Latest / The Whitfield Report / TWR Wednesday | Investigating Crimes of Omission w/ Rob Rosen

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TWR Wednesday | Investigating Crimes of Omission w/ Rob Rosen · The Whitfield Report

• 0:01
  The right to offend is not some pesky little part of freedom of
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  speech that we have to put up with.
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  It is the heart and soul and lungs of freedom of speech.
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  It is the. Coursing lifeblood of human
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  protest, it is the instigator of liberty and modernity and
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  science and understanding. What a laughing stock today's
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  student leaders are that they can so casually dismiss the
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  right to be offensive without realising that their lovely,
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  enlightened lives are the gifts of individuals who gave.
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  Offence offensiveness is not just something we have to
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  begrudgingly accept. Offensiveness is the motor of
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  human progress. Now broadcasting from the Right
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  to Offend media studios in sunny South Florida, bringing you the
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  latest in politics, current events, art and pop culture.
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  This is the Whitfield Report live with Sam Whitfield.
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  But giving offense is good. In fact, it's essential.
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  All righty folks, and good evening and welcome to tonight's
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  edition of the Whitfield Report podcast.
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  I'm your host, Sam Whitfield, broadcasting your live from
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  South Florida. Max and Morpheus are joining me
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  here as always. And we actually have a special
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  guest tonight, Mr. Rob Rosen, who is a investigative
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  journalist and author and also a media producer in general.
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  His book Crimes of Omission, Distorted Justice, the Media's
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  war on Truth is coming out on June 2nd.
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  Very interesting gentlemen, but. We're taking pre sales now, so.
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  Yes, pre-order. And I actually know all about
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  that, Sir, because I myself am an author, so I understand how
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  that game goes. Speaking of real quick, if
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  you'll allow me, my book American Inferno, of course is
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  out now in paperback, ebook and audiobook edition.
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  And I want to thank everyone who made the munch the month of
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  March, a very successful launch month for American Inferno.
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  I really appreciate everyone who purchased my book.
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  Going to be the biggest launch ever, Sam.
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  I just knew it. It's great.
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  Book. Yes, and I actually find it
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  interesting that we have Mr. Rosen on the on the show because
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  our books, mine is fiction, his is non fiction, but we both deal
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  with, you know, media bias as a, you know, as a common theme in
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  our books. At least that's how it appears
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  to me. So Rob, I want to thank you
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  First off for coming on to the program.
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  And how are you doing tonight, Sir?
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  I'm good, thanks for having me on.
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  I appreciate it. Also a common topic on this
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  show, which is great, you know. What's that media bias?
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  Oh, yes, yeah. Well, as we mentioned, off air
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  is like Sam here got banned for essentially no reason like
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  general COVID, somebody said something or other that they
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  didn't like kind of deal in what was it 2022, right?
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  Yeah. Jeez, it's been that long.
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  Yeah. Wow.
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  And then we existed outside of that ecosystem for a while
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  trying to figure our own thing out because that landscape has
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  changed quite a bit for streaming.
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  And we found in the end, like multi streaming and then YouTube
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  has not let us back on, has worked really well to reach
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  whoever would want to see it, you know, But we also like to
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  interview, you know, just interesting people, especially
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  Sam, He's like the best interview I know.
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  Yeah. So, Mr. Rosen, like I said, I
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  really appreciate you coming on. First off, would you mind giving
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  us a little bit of your background, just in general, how
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  you got started in media? You've had a very illustrious
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  career from what I've read. All right, Well, thank you.
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  I was one of those kids that just knew I wanted to do it.
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  I grew up in Boston and I would. I was just obsessed with all
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  things media and I would watch TV newscast with a stopwatch and
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  just kind of try to deconstruct it.
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  How long were each of the each of the acts?
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  How long were the commercial breaks?
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  You know, how were these newscasts put together?
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  I used to do it with sitcoms too.
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  And I just knew I wanted to do it.
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  And and then I completely went about it the wrong way in the
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  beginning. I graduated from Boston
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  University Journalism School and had a dual degree with film.
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  Great school, but just decided I'm going to go to San Diego.
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  I'm just going to pick a city, which is not the way to do it,
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  especially back then. I'm going to just pick a city
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  and I'm going to head out there and lo and behold to my trying.
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  To get into news specifically. Trying to get into news there
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  back then, you know you had three channels, right?
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  There was ACBS, an ABC and an NBC that had newsrooms and
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  nothing else. So what I found, if I wanted to
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  stay out there and not come back to Boston with my head between
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  my legs, was to sell cars near the Mexican border.
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  So I did that for a year. And what's that?
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  Sick that I don't sounds interesting.
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  It's like, hey. No, it it sucked and I was like,
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  I am my dream's never going to come true.
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  I am I am just pissing it away. So I ended up, I just remember
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  I, I threw like a Hail Mary. There was this iconoclastic news
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  director at the CBS in San Diego, this guy Jim Holtzman,
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  who I do write about a little bit in the book.
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  And, and I don't know, one one day I just, you know, on an old
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  typewriter, just wrote him a letter and said, and it was just
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  kind of a Hail Mary and kind of funny.
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  And I just said, you know, my parents paid, I don't know,
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  20,000 a year to send me to the Boston University journalism
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  school. And I'm selling, I'm selling
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  Hondas near the Mexican border. Help.
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  And I guess he thought it was entertaining enough and he
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  brought me in and that kind of slowly started me on my way.
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  So I was a news writer there. I quickly came up to Los Angeles
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  and was producing at the Disney owned station at the time, K Cal
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  and then KCBS and went into entertainment news and did some
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  work in front of the camera for a show called Celebrity Justice.
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  That was Harvey Levin's show before TMZ.
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  And then did a pivot. Just decided I really wanted to
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  do long form At that point. I had just done a lot of like
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  crash and burn, which is fun. It's a great.
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  It's just a it's a rush working in daily TV and live TV.
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  But I decided I wanted to like do some more crafting so got
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  into long form stuff. Worked on Kitchen Nightmares for
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  a few seasons with Gordon Ramsay and then got a chance to do my
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  own show. And I did Dead Files, which ran
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  for 15 seasons and created and ran a show called Reasonable
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  Doubt, which took a look at possible wrongful murder
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  convictions and which is. Really, really, really cool.
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  By the way, just from my I am a person that advocates that topic
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  as long as I've had a voice to do so.
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  So I think that that show is a really cool concept.
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  Yeah, yeah, I loved, I loved doing it and it and it put
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  everything together. It was like everything I'd
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  learned from the news, from the investigative reporting, and
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  also how to make a a compelling TV show kind of all came
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  together in that show. And then did a Dennis Miller
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  special, The History of Infomercials for Fox Nation.
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  And then felt compelled to write this book, which was a little
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  bit of a pivot. But after everything that I'd
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  seen, I mean, I love TVI love journalism, and it makes me sad
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  to see what it's become and how little faith people have in it.
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  And so I wanted to put my two cents in.
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  Yeah, that, that's actually, you know, kind of why I started
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  doing podcasting too. I, I, I was, I started
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  podcasting when I was 14. I had listened to Rush Limbaugh
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  as a kid just because I, I was one of those weird kids that was
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  always like interested in politics.
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  And it's interesting that you bring up Dennis Miller too,
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  because I actually used to call into Dennis Miller's show, radio
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  show, I should say. And I got to know his producer,
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  Christian, who I've had on the show a few times as well.
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  And so that was interesting. And around the time that Joe
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  Rogan, I guess, started to become popular in 2008, that was
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  when I started to kind of jump into podcast and when nobody
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  really knew what it was. And I've just kind of been in
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  this space, you know, ever since.
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  Was the 18 year anniversary of his show.
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  Don't downplay yourself Sam. He's been at this a long time.
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  Yeah. Then he started writing books a
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  couple years ago on as a passion project and he's seen a little
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  bit of success with that, but. Yeah.
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  He's he's just loved this forever.
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  I went back and I've only been here a couple of years and I
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  didn't even realize that, you know, he's been at it since he
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  was a kid. Yeah, but you're you're a weird
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  kid like me. Yeah, I, I guess we kind of go
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  into, I guess you know, those of us who you know, are weird kids
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  and Max included, we all kind of go into media it seems.
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  It seems like, you know, all of the kids who are kind of, I
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  wouldn't say outcast, but kind of eccentric tends to go into
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  media. It's.
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  Yeah, or they're, you know, or whatever the, the passion is.
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  But I remember we had a a talk radio station in, in Boston.
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  Well, a couple of them and I would just like at late at
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  night, listen to it like I love the I love listening to it was
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  WRKO, which was like a legendary radio station.
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  See, I'm I'm a mask hole. WRKO is like, yeah, that's
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  where. Did you grow up?
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  Oh, and I used to listen to where.
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  Did you? Where did you grow up in or
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  where were you in Massachusetts? I'm on the South Coast over by
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  like Rhode Island. OK, yeah, just my uncle had an
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  egg farm in Cranston. There you go, not too far from
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  here. I'm yeah, yeah.
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  I'm like more like close to like Pawtucket in Providence than
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  Boston per SE. But we even that was what we
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  would listen to. And the other big one for me
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  growing up was actually Loveline on.
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  I think it was like one O 3, seven or whatever out of Boston
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  would carry Loveline. Every Saturday.
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  Was it BC on? Yeah, Yeah.
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  Yeah, they used to host the River Rape, see, because I am
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  similar, But I went towards hanging out with musicians that
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  got me in a lot of trouble because they were too cool for
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  my own good, and so was I and hung it out with like Boston
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  hardcore bands and getting in fights and stuff, you know?
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  Oh. OK all.
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  Right. Yeah.
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  And I'm passionate. For art and media but I just had
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  I choose a weird lot and. Who were the bands?
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  I was a weird kid hanging out with the school DJ dancers.
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  There you go. So Wade, who are the bands?
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  I mean, God, I'll date myself. But I remember when I was in
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  college, the Hoodoo Gurus were like a really big local band in
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  Boston. But.
