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When To Call A Thing What It Is · Question Everything

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: From Placement Theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed. This is
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Question Everything. So I've been known to spend my fair
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: share of time on Twitter. I'm primarily a lurker, doom-scrolling
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and following other journalists and people I'd call, I guess,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: journalism thinkers. These are like professors, media critics, columnists. We're
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: often duking it out over headlines or more esoteric things
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: like story framing or reporting tactics. It's my catnip. Since
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: starting this show, I've gained a bit of a reputation
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: around the office for reposting tweets on our Slack here
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: at Question Everything. Sometimes at odd hours, a bit feverishly.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: With the idea being, hey, isn't there something interesting here?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: How about this as a story? My staff ignores me
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: most of the time. But for today, they humored me.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm glad they did. Because it led me to
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  Speaker 1: a story that's so genuinely enlightening and important right now
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: in these final weeks before the election. It started with
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: two longtime journalists and media critics I follow. who I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: saw get embroiled in one of these Twitter fights. This
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: one caught my eye because it felt particularly expansive. It
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: was about the state of journalism and what should or
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be done about it. There was a piling on
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and the exchange went viral. And in the midst of it,
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  Speaker 1: in a surprising display of civility for Twitter, one journalist
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  Speaker 1: said to the other, happy to discuss in substance. And so,
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  Speaker 1: with my staff's blessing, I invited them to do just that.
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  Speaker 1: In front of microphones, of course.
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  Speaker 2: Let me finish my message.
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  Speaker 3: Sir, of course. It's inadequate to do what, Jeff?
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  Speaker 2: Our field, a field that I've devoted my entire life to,
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  Speaker 2: is failing.
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  Speaker 1: In this discussion, we end up talking about a lie.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: One specific lie that's been wreaking havoc. And we examine
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: what the media should be doing to counter it. Which
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: leads me to a person who's actually trying to put
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  Speaker 1: some of the ideas these guys are debating into action
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  Speaker 1: in the real world. all while living through one of
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  Speaker 1: the most messed up stories of this election cycle. Stick around.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I hear dulcet tones.
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  Speaker 4: Look at this. Hello.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Hello.
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  Speaker 4: How are you?
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  Speaker 5: I'm so sorry to hear that.
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  Speaker 1: Okay. So, we have two journalists on opposing sides of
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  Speaker 1: the debate. I invited them to meet face-to-face in a
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  Speaker 1: rented strip mall studio above a blinds-to-go. near where they
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: both live in New Jersey. Thank you guys for doing
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: this funny experiment.
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  Speaker 6: Sure.
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  Speaker 1: I wondered maybe if we could start just by having
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: each of you read your initial tweet and then start
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the conversation there. Here's how the confrontation that got us
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: here started. It's back in August. Kamala Harris has basically
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: become the Democratic nominee, though the convention hasn't happened yet.
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  Speaker 1: And political journalists are complaining that she isn't facing the press.
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  Speaker 1: No press conference, no sit-down interviews. It's in this moment
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  Speaker 1: that our first sparer, goateed and to my left, a
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  Speaker 1: professor emeritus of journalism who's worked a bunch of places,
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  Speaker 1: including at the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune,
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Jarvis, he tweets out the link to a column
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  Speaker 1: in The Guardian titled, Kamala Harris Must Speak to the Press.
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  Speaker 1: And he says to that, What press? The Broken and
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  Speaker 1: Vindictive Times? The Newly Murdochian Post? Hedge Fund and Newspaper Husks?
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  Speaker 1: Rudderless CNN or NPR? Murdoch's fascist media?
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  Speaker 2: No. She can choose many ways to communicate her stance
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  Speaker 2: with others outside the old press and with the public directly.
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  Speaker 2: The old press can and should be bypassed.
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  Speaker 1: Jeff Jarvis' tweet takes off. All sorts of people start
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: weighing in, including our other fighter, across from Jeff, in
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a checked blazer and new balances. The man who's been
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: NPR's media correspondent for 20 years, David Fokenflik. His rejoinder
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  Speaker 1: to Jeff?
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  Speaker 3: Jeff, this just can't be the stance for any journalist
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  Speaker 3: who cares about the profession or the nation to take.
