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Episode One Hundred Forty Six: What Happens At The White Student Union... · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome episode number one hundred and forty six of the Death of Journalism podcast.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. Jury selection
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is coming to an end in the first Trump trial, and get this,
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it's political. NPR suspends its bias whistleblower Caitlin Clark's modest WNBA salary causes hyper
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outrage. Katie kurrk offends Trump fans an update on the OJ Simpson saga,
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and it seems Bill Belichick's NFL coaching career maybe as dead as Oj. We
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begin this episode of the podcast with the beginning of the first Trump criminal trial
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and jury selection, which I have said from the very beginning of this entire
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legal saga that Trump has been enduring for over a year now, as far
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as his indictments and the scheduling of the trials are concerned, was really going
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to be at the center of the whole thing. I mean, it is
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absolutely preposterous, It is absurd. It is a joke on its face that
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we can even pretend, which we're very good at doing, especially in the
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news media in the modern era, we can even pretend that you can have
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a remotely fair trial involving Donald Trump under any circumstances, but especially after he
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is the Republican presidential nominee in the middle of a presidential election year. It
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is absolutely absurd, it's preposterous, and that jury selection was going to be
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the only thing that mattered in any of these trials, but particularly the first
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one, and particularly because it happens to be in New York City, a
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very anti Trump, very pro democratic jurisdiction, and because of the fact that
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the allegations are they're trivial at this point. I mean, the idea that
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the Republican presidential nominee, whom I loathe more than any other true conservative,
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is going on trial for something that happened allegedly in twenty sixteen. Because it's
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they're trying to claim that this is a campaign finance violation and somehow gotten it
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into being a theoretical felony, which is just ludicrous, all because he tried
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to cover up an affair by paying off a porn star that he apparently had
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sex with. Is just unbelievable. It's just unbelievable that we're going to pretend
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that we can have a fair trial under these circumstances and it's very difficult to
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tell how jury's selection is going. It seems as if both sides and the
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perspective jurors are trying or at least pretending to try to do the right thing.
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But it's just an absolutely impossible tasks. I've been struggling for days to
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try to come up with an analogy to try to illustrate the absurdity of this,
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and I just can't do it, because there's nothing that tops this.
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We're going to pretend that in the middle of an election year you can find
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twelve people in New York City that can be completely unbiased and objective while not
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being complete imbeciles because they haven't, you know, obviously, anybody would be
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completely objective about Donald Trump other than me, of course, would be somebody
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who hasn't paid any attention to the news at all for the last nine years.
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More than that, I mean, it's just because obviously he's been a
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huge figure in New York City forever and ever. So it's just it's ludicrous.
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It's an absurdity on its face, and there's been a little bit of
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acknowledgment of that when it comes to the media covered, but not much for
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the most part we're just pretending, we're just going to pretend that one we
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can potentially find twelve people who can be fair jurors. And the other part
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that's being completely ignored because even Trump does this, which drives me crazy.
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He talks all the time about how obviously the jury pool is stacked against him,
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the judge is clearly against him, you know, the media is against
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him. I get all that. But the part of this that is not
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getting nearly enough attention is you're incentivizing these jurors in extremely perverse ways. First
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of all, any high profile case creates perverse incentive for jurors because there's the
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potential of writing a book or doing interviews after it's all over, and therefore
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you may benefit more from one verdict as opposed to another. And that's clear
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as day. People are not most people are not complete idiots. They can
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figure this stuff out for themselves. And we've seen this constantly in lesser high
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profile trials than what the Donald Trump trial is going to be. But there's
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the other aspect of this which is so incredibly obvious, and yet to this
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day, I've never heard anybody in the mainstream news me to even acknowledge it.
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And that's the fact that we are giving whoever these twelve jurors are,
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we are giving them an unbelievable, unprecedented level of power, because if you're
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a Democrat on that jury, you know damn right well that if you convict,
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and if that jury convicts, the chances of preventing Donald Trump from being
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the next president have increased at some level. Whether it's exponentially or just dramatically,
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whatever it is, everybody knows, especially if it's a fella in the
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conviction, that that will harm Donald Trump's chances of winning the election and will
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increase the chances of Joe Biden winning. And if you're a Democratic voter,
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how can you possibly be objective in that situation. You've just been given your
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vote literally has just been given more power than probably any other vote in the
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history of American presidential elections. And people will know this. So it works
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in both directions. And by the way, you know, concern there.