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  Well, I've, I've mentioned it on the show, so it's not the worst
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  thing ever, but the I can't even really mention the name of his
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  band, but Seth Putnam, the singer of a CAXCX is a it was a
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  friend of mine. He's passed OK.
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  They he was like intentionally as offensive as possible.
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  That was his whole bit in life. And he was a fun guy to hang out
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  with when you were 15 and get in fights with other hardcore bands
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  and stuff. I look back now in a in my 40s
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  though, and I'm like, there's me in a fight.
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  There's video of some of them. I was not right.
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  Well, you love you. Love you.
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  Fun. Yeah, usually we were.
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  We were fighting like the skinheads.
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  Where? Were you down at the rat or
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  something the rats got. Up at all the all the the rock
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  clubs doubted Southie that played like hardcore, you know
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  in the 90s also big what million guar shows if they.
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  I remember friends of mine in college went to a mentors show
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  and then they were scared for their lives.
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  That'll that'll do it, or so I've I've heard.
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  Yeah, I'm, I'm from Colorado and yeah, right around the time I
• 13:45
  was getting into, right around the time I was trying to enter
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  radio, I was still in high school and that was kind when
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  Clear Channel started to buy a lot of the local radio stations
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  anything. We bonded over right away is I
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  also had this problem where Clear Channel buying everything
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  up took away a because I was interning for a radio station
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  out of Providence. And then that kind of ended
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  when, like, they didn't need you to play songs or really do
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  anything anymore because Clear Channel sent a signal in.
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  Yeah. Yep.
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  And I and so I wanted to go to school initially for broadcast
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  journalism, but then I decided to go into technical writing
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  because broadcast journalism wasn't really that as much of an
• 14:40
  effective major in like the early 2010.
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  So that was kind of my path and I still stuck with podcasting
• 14:47
  and here we are so. It's sort of full circle the
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  industry to a degree for radio where like 1, not even 3, right.
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  One station owned everything in the country for the longest time
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  until digital inevitably kind of killed it.
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  And it's, and, and that's the thing I've argued for years is
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  that Clear Channel sort of made the digital shift happen by
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  doing that. That's an.
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  Interesting deal that need for like broadcast radio when the
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  convenient streaming option was just more convenient.
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  I can't remember the last time I've listened to a terrestrial
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  radio station. Yeah, we mentioned this all the
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  time. We're big fans of it growing up
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  at the the the format, but the medium itself is just dead.
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  Yeah. It's a sad thing because like,
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  like I said, Sam, me talking about Rush Limbaugh, my
• 15:37
  grandfather who was a World War 2 veteran, and he was a very
• 15:42
  interesting guy, would just sit me down from when I was real
• 15:46
  little with Rush Limbaugh and the Gordon Liddy radio show.
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  Which is my God. Interesting thing for a young
• 15:52
  boy to have been listening to. That seems like a lot.
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  I mean, I remember in Boston there was a guy named Jerry
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  Williams, you may remember, on WRKO, and you could not pin
• 16:04
  where he was. I would say he was maybe in a
• 16:06
  way Bill Maher before Bill Maher.
• 16:08
  And this guy was like, he was the biggest thorn in the side of
• 16:13
  Michael Dukakis, who was our governor, who ended up being the
• 16:16
  Democratic candidate for president in 88.
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  And but then sometimes he would be left, sometimes he'd be
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  right. He just kept you on your toes.
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  Like he got crushed in that election too. 88 to Bush, Yeah,
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  that was not that was not very close.
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  Yeah, no, not at all. But anyway, I mean, so you've
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  been in media for a long time from your perspective, I mean,
• 16:44
  just kind of piggyback on how we've, you know, what we've been
• 16:47
  talking about. How do you see how it's changed
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  and evolved? And then what led you to write
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  this book Crimes of Omission? It is our.
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  Twist to go from being full multimedia everything to writing
• 17:02
  a book, right? I know, but in a way, I mean, it
• 17:06
  was really fun, right? And I mean, I love doing most
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  kinds of TV shows or documentaries or that kind of
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  work is very collaborative, and that's really fun.
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  But there is something where it's just your work, your
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  research, your writing, and, you know, you have an editor who
• 17:21
  gives you some notes. But for the most part, this is a
• 17:23
  very solitary kind of endeavor. And, and that was fun too.
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  I think the summer of 2020 is what made me really think that
• 17:35
  it was time that something like this needed to be written
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  because I'm watching Cities in America burn and the coverage I
• 17:45
  felt, you know, let me just back up a little bit.
• 17:48
  Doing reasonable doubt and taking a look at when the system
• 17:52
  had failed. The whole anti police movement
• 17:54
  was was burgeoning during that time.
• 17:57
  We started the show and I think I sold it in 2015 and we started
• 18:02
  shooting in 2016. So you're at the height of the
• 18:04
  BLM movement and the anti police movement.
• 18:07
  And I just felt journalistically what I was seeing wasn't sound,
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  that even though I didn't have all the information at that
• 18:16
  time, it just felt like the decks were stacked.
• 18:21
  Things were being told pretty much trying to lead viewers to
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  the position of the activists. And so by the time we got to
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  2020, and I'm watching cities burn, and I'm watching reporters
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  who I think otherwise are are really good and quality
• 18:39
  reporters standing in front of burning buildings, standing in
• 18:43
  front of dozens of people throwing projectiles at police
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  officers, standing in front of stores being looted and assuring
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  us that there's really nothing to see here, everything is fine.
• 18:54
  Words that rang the most true Mostly peaceful.
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  Mostly peaceful. Yes, yeah, it's mostly peaceful.
• 19:01
  So you know one of the very. First things that will write in
• 19:03
  their core, right? Well, so one of the very first
• 19:06
  things you learn when you go into a newsroom is to be a good
• 19:10
  writer for TV news. You gather the video that you
• 19:14
  have that has been shot out in the field and you write to it.
• 19:18
  You don't write a script and then look for video, if that
• 19:20
  makes sense, because it's a, it's a video driven medium and
• 19:24
  so you're writing to your pictures.
• 19:26
  So it was very Orwellian for me to watch people fighting the
• 19:30
  images that they were broadcasting, saying don't
• 19:34
  believe your eyes, Just listen to me.
• 19:36
  This this you're not really seeing what you're seeing.
• 19:38
  So something had gone wrong. And for this book, I ended up
• 19:43
  interviewing dozens of like really high profile people and
• 19:47
  and journalism, A lot of them went on the record.
• 19:51
  I spoke to a lot of law enforcement to really try to get
• 19:54
  a well-rounded picture and look, I don't know what the the POV of
• 19:59
  your podcast is. You are on Rumbles, so I'm
• 20:01
  assuming you have a conservative audience.
• 20:03
  I'm did not set out to write a conservative book and in some of
• 20:06
  the cases, I think the cops were wrong.
• 20:08
  However, what I did to. Fall on different sides of
• 20:12
  different issues and piss off all kinds of people on occasion.
• 20:15
  Then you're. Then you're doing it right.
• 20:18
  But but you know, I what I did think was that in almost all of
• 20:25
  these cases, the media got it wrong.
• 20:28
  They were in flaming instead of informing.
• 20:31
  They were cherry picking cases to actually to turn into the,
• 20:37
  you know, the 48 hour news cycle.
• 20:40
  They were ignoring cases that did not fit into the agenda of
• 20:46
  the activists. And so it had slidden all of a
• 20:52
  sudden, instead of having their North Star being the truth and
• 20:56
  trying to get to hard truths, all of a sudden the media was
• 21:00
  really doing the work of the activists.
• 21:02
  And this is not the role of journalism.
• 21:06
  And I just felt like, felt compelled to write this book.
• 21:10
  So look for anybody who's listening or watching and who's
• 21:13
  thinking of getting it. I'd like to think this reads
• 21:16
  like a mystery novel. I I take the biggest cases,
• 21:19
  starting with Trayvon Martin, ending with George Floyd and
• 21:22
  give you a full picture of what happened, everything, the good
• 21:26
  and the bad. It doesn't always.
• 21:28
  It's not trying to fit an agenda and then take you into the
• 21:33
  management of some of the biggest newsrooms in the world
• 21:37
  in the country and to try to get first hand accounts of what went
• 21:41
  into the decisions and why these stories were being covered the
• 21:45
  way they were. And this is exactly the kind of
• 21:48
  thing that they like to try and censor too.
• 21:51
  Yeah. And this kind of fits in well
• 21:54
  because we we've interviewed at least a a couple of veteran
• 21:59
  police officers who are who are also authors in the thrower
• 22:04
  space. But they have experience and one
• 22:09
  of the things just from talking to them that I've, you know,
• 22:12
  noticed is a a lot of them, and I can't speak for all of them.
• 22:17
  A lot of them feel like, you know, the media is certainly
• 22:21
  agenda driven in that a lot of them already have like a
• 22:25
  narrative pre planned before they actually, you know, go to
• 22:31
  interview people and you know, just kind of looking as an
• 22:37
  audience member. It it kind of seems that way to
• 22:40
  me, but do you? Think big example that we've
• 22:43
  talked about quite a bit is how you can map out the speech about
• 22:47
  certain topics from all different reporters on all
• 22:50
  different news stations, exactly beat for beat to each other,
• 22:54
  word for word. Yeah, that, that seems that.
• 22:58
  A lot of people like, wow, they're all saying the exact
• 23:02
  same words and it has a perspective to it, right?
• 23:06
  Like it struck people as weird, even if they weren't all that
• 23:08
  political in some cases. Yeah.
• 23:12
  Morpheus is actually one of them.
• 23:14
  Yep, that's what about when I started playing 2019-2020 and
• 23:20
  like, OK, something's not. Right here.
• 23:22
  What's going on? And I started digging.
• 23:25
  So what do you think if I may ask?
• 23:29
  And I don't know what your perspective is, but why do you
• 23:33
  think the media is is doing this?
• 23:35
  Do you think it's intentional that they're trying to mislead
• 23:38
  people just for like views? Or do you think they're just
• 23:45
  doing what they do with good intentions?
