Latest / The Epstein Chronicles / Mega Edition: The Epstein Story Shines A Light On Why Distrust In The Media Is So High (6/1/26)

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Mega Edition: The Epstein Story Shines A Light On Why Distrust In The Media Is So High (6/1/26) · The Epstein Chronicles

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Speaker 1: I decided to pull an article from way back in
0:02
two thousand and eight, an article written by Land and
0:05
Thomas Junior. And you might be familiar with the name
0:09
because Land and Tomas Junior ended up leaving The Times
0:13
because he accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein. Well, you'll see
0:17
in this piece that he wrote pretty much a puff
0:19
piece about Jeffrey Epstein right after his arrest, and it
0:23
was a very sympathetic in tone to Jeffrey Epstein. And
0:27
I think it's important that we remember the way these
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newspapers were covering this case when it was happening and
0:33
how it was going down. So we have context because
0:36
we see it from these outlets just about in every
0:39
single case and everything that happens. When they're wrong, they
0:43
just move on and they act like they were never wrong,
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like they had nothing, you know, nothing to apologize for. Well,
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in reality, we know that they did a big disservice
0:53
to the survivors in this case by covering for Jeffrey
0:56
Epstein for so long. And we see that in this
1:00
article that I'm going to read tonight. And this article
1:04
is from two thousand and eight. Like I said, the
1:07
author is Landon Thomas junior and the headline is financier
1:13
starts sentence and prostitution case. Plenty wrong, just with that
1:17
opening headline, right, plenty wrong right there. First of all, financier,
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let's replace that with pedophile and again, there can't. This
1:25
isn't a prostitution case. Children can't be prostitutes. This is
1:28
the case of a sex trafficker, a sex offender, and
1:32
a very disgusting and evil man. Okay. This article was
1:37
released on July one, two thousand and eight. And now,
1:40
remember the author of this article received thirty thousand dollars
1:45
from Jeffrey Epstein for an outside charity, which led to
1:49
him leaving The New York Times. The New York Times
1:52
and him parted ways after it was revealed that he
1:56
accepted this money. Now, my question is how long did
1:59
the Times know that he had accepted his money before
2:02
they decided to part ways with him. It seems like
2:06
it's a face saving move, right, a bunch of years after,
2:08
et cetera, et cetera. But that's that's for you know.
2:11
We'll talk about that a little bit later. But onto
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the article. The bad news arrived by phone last week
2:18
on Little Saint James Island, the Palm Fringe Xanadu in
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the Caribbean, where Jeffrey E. Epstein Epstein, advisor to billionaires,
2:26
lives in secluded splendor. The tone of the article right
2:30
away is just gross. Right just reading it, you could
2:32
tell it's a puff piece right away. It's a pump
2:35
your pump your tires kind of piece piece where I
2:39
you know, I'm gonna write about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, but
2:42
I'm gonna put it in the best light as possible.
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And that's the tone it sets right away from the
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first paragraph report to the Palm Beach County Jail, the caller,
2:54
mister Epstein's lawyer said, Oh, that's about it was a
2:56
big deal. Huh, real tough sentence there. He did a
2:59
real rough bid there. I mean, he might as well
3:01
have been in the Supermax or Guantanamo because the bid
3:04
he did was just absolutely painful for him, right. I Mean,
3:08
it's not like he had access to every single thing
3:10
he needed anyway. What a joke. So over the weekend,
3:15
mister Epstein quit his pleasure dome with its staff of
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seventy and its flamingo stock lagoon, and flew to Florida
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on Monday morning, he turned himself in and began serving
3:26
eighteen months for soliciting prostitution. And the author knows what
3:30
he was really charged with. The author knows what the
3:33
score is, and the author chooses to write it in
3:36
a manner where it is helpful to Jeffrey Epstein's image,
3:41
even though he's going to jail. The author is trying
3:45
to fluff his image, trying to pump his tires, and
3:48
trying to artificially inflate Jeffrey Epstein and make it seem
3:52
like what he was convicted of is just no big deal.