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I'm in some Conservatives who have understood this reality and they have decided to try
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to go in exactly the opposite direction. Clay Travis a guy who I agree
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with a lot, but I have major issues with especially since he won't hear
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me out on the Penn State Joe Paterno Jerry Sandusky case despite extraordinary efforts on
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my part to get him to do so, including having his boss who's a
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very old friend of mine, contact him and ask him, and he won't
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do that. So I've lost a lot of respect for Clay. And Clay's
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voting history is actually extremely liberal and makes me think he might be a grifter
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or a fraud. But for whatever reason, I agree often with the purported
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statements of Clay Travis, who runs the conservative sports outlet Outkicked, although I
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don't agree with him on what he said about the jury situation involving the Trump
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trial. Clay Travis tweeted out, if you're a Trump supporter in New York
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City who is part of the jury pool, do everything you can to get
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seated on the jury and then refuse to convict as a matter of principle,
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dooming the case via hung jury. It's the most patriotic thing you could possibly
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do. Now. I understand that sentiment because this is clearly dirty pool,
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and to mix a metaphor, you sometimes you got to fight fire with fire,
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So I understand it. I don't agree with it because that would be
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wrong. I think you should if you're happen to be. The funny part
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of this implication is that Trump is guilty, right, because the only reason
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why even a Trump supporter would vote to acquit would be as a part of
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during nullification. I don't think Clay fully thought that one through. I mean,
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if you really believe he's innocent, then just vote your conscience and stand
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your ground. It doesn't have to be any sort of jury nullification. But
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I don't agree that that's a legitimate philosophy. However, it does illustrate this
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point that I've been making for weeks that the media seems to just be completely
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ignoring that there's no possible way to get a fair jury. But then something
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happened on Twitter in the response to Clay Travis's tweet that kind of illustrates the
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insanity of the whole situation. Because Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, who's extremely anti
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Trump, he tweeted out Clay Travis is by saying jury tampering, that's what
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they do. It's a felony, which is steeped in hypocrisy because the implication
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for Swallwell and Democrats is that they're thrilled that they're going to get a liberal
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Democratic biased jury in New York City because one they'll be biased against Trump,
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and two they won't say this publicly, but they've got to know that they're
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going to do the effectively the same thing as Dury nullification. They're going to
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go after Trump for their own selfish personal political interests, not just to damage
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him, but to help get their favorite candidate elected. Because everybody knows what
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the implication of a conviction would be, especially if it happens to be a
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felony conviction. I mean, and yet I can't stand it when we play
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pretend. Cannot stand it, and there is so much playing pretend here that
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it's beyond ridiculous. This is an impossibility. It is not possible to put
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Donald Trump on trial in New York City as the Republican presidential candidate in the
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middle of an election year and get a fair trial in either direction, which
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is why this never should have been brought at this time. I mean,
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even Stormy Daniels, the porn stars old lawyers now in prison Michael Abanati understands
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this and startled. Not ESPN, there's a Freudian slip MSNBC same thing politically
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in an interview that they did from prison a week or so ago that we
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played for you on this podcast. Now there have been a couple of instances
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where mainstream media members have suddenly started to understand the full magnitude of the absurdity
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of this entire situation. Maggie Haveberman, who has been seen by liberals as
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being far too close to Trump, but she is essentially the Trump reporter for
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the New York Times, and she's been inside the courtroom during jury selections.