• 23:49
  It's more subtle than that. I think what happened is in the
• 23:53
  first wave of TV news people that came out, I mean it's not
• 23:57
  that old of a, of a, you know, the first nightly network
• 24:03
  newscast, I think 61 or 62. So it's not that old of you've
• 24:08
  had basically 2 generations. You didn't have like national
• 24:12
  coverage with different casters until like the 70s or 80s when
• 24:17
  you had. In the 60s, in the 60s, you
• 24:19
  started, they started coming in. But that first wave were mostly
• 24:24
  blue collar guys. They were mostly men.
• 24:26
  They were blue collar guys. They very few of them had
• 24:30
  college degrees. Walter Cronkite, the granddaddy
• 24:33
  of them all, did not graduate from college.
• 24:35
  And so I think that they they didn't have to figure out who
• 24:39
  their audience were. They were the audience, and they
• 24:42
  a good. Chunk of them were also war
• 24:45
  veterans, which I think matters. Sure.
• 24:49
  I mean, look, they were still accused of having a little bit
• 24:51
  of a bias and they might have, but they were blue collar guys
• 24:55
  not afraid of calling truth to power.
• 24:58
  They didn't have elitist taste or elitist lifestyles.
• 25:01
  And so there was they were fulfilling a need and they
• 25:05
  understood what their audience needed.
• 25:07
  They lived in those communities with them.
• 25:09
  If you Fast forward to today and you go into a newsroom, I would
• 25:13
  say especially in a, in a national network setting or
• 25:18
  cable news setting, overwhelmingly you're going to
• 25:21
  find people who come from middle class, upper middle class or
• 25:25
  wealthy backgrounds who went to really good universities, who
• 25:29
  probably 12:50 identify as liberal at least.
• 25:36
  And and they all have similar lifestyles, right.
• 25:39
  If they're working out of New York, they're probably in a
• 25:42
  really cool. If they're younger, they're in a
• 25:44
  cool little neighborhood in Brooklyn.
• 25:46
  And we tend to use the term urbanite.
• 25:50
  Blue bubble, you could say a blue bubble, right?
• 25:52
  They go to the Co-op, they, you know, they buy vinyl records and
• 25:59
  they belong to a Pilates class and they, you know, they go shop
• 26:03
  at Whole Foods. And, you know, so there's a
• 26:05
  mindset, there's A, and I think that within those environments,
• 26:11
  there's a monoculture. There's a, you know, people
• 26:14
  think alike, have the same kind of interest.
• 26:17
  So the book is called Crimes of Omission, because despite what
• 26:21
  people think, I don't believe that journalists lie to you.
• 26:25
  They're not very rarely will they say something that is
• 26:27
  untrue. But what they will do is simply
• 26:30
  omit elements of the story or not cover a story at all.
• 26:34
  That is not something that either interests them or is
• 26:37
  convenient to their worldview. So.
• 26:42
  Yeah. I constantly refer to that as
• 26:45
  tactical ignorance because it's exactly what it is.
• 26:47
  Most of the time when they just cause like it's this happens a
• 26:51
  lot when you confront somebody to in any way, even if they
• 26:55
  don't know where you're coming from, the fact that they feel
• 26:58
  they're under attack. This, this often happens to
• 27:00
  people that I, I find that are like living in that kind of
• 27:04
  bubble is they like react like, I don't understand the very
• 27:08
  basic vocabulary words coming out of your mouth.
• 27:10
  And even if you define it for me in a very simple manner, I'm
• 27:14
  going to pretend it's very confusing and just keep
• 27:17
  believing what I believe to frustrate you into believing it
• 27:20
  too. Yeah.
• 27:23
  And look, I, I don't know if I can speak to that, but I think
• 27:26
  that, you know, I've been a part of this monoculture, so I
• 27:30
  understand it. I think people reinforce beliefs
• 27:34
  with each other within a social network, right?
• 27:37
  So let's just say you're in a deep red state and in a very
• 27:42
  conservative, I don't know, let's say you're working a
• 27:44
  construction job and everyone's pretty conservative and pretty
• 27:47
  pro chomp. Again, not to offend a Rumble
• 27:51
  audience, but but I'm we're. Right to offend media, by the
• 27:57
  way, so go ahead. OK, so I am faithful to the
• 28:01
  facts 1st and I will say, you know, look, you probably would
• 28:05
  go on that construction site and you and you might do a poll and
• 28:07
  a lot of people will believe the 2020 election was stolen.
• 28:10
  I hate to break it. It wasn't.
• 28:12
  And, and so that's a monoculture.
• 28:17
  The thing is that I think the people these days who are in
• 28:21
  control of news and control of journalism outside of some
• 28:25
  pockets that we all know well generally are going to have that
• 28:30
  Big Blue bubble bias. I don't think it's anything.
• 28:35
  There's, there's no like conspiracy theory.
• 28:37
  There's no huge agenda. You get a lot of people together
• 28:41
  who think alike, have the same backgrounds, have similar
• 28:45
  interests, travel in the same circles.
• 28:47
  And then you put them together in a morning meeting, which
• 28:50
  almost every newsroom in the world has, and it sets the
• 28:52
  agenda for the day. They're not going to raise their
• 28:55
  hands and say, hey, you know what?
• 28:58
  We should do a story. This would be in Trump.
• 29:00
  One point O unemployment for Latinos is at a record low.
• 29:06
  Maybe we should do that story, just not going to.
• 29:08
  It's just not part of their worldview, right?
• 29:11
  So I think that there's an unspoken culture in these
• 29:15
  newsrooms. You know, the kind of stories,
• 29:18
  everyone's ambitious. You know, the kind of stories
• 29:20
  that you're going to get praised for.
• 29:21
  You know, the kind of stories that you know, your boss is
• 29:24
  going to look at you and say attaboy.
• 29:26
  And you know, the kind of stories were you pitch it,
• 29:30
  there's going to be a lot of silence and and you're going to
• 29:33
  be that person, but that's that's this doesn't generally.
• 29:35
  Not limited to just the liberal side of it.
• 29:39
  We are constant. Actually, one of the things
• 29:41
  we're most kind of known for at this point is how critical we
• 29:45
  are of conservative independent media and, you know, more
• 29:48
  broadly in conservative media from a conservative side.
• 29:53
  Yeah, because it's often so full of shit.
• 29:56
  Yeah, absolutely. For the same reason, omission.
• 30:00
  They it's what they don't want you.
• 30:02
  It's not even what they don't tell you about a subject.
• 30:05
  It's the subject they don't even want you to talk about.
• 30:08
  And they've really become adept at moving the news cycle so
• 30:12
  fast. Like think about this.
• 30:14
  If the Epstein thing is the biggest thing in the world like
• 30:17
  these, some of these people are like obsessed with it to a
• 30:21
  degree I find unhealthy, then why is nobody talking about it?
• 30:25
  Because I ran? Because you're supposed to move
• 30:28
  on, dummy. You're supposed to talk about
• 30:30
  the new thing. It's I, I, I, I always call it
• 30:32
  the thing problem, right? It's like you're supposed to
• 30:35
  talk about the thing, whether you're for the thing or you're
• 30:37
  against the thing. If you're not talking about the
• 30:39
  thing, fuck you. Well, and just to I guess I'll,
• 30:45
  I'll redirect back and give an example from the book.
• 30:48
  Do either of you guys know a guy named Tony Timpa?
• 30:52
  Yes, I, I was actually going to ask you about that because.
• 30:57
  Good. I've.
• 30:57
  I've done a lot of media for this and I've yet to meet anyone
• 31:00
  who knew who he was. So you.
• 31:01
  Guys, no, I good for you. I was, I was actually, I was
• 31:04
  actually going to ask you about that in in particular.
• 31:08
  So you actually, I guess it's kind of segues.
• 31:11
  So, so when I was in college, that was kind of when the Black
• 31:15
  Lives Matter thing first popped up in like 2014, 2015 when I
• 31:21
  first and we should be back. So I apologize.
• 31:28
  Rumble likes to sometimes glitch out, as does YouTube.
• 31:34
  But we're back now for Part 2, Rob, when I believe when we got
• 31:41
  cut off, you were starting to talk about the statistics of
• 31:47
  what the actual number of black victims in that poll of liberal
• 31:54
  versus conservatives actually was, and you said it was only
• 31:56
  14. Yes, I'm not people specific.
• 31:59
  In the year. In the year 2019, yeah.
• 32:01
  So The Washington Post A. Black civilian shot by police is
• 32:05
  the specific statistic. Well now it doesn't have to be
• 32:08
  shot, but just killed by police in.
• 32:10
  Some format. There you go.
• 32:12
  So, yeah, And then, you know, The Washington Post kept a
• 32:15
  database. It was a complex story.
• 32:18
  And I hope that, you know, people who read the book, and I
• 32:21
  hope it's done in an entertaining fashion.
• 32:23
  And it reads like a true Crime Story.
• 32:24
  But when you read the whole thing, a lot of these cases are
• 32:27
  different. And you start seeing why certain
• 32:29
  juries acquitted officers, like in the Freddie Gray case or or
• 32:36
  George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin case.
• 32:39
  These cases were complex and not really presented accurately or
• 32:44
  with balance. I think also you started seeing,
• 32:50
  you know, I did a whole chapter on broken windows policing
• 32:53
  because there was no contacts given to the incredible gains
• 32:58
  that the police departments in the United States had made.
• 33:04
  I was going to just ask a question regarding that.
• 33:07
  Actually. I was going to say, do you think
• 33:09
  that the rise of body cams has made things better or worse
• 33:15
  overall? Because I think it's made things
• 33:17
  much better for both sides. Personally, I think so, even
• 33:20
  though many people were obviously super opposed to it.
• 33:23
  No, no, I think so. Hey, I'm sorry the producer and
• 33:26
  me is speaking up. But but before we had like a
• 33:30
  rolling like a red recording with a with a with a time code
• 33:35
  and that's gone from my screen, but we are still rolling right?