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  Speaker 1: David doesn't think journalists should be encouraging politicians to circumvent
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  Speaker 1: the institutional press. I'm watching this unfold on Twitter, whatever.
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  Speaker 1: By the end, Jeff's thread gets 1.8 million views. And
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  Speaker 1: the initial debate over Kamala Harris and the press, it
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: evolves into a deeper discussion. About really the language these
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  Speaker 1: institutional outlets use to cover Donald Trump. When it's too aggressive.
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  Speaker 1: When it's too passive. How to talk about an unprecedented
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  Speaker 1: and high-stakes situation. There was a torrent of frustration, mostly
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  Speaker 1: from the left, directed at places like the New York Times,
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  Speaker 1: the Washington Post, etc. Jeff and others feel those outlets
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  Speaker 1: haven't covered Trump and the dangers he poses adequately. That
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  Speaker 1: they're afraid to call a thing what it is. Jeff
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: pulls up a couple headlines on his laptop.
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  Speaker 2: If we look at the coverage now, just the last
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  Speaker 2: few days, Trump this weekend said that he was going
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: to have one really violent day to end the crime.
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  Speaker 1: You know, if you had one day, like one real rough,
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  Speaker 1: nasty day.
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  Speaker 2: The New York Times, and I'm picking on the New
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: York Times here, but I'm using them as a proxy
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  Speaker 2: for much of incumbent media. Former President Donald Trump mused
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  Speaker 2: on Sunday about one really violent day. The Washington Post headline.
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  Speaker 2: Trump floats one really violent day for police. No, he
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  Speaker 2: threatened it.
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  Speaker 1: One rough hour, and I.
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  Speaker 2: Mean real rough, the word will get out and it
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  Speaker 2: will end immediately.
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  Speaker 4: End immediately.
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  Speaker 2: And they're not being honest about that. They're not saying that.
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  Speaker 2: If you want to get to the basis of a
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  Speaker 2: lack of trust in incumbent media from the politicians and
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  Speaker 2: the public, and the public in this case being liberal public,
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  Speaker 2: it goes to that.
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  Speaker 1: David's reaction to this is broadly, yes, the mainstream press
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  Speaker 1: is flawed. But you can't ignore the important work they've
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  Speaker 1: done covering Trump either. Stories by the New York Times
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  Speaker 1: about the women who've accused Trump of sexual assault. Years
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  Speaker 1: of reporting on how he circumvented taxes on his father's fortune.
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  Speaker 1: Reporting on his plans to seek retribution against his political
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  Speaker 1: opponents if he gets a second term. And to Jeff's
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: point about calling a thing what it is, David thinks
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  Speaker 1: there are judgment calls to be made about that.
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  Speaker 3: Let's go to lies, for example. NPR wrestled with that
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  Speaker 3: a lot. And I was, I believe, the first on
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  Speaker 3: the air to call, to say the Trump administration had lied.
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  Speaker 2: Really?
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  Speaker 1: You were the first one?
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  Speaker 4: I think so.
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  Speaker 1: This was back in 2018, when Trump's Secretary of Homeland
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  Speaker 1: Security denied the administration had a policy of separating kids
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  Speaker 1: from their parents at the border.
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  Speaker 3: I wrote a column that was something along the lines of,
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  Speaker 3: when the White House can't be believed. And I said, uh,
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  Speaker 3: This strikes me as being a lie. It's knowing, and
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  Speaker 3: I would call it a lie. At the moment, NPR
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  Speaker 3: would not. And I said, but I don't think it matters.
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  Speaker 3: What matters is we get to the heart of what
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  Speaker 3: the policy is. We make clear that they are hypocritically
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  Speaker 3: denying this and we deal with the human ramifications of it.
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  Speaker 3: But I think if you call everything a lie, that
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  Speaker 3: even everything that is a lie, a lie in political discourse,
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  Speaker 3: it oversaturates the public's ability to absorb And it devalues
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  Speaker 3: the importance of the term in the moment.