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I respect the legal process, mister Epstein fifty five said
4:00
by phone as he prepared to leave his seventy eight
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acres island, which he calls Little Saint Jeff's. I will
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abide by this. Yeah, no shit, you're gonna abide by
4:09
a buddy. What do you think you're El Patrone? You
4:11
think you're Pablo Escobar. I'm gonna I'll abide by this.
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Who do you think you are? It should have been
4:17
a lot more. Instead you got this sweetheart deal, and
4:21
then you're still so brazen and still so smug. Oh yeah,
4:26
I'll abide by this like you had any choice, like
4:28
it was in your control right at the very least
4:30
you had to get your slap on the wrist. But
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the thing is, this was the beginning of the downfall
4:35
for Epstein. This was the first chink in his armor.
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And his handlers, well, they know that they couldn't protect
4:41
him twice. So this was, you know, his one shot,
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his one get out of jail free card, and thankfully,
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well we know how things ended up. It is a
4:52
stunning downfall for mister Epstein, who grew up in Coney
4:55
Island and went on to live the life of a billionaire,
4:58
only to become a tabloid monument to an age of
5:01
hyper wealth. Mister Epstein owns a Boeing seven to twenty
5:05
seven and the largest townhouse in Manhattan. He has paid
5:07
for college educations for personal employees and students from Rwanda,
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and spent millions on a project to develop a thinking
5:14
and feeling computer and on music intended to alleviate depression.
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Oh what a fantastic guy. Huh. If you didn't know
5:22
anything about Jeffrey Epstein and you're reading this in two
5:24
thousand and eight, you're saying to yourself, man, this guy
5:26
probably caught a bad rap, prostitution eighteen months, what the hell? Meanwhile,
5:33
what he was really involved in, what he was really doing,
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is so much more dark, so much more unnerving. And
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the legacy media obviously we're talking about the Gray Lady here, folks.
5:45
This is the New York Times writing this puff piece.
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This isn't one of his friends in the local paper, right,
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This is the New York Times, the paperoff record for
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the country. Supposedly the Gray Lady and their writing a
5:57
puff piece about Jeffrey Epstein. But mister Epstein also paid women,
6:03
some of them under age, to give him massages that
6:06
ended with a sexual favor. The authorities say, listen to
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the way he words this, right, he makes you think
6:11
like it's no big deal, no big deal whatsoever. Nah,
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you know he paid for massages that ended with a
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sexual favor, no detail, no context, nothing. Federal prosecutors initially
6:25
threatened to bring him to trial on a variety of
6:27
charges and seek the maximum penalty ten years in prison.
6:32
After years of legal wrangling, mister Epstein pleaded guilty to
6:36
lesser state charges. And we know that they brought that
6:41
those charges up even with Jeffrey Epstein, to make it
6:45
look like they were doing their jobs. They had no
6:47
intention of ever smacking him with the federal charges. They
6:50
always intended to kick this down back to the state
6:53
level because they thought that it would be less hot
6:55
down there, right, less press on it, less eyes on it. Ah,
6:59
just another state life, local case of some sick, you know,
7:02
rich guy who got caught up in a sting. Move on,
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forget about it. But instead, what it did is it
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created a lot of questions and the local police department
7:15
down there, Rider and the rest of those guys who
7:18
did incredible work. Joseph Riccari, those people did incredible work
7:23
down there, and without them in the initial arrests and
7:26
the initial outcry over the way things were going, this
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would have been buried and we would have never heard
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anything about it. We would have had a puff piece
7:34
like this, and this would have been the end of it,
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the beginning and the end of Jeffrey Epstein's rehabilitation and
7:39
insertion back into so called polite and high society. Upon
7:45
his release from jail, he must register as a sex
7:47
offender wherever he goes in the United States. Well, we
7:51
know that incorrect. He didn't have to register in New Mexico.
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People from all walks of life, break the law, of course,
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But for the rich, rapped by a coon of immense comfort,
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it can be easy to yield to temptation. Experts say,
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it's making excuses for this guy, making excuses. Oh, it
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must be such a burden to have all of that money.