• 33:39
  Yeah, we we still are on on my end.
• 33:43
  OK. No, I, I, I understand Rumble
• 33:47
  just did like an update to their studio thing and it's been kind
• 33:52
  of glitch. We call it getting rumbled
• 33:55
  because there's a new quirk every week.
• 33:57
  Yeah, it's it was good and then they decided to do to do an
• 34:04
  update and it improved some things, but it also, you know
• 34:11
  it. All good updates too.
• 34:14
  Yeah, as is. Something else important?
• 34:17
  OK, I'm only asking because before when I looked on the
• 34:20
  screen, I would see like a little red record light and then
• 34:24
  the total number of people watching and then that has
• 34:27
  disappeared. So I just.
• 34:28
  Want to yeah, no, I, I, I appreciate that and all have
• 34:31
  this whole thing stitched together and I'm sending out the
• 34:36
  stream link now so. All good, I'm sorry I couldn't
• 34:41
  help myself so. No, no, I, I, I actually, I
• 34:44
  actually. Appreciate rail into production
• 34:46
  talk almost every week anyway, so welcome to the show.
• 34:50
  Perfect, SO. So in, in regards to that whole,
• 34:58
  you know, thing with the with the body cams and also with me
• 35:04
  to one thing I'm curious about kind of in regards to
• 35:06
  experience. Do you think that the Internet
• 35:10
  in particular has changed the dynamics of news or I guess how
• 35:17
  do you think it's? Produced because like you know
• 35:22
  and this is a few subtle ways Shepard Smith the Fox anchor
• 35:29
  spoke to me at quite at length about it for this book project.
• 35:32
  And one of the things he told me was that Fox executives became
• 35:36
  very reactive. They would go on Twitter at the
• 35:39
  time they would look at like there would be a story and maybe
• 35:43
  a few of them would complain Shepherd's being too hard on the
• 35:45
  president and then they'd say you know maybe you shouldn't be
• 35:47
  so hard on the president. They became they were getting
• 35:50
  instant feedback and they were doing what executives do best,
• 35:53
  which is panic. And so that was an issue.
• 35:58
  I think another issue secondary is, you know, in the old school,
• 36:05
  you weren't supposed to know where reporters stood on certain
• 36:09
  issues and where they stood politically, but now you just
• 36:12
  had people letting it all hang out on social media.
• 36:15
  When do you think that shift happened?
• 36:17
  Because everybody kind of acknowledges that happened,
• 36:19
  right? And it seems to me it's like the
• 36:23
  maybe like the late 90s when cable news started to have
• 36:27
  multiple channels can be one origin point.
• 36:29
  But really talk radio had this before too.
• 36:32
  So it's really hard to say where that happened, where instead of
• 36:37
  having the objective presenting, I mean, obviously we all have a
• 36:41
  viewpoint, but the objective trying to present reporter
• 36:44
  turned into the, hey, this is what I think and you should all
• 36:48
  know about it. I mean, I think the line between
• 36:54
  punditry and reporting is blurred.
• 36:59
  You know, a lot of times CNN will CNN will go do a story and
• 37:03
  they'll do a a straight news story.
• 37:04
  Then they come back to a panel. The panels are relatively cheap.
• 37:07
  You have 6 people sitting around a desk yakking it up for 10
• 37:11
  minutes. That's an easy way to to burn
• 37:14
  through time. And that becomes very
• 37:18
  disorienting for a viewer because where does the factual
• 37:22
  news reporting start and where does the opinion begin?
• 37:26
  Most cable news, late night shows are all opinion, right?
• 37:30
  I mean, Sean Hannity is not a journalist and nor I don't
• 37:35
  think, is he pretending to be 1 Rachel Maddow's not a
• 37:38
  journalist, right? These are people who are there
• 37:40
  to be pundits to give opinions, and that's fine.
• 37:45
  But I think that it's the line can get very blurry.
• 37:48
  And because of that, I think it's disorienting for the
• 37:52
  audience and they're not really clear where one stops and the
• 37:55
  other one and the other one begins.
• 37:58
  I think the other issue with the Internet is, well, because
• 38:05
  media, mainstream news organizations that have the
• 38:09
  money and power to have an assignment desk and reporters in
• 38:14
  Jerusalem, all corners of the world, they're best equipped to
• 38:18
  be our windows to the world. But because people have lost
• 38:21
  their trust in them, people are now going to alternative forms
• 38:25
  of media, which not all, but in many cases are far worse, right?
• 38:30
  So like, look, during COVID, the health establishment lost a lot
• 38:34
  of trust, but that doesn't mean that the person who's got a
• 38:38
  TikTok channel who says pomegranate juice will cure your
• 38:42
  knee pain is somebody that you really, you know, want to listen
• 38:47
  to or take medical advice from, right?
• 38:48
  So. With us, right, is like, there's
• 38:51
  so I said this this morning for April Fool's Day, right where
• 38:56
  it's like, there's so much misinformation.
• 38:58
  What even does April Fool's mean?
• 39:01
  And I said, you know my strategy for this, I'm just going to
• 39:05
  believe everything I see all day because it's more fun because I
• 39:10
  know everybody's just lying all the time on every given day
• 39:14
  anyway. So what significance does April
• 39:16
  First have? Right.
• 39:20
  Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs, but we're getting
• 39:22
  there. But it's yeah, I mean, that's
• 39:25
  the, you know, Jeremy Boring, who was the the Ben Shapiro
• 39:30
  producer was on a podcast a couple weeks ago and he was
• 39:34
  saying it's very powerful when someone can prove to you that
• 39:38
  someone has been lying to you. So a lot of these podcasters
• 39:43
  make a good case of why maybe mainstream news has has not told
• 39:50
  you the the truth about certain things and why they shouldn't be
• 39:52
  trusted. And so people trust that person
• 39:55
  because it's a powerful message. The problem is that person often
• 39:59
  times is 10X worse. So, you know, I think as much as
• 40:06
  this sounds probably very lofty and idealistic, the polarization
• 40:12
  that we have will never, never get, will never calm down unless
• 40:18
  we all live in a shared reality. And right now with all of these
• 40:22
  like different sources of information where you have some
• 40:25
  people who don't even believe we landed on the moon, it is hard
• 40:29
  for us to come together when we don't even see the world through
• 40:34
  the same lens. And, and a lot of that is driven
• 40:37
  what by what I call the attention economy.
• 40:39
  A lot of people call it the attention economy.
• 40:41
  And that's really important is, is for a lot of the people
• 40:45
  trying to get into media in the way they see it now, the people
• 40:49
  that want to be influencers on up and and talk about politics
• 40:53
  and everything else, these young people that grew up watching
• 40:56
  YouTube, they understand that getting attention is more
• 41:00
  important than integrity if you want to get attention.
• 41:04
  Yeah. What's the problem?
• 41:06
  Or. Or you're also not allowed to
• 41:10
  call out integrity where you see it if the source is bad.
• 41:12
  One problem I ran into is that the New York Times did an
• 41:16
  amazing bit about Pornhub a couple years ago, exposing quite
• 41:22
  a bit of what I consider to be pretty awful.
• 41:25
  And and because I'm citing the New York Post, I have friends
• 41:29
  being like, oh, I use some kind of lefty woke.
• 41:31
  And it's like the good reporting about a subject like as serious
• 41:36
  as Pornhub's involvement in potential trafficking of
• 41:40
  children and things and, and the need for age verification is
• 41:44
  good reporting, right? But it turned into people
• 41:48
  telling me, well, I can't even listen because the source is the
• 41:50
  New York Times, and I don't like.
• 41:52
  That they're bad. So it becomes a self
• 41:55
  perpetuating cycle because if someone gets their news, let's
• 42:00
  say from Ms. Now, and I remember watching the day after the
• 42:06
  election in 24, I was watching a little bit of Ms. Now and Rachel
• 42:10
  Maddow fighting tears and saying, you know, we're probably
• 42:13
  going to end up in internment camps.
• 42:14
  We're probably going to get shut down.
• 42:16
  I don't know what's going to happen, but we're we're going to
• 42:17
  keep fighting. Now, if that's your reality, of
• 42:21
  course you're going to go to a no kings protest and freak out
• 42:25
  because I mean, that's your window into the world, right?
• 42:29
  And. And it also makes the other side
• 42:31
  that spins it real easy that you sound delusional.
• 42:34
  You sound over the top. Now, a more charitable read of
• 42:37
  her, in my opinion, would be to say she's melodramatic, right,
• 42:42
  rather than I don't think she's the doomsayer of all doomsayers.
• 42:45
  I do think she has a penchant for the for the dramatic.
• 42:49
  And she she plays that up for the same reason everybody else
• 42:52
  does, because it gets her attention.
• 42:55
  But I, I don't you know the other side then turns that into
• 42:59
  see this delusional crazy ranting?
• 43:01
  Like, but I, but I think even just setting all that aside for
• 43:04
  a second, the problem is, and you know, you have the
• 43:07
  polarization levels where people really by the summer of 2020
• 43:10
  were seriously talking about whether we were getting to a, a
• 43:14
  place of civil war when people cannot even agree on who won an
• 43:21
  election. Is climate change an existential
• 43:26
  threat? Is the border open or closed?
• 43:29
  Is the president of the United States able to make decisions?
• 43:33
  Is he fully functional? There are a million things like
• 43:36
  this where people are seeing the world through such a different
• 43:41
  lens that some people can go out and go to a MAGA rally and be
• 43:46
  moved to almost tears watching Trump speak to them.
• 43:49
  And then you can have some people who go out to a No Kings
• 43:52
  rally and feel as though our way of life is at risk.
• 43:57
  Are they really, Is it really that much of a difference of
• 44:00
  values or is it a difference in the window into the world?
• 44:04
  They're just seeing the world differently because they're
• 44:06
  watching different channels. Well, I'll, I'll tell you the
• 44:08
  other thing that's weird and I don't know if you're not
• 44:12
  comfortable commenting on this, you know, we don't have to dive
• 44:16
  into it too much, but it, it's been weird for us all, in
• 44:21
  particular me ever since Charlie Kirk died, because I didn't know
• 44:26
  Charlie Kirk well, but I did interact with him online and I,
• 44:30
  I did talk with him on Skype a few times back in the early
• 44:36
  days. So I I knew him casually and.