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  Speaker 1: So there's a journalistic argument to not always call a
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  Speaker 1: thing what it is, possibly.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's a question of soft-peddling something or
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  Speaker 3: the use of elegant variation, as my late father used
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  Speaker 3: to put it. I think if you're always in high dudgeon,
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  Speaker 3: people aren't going to listen to you. If you're always
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: on DEFCON 1, everything seems like a nuclear threat, you
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: are going to ignore– the fact that something may pose
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  Speaker 3: a nuclear threat. I think it would be a disservice
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  Speaker 3: to the audience to treat everything as the same level
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  Speaker 3: of outrage all the time. I don't think the human
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  Speaker 3: soul and brain can absorb that.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: David and Jeff, they covered a lot in this conversation.
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  Speaker 1: I felt like a fly on the wall for an
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  Speaker 1: insidery back and forth between two very smart people who
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  Speaker 1: care a ton about journalism and do not agree on
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  Speaker 1: what's best for it. We'll share the unedited conversation, which
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: we videoed in our newsletter, kcrw.com slash question everything, and
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  Speaker 1: on KCRW's YouTube channel. Throughout the discussion, though, there was
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  Speaker 1: this one story that we kept returning to, which to
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  Speaker 1: me struck at the heart of things. Jeff was the
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  Speaker 1: first to bring it up.
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  Speaker 2: Look at the coverage of the Vance and Trump Springfield
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  Speaker 2: eating dogs and cats.
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  Speaker 1: Springfield, Ohio. There was a single specific, current, and truthfully
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  Speaker 1: twisted story through which I found we could compare Jeff
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  Speaker 1: and David's different philosophies. And it's an example where we'll
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: get to see how these journalistic questions can really come
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: to affect people's lives. What we're talking about here, of course,
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  Speaker 1: is that whole situation that began last month when Republican
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  Speaker 1: vice presidential candidate and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance said on
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  Speaker 1: Twitter one Monday, quote, Months ago, I raised the issue
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  Speaker 1: of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing
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  Speaker 1: chaos all over Springfield, Ohio. Reports now show that people
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  Speaker 1: have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't be in this country. There were a number of
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  Speaker 1: things wrong with this tweet. For one, the Haitian community
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  Speaker 1: in Springfield is there legally, and they are not abducting
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  Speaker 1: or eating people's pets, which Springfield officials told people ad nauseum,
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  Speaker 1: including J.D. Vance's own aide. But that didn't stop Vance.
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  Speaker 1: And it didn't stop Donald Trump from repeating the claim
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  Speaker 1: the next night in the presidential debate.
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  Speaker 7: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in.
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  Speaker 1: They're eating the cats.
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  Speaker 8: They're eating.
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  Speaker 6: They're eating.
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  Speaker 1: The pets of the people that live there. The New
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  Speaker 1: York Times reported on this as, quote, Trump's false tale
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  Speaker 1: of immigrants eating pets. They also called it a false rumor,
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  Speaker 1: Vance's pet eating claims, and reported, quote, The false claims
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  Speaker 1: being promoted by the Trump campaign tapped into old racist
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  Speaker 1: stereotypes that have been directed at immigrants, accusing them of
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  Speaker 1: abducting and killing animals to cook and eat. To Jeff Jarvis,
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  Speaker 1: those word choices and framing were not enough. He preferred
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: something a columnist, Jamel Bowie, said on social media.
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  Speaker 2: Jamel Bowie had a brilliant video on TikTok in which
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  Speaker 2: he explained the essence of it.
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  Speaker 6: What they're doing is called a blood libel.
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  Speaker 1: A blood libel? This is an old concept dating back
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  Speaker 1: to the Middle Ages in Europe. Blood libels are smears
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  Speaker 1: that have been used to demonize Jews. Lies claiming that
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  Speaker 1: Jews kill Christian children, for instance, and make matzah with
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  Speaker 1: their blood.
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  Speaker 6: In the case of Jews in medieval Europe killing children,
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: in the case of Haitian immigrants in 2024 in the
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  Speaker 6: United States, killing pets and eating them, using them for
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: some malign purpose. And the point of a blood libel
• 11:12
  Speaker 6: is to incite violence. There's no other point to it,
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: to drive people to commit violence against others out of fear, anger,
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  Speaker 6: and hatred. And Trump and Vance, who have doubled down
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  Speaker 6: on it, what they are doing is trying to incite
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  Speaker 6: violence against Haitian immigrants in Springfield and really Haitian immigrants
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  Speaker 6: anywhere and really anyone who people might think is a
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  Speaker 6: Haitian immigrant.