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She tweeted out yesterday as of this taping, this is one of the most
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political jury selection processes we will ever see. Really, really, Maggie,
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this is the political star of political reporter for the New York Times. Just
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realizing now, because that's the kind of analysis you can only get when you're
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inside the courtroom and seeing this first hand. No shit, Sherlock, what
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did you think it was gonna be? What did you think was gonna be
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the reality of this situation? It's a it's just so ridiculous, and it
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bothers the crap out of me that I'm forced to defend Donald Trump constantly because
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this process is inherently intrinsically unfair, undemocratic, anti American, and an affront
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to do and Look, technically, he's probably guilty of at least some of
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what he's being accused of. I don't believe you can get this to a
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felony. There's also statute of limitations issues involved in this case. But most
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importantly, there's no chance of the world that if Donald Trump had lost the
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twenty sixteen election, that in twenty twenty four and had just retired from politics,
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that in twenty twenty four he would be on trial for this in New
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York City. Zero chance of that zero. And of course part of the
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reason it's being brought is Alan Bragg's a Democratic da and similar We've had situations
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in Georgia and in New York with Letitia James, who the Attorney General of
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New York. She basically got elected promising to go after Donald Trump. But
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we have a consistent theme with these local allegations against trum and that is black
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prosecutors Alvin Bragleticia James, Fanny Willis. And this has caught the attention of
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Joy Reid of MSNBC. Normally, I don't even bother with MSNBC, but
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when they completely go off the deep end, and it's funny. I will
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occasionally play clips from MSNBC and this certainly qualifies under that definition. Joy Reid
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decided to, in front of a full panel of MSNBC liberal commentators, decided
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to go off on a rant on how wonderful it is that Trump is being
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held to account by black prosecutors, that somehow, of course, this is
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the exact opposite of reality of what's really happening here in so many different ways.
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But she wanted to wax poetic about what a wonderful moment it is for
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America that black people are those that are stepping up and stick it to Donald
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Trump and doing their best effectively, if you read between the lines here to
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prevent him from being the next president of the United States by going after him
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with best questionable legal cases. And here is what she said on MSNBC.
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You really kind of have to hear it to believe it. But listen carefully
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to the end where she starts celebrating these black prosecutors as examples of DEI,
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which I found to be particularly strange. But here was Joy read on MSNBC
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in prison, But for me, there is something wonderfully poetic about the fact
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that, despite the fact that even if convicted, he's not going to go
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to prison, the first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black
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Harvard grad the very kind of person that his former staff, the people who
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work for him Stephen Miller, etc. Want to never be at Harvard Law
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School, but he was, and he came out and graduated, and he's
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prosecuting you, Donald And a black woman is doing that same exact thing in
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Georgia, and a black woman forced you to pay one hundred and seventy five
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million dollar fine that's now also in question because the people who put it up
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that might not be legit. Donald Trump is being held to account by the
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very multicultural, multi racial democracy that he's trying to dismantle. And for me,
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there's something poetic and actually wonderful about that. It says something good about
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our country that we're still capable of having that happen. Go DEI, if
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my deis are bringing it home on now, it's striking and a system that
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also is affording here now midst all of the insanity of what Joy Reid,
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who you don't know, happens to be. A black female on MSNBC said,
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there, I get the DEI thing at the end really struck me as
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odd because she's celebrating the these people as examples of DEI diversity, equity and
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inclusion, when technically that's not how any of them got their jobs. Number
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one, but number two, DEI in the real world is a pejorative.
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If you got your job through DEI, that's that's an allegation that you didn't
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really deserve your position, but you got it because of your race, or
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your ethnicity, or your gender, sexuality, whatever it is, that you
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were an affirmative action higher. So how is how and why is she celebrating
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that? It's just to me, it's an indication that she's so clueless she
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doesn't even understand the DEI. Even in most liberal circles, it's not something
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that you brag about. At best, it's something, well, we got
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to do because we have to make up for past injustices or inherent racism that's
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still in the system today, even though it doesn't except maybe in the opposite
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direction. But so that to me indicated that one she's either dumb end or
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completely clueless about the issue. But there's the other element of this, and
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you kind of have to see the video to fully appreciate it. You might
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have picked up on it in the audio because there's like five or six other
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people on the air at the same time, and whenever a black person,
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especially a black female, raises the race issue and says, oh my gosh,
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this is wonderful, what's happening one a great American moment, it's basically
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like kryptonite to everybody else, and especially in a liberal media outlet where they
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now become totally powerless and they can't say anything. They have to just go,
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oh, yes, oh yeah, so right, Joy, Oh my
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gosh, yes, that's exactly right, because if they object even a little
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bit, they're racist, at least by the definitions of the insane world of
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MSNBC, and so this, you know, this is what we get.