• 44:38
  We did. A show enough.
• 44:40
  As we always do. And it was pretty a raw
• 44:43
  emotional reaction on our part. It affected all of us very
• 44:47
  deeply. So the thing that's the kind of
• 44:51
  disturbing to me is like, even within conservative media, I I
• 44:55
  would say you even have like a lot of these like fracturing
• 45:00
  views where even Charlotte Kirk's assassination, something
• 45:03
  that I would hope would bring the entire nation together to
• 45:07
  say, hey, this guy's, you know, murder, like his opinions or not
• 45:12
  is a bad thing. It's become just like another,
• 45:17
  you know, media circus and a click bait farm.
• 45:21
  And, you know, even like taking my personal connection out of
• 45:25
  it, like it's kind of been exhausting.
• 45:29
  It's, you know, just spirited punchline.
• 45:32
  Yeah, it's become really disgusting, honestly.
• 45:35
  Just. When you say that, all right, so
• 45:37
  we know, I mean, let's just call it out, right.
• 45:39
  So someone like Candace Owen has just completely, and I'm just
• 45:44
  saying this now, journalistically, she's a
• 45:46
  pundit. She's not a journalist in the
• 45:48
  league, but she has used this to create all sorts of like really
• 45:53
  wild out there conspiracy theories.
• 45:55
  And I even did a little bit of digging into some of her claims
• 45:59
  and they're easily refuted. But but that hasn't stopped that
• 46:06
  kind of ugliness. And that speaks to what I was
• 46:07
  saying right when it when people lose faith and mainstream, they
• 46:12
  go to other sources. But sometimes those sources, I,
• 46:15
  I think you're better off informed watching NBC News
• 46:18
  25,000 X than listening to Candace Owen, right?
• 46:22
  I mean, so, so yeah, whatever, whatever bias it is.
• 46:26
  NBC. There's very few things I would
• 46:28
  say that wouldn't be better to like.
• 46:31
  I listen to music that's better. I'm more informed about the
• 46:34
  world around me by listening to random music I like on Spotify
• 46:38
  than by listening to Candace Owens.
• 46:40
  OK, so we're on the same page there, so, but that is.
• 46:43
  OK, I mean, let's say a lot about how crazy we.
• 46:46
  Think, but let's take out the the Kimmel and that part.
• 46:50
  I thought that news reports were generally OK.
• 46:55
  I did think that some of the New York Times, if I remember right,
• 46:58
  I think the New York Times had some questionable headlines
• 47:01
  about Kirk's death where they were sort of highlighting
• 47:04
  controversial things he may have said, which, of course, you
• 47:07
  know, when an ayatollah's killed, then it's just like a
• 47:09
  leader of Iran has been gunned down, right?
• 47:13
  There's no like, yeah, this is the guy who wanted to be had
• 47:15
  gays and, you know, make women stand.
• 47:19
  Inside, if I ever do die, I hope they dig up all the out of
• 47:23
  context work stuff I said because it would at least be
• 47:26
  funny there. You go, there you go.
• 47:29
  So, yeah, I mean, look, I think overall, well, let's put it this
• 47:35
  way. Could the news coverage in the
• 47:39
  mainstream Press of Charlie Kirk's assassination have been
• 47:42
  better? Yes.
• 47:43
  Were there crimes of omission? Sure.
• 47:45
  Just like with everything else. But were you better informed if
• 47:49
  you watch that versus listening to corners of the podcast Fear?
• 47:54
  Yeah, you still were better off, right?
• 47:57
  So, you know, I think that I hold I and I just, if I could
• 48:01
  tie this knot, I just think that I hold journalists to a higher
• 48:07
  standard, right? Anyone can do a podcast, no
• 48:10
  offense to anyone here, right? Anybody can just start up a
• 48:13
  podcast. To be able to have the honor of
• 48:19
  reporting news on ACNN or an NBC and to be hired and to have all
• 48:25
  of those resources and all the desks all over the world and a
• 48:28
  huge staff, you have an obligation that is much higher
• 48:33
  than someone who just fires up, you know, a microphone and just
• 48:37
  starts doing a podcast. And so I don't really, you know,
• 48:43
  take the Candace Owens of the worlds that seriously.
• 48:46
  I think the bigger issue is what can mainstream news do to regain
• 48:51
  the trust of more of the nation so that we can all live in the
• 48:56
  same world and be standing in the same reality and see the
• 48:59
  world the same way because it's splintering more and more my my
• 49:05
  main. Answer to this for several years
• 49:07
  now, to be honest with you has been that they need to call out
• 49:12
  violent rhetoric from whoever's calling it, whoever's saying it.
• 49:17
  And, and I believe that, like when it crosses the line into
• 49:21
  stuff that's not legal, it needs to be dealt with and, and, and
• 49:26
  legally if possible, because I think that that's The thing is a
• 49:29
  lot of people are making casual threats and riling themselves
• 49:33
  up. And I'm in, you know, Antifa
• 49:35
  gang, I'm in proud boy gang and all this stuff.
• 49:38
  And it's very childish from where I sit as like a dad that's
• 49:42
  trying to get by in this world rather than, you know, somebody
• 49:46
  wrapped up in Internet fantasies.
• 49:48
  But I come across the stuff and it's like they're self
• 49:52
  radicalizing themselves from these podcasts trickle down into
• 49:56
  like lower cheer guys who will say the worst thing.
• 50:00
  So where is this? Because I, I don't mean to sound
• 50:03
  naive, I I mean like, I don't even have rumble.
• 50:05
  This is the first time I've done anything with rumble and you
• 50:09
  know, and so I don't see these. I I don't see these.
• 50:13
  Is this a rumble thing? Is this an 8 Chan thing?
• 50:15
  Like where? Where are these?
• 50:16
  People, this is a Twitter thing. This is.
• 50:19
  Really, I, I guess my, yeah, I guess my feet just I mean, look
• 50:24
  at at some point, I do agree with Elon Musk on this.
• 50:26
  And now this is just to be clear, since I'm writing about
• 50:29
  journalism. I point to one in particular,
• 50:31
  very, very well known Hassan. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah it.
• 50:36
  Makes all kinds of very violent pro terrorist statements on his
• 50:40
  twitch channel to 13 year olds all the time.
• 50:43
  Well, so this so I think this is the line and I agree with Elon
• 50:45
  on this. And by the way, I just want to
• 50:48
  you know, give the disclaimer that this is opinion now.
• 50:53
  But sure, I think if something is illegal to be set in a town
• 50:57
  square, if you could go, you know I'm in LA.
• 51:00
  If you could go walk down to the Santa Monica 3rd St.
• 51:03
  Promenade and get a bullhorn and you could say it without being
• 51:05
  arrested, then I think you're OK saying it on XI.
• 51:09
  Don't think we don't want a situation like England has where
• 51:13
  10,000 people a year are being arrested for for speech crimes.
• 51:19
  If people are directly calling for violence, of course that's a
• 51:21
  different story. And you know.
• 51:23
  That's the other thing I want to point out as examples though, is
• 51:26
  a lot of the recent high profile shootings in my backyard over
• 51:30
  here in the Pawtucket area whereby people who had made
• 51:35
  overtly politic, politicized statements.
• 51:39
  And in the case of the Pawtucket rink shooter, that's the ice
• 51:42
  rink I used to play at. So it's a little personal to me.
• 51:45
  I could picture my son being there at a hockey game when that
• 51:48
  happened. It's awful.
• 51:49
  I don't actually think it's just oh, well, a lot of people are
• 51:53
  like, oh, it's just a transgender thing.
• 51:55
  I don't think that because this person had other things going on
• 51:58
  that they were, they had Nazi actual tattoos of s s and they
• 52:03
  were big fans of this Nicholas Fuentes.
• 52:05
  And I, I, you know, that to me strikes as more than just a
• 52:10
  trans issue. This was a person that was
• 52:13
  clearly mentally ill. Like, I'm not trying to diagnose
• 52:16
  somebody might. I mean, he, he, he, she,
• 52:19
  whatever. You know, they tell me I'm I'm
• 52:22
  not even allowed to talk about it because you can't use the
• 52:23
  right pronouns because they'll tell you it's wrong every time.
• 52:26
  But this person comes into my ice rink, shoots up his own
• 52:31
  family. I I, as I understand, and he did
• 52:35
  make politicized statements, but I don't necessarily think it's
• 52:38
  because his actions were as political as I think that
• 52:41
  somebody who's already in a state such as that suffering
• 52:46
  from delusions, schizophrenia, anything and drug addictions of
• 52:50
  certain kinds, prone to psychosis, hearing all of this
• 52:54
  openly violent propaganda, some of which is blatantly illegal,
• 52:58
  posted all over major platforms like Twitch, major platforms
• 53:02
  like X major platforms like YouTube, very commonly seen by
• 53:08
  children. Hassan, this asthma gold on
• 53:11
  Twitch says similar things sometimes.
• 53:13
  These guys frequently see hundreds of thousands of live
• 53:16
  viewers. I mean, I think it's, you know,
• 53:20
  look, I don't know what they're what, what these statements are
• 53:23
  and what these direct calls. Yeah, I ask you to comment on
• 53:26
  this statements. I'm sure that I would.
• 53:28
  Generally categorizing them as some of them have been extremely
• 53:32
  violent or adjacent to terrorist propaganda.
• 53:35
  Right. And then, OK, so if that breaks
• 53:37
  the law, then then someone needs to step in.
• 53:40
  But I would just say can be a slippery slope.
• 53:42
  You remember, you know, Tipper Gore's hearings where, you know,
• 53:47
  there was this just hysteria in the very early 90s that rock
• 53:50
  music that, you know, Ozzy Osbourne was called causing kids
• 53:54
  to get violent. I'm not.