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  Speaker 1: It is blood libel. Straightforward.
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  Speaker 2: Do you see it treated that way in mainstream media?
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  Speaker 1: David pointed out to Jeff, the guy who made that
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  Speaker 1: TikTok video, Jamel Bowie, he's a columnist at the New
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  Speaker 1: York Times.
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  Speaker 2: He did it on TikTok.
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  Speaker 3: You'd think they wouldn't have let him do that at
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: the New York Times.
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  Speaker 1: The Times has had writers making similar points, including using
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the phrase blood libel in opinion stories.
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  Speaker 2: But do you see that in general coverage? I think
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  Speaker 2: Jamel Bowie is a critic within. So Jamel Bowie explains this.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: In the end, he wasn't alone. Others did as well.
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  Speaker 2: But I think that the real problem here, David, is much,
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  Speaker 2: much deeper. It's not about the tactics of what will
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: they fare to, do they ask good questions or not?
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  Speaker 2: They're missing the story. The story is that fascism is
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: at the door. The story is one of race. The
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: story is one of tremendous bigotry and white nationalism. And
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: it's not being called out at that. There's this credulous
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: coverage with white-gloved euphemisms like float and muse. That's the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: quality of coverage we see in this incumbent media right now.
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  Speaker 2: That's the real problem. Journalists we both heard this saw
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  Speaker 2: over our entire careers. We write the first draft of history,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: which means that too often we ignore history. We think
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: this is all new. Well, for Lord's sake, it is not.
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  Speaker 2: Others have gone through it in other nations.
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  Speaker 3: I got to say, Jeff, you know, I think that,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: you know, what you call the incumbent press, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it was Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal that sent a
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: reporter to Springfield to interview the woman who made the
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: complaint to police that her cat was missing. And she
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: acknowledged that that actually she found it in her basement
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  Speaker 3: days later.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, that is... That's good reporting.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good reporting, but it took place to basically
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  Speaker 3: disprove what J.D. Vance, the vice presidential candidate, had alleged
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  Speaker 3: was widespread in the Trump campaign, had used her.
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  Speaker 1: Let me finish this for a moment.
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  Speaker 3: You know, to validate, they used this police report, which
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: in and of itself, if you looked at it, which
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I did do, seemed Pretty skimpy, as the officer acknowledged
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: in the text of the report. But he went and
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: he did exactly right.
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  Speaker 4: Good reporting.
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  Speaker 3: But then Dana Bash on CNN confronted him with that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Here's that moment from the CNN interview with J.D.
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  Speaker 3: Vance.
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  Speaker 7: If I have to create stories so that the American
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  Speaker 7: media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,
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  Speaker 7: then that's what I'm going to do, Dana.
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  Speaker 3: And he said, well, I'm going to tell the stories
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  Speaker 3: I need to have you to pay attention to it.
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  Speaker 3: And she said, well, that isn't telling the truth.
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  Speaker 5: Sir, you just said that you're creating the story.
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  Speaker 1: What's that, Dana?
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: You just said that this is a story that you created.
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  Speaker 3: She challenged him on national television in a way that
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: was not simply looking for a moment that would go viral.
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  Speaker 3: She was simply saying, sir, what you're doing is acknowledging
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: your line.
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  Speaker 2: This is my example. That's the framing that I was
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: taught in journalism. We've used journal forever.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, we got to the facts.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, job done.
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  Speaker 1: No, but she didn't.
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  Speaker 2: The fact, they fact-checked the lady and they fact-checked the
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: police and they fact-checked fans. And Vance, what did Vance say?
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I'm saying it anyway, because his role here was to
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: promote a fascist worldview. And the failure of journalism is
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: that it doesn't go the next step past fact-checking. It
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: points to the Wall Street Journal for Sending the Reporter,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: but it's, let me finish my message.
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  Speaker 6: Yes, sir, of course.
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  Speaker 1: That's the least of it.