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This is this is on a major cable news outlet. Of course it only
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caters to liberals, but it's still taken seriously by some people. And Joy
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Reid just really went off the deep end there in a way that I thought
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was quite illustrative of what's really going on here. I mean, the opposite
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of reality is what's being portrayed. The reality is that part of why these
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prosecutors can go after Trump is that they're protected, both in the media and
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in their local jurisdictions by their race. A white person probably wouldn't be able
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to get away with the same kind of stuff that Bragg and James and Willis
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have gotten away with, especially what Willis has gotten away with in Georgia with
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regard to the relationships she had with her special prosecutor. I mean that would
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she would have been gone in a heartbeat even if she was going out after
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Trump if she was a white male and did the exact same situation with a
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with a female subordinate. That's clear cut. And so look, I do
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not have much hope for justice occurring in this Trump case. I'm actually rooting
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for a hung jury. That to me, is the best scenario here is
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that you know, unless the evidence is way better than anybody expects, or
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the allegations or are way more serious than anybody believes them to be, then
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you know that to me, would be the best scenario is that a hung
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jury gets rid of this thing before the election and it becomes essentially a non
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issue. So, if I have a rooting interest in this, that's what
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I'm I'm looking for. It would also drive the media crazy, which would
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be fun to watch. But I think it's going to be difficult. I
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mean, it's going to be difficult to find two or three jurors in this
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situation who are willing to stand their ground and believe if they do, that
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the allegations against Trump were not proven, and to vote to acquit to the
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extent where a judge, and the judge of course, is not going to
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want there to be a hung jury. The judge, who clearly I agree
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with Trump as an extraordinary bias against Trump, probably should be recused from the
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case, not just because of his own, his daughter's political beliefs, but
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his own as well. And so you know that's going to be an interesting
20:30
fight if there are any holdouts. How long does the judge force the jury
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to continue on because he's desperately going to want there to be a verdict,
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ideally a guilty verdict. And none of this, none of this is good
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for the country, None of this is good for due process, the legal
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system. It's just terrible from beginning to end. Now, speaking of the
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legal system, I do want to play a clip that will give you at
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least some faith in our judicial system, or maybe some faith in at least
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one or two of the Supreme Court justices, because the Supreme Court yesterday as
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of this taping on Wednesday, held a hearing on an issue related to the
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January sixth defendants. Now this gets a little bit complicated, but the main
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issue here is how the law has been used against January sixth defendants and the
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level of punishment that they have gotten for their convictions. And the issue is
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basically whether or not the law is being properly applied here. And Neil Gorsich,
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conservative justice who was appointed by Donald Trump, had a fascinating exchange with
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one of the lawyers who was arguing essentially against the January sixth defendants and saying
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that now that the law has been properly applied here. At this exchange I
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found to be borderline hilarious because Gorsicch essentially plays troll here. This is world
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class trolling by Neil Gorsich because he raises several hypotheticals, and frankly, at
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least one of them was not a hypothetical because it included an infamous situation involving
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Democratic Congressman Jamal Bowman, where he infamously disrupted a Congressional vote by starting the
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fire alarm in Congress, and the video of that is clear cut. He
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basically got away with it with no real punishment, and he did so to
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disrupt a congressional vote. And the key or one of the key issues in
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this case before the Supreme Court is the triggering of certain aspects of the law
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by actually disrupting an official proceeding. And that goes back to January sixth and
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the fact that the certification of the electoral College vote and the results of the
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presidential election were at least temporarily postponed by the insurrection or the whatever you want
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to call it, the invasion of the Capitol by the pro Trump protesters on
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January sixth, and so Gorsich and Judge Alito made similar points, but Gorsich
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was trying to make the point, Okay, if this is the definition,
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if this is the threshold, if this is the standard, what about these
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other situations that also created postponement or disruptions of official proceedings or votes in Congress
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or what have you. And I found this to be quite fascinating. Here's
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what it sounded like at the US Supreme Court. So what does that mean
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for the breadth of this statue? You would a sit in that disrupts a
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trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify? Would a heckler in today's audience
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qualify? Or at the State of the Union address, would pulling a fire
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alarm before a vote qualify? For twenty years in federal prison. There are
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multiple elements of the statute that I think might not be satisfied by those hypotheticals,
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and it relates to the point I was going to make to the Chief
24:29
Justice about the breadth of this statute, the kind of built in limitations or
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the things that I think would potentially suggest that many of those things wouldn't be
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something the government could charge or prove as fifteen twelve C. Two beyond a
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reasonable doubt. Would include the fact that the actus rays does require obstruction,
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which we understand to be a meaningful interference. So that means that if you
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have some minor disruption or delay, or some minimal outbursts, I'll think it
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falls within the out require the court to reconvene after the proceeding has been brought
25:03
back into line, or the pulling of the fire alarm, the vote has
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to be rescheduled, or the protest outside of a courthouse makes it inaccessible for
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a period of time. Are those all federal felonies subjects twenty years in prison?