• 53:55
  Calling to go crazy over. It no I understand, I'm just
• 53:58
  saying to pay. More attention to the violent
• 54:00
  rhetoric because a lot of cases of these people that do engage.
• 54:05
  That across the line. But it has that they're not
• 54:07
  particularly common as, as we've kind of pointed out, mass
• 54:11
  shootings aren't as common as people would like to believe
• 54:14
  because the media told them to when they do happen.
• 54:18
  And the ideology is often being referenced as these fringe
• 54:21
  Internet ideologies and the people who had prior been making
• 54:25
  violent rhetoric. All I'm saying is we as a
• 54:27
  society should ask A, why is this happening, right?
• 54:31
  And B, what can we do to intervene before it gets to
• 54:35
  violence? So let me I'm not asking to lock
• 54:36
  everybody. Let.
• 54:37
  Me give you a couple more examples, Max.
• 54:39
  So on the side of the left, there was the shooter who was a
• 54:44
  big Bernie Bro who went and shot up that that Republican softball
• 54:48
  game, right, because he had been radicalized on the right.
• 54:56
  Charlottesville Let's Easy, right?
• 54:58
  Sure, on the right there, Charlottesville, I was thinking
• 55:01
  of something else and it just slipped from my from my mind.
• 55:04
  But the point is that it becomes very dangerous, I think unless
• 55:11
  there's an explicit call for violence when something happens,
• 55:14
  to then try to go back and blame it on music, a politician, a
• 55:18
  political movement, anything but that person.
• 55:22
  You know, they're deranged people.
• 55:24
  I think that when you. Towards the that this is a
• 55:26
  mental health crisis being masked by politics.
• 55:30
  Right, right. But I, I think, I think once you
• 55:33
  get the, I think it becomes a very, very dangerous precedent.
• 55:38
  Once under the guise of safety, politicians are now in the
• 55:42
  business of restricting speech because, well, you know, Bernie
• 55:45
  Sanders and the DSA got this person all riled up and look
• 55:49
  what he did. So they've got to tone down
• 55:51
  their rhetoric or you know. Very much.
• 55:54
  I marched at the Boston St. Pride parade, which was a free
• 55:57
  speech thing. I'm a free speech guy.
• 55:59
  I'm not saying to lock anybody up for anything that is other
• 56:03
  than stuff that is already classed as illegal.
• 56:06
  I'm not saying new laws that are going to prohibit anybody's
• 56:08
  speech. So how about Hassan Piker has
• 56:10
  his? What is?
• 56:11
  His guy in Pawtucket specifically made violent
• 56:14
  threats beforehand. Well.
• 56:16
  Then nobody looked into it, and this is a common theme I keep
• 56:19
  seeing. Same with the the the
• 56:22
  Providence, the Brown University shooting, another place that I'm
• 56:26
  familiar with, right? It it's bothersome to know that
• 56:32
  there was so many threats by the perpetrators in both cases that
• 56:36
  were not taken seriously because people are were afraid of
• 56:40
  exactly what you're saying, right?
• 56:42
  That they would go too far just to ask some questions to a
• 56:46
  person that is making violent threats.
• 56:48
  Yeah, I, I, I want to make sure we're not conflating 2 things.
• 56:51
  You know, when someone seems like they are spinning out of
• 56:54
  control and descending into some sort of madness, obviously
• 57:00
  friends, neighbors, school counselors need to step in and
• 57:04
  and try to see if they can prevent something.
• 57:06
  I think my only point is it is dangerous after the fact when
• 57:10
  you find out, oh, this person listened to death metal records
• 57:14
  or this person was, you know, a fan of this political movement
• 57:19
  or that, then so. I feel you for real.
• 57:22
  Like I'm on that side. I am.
• 57:24
  Right. So, yeah.
• 57:25
  So I think it's, you know, it's, it's always a, it's a fine line.
• 57:29
  And a lot of times people will use these examples as a way to
• 57:32
  try to silence certain people that they don't want to hear
• 57:36
  from. I just see a lot of people
• 57:38
  slipping through the system and it worries me and concerns me,
• 57:41
  you know? And I think that I think that in
• 57:43
  a lot of cases, it's kind of like your omission.
• 57:47
  The omission thing is the omission seems to be here's this
• 57:51
  person's politics, but the omission is here is a person
• 57:55
  that was clearly in need of crisis for a long time and
• 57:58
  here's all the red flags. But we look more at the politics
• 58:02
  because it catches headlines, right?
• 58:04
  Especially for the journals, that's an easy headline.
• 58:07
  Such and such shooter left a manifesto, right?
• 58:10
  Well, it depends which side it's coming from, right?
• 58:12
  If it's coming from another side, it won't be.
• 58:15
  Yeah, then there's no manifesto and and we never heard of it,
• 58:17
  right? Let me I guess in I don't know
• 58:23
  if you have a, you know, you might not even have an answer
• 58:26
  for this. I know this is a really, you
• 58:28
  know, tough topic, but you know, you mentioned that you you'd
• 58:33
  like mainstream, you know, media to, you know, have more
• 58:38
  integrity. I am I am curious, though, for
• 58:41
  people, you know, like I, I am AI am a commentator.
• 58:46
  We're commentators, but we do, you know, try and do, you know,
• 58:50
  journalistic things on on occasion.
• 58:54
  And the thing that's very kind of frustrating me as you know,
• 58:59
  for someone who kind of wanted to, you know, do journalism to
• 59:03
  like the barrier to entry. Like you, like you mentioned
• 59:06
  very early on, like, you know, a lot of the journalists and a lot
• 59:11
  of the, you know, commentators like Walter Cronkite, they were,
• 59:15
  you know, initially blue collar guys who didn't even go to
• 59:18
  college. And now, you know, now the label
• 59:21
  of journal, you know, of journalism and you know, you
• 59:24
  hear the you hear the jokes about, you know, journalism
• 59:27
  degrees, you know, being useless and whatnot.
• 59:31
  So I guess how do you think, you know, media can, I guess at
• 59:37
  least mainstream media be, I guess, restored or reformed for
• 59:42
  the better. What would you like to see if
• 59:45
  you could wave a magic wand? I mean, first of all, I think
• 59:48
  it's in their interest to do it outside of Fox News Channel and
• 59:52
  Ms. now who are doing just fine. And they're, they're making a
• 59:56
  lot of money. They're not going to change and
• 59:58
  and nor should they. It's a free market, right?
• 1:00:00
  They, they found their niche, but the legacy networks, other
• 1:00:06
  cable news broadcasters are suffering.
• 1:00:09
  Newspapers in big cities are dying.
• 1:00:10
  Washington Post just had huge, huge layoffs and.
• 1:00:15
  I think that there's an old expression in news which is
• 1:00:19
  journalists should comfort the afflicted and afflict the
• 1:00:23
  comfortable. And these kinds of like Big Blue
• 1:00:28
  news enterprises are just trying to comfort the comfortable.
• 1:00:31
  It is confirmation bias, giving people who are very comfortable
• 1:00:37
  exactly what they already believe, very rarely challenging
• 1:00:40
  them. I saw in New York Times
• 1:00:42
  headline, I actually just sent it to a friend.
• 1:00:43
  This was an article a few months ago which was shocking, which
• 1:00:46
  was about an investigative piece in the New York Times about how
• 1:00:49
  Mississippi had gone from worst to 1st in education and what
• 1:00:52
  blue cities could learn from that.
• 1:00:54
  Not the kind of reporting you see a lot from them, right?
• 1:00:58
  Normally they would just admit it, right?
• 1:01:01
  It would be a crime of omission. So how could newspapers change
• 1:01:05
  newspapers, and how could mainstream media change?
• 1:01:09
  It could change by, first of all, I think diversifying the
• 1:01:15
  workforce, which will take a long time, which means getting
• 1:01:19
  people from different walks of life, right?
• 1:01:22
  I mean, you'll be hard pressed to go into a big city newsroom
• 1:01:26
  and find someone who goes to church.
• 1:01:28
  Can I ask? The elephant question then, do
• 1:01:30
  you think AI is going to fill that void?
• 1:01:33
  I hope not. I'm not, I mean.
• 1:01:36
  Yeah, I mean seems to be cheap and.
• 1:01:39
  Pretty, yes it is. At trying to keep as little bias
• 1:01:42
  as whatever's built into the bot, right?
• 1:01:46
  Right, Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you'll see
• 1:01:48
  newspapers using more and more AI written written stories.
• 1:01:52
  But look, I think it needs to be a culture that allows for people
• 1:01:58
  to, from different walks of life and different backgrounds and
• 1:02:01
  different political beliefs and different interests, to have a
• 1:02:06
  openly spirited morning meeting where people can come up with
• 1:02:12
  all kinds of ideas. The kind of things that, you
• 1:02:16
  know, when you have 100 people who are all in Brooklyn and you
• 1:02:20
  know, all are, you know, see their job as resistance to the
• 1:02:24
  current administration, you're just not going to get that kind
• 1:02:27
  of mixed diversity of thought. So that's one big thing.
• 1:02:31
  And then I think that. Be with the clients, the family
• 1:02:34
  and talking to them. And then there would be the
• 1:02:36
  screen with Amy there, and Amy would be in a different.
• 1:02:39
  Part of the house. Why those?
• 1:02:40
  Were COVID, COVID protocols. Amy was like, just really
• 1:02:45
  concerned she had some pre-existing conditions.
• 1:02:47
  And so for her to come back, she she just wanted to be in a
• 1:02:50
  separate spot. And that was, we didn't want to
• 1:02:53
  say COVID because, yeah, who wanted years from now when
• 1:02:56
  people are watching it, if it makes sense.
• 1:02:58
  So we kind of just gave this vague, like, you know, she
• 1:03:01
  wanted to be in her own space so she could focus, but it was
• 1:03:04
  COVID. Did COVID create a lot of
• 1:03:07
  challenges for filming? I mean, that's.
• 1:03:08
  It was such a pain in the ass. So I had two shows going.