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  Speaker 2: And the story that is actually occurring, especially as we
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: have A candidate who is black and Indian and the
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: daughter of immigrants running for the presidency. I don't think
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: that me and I'm, we sit here as four white
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: people around a table and I'm, if you can't hear
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: it on the radio and know it, I'm an old
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: white guy. Too much of media had been run by
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: people who look, look like me. What's going on here
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: is fundamentally about race. How do we rebuild a journalism
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: that goes beyond facts? and goes to this context when
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: all we tend to do is maybe, maybe call a
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: historian and get a quote, when perhaps it's the historians
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: that should be doing the coverage right now. What I'm
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: asking for from our colleagues in journalism and media is
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: something that I'm not sure how to do.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Well, we found someone who does know how to do it.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Someone with more experience than any of us covering racism.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Someone who's been reporting directly and aggressively in Springfield and
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: paying a personal price for it.
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  Speaker 4: The strain of it, the fear, it just felt very
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: much like a riot waiting to happen.
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  Speaker 1: That's after a quick break. And remember, you can check
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: out the video of the full discussion, debate, tete-a-tete between
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: David Fokenflik and Jeff Jarvis by signing up for our
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: newsletter at kcrw.com slash question everything or on YouTube. McElvee
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Neal is a special projects editor at the Haitian Times,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: a newspaper based in New York that serves the Haitian diaspora,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: including more than a million people in the U.S. in
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: places like Miami, New York, and Boston, but also increasingly
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: smaller cities and suburbs elsewhere in Indiana and Ohio. McElvee
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: was in Springfield, Ohio the week all the madness happened,
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  Speaker 1: overseeing her paper's coverage, the week J.D. Vance and Donald
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Trump spread the lie about Haitians. I wanted to know
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: what her assessment was of the reporting on this.
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  Speaker 4: The way this blew up was J.D. Vance retweeting this
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: pet stuff, right? I think the story should have been
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: that J.D. Vance is making unfounded claims to get attention.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Put the motive in there.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: Yes. We take it and immediately start repeating in the headlines, J.D.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Vance says Haitians are eating pets. So now people who
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: weren't followers of JDFans are finding out that, oh, there
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: are Haitians in Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: Even if the story itself says these aren't proven claims.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah. No one reads through beyond the headlines.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: You know, like this sensationalism that was there really, really
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: antagonized me. It gave me a headache because it felt so.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: You're like actually clutching your head right now.
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: It gave me whiplash.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:57
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: On the one hand, we're saying Vance makes unfounded claims
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: about Haitians and impets in Ohio. That's how I could
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: summarize the headlines. If we deem that it's important enough
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: to put in the headline that these are unfounded claims,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: why are we repeating the unfounded claim in the headline
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: about the unfounded claim? Right.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: If reporters and editors early on, right after J.D. Vance
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: tweeted had trained their sights on why he did this,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: as opposed to simply reporting that he did it, McElvey
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: believes it could have redirected the trajectory of the story,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: like in the presidential debate with Trump the next night.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Maybe the question then for the moderators would have been,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: you know, it seems like your running mate is spreading
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: lies about immigrants for attention. What does that say about
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: the kind of administration you want to have, that you
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: would have people who are willingly spreading lies? and endangering
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: people's lives just to get attention. We continue to allow ourselves,
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: mainstream media, to be manipulated into these stories. Like, they're
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: baiting us. Like, we're the bait, you know?
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I told McElvee about the disagreement I found myself in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the middle of between Jeff and David. I gave her
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: the CliffsNotes of each of their positions. I told her
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: David thought we should give the mainstream press credit where
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: credit is due for the coverage of this story. The
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal and CNN.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: I think it was too little too late. I think
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: that should be the rule, not the exception.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Initially, the Haitian Times decided not to report on J.D.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Vance's tweet alone. It was only after Donald Trump repeated
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: the lie during the debate that they felt they had to.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I was getting text messages about how scared people were.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: Like it was a phone tree situation where folks were
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: saying like, are you scared? going to send your kids
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: to school? Like, I don't know. I don't feel safe
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: going out. Like, what are we going to do?
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: So that was literally the next morning. They had already
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: been getting threats and bullying after the tweet, especially kids
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: at school, you know, were feeling it. Because there's TikToks
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: going around. People are making fun.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Like you guys are eating pets, basically.