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I wish I had that kind of burden. I mean,
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are you kidding me right now? Oh, because he's rich,
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he has such a burden. It's so tough, it's so
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hard because he's wrapped in an immense comfort, and it
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can be easy to yield to temptation. Give me a break,
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give me an absolute break. These people, this is how
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they think. This is how they think. This is how
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they're covered for in the legacy media. This is what
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was going on for years and years and years, and
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you see it right here in this article. How sickening
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is this? A sense of entitlement sets in, says Dennis Pern,
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a psychologist who counsels people on matters related to extreme wealth.
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I mean, really counsels people on matters that have to
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do with extreme wealth. Get yourself an accountant and go
8:59
and enjoy your money. Do something good with your money. Okay,
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go find some people who lost their house in a
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fire or whatever the hell it may be. But stop
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being a sick, disgusting bastards with it. I mean, is
9:11
that too much to ask? You already have the world
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is your oyster already with your billions and billions of dollars.
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But you have to go about and conduct yourself like
9:20
like Jeffrey Epstein and hang out with people like Jeffrey Epstein.
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I don't understand the thought pattern behind that. I don't
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understand how these people think, how do they how do
9:31
they operate? How is it okay to be friends with
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somebody like Jeffrey Epstein, unless, of course you know what
9:36
he is and you accept him for that because you
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don't think it's wrong either. That's the only way I
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can see somebody still hanging out with this guy. Any
9:44
normal person sees what this guy's up to, or here's
9:47
rumors about it, and they're like, are you kidding me?
9:49
Right now? Just hanging out with this guy. But yet
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all of these rich and powerful people drawn to Epstein
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like a moth to a flame, and this hole giving
9:59
them an out. Like the psychologist says, a sense of
10:02
entitlement sets in and they act like they deserve anything
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they want. That they can have anything they want and
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they can afford it. That's not an excuse. That's not
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an excuse. That's like some a trained fighter who just
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walks around beating people up because he can. There's no
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excuse for that, just like there's no excuse for the
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way Jeffrey Epstein conducted himself, and there's no excuse for
10:23
the people that enabled him. And there is certainly no
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excuse for journalists, so called journalists who write puff pieces
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like this to provide cover for a man like Epstein.
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It's absurd to prosecutors, mister Epstein is just another sex offender.
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He did what he did because he could, and because
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he never dreamed he would get caught, they say. Mister
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Epstein's defenders counter that he has been unjustly prosecuted, persecuted
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because of his wealth and lawfully connections to prosecutors. Mister
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Epstein is just another sex offender, and that right there
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is the problem with all of this in a nutshell
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right there just shows you exactly what the problem is
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with this case as a whole. Jeffrey Epstein was much
11:05
more than just another sex offender, folks. This was a
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man who wielded immense power, who had a lot, a
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lot of sway with some of the most powerful people
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on the planet. This is more than just a sex offender.
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Sitting on his patio on Little Saint Jeff's in the
11:28
Virgin Islands several months ago as his legal teams, as
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his legal troubles deepened, mister Epstein gazed at the azure
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Sere at the azure See and the lush hills of
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Saint Thomas in the distance, poked out a lunch of
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crab and rare stake prepared by his personal chef, and
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tried and tried to explain how his life had taken
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such a turn. He likened himself to Gulliver's shipwrecked among
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the diminutive Denzians of lily Put. I mean, really, this
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is this is it's sickening to read this. It is
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absolutely positively turning, gut wrenching gross to read this puff
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piece the way this guy was inflating his tires. It's
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an embarrassment. What a puff piece. You know what this
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guy was just prosecuted for. You're a smart guy, Landon
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Thomas Junior. You saw what was going on. You knew
12:17
the deal and here you are writing this puff piece.
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You should be ashamed of yourself. Gulliver's playfulness had unintended consequence,
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As mister Epstein said, that is what happens with wealth.
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There are unexpected burdens as well as benefits. Really, this
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is a burden. Look, bro, you're the one who molested
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these girls. You're the one who trafficked all of these girls.