• 1:03:11
  Reasonable doubt was also going. And you know, none of it made
• 1:03:15
  any sense. But you would, you know, we'd
• 1:03:18
  have production assistants who would be local.
• 1:03:20
  So let's say we were shooting in Providence and then our PA might
• 1:03:24
  come in the next day and say, you know, my roommate just got
• 1:03:26
  COVID. So now we have to shut
• 1:03:28
  everything down. We test everyone.
• 1:03:30
  And one thing I realized over, you know, two, 2 1/2 years of
• 1:03:34
  these protocols is that the tests usually were delayed a day
• 1:03:38
  or two. So all of it was meaningless.
• 1:03:40
  So then we would shut it down for a day.
• 1:03:42
  The next morning everyone would test, they'd be fine.
• 1:03:44
  But it didn't really mean that they didn't have COVID cause
• 1:03:46
  usually it it would show up on a test maybe 2-3 days later.
• 1:03:52
  So anyway, yeah, it was a pain. It was, it was a lot of kabuki
• 1:03:57
  theater. It's, it's changed travel for
• 1:04:01
  the worse in general to a lot of like musicians I know.
• 1:04:05
  We're having a hell of a time getting started back up, touring
• 1:04:09
  and getting in the groove of things again.
• 1:04:11
  Especially independent guys, you know, like a lot of the in the
• 1:04:16
  scuffle of them not touring because if you're not a major
• 1:04:19
  artist, you weren't about to deal with the cost and hassle
• 1:04:23
  and insurance increases and everything of COVID.
• 1:04:26
  You just took a year or two off and made more records.
• 1:04:29
  And then you try to get back out on touring and it's like, well,
• 1:04:32
  hey, Billy, the road guy didn't show up, we don't know where he
• 1:04:36
  is. And you, you have to rebuild the
• 1:04:38
  crew from scratch. And there's all different ways
• 1:04:42
  of doing ticketing now with the whole Ticketmaster.
• 1:04:44
  But that's one thing. You know what I think
• 1:04:47
  journalists should talk about just a tad bit more is the
• 1:04:50
  Ticketmaster fucking monopoly. Sorry, it's maybe not alleged
• 1:04:55
  monopoly by me. Yeah.
• 1:05:00
  So much, man. They've consolidated live
• 1:05:02
  entertainment and the. Ticket and I think Eddie Vedder
• 1:05:05
  took that cause up company Eddie Vedder took that cause up years
• 1:05:09
  ago, right so. I well, I in that I guess that's
• 1:05:12
  kind of, I mean. Every indie venue out of
• 1:05:15
  business within the next 10 years if it doesn't change.
• 1:05:20
  Yeah. Well, and so I guess, you know,
• 1:05:25
  I want to be mindful of your time if you, you know, if we you
• 1:05:29
  know, if we need to wrap up or anything.
• 1:05:31
  But I did want to ask. The hour I'll be good.
• 1:05:35
  As to, you know, do you think COVID and you know that period
• 1:05:41
  of time, you know, when, when a lot of people are just glued to
• 1:05:46
  the screens? Do you think that changed me as
• 1:05:50
  well? Because like I definitely, I
• 1:05:53
  definitely noticed like I've always paid attention to the
• 1:05:56
  news because I'm a bit of a news junkie, but at the same time,
• 1:06:01
  like I can, you know, I can turn it off and you know what not,
• 1:06:06
  but a lot of people in my personal life because of, you
• 1:06:11
  know, the lockdowns and whatnot, they just started to, you know,
• 1:06:15
  doom scroll and watch the you know, the, the quote UN quote
• 1:06:19
  news channels 24. I mean, I think, I think that
• 1:06:24
  COVID also cost the mainstream media a lot of trust from the
• 1:06:28
  public because I think one of the key things, and again,
• 1:06:32
  they're not supposed to take a side, but one of the key things
• 1:06:35
  is to call truth to power. So here in California, you know,
• 1:06:39
  three days into the lockdowns, I could go down to the local
• 1:06:42
  Target and shop and it was never closed.
• 1:06:46
  But a lot of people had to sacrifice their businesses in
• 1:06:49
  the name of public health. Where was the media asking tough
• 1:06:52
  questions? You know why?
• 1:06:53
  Why are big corporations that make big donations allowed to
• 1:06:56
  stay open? COVID apparently isn't traveling
• 1:06:59
  and and Targets or Walmarts but it is in Montpas stores.
• 1:07:02
  You know, or or. Ralphs in the music scene, this
• 1:07:05
  means big famous known bands got all those PPP loans and
• 1:07:10
  independent venues went good night.
• 1:07:13
  Well, yeah, there, I mean, there was a lot of fraud with PPP
• 1:07:16
  loans, which that didn't really get a lot of coverage.
• 1:07:19
  You know, questions about whether the lockdowns
• 1:07:23
  themselves. And again, it's not that they're
• 1:07:26
  supposed to take a stance, but make politicians answer their
• 1:07:29
  decisions. You know, when it became clear
• 1:07:32
  within a few weeks that most of the victims were either people
• 1:07:35
  who were had a pre-existing condition or were over 75, did
• 1:07:40
  targeted lockdowns make more sense?
• 1:07:42
  Nobody wanted to ask these questions.
• 1:07:44
  So what we had was almost this like surreal, like state-run
• 1:07:49
  television that was basically giving kind of the unquestioned
• 1:07:55
  news from the perspective of the institutions as opposed to it
• 1:07:58
  being an independent 4th estate that it was really like trying
• 1:08:03
  to hold truth to power and make them answer tough questions.
• 1:08:05
  Why were kids kept out of school in California for a second year
• 1:08:09
  when in Europe kids were back in school within months?
• 1:08:12
  You know, ask the questions. That's their job.
• 1:08:16
  And the big thing for me was I'm up, up here in the upstate New
• 1:08:20
  York. My issue was Governor Cuomo
• 1:08:23
  literally shoving COVID patients into nursing homes and killing
• 1:08:26
  everybody. Especially with, with the two Co
• 1:08:30
  hosts here, they are both, you know, disabled it it, it was a
• 1:08:34
  rough topic for them to talk about.
• 1:08:37
  You know, people getting all up in like, business about whether
• 1:08:41
  you're going to take the vaccine or not like it.
• 1:08:43
  One of the stories that I tried to bring attention to on this
• 1:08:46
  show last year was Ice Cube getting outed his status of
• 1:08:50
  being hesitant to take the vaccine when there was a person
• 1:08:54
  in his direct family history who was a victim of the Tuskegee
• 1:08:58
  experiments. That's why he didn't want to
• 1:09:01
  take the vaccine because he was a Black man in America who's
• 1:09:03
  been very politically vocal. Ice Cube in a lot of ways,
• 1:09:07
  right? Who is now just getting told the
• 1:09:10
  states you have to take it and in some cases they're saying you
• 1:09:13
  have to take it first because we want to give it to the black
• 1:09:16
  males first. And he's like, they said that to
• 1:09:19
  my great uncle and they gave him syphilis.
• 1:09:23
  So you go back to the vaccines, and again, I'm just commenting
• 1:09:26
  on the way it was covered. So you have, I think I think by
• 1:09:30
  like April, May, it was kind of widely available.
• 1:09:33
  And basically there was a huge amount of pressure.
• 1:09:35
  And there were federal laws. If you were in a company with
• 1:09:37
  more than 100 people, you had to take it.
• 1:09:41
  I remember if I wanted to go back out on the road with the
• 1:09:44
  shows, I had to take it. And so really, there was a ton
• 1:09:49
  of pressure. But now nobody was asking tough
• 1:09:52
  questions. In fact, when it became clear
• 1:09:56
  that there were all these breakthrough cases, right?
• 1:09:58
  And and you had the president and you had Fauci saying if you
• 1:10:02
  get this, you can get your normal life back.
• 1:10:04
  You will not get it. You will not spread it.
• 1:10:06
  You have to hold truth to power. You have to ask questions.
• 1:10:09
  OK, It doesn't seem like it's working the way it did.
• 1:10:11
  Tell you know, where do. And then the CDC ultimately
• 1:10:14
  would come out and say that getting the vaccine made you no
• 1:10:17
  more likely to get it, less likely to get it, and no more no
• 1:10:21
  less likely to pass it on. That's.
• 1:10:23
  Like the treatment? Of Fauci in a specific way as.
• 1:10:27
  If but if I could just just close the loop on this.
• 1:10:30
  So it really became a therapeutic that needed to be
• 1:10:34
  reported, right. So there's really that now
• 1:10:36
  they're the the mask is off, they're pun intended.
• 1:10:39
  There is absolutely no at this point, there's really no
• 1:10:44
  societal reason why people should have mandated vaccines.
• 1:10:48
  It's simply a personal decision 'cause you're just as likely to
• 1:10:51
  get it or pass it along. And later studies would show
• 1:10:53
  that people who had multiple boosters were actually more
• 1:10:55
  likely to get COVID than those who hadn't.
• 1:10:59
  And so these are things that just need to be reported.
• 1:11:02
  You can't do journalism when you have an end destination in mind,
• 1:11:06
  when you're if your goal is to prevent vaccine hesitancy,
• 1:11:10
  you're not a journalist, You're now an advocate, right?
• 1:11:13
  So you have to put it all out there.
• 1:11:16
  All right. And what I meant with the the
• 1:11:18
  Ice Cube thing is that it was journalists, I guess you could
• 1:11:22
  call it that from TMZ. The outed this man for not
• 1:11:26
  taking the vaccine, which was a private matter.
• 1:11:29
  He didn't bring to the public's attention.
• 1:11:31
  He hadn't made any comment, ice Cube about it.
• 1:11:33
  And he felt particularly violated by that.
• 1:11:36
  That's the kind of like really toxic journalism that we need
• 1:11:40
  less of. That's a that's a medical matter
• 1:11:44
  for that man. They said it's oh, well, he
• 1:11:46
  didn't take a certain role because he wouldn't take the
• 1:11:49
  vaccine, but he like nobody had announced that.