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Or how does it taste, you know? Things like that.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: And so folks were just feeling unprotected. Just, like, open
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: to the wolves.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Over the course of a week, there were 33 bomb threats.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Directed at schools, hospitals, government offices. Threatening, hateful emails poured
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: into city halls. talking about Haitian invaders, using the N-word,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: suggesting the city should use, quote, posses of police to
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: remove Haitians, and that residents should bring in large dogs
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to attack them.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: This one mom was telling me where they were saying,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: we have to close the school, there's no school today,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: and like the entire downtown Springfield had to be evacuated.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: What was the language you did use to report on
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: what was happening in the Haitian times? I collected some here,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I think. Where is it?
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: What did I call them? What did we call them?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: I have media circus, politicians' nativism and racist tropes, racism tropes,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: anti-Haitian racism, a right-wing attack, racist claims, false claims. Those
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: are some of the phrases that I took out of
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: your coverage.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: I think that's pretty representative, especially the nativist pieces.
• 21:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: I was curious what McElvey would make of the TikTok
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: from Jamel Bowie declaring the pet lies a blood libel.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Basically saying, like, the media should call this a blood libel,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: like quite specifically. What do you think of that?
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: I agree. I think this is very much an attempt, right,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: from what the sociologists have told us, including some academics
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: who've studied how immigrants, you know, are used, how Haitians
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: specifically are are used to make a larger point. As
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: far as authoritarianism goes, this is not a novel tactic, right,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: to pit one group against another.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So in your newsroom, you were talking about these lies
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: about Springfield as blood libels? Were you using those terms?
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: We didn't use the term blood libel. We talked about
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: it as a potential race war waiting to happen because
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: it felt that way.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: McElvee had had Springfield, Ohio on her radar for a while,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: particularly since 2023, when a man was convicted of hate
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: crimes there for attacking and robbing Haitian immigrants. The Haitian
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Times covered that. And then this summer, McElvee started planning
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a town hall at a community center in the city
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: for Haitian residents to come meet Haitian Times staffers and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: get connected to people and resources that could help them
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: adjust to life in Springfield. That event was planned for
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: September 14th, which ended up being, coincidentally, just a few
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: days after Vance and Trump started spreading the lie about Springfield.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: So McElvee was in town as everything blew up. The
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: NAACP told her the police couldn't guarantee that they could
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: secure the event. Meanwhile, Haitians from around the country were
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: wanting to travel to Springfield to show solidarity, which McElvee appreciated,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: but she worried that could lead to more problems.
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: Hello, everyone, and welcome. Thank you for joining our livestream. Unfortunately,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: because of the security risk, We had to cancel the
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: in-person plans we had.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: So McElvey and her colleagues hosted the event virtually on
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: her laptop, sitting in a tiny room in the Springfield
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Community Center where the town hall was supposed to have
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: taken place.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: We hope we'll help the community in Springfield and Haitians
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: in general feel like they're not alone, that they have
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: people who are watching out for them.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: In the midst of all this, McElvey also realized we
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: need to change the program. And the people she decided
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to add were historians.
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: When you hear people talking about, oh, many Haitians are illegal,
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: we know that that's not true, especially not in Springfield.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: This is Dr. Sharon Wright Austin, professor of political science
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: at the University of Florida. She explained that the stigma
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: of Haitians being called illegal immigrants stems from long-held misperceptions
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: about them.
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: They were perceived as economic refugees and not political refugees.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: Even though many times they were fleeing political persecution, people
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: saw them in that way. And that was really just
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: an excuse. that was given to not allow Haitians to
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: come to this country as other immigrants of color were.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: McElvee basically created a forum where the ideas Jeff Jarvis
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: was talking about in the abstract were actually being played
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: out in real time. It's interesting that your mind also
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: went to history. Can you talk to me a little
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: more about that? It's like people are getting bomb threats.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Let's bring in the historians.
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: Yes. Yes.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: They needed to have this information historically. to see how
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: our community was being used like as a pawn in
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: this moment. These historians can tell us where they've seen
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: this type of thing before, right? And, you know, whose
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: playbooks they're coming from. And I think the historians did
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: a really good job of that, explaining that Trump is
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: playing a very dangerous game. One of our professors said,
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: you know, very eloquently that he's preparing... The terrain, I think,
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: is the word he used. He's preparing the terrain so
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: that a race war could spring up if it goes unchecked.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: This professor McElvey mentions is Dr. François-Pierre Louis, who teaches
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: political science at the City University of New York. He
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: actually said in his presentation to Haitian residents of Springfield.
