe around the world. The Chicago Mob was run
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: by a Russian Jew named Jake Guzik, who was in
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: control before Capone and long after Capone. But our history
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: teaches us that the Chicago Mob was Italian and that
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: al Capone was at its head. This is one of
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: the myths of history that I'm interested in, and I
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: did extensive research inside the Chicago Mob. I had sources
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: that led me all the way to the family of
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: the individual who did run the mob. So that book
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: has written, finishing up the type script, and we'll be
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: shopping it soon.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: SI moments here, I want to not push back, but
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: examine one thing he said earlier in the interview, which
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: was that they might have been pushing the anti communist narrative.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't feel like they push it too much,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: because that is a threat, is it not. Are you
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: saying the CIA did it overdid it?
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Or what are you saying with.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Regards to the anti communist because I mean, I'm afraid
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: of communism, to be honest with you, and I think
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: we also, and I think.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: What we are afraid of really is dictatorial regimes. Communism
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: is an economic idea. It's not the one that we
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: think in this country is the best for us. But
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: what we were more afraid of, I think at the
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: end of World War two was that we would see
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: more political disruption. We ceased to trust the Russians, who
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: we considered in the late thirties as friends and allies,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: but after the war considered than a threat, and the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: whole idea of creating this dichotomy, this world in which
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: we have opposite points of view, keeping America believing that
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: this was the appropriate thing, that the threat of communism
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: was so severe and the threat to America and democracy
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: was so severe that we could not have cooperative relations.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: That was an idea not just of the CIA, but
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: of the elite intelligence community that included people like John McCloy,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: who The New York Times described as the chairman of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the establishment, who was head of the Ford Foundation, the
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: head of the Rockefeller Foundation, the head of the World Bank.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: People like that who had a vested interest in maintaining
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the idea of this warlike dichotomy at the end of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: World War Two. I think influenced how we believe and
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: how we approach those things. I'm not saying that there
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: is there are not things to be fearful of out there,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that we should not be fearful of terrorism, But I
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: think as you see and look at the reporting on
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: al Qaeda and the extent of that threat, and look
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: back today, even after the terrible events of nine to eleven,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: what has happened in the world of terror and how
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: much of a threat have we seen in the United States.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Most of the threat we've seen has been from domestic terrorists.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I would say we always got to be on
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: our heels, and hopefully the CIA is doing their part
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: to keep us safe as well. I got to say that,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: But I would say this book should serve as a
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: willing to journalist of today and tomorrow.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Be careful who your connections are, right, I would think
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: that would be a fair thing to consider. I think
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the more information we have and the more transparency we
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: have in journalism, the better off we all are.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: You know, just talk about the Trump assassination intent.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: What about the DNC.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: What are you hoping journalists do better in reporting the
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: whole week of the DNC.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Well, there's so many different aspects alex going on there.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: You've got all of the agenda on the inside with
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the Democrat nominee and vice president, but also outside in
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: the streets, with the remnants of nineteen sixty eight still
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: lingering in many people's memories. You've got the protests of Regaza,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: of course, and the concerns about US supply of military
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: materials to Israel. So I think there's going to be
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: for reporters so many opportunities to find people who can
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: encapsulate the stories of all of these elements of the DNC.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: The really heavy lifting goes to the people who are
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: trying to fact check and trying to determine what is
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a balanced contribution from reporters throughout.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Now, one last thing before I let you go in
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: your work with the Daily News that's a local paper
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: for us, tell us a little bit about that.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Well I had After I left the Rocky Mountain News,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I worked for a magazine out of New York, and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: then I did freelancing. And when Kobe Bryant was arrested
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: in Colorado, I got a call from the Daily News
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: and asked me, and they asked me if I would
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: cover it for them. So I wound up writing for
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: them for quite a while on the Kobe Bryant case.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And then I also bird dogged Alex Rodriguez for the
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Daily News when when he was having his surgery in Colorado.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So basically I filled in for them as their their
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Colorado correspondent on several occasions. So UH and a couple
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: of times got to come into New York and visit
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: the Daily News newsroom and and soak up some of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the history of that great newspaper.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Isn't it danger when all these outlets get bought out
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: by a bigger corporation that the journalism is not.
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: Is fading a little bit? I hate to say it
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: that way.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Well, it certainly has faded. It's faded tremendously. And the
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: corporate buyouts of local newspapers were I think the beginning
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: of the erosion of that network of good institutional reporting
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: that we once enjoyed back in the days when I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: was writing for newspapers and having the time of my
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: life as an investigative reporter.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Dan los Arter, thanks so much for joining me, and
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: we're going to have you back on even as this
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: election cycle keeps going.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Maybe after the convention season is done.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Would love to have you back on after the Labor
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: Day as we hit the campaign trail even harder as
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: podcasters and journalists and whatnot.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: That sounds great. I'd be very happy to come and
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: talk again.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: All right, Maninery and all right The Manurian Journalist, the
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: book by Dan Losarter in my linkas in my bioble.
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening and thanks for joining me.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Dan, thank you, thanks for joining the alex Scart podcast network.