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So with some of them, it would be necessary to show nexus.
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So with respect to the protest house, to show yes, they were thinking
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that shown fea, yeah, they were trying to stop the proceeding. Yes,
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And then we'd also have to be able to prove that they acted corruptly.
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And this sets a stringent men's raya. It's not even just the mere
25:37
intent to obstruct. We have to show that also, but we have to
25:40
show that they had corrupt intent in acting in that way. We went around
25:44
that tree yesterday. I know I heard the argument yesterday, but I guess
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what I would say is that to the extent that your hypotheticals are pressing on
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the idea of a peaceful protest, even one that's quite disruptive, it's not
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clear to me that the government would be able to show that each of the
25:59
mossors protest that actually obstructs and impedes in an official proceeding for an indefinite period
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would not be covered, not necessarily, we would just have to have the
26:10
evidence of intent, and that's ah they intend to do it all right now.
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I hate what happened on January sixth. I think most Americans hate what
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happened on January sixth. I have a nuanced view of how that whole situation
26:26
has been adjudicated. I think that there has been a reckless prosecution. I
26:33
think many people have gotten far too much punishment. There does seem to be
26:38
a lot of confusion over why some people have been prosecuted and others have not,
26:44
or some people have been prosecuted more strenuously than other people have. It
26:48
was obviously a very chaotic situation. So you know, I was offended by
26:56
the general events of January sixth, but I've not been particularly happy with how
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the judicial system has played out in the aftermath of January sixth. So I
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don't have a strong position on this particular case. But I liked what Gorsuch
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did there because he was basically trolling the lawyer, saying, look by your
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own standards here, what about Jamal Bowman? And what about some other situations
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that I think were also applicable to this circumstance. Now, the general consensus
27:30
is that a majority of the Justice is mostly I guess essentially the conservative justices
27:37
were quite skeptical of the legal theory that was being used to justify some of
27:42
these punishments in the January sixth case. So it's quite possible that the Supreme
27:48
Court could step in and give these January sixth defendants the relief that. Frankly,
27:56
a lot of Trump fans are kind of pissed off that Donald Trump didn't
28:00
provided in theory. Trump could have pardoned people or certainly could have gone to
28:03
greater lens to defend people, raise money for them. There's definitely a sense
28:10
that Trump has left a lot of these people high and dry. But they
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may end up indirectly being helped by Trump because three members of the Supreme Court
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were are on the Court because of Donald Trump having put them there, and
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it's possible that they may get relief in that way. And if they do
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so based upon the argument of Neil Gorsich, I'm okay with that because at
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least there's some logic and consistency being applied there. Moving on to other stories,
28:41
I want to give an update on what's happened with a really remarkable situation
28:45
involving NPR and a person by the name of Uri berlin Or, who we've
28:52
just discussed on the last couple of episodes of the podcast. He wrote a
28:56
remarkable I guess you would call it expose or commentary detailing how NPR has gone
29:06
off the bias cliff ever since Donald Trump got elected in twenty sixteen. And
29:12
he really did a remarkable job of outlining the bias that he has seen that
29:18
has completely captured NPR. That nobody in their DC office is a Republican,
29:26
and every single person that he could find that had a designation politically was a
29:32
Democrat. And it was a very credible, very detailed, very objective.
29:37
Look. It's clear that Berlinner is not a conservative himself, but he just
29:41
felt as if there had been a situation that occurred after Donald Trump's election where
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MPR went from being just biased these are my words, this being biased to
29:53
basically, as I often say, leaving the pool of the rational Earth,
29:57
the gravitational pull of the rational Earth. There's a big difference between bias which
30:03
has been pervasive in the news media for decades and it's almost always in the
30:08
left wing direction, and what happened after Trump was elected, we left the
30:15
gravitational pull of the rational earth and started becoming activists. I believe that's a
30:21
word that Berlinner actually used, and I've expressed a little bit of surprise in
30:26
the last couple of episodes, one that Berliner was still there at NPR as
30:30
an editor, and that two he hadn't received any punishment as of that point
30:37
for basically telling the truth and embarrassing NPR in a very very public way.