• 25:48
  Speaker 8: We have to understand the blood libel that Trump is
• 25:52
  Speaker 8: coming with has a history way back in Eastern Europe.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: He called it a blood libel. He told me later
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: he hadn't seen Jamal Bowie's video, that he came to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the term independently.
• 26:03
  Speaker 8: When the Jews were being accused of killing babies, drinking babies' blood,
• 26:09
  Speaker 8: and that was the terrain.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Then the professor went on to say this.
• 26:16
  Speaker 8: So what Trump is doing now is preparing the terrain.
• 26:19
  Speaker 8: It's not so much about picking up Haitians and sending
• 26:22
  Speaker 8: them back to Haiti. It's about mass killing that's going
• 26:26
  Speaker 8: to happen. It's about genocide because we already know the
• 26:30
  Speaker 8: relationship between the police and Black people in the United States.
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: So no one is going to be listening to your
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: story and say, OK, calmly go to this center so
• 26:42
  Speaker 8: that they can deport you. They're going to be hounded
• 26:45
  Speaker 8: like dogs. They're going to be killed. They're going to be,
• 26:48
  Speaker 8: you know, tortured.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: When I heard Dr. Pierre-Louis say this, I did have
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: a knee-jerk reaction. stating that Donald Trump is laying the
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: groundwork for a genocide against Haitians in America. That struck
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: me as beyond the facts. But McAuley had a different reaction.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: I remember tuning in when he said the terrain part.
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: And I remember thinking, this is not that much different
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: from what happened to Haitians in the Dominican Republic in 1937.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Here comes the historical context. And the details are violent. 1937.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: The Dominican Republic is ruled by a dictator, Rafael Trujillo,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: El Jefe he's known as. The DR, Haiti, they share
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: one island. And many thousands of Haitians were working in
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the Dominican Republic as seasonal laborers.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: So these rumors start up in the northern part of
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: the border that Haitians were stealing people's cattle and animals.
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: Really?
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: So he leaves Santo Domingo, wherever he was.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: Trujillo.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: And made this.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: Broad announcement saying, you know, the Haitians who are there
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: to work, these invaders, they were called at the time,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: they're stealing the cattle and livestock and these thieves need
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: to be taught a lesson. And so he directs his
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: partisans to just start killing anyone suspected of being a
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: Haitian thief out to steal cattle in the Dominican Republic.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: The different stories about this were supposedly he told them
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: not to use bullets because you don't want to waste, like,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: good ammunition on Haitians. So, like, use your machetes and
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: bayonets instead.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: And so they literally went around massacring Haitians, like, chopping
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: off people's heads, hacking body parts, like, real, like, real, like,
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: atrocities happening.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: How many people died?
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: At least 20,000 Haitians. So it was chilling when he
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: said that. And so the parallels to me just seemed
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: really obvious.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: It's really, yeah, it's kind of enlightening to hear you
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: talk about this because when I watched the professor talk
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: in the meeting, my reaction was a little bit like,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: is that hyperbolic? Like, is that just scaring people for
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: no reason? You know, like, but it seems like Having
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the kind of historical cultural background that you have and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: this knowledge about what happened in the DR doesn't make
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: it feel that way.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: This was like less than 90 years ago, right? We
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: have some of this. now and they remember this like
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: very clearly. It doesn't take that much to foment violence
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: when there's a race element involved, when people feel like
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: their livelihood is being taken away, when they feel like
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: Their lives are about to change and they don't have
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: control over it. And so I think we have to
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: face it head on. And I think the media has
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: to talk more about these deeper issues instead of fictitious
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: pets going missing.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: So reporting this early as a blood libel, that stops
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: some of this, you think? Like how does that work
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and help?
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: Oh.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Even if totally factual and true and like– I'm just–
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like this show, I'm just like how can we just
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: do things actually like make things better? And is that one?