• 1:11:52
  That was just like they announced A rumor as a fact.
• 1:11:55
  And in in essence, they gave out his medical information.
• 1:12:00
  This is that's for no reason at all, just because they didn't
• 1:12:04
  like his decision. Yeah, I, I don't know enough
• 1:12:07
  about that one. And, and to be honest, I, I,
• 1:12:10
  I'll recuse myself on that one 'cause I know a lot of people
• 1:12:12
  are over there, so I, I can't be objective.
• 1:12:15
  I'm not sure who specifically started it, to be fair.
• 1:12:19
  I would say more like it was tabloid type journalists rather
• 1:12:23
  than specifically TMZI. Do apologize in that regard
• 1:12:26
  'cause I'm not sure it was them and I don't wanna be a Dirk.
• 1:12:29
  I mean, look, the question is how different would the decision
• 1:12:33
  making have been if they knew they had to answer tough
• 1:12:36
  questions? That's all the the the media was
• 1:12:38
  reporting all wasn't dismissing the Wuhan lab leak theory as the
• 1:12:42
  work of kooks and people in tinfoil hats.
• 1:12:45
  Wasn't jumping on board the bandwagon of masks without, you
• 1:12:51
  know, presenting all the facts that conflict in many different
• 1:12:54
  ways. You know, Florida was presented
• 1:12:56
  as this death cult. And then, you know, after the
• 1:12:59
  fact, it turned out that the results were pretty good and
• 1:13:02
  removed media and and mainstream journalists to report that and
• 1:13:09
  maybe to do some investigative pieces to question whether all
• 1:13:12
  of these. Look how many people know that
• 1:13:14
  Johns Hopkins, not exactly a right wing hotbed of thought,
• 1:13:19
  put together a a pretty long study on the effective list of
• 1:13:23
  lockdowns and said they should never be done again.
• 1:13:25
  That it actually on the net killed more people than it's
• 1:13:28
  saved. That's big news.
• 1:13:30
  I I had. A thing that makes me hopeful,
• 1:13:32
  by the way, to see stuff like that.
• 1:13:34
  But it's not reported. Most people don't know it.
• 1:13:37
  Right. And well, and it's funny you
• 1:13:39
  mentioned that because that was actually one of the that was
• 1:13:42
  actually one of the studies that I actually did site at one
• 1:13:47
  point. And then actually I got that was
• 1:13:52
  like shortly before I got banned off YouTube that that, you know,
• 1:13:57
  came out and I was flagged for medical misinformation for
• 1:14:03
  simply, you know, bringing that up.
• 1:14:05
  So I found that to be very interesting, you know, to say
• 1:14:11
  the least. So how?
• 1:14:12
  About this, there were people we found out in the lawsuit that
• 1:14:16
  from the Biden administration were pressuring Twitter to
• 1:14:21
  shadow ban people who are doing nothing more than reposting the
• 1:14:25
  CD CS own statistics saying that it created vaccine hesitancy.
• 1:14:29
  Now I'm, I'm using the word Orwellian too much, but that's
• 1:14:32
  Orwellian, right? So the government is is asking
• 1:14:35
  someone to ban someone for reposting the statistics that
• 1:14:39
  they themselves put out, you know?
• 1:14:42
  Sometimes it feels like maybe not enough though because people
• 1:14:46
  seem to just trust Big Brother quite a bit and it as long as it
• 1:14:51
  puts the the costume on they like the best.
• 1:14:54
  Yeah. So just kind of wrap, wrap
• 1:15:01
  things up. I mean, your book is pretty in
• 1:15:04
  depth. Have, I mean, I guess have you
• 1:15:07
  learned anything, anything I guess new, you know,
• 1:15:11
  transitioning from, you know, your role as a producer and, you
• 1:15:16
  know, doing that type of journalism to now being an
• 1:15:19
  author and writing non fiction. What has that been been like for
• 1:15:24
  you? I mean, I think in some ways
• 1:15:26
  you're stretching the same muscle.
• 1:15:27
  I love research. So I'm the kind of person that
• 1:15:30
  will like just do a deep dive, right?
• 1:15:32
  I'll be talking to a friend. It could be about baseball, you
• 1:15:35
  know, and it's like, is WIP important?
• 1:15:39
  How important, How important a predictor is WIP when you're
• 1:15:42
  looking at like a pitcher? And now I'm just like doing a
• 1:15:46
  deep dive to just try to see is the premise true?
• 1:15:48
  And so the research part of it was great.
• 1:15:51
  I spent a lot of time interviewing a lot of really
• 1:15:53
  interesting people, some friends, some people I was
• 1:15:56
  meeting for the first time who wanted to participate in this.
• 1:16:00
  I was really intrigued as I learn more, going through public
• 1:16:06
  records, case files, transcripts from trials, to really see what
• 1:16:12
  happened in these cases 'cause there was a lot, a ton I didn't
• 1:16:14
  know. Especially like the Michael
• 1:16:16
  Brown case in Ferguson is so different from the way it was
• 1:16:19
  reported. And so.
• 1:16:22
  So for me, it was really fascinating.
• 1:16:24
  I mean, I guess the part that took an adjustment was, you
• 1:16:28
  know, the part where you're just writing and now you're, you
• 1:16:32
  know, I'm used to the energy of a set and you got a lot of
• 1:16:34
  people and, you know, they're adjusting to quiet time was
• 1:16:40
  probably the hardest part, but, you know, I enjoyed it.
• 1:16:44
  I, I would, I would imagine so. Do you think that this is going
• 1:16:47
  to be a format that you continue on for future projects or is it
• 1:16:52
  too early to say at at this point?
• 1:16:56
  Too early, even though I do have an idea for like a second crimes
• 1:17:00
  of a mission cause through a different topic that I think
• 1:17:04
  that I think could be interesting.
• 1:17:06
  But I guess it depends. Yeah, how many how many books
• 1:17:09
  are sold here. So we'll well, I'll have a
• 1:17:12
  better assessment in, in six months.
• 1:17:14
  Yeah, I certainly understand how that goes.
• 1:17:17
  You know, being being an indie author myself and that, you
• 1:17:21
  know, that's always what you know, matters.
• 1:17:24
  So anyway, well, Sarah, I really appreciate your time.
• 1:17:29
  Where can people find this book and where can people find you?
• 1:17:35
  OK, so this book you can find anywhere.
• 1:17:38
  I actually was lucky I it's I did have it published through
• 1:17:42
  post hill press, which is a division of Simon and Schuster.
• 1:17:45
  Anywhere you get books target Barnes and nobles Amazon.
• 1:17:49
  Please pre-order now it. Helps our audience prefers
• 1:17:54
  physical copies by a long shot. OK, well that's that's it's
• 1:18:01
  going to be out a paperback. So please, please send it out.
• 1:18:04
  Please put it in your basket or send out a or get the pre-order.
• 1:18:09
  It's going to come out on June 2nd to find me.
• 1:18:14
  I am on X and hold on. I'm going to find my own handle
• 1:18:19
  while I'm talking to you. Rob Rosen, 14.
• 1:18:23
  OK, there you go. Thank you.
• 1:18:25
  Thank you. You did my homework for me.
• 1:18:26
  So Rob Rosen, 14. I'm on X.
• 1:18:30
  You can also check out you know my bio links to the book looks
• 1:18:34
  to someoftheshowsidid@rprmedia.net
• 1:18:38
  RPR like Robert Patrick Rosen media.net.
• 1:18:44
  Rob, I really appreciate you having on having you on tonight.
• 1:18:47
  I apologize for some of the, you know, technical glitches, not at
• 1:18:52
  all the add on, but I'll be sure to, you know, string this
• 1:18:56
  podcast together. Hopefully by the time, you know,
• 1:18:59
  people watch this thought the entire episode we edited
• 1:19:01
  together. So for the folks watching and
• 1:19:05
  listening, I'll have all Rob's links in the description.
• 1:19:10
  Really appreciate your time, you know tonight Sir, and we'd love
• 1:19:15
  to have you back on if you have anything else you know that you
• 1:19:18
  need to promote in the future, so.
• 1:19:20
  That's good. I enjoyed it.
• 1:19:21
  Thank you guys. All right, really, really
• 1:19:24
  appreciate it. And folks, we really appreciate
• 1:19:27
  you, you know, tuning in. I will be back on Monday with a,
• 1:19:35
  you know, guest for, you know, the author, you know, for the
• 1:19:40
  Monday edition as well. So I'll be there.
• 1:19:43
  And then next week, we'll be back for the live show.
• 1:19:46
  And as always with the, you know, news cycle, it's always
• 1:19:50
  anybody's guess what we'll be covering.
• 1:19:53
  So really appreciate everyone tuning in tonight.
• 1:19:56
  Again, thanks for coming on, Rob.
• 1:19:59
  And thanks, everyone, for tuning in.
• 1:20:02
  We'll be back next week. Take care, everyone.
• 1:20:06
  The right to offend is not some pesky little part of freedom of
• 1:20:10
  speech that we have to put up with.
• 1:20:12
  It is the heart and soul and lungs of freedom of speech.
• 1:20:17
  It is the coursing lifeblood of human progress.
• 1:20:20
  It is the. Instigator of liberty and
• 1:20:22
  modernity and science and understanding what a laughing
• 1:20:27
  stock today's student leaders are that they can so casually
• 1:20:31
  dismiss the right to be offensive without realising that
• 1:20:35
  their lovely, enlightened lives are the gifts of individuals who
• 1:20:39
  gave offence. Offensiveness is not just
• 1:20:43
  something we have to begrudgingly accept.
• 1:20:46
  Offensiveness is the motor of human progress.
• 1:20:50
  Thank you for watching. The Whitfield report live on the
• 1:20:53
  right to offend media network. Make sure to check out Sam's
• 1:20:57
  books on Amazon, audible, and kindle.
• 1:21:01
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• 1:21:07
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• 1:21:13
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• 1:21:16
  And until next time, God bless, God save this great nation.
• 1:21:23
  God, freedom, legacy, in that order.