30:44
Well that has now changed. Berlinner has been suspended for a week without pay.
30:51
And this is, you know, stupidly from NPR's perspective, putting the
30:56
story back in the news cycle and making MPR look really even worse than they
31:02
did previously, especially since it has created a lot of focus on their new
31:06
CEO, Katherine Mayer, who apparently made the decision to suspend Berliner. She
31:12
came out very strong. She had an opportunity, as we discussed in the
31:18
last episode of the podcast, she had an opportunity to say, Okay,
31:21
you know what, these are valid criticisms. Let's look internally and see what
31:26
we can do to change things. She did exactly the opposite, and this
31:30
was even before the suspension of Berliner. She basically said that this was disrespectful
31:37
to who we are. I discussed this in some detail in the previous episode
31:41
of the podcast, and now she suspended Berlinner and because of that, her
31:48
own past is understandably under a lot more scrutiny. And I got to tell
31:55
you this, Katherine Mayer, I'm not even sure she's a real person.
32:00
She may be AI. She honestly may be an AI CEO of NPR,
32:07
because she's that much of a parody. I mean, she's she's and part
32:10
of the reason why I think she might be an AI creation is that she's
32:15
quite good looking. She's young, she's attractive, which is pretty rare for
32:20
a liberal activist. It's not unheard of, but generally liberal activists are not
32:24
particularly attractive if they're especially if they're females. But Katherine Maher is attractive.
32:30
She's a young female with almost no experience in news. Now she's the CEO
32:37
of NPR, and her past, again going to my AI analogy, is
32:45
almost word for word what you would expect a super woke young female to be.
32:52
I mean, there are photos of her in twenty twenty wearing a Biden
32:55
for president hat and a mask. There's a tweet from her in twenty sixteen,
33:01
even before Donald Trump was elected, where she writes, airline business class
33:07
demographics are such a pet peeve of mine. In the lounge and on the
33:12
plane usually over eighty percent male, usually white. So that's a pet peeve
33:19
of her. This is back in twenty sixteen, So imagine, my gosh,
33:23
you know, all these years later, how woke she is now she
33:28
was complaining about too many white males in the airline business class. I mean,
33:34
it's it's a comedy, it's a parody. It's a satire of a
33:38
young, woke female who is now the CEO of NPR with very little,
33:45
if any, true credentials that would suggest that she is deserving of the job
33:51
or qualified for the job. And now, of course who's being attacked.
33:58
Well, yes, she's being's criticized, but there are conservative commentators who are
34:04
going after her. So that has created a narrative that conservatives are going after
34:09
and attacking Katherine Mayer because that's how this works, right. Christopher Ruffo,
34:15
who has done a lot of really he's a conservative, he has done a
34:16
lot of really great work on the entire plagiarism scandal at Harvard. He tweeted
34:23
out that NPR is now claiming that I'm targeting at CEO by highlighting her own
34:28
tweets. Katherine Mayer is a standard issue, affluent, white female liberal who
34:34
is now discovering that her inner monologue is widely out of touch with the public
34:38
that in part pays her salary, because that's an important part of this.
34:43
This is way worse than even at NBC, ABCCBS, CNN, MSNBC,
34:50
whatever, because NPR is at least partially publicly funded with our tax dollars.
34:58
And so this is a classic situation where Katherine Mayer makes herself a major issue
35:05
here, especially after she suspends Uri Berlinard for telling the truth about her own
35:09
organization in a very factual and substantive way. Then of course people go after
35:15
her for her past to say, okay, who is this new CEO of
35:20
NPR. That's perfectly natural, perfectly appropriate, And now that becomes part of
35:24
the narrative that somehow, oh, she's under conservative attack, which, of
35:30
course, in the liberal world, only gives her more street cred and has
35:35
people seemingly rally to her side. Well, it's not conservative attacks. It's
35:39
telling people who is this person in her own fucking words, and it's comical.