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think just like when you're dealing with bullies,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: you stand up to them or you call them out
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: for whatever insecurities is driving their actions or speech. I
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: think at scale– Calling something a blood libel, for example,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: could be that break that's needed to keep them from
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: continuing on unchecked.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, as they're running for
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the top two offices in our country, keep invoking dead animals.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: They keep invoking blood. About a month before Vance and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Trump thrust Springfield into the national spotlight, A white supremacist
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: group called Blood Tribe marched in masks and with swastika
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: banners at a music festival near Springfield, calling it an
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: anti-Haitian immigration march. McElvey reported on that. She also reported
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that a leader of that group got up to speak
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: at a city hall meeting and said, I've come to
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: bring a word of warning. Stop what you're doing before
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: it's too late. Crime and savagery will only increase with
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: every Haitian you bring in. Police were asked to remove him.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: KKK flyers. have been going around town. If there's a
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: time for what David Fokenflik calls high-dudgeon, it might be now.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe we're in DEFCON 1, and it's one of those
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: times when we should call it that. Calling a thing
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: what it is, though, speaking plainly about powerful people spreading
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: racist lies, there's a risk there. A couple days after
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: the town hall, McElvey goes home to New York. She
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: gets up in the morning.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: So I'm getting ready. I hear the doorbell ringing. I
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: ignore it because I thought it was a delivery thing.
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: It rang again. And then I was like, wow, maybe
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: they want me to sign for something. And then I
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: heard the dogs. So I went down and I saw
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: this cruiser outside, like through the window. Before I could
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: even get to my front door, I had seen some
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: police going around the back as I was coming down.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: There were two officers on my back porch. Already.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Two police officers?
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Okay. Who are you? The cops asked McElvey. I'm the
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: person who lives here, McElvey tells them. Why are you here?
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: It's like, we got a call that someone had slit
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: their wife's throat because she was making racist remarks against Haitians.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: And they said, I'm at this address. And they put
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: down my address. And so I said to them, I'm
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: the only one home. Like, nothing's happened here. Like, I
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: didn't call you. I think I've been doxxed. And they said,
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: what's that? He said, you know, when someone takes your
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: documents and finds out information about you and posts them
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: online or uses them to make false reports, stuff like that.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Because of what I do. He said, what do you do?
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: I said, I'm a journalist.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: How did you feel through all this?
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: Shaken, obviously, because I never want to have Any unplanned
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: interactions with the police ever, right? Given the history of
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: police and black people in this country, you know? That's
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: always in the back of my mind. If I get
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: pulled over by the police, I get shaken.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Then I imagine there's the other layer of, okay, so
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: someone knows your address.
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: It's like, what else is going to come, right? Like,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: now someone knows where I live and they're telling me
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: they know how to get to me. or my family,
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: so I was really scared. It kind of took away
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: that sense of what control I had over my own
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: life and how my work and my personal life interact.
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: It forced them to blend now in a way I
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: never anticipated. That makes me really, really angry. When I
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: think about it. But I haven't tried to think about
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: that much yet.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Did you find out the source of this? Who did this?
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: No, we still don't know.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I'm really sorry that happened.
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: Thanks, Brian.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Mackle v. Neal at the Haitian Times.
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: If I have to create stories so that the American
• 35:14
  Speaker 7: media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people,
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: then that's what I'm going to do, Dana, because you
• 35:21
  Speaker 7: guys won't.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Question Everything is a production of Placement Theory and KCRW.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Are there things you think we should be covering? Hit
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: me up at bryhreid on Twitter, Instagram. Also, I know
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I keep plugging this newsletter, kcrw.com slash question everything, but
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: do check it out. This week, I'll take you inside
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the Kafka-esque journey we went on. to understand NPR's policy
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: about using the word lie. Was David Folkenflik the first
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: NPR journalist to say it about the Trump administration? Seems
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: like a simple enough question. Not so. Today's episode was
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: produced by Sophie Kazis and edited by Jonathan Goldstein. Our
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: show is made by me, executive producer Robin Simeon, producer
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Zach St. Louis, and production intern Emily Malterre. Neil Drumming
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: is a contributing editor. Fact-checking by Kaylin Lynch and Maggie Duffy.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Brendan Baker does our sound design, music by Matt McGinley.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Gina Delvac, Kajal Ajmera,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow. Special thanks to Sky Llamas Productions. Thanks
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: for listening. We'll see you next time.