35:45
It's literally like an AI version of who you might think would be an
35:52
NPR CEO. And it's really sad because MPR has done a lot of great
35:58
work over the years. I have had a little bit of a connection with
36:01
MPR because of my father at which I referenced in the last episode of the
36:06
podcast. I want to correct something I said in the last episode about my
36:10
father's role at MPR. Not that it's all that important, but I hate
36:15
making factual errors, and because I don't do this podcast via a script,
36:19
sometimes I go off the top of my head and occasionally I do make factual
36:23
errors. And I made a technical factual error in the last episode. I
36:29
don't think it really matters very much substantively, but technically I had said that
36:32
my father had been on the National NPR Board, and I think I even
36:38
referenced that he had been working with one of the Koch brothers at the time,
36:44
and that, you know, he was actually very outraged by the treatment
36:47
of Uri Berlinner. Thought that Berlinner's column was great, and when I sent
36:52
him the story about the suspension, he was outraged by that as well,
36:57
which is all interesting because my father is not a conservative, definitely a modern
37:00
and he lives in the Boston area. But I made an error there.
37:05
He's actually was not on the board of NPR. He was on the board
37:07
of PBS nationally. Now this is where it gets complicated, because there's obviously
37:13
a relationship between PBS and NPR, but especially in Boston where the PBS and
37:22
NPR basically under the same umbrella, and there are comments from You can actually
37:27
find them yourself if you google my father's name in NPR, where my father
37:31
is talking about his role in Boston's NPR station and trying to improve the news
37:38
department there through his help with fundraising, and Boston's NPR affiliate is extremely influential
37:49
nationally. So my father was never involved in a board nationally for MPR.
37:54
That was for PBS, but he had a significant role at the NPR affiliate
38:00
in Boston, which effectively has a great influence nationally over content with MPR.
38:09
So again substantively, I don't think it really mattered that I made a factual
38:15
inaccuracy, but I did create a misimpression. And by the way, the
38:19
part of what made me want to correct the record is that the Koch brothers,
38:24
one of whom is now dead. But the Koch brothers, and this
38:28
always made me laugh. They funded PBS, not MPR, PBS to an
38:35
extraordinary degree, and yet the liberals used the Koch brothers as the boogeyman for
38:40
many, many years, and it's just not accurate. I mean, PBS
38:45
they may have been. They were certainly one of, if not the biggest
38:49
funders of PBS. And similarly, the Koch Brothers I do believe were involved
38:54
with the Boston affiliate in NPR, but I'm not sure about that. I
38:58
don't want to make another factual inaccuracy, so I created a misimpression in the
39:02
last episode of the podcast for whatever that was, where it probably wasn't even
39:06
worth mentioning to begin with, other than I was trying to be fully transparent
39:10
about the fact that I have some connection to NPR, and I do think
39:15
it's relevant that my father, who's no longer connected in these boards because he's
39:20
retired, shares my belief about one the original Uri Berliner commentary on NPR,
39:28
as well as my outrage over how Berliner has now been suspended. Now,
39:32
to be clear, I'm not surprised that this has happened, but I still
39:36
think it's wrong, and it really is an indication that at least in NPR,
39:42
when faced with a great opportunity to do the right thing and have some
39:46
semblance of accountability, some self awareness, and to try to fix things,
39:53
which is what you know, this podcast is a lot about trying to raise
39:58
awareness and you know, maybe guide people down the path of how can we
40:02
save journalism. That's why it's called the death of journalism. Well, this
40:07
is the death of journalism right here, because real journalists would be honest enough
40:12
to go, Okay, maybe, if Ury Berliner is willing to risk his
40:17
own reputation in his career to call us out on all the things that we've
40:22
done wrong, maybe we need to fix things, Maybe we need to try
40:27
something different, Maybe we're the problem. But no, they've decided that Berliner
40:31
is the problem. So they've squandered this opportunity and they've actually made it much
40:37
worse, much much worse. This is way worse for MPR going down this
40:43
path, and they will now be completely and totally totally ensconced in their liberal,
40:52
ultra progressive woke bubble because they've now told anybody who's not in that category
40:58
politically, don't even bother listening to us. We're not credible to you because
41:02
we don't care about you. And we have a CEO who clearly and obviously
41:10
has an extreme bias against anybody who is not liberal, who is politically in
41:20
less than one percent category with regard to her political beliefs as woke and as
41:27
pc as you can possibly get, and her actions regarding uri Berliner have proven
41:34
that. And it's a shame. It's a shame, and it's an outrage
41:37
because of the public funding aspect when it comes to NPR. Thanks for listening
41:42
to today's free drop of the abbreviated show. If you're interested in listening to
41:45
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