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You're the one that was involved in raping all of
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these girls. What do you mean burden? The only burden
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is on the survivors of your disgustingness. This is the
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way Jeffrey Epstein was able to conduct himself throughout high
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society in New York. He was so brazen. He spoke
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this way and interviews. How do you think he spoke
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at the cocktail parties, at the twenty five thousand dollars
13:01
per plate charity events. Jeffrey Epstein didn't conduct himself differently
13:06
because you know, he was hiding. The guy was hiding
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in plain sight. Everybody knew exactly what he was. And
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all of those enablers, all of those high crust socialites,
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and all of those virtue signalers, and all of those
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wanna be social justice warriors that inhabit that scene are
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a bunch of frauds, straight up frauds. Those benefits are
13:30
on full display on his island, where, despite his time
13:34
in jail, mister Epstein has commissioned a new estate. Must
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be nice. Huh. I wonder what you know that forty
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seven million that he was supposedly stole from Wexner. Maybe
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he used that to commission his new estate. These people
13:46
are unbelievable. The villa will occupy the island's promontory, which
13:52
offers views of the Atlantic on one side and the
13:54
Caribbean on the other. It will have a separate library
13:57
to house mister Epstein's ninety thousand volley umes, a Japanese bathhouse,
14:02
and what he calls a Zigfeld movie theater. Who cares.
14:08
This guy was just arrested about to go to jail
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for soliciting, in the words of this guy, soliciting people
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for prostitution. But in reality, everybody knows what he was
14:19
going to jail for, everybody who was paying attention. And
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don't think that this journalist wasn't paying attention. He knew
14:26
the score, he knew the scope of what Epstein was
14:29
up to, and he's writing this puff piece about how
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fantastic Jeffrey Epstein's island is. Talk about using your platform
14:37
for garbage. For now, however, those visions of a private
14:43
paradise have been replaced by the cold reality of a
14:45
jail cell. Oh harsh. The legal drama began in two
14:50
thousand and five when a young woman who gave mister
14:52
Epstein massages at his Palm Beach mansion told the local
14:56
police about the encounter. She was fourteen at the time
14:59
and was paid two hundred dollars. The police submitted the
15:02
results of their investigation to the state attorney, asking that
15:06
mister Epstein be charged with sexual relations with minors. His
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lawyers say mister Epstein never knew the young women were
15:13
under age, and point to the deposition depositions in which
15:16
the mess messuses, several of whom have filed civil suits,
15:19
admitted to lying about their age. Yeah, of course they lied.
15:22
They were told to lie about their age. Well that's
15:26
been that's established in filthy rich. We know for a
15:30
fact that they were told to lie about their age.
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And duh, why wouldn't you want to give himself plausible deniability?
15:37
I mean it's rather obvious, right, but you know, this article.
15:40
Just goes on about their business, doesn't question it, doesn't
15:43
you know, bring up any counterpoints, just keeps rolling with
15:45
the narrative. In July two thousand and five of Florida,
15:50
Grand Jerry charged mister Epstein with a lesser offense, soliciting prostitution.
15:54
Must be nice, isn't it to be, Jeffrey Epstein to
15:57
just live the high life. Charge you with the solicitation
16:01
of soliciting a prostitution charge, that's all, Yeah, You'll be fine,
16:05
No big deal. Mister Epstein's legal team, which would eventually
16:11
include the former prosecutor Kenneth W. Starr and the Harvard
16:15
law professor Allen M. I kept my underpants on Dershowitz,
16:19
was elated mister Epstein would avoid prison, but then the
16:23
United States Attorney's Office in Miami became involved. Last summer,
16:27
mister Epstein got an ultimatum plead guilty to a charge
16:30
that would require him to register as a sex offender,
16:33
or the government would charge him with sexual tourism. According
16:37
to people who were briefed on the discussions, oh sexual tourism. Ha,
16:41
whoa man, you guys are really going after a huh?
16:44
No talk of Rico, no talk of anything that's really meaningful. Now,
16:48
don't get me wrong. Sexual tourism is a pretty serious
16:51
charge and it carries, you know, I'm sure a pretty
16:53
serious jail sentence. I don't know the exact term of it.
16:56
But really, if you really wanted to go after him,
17:00
and you really wanted to threaten him and give him
17:01
an ultimatum, you should have threatened him with rico. David Weinstein,
17:07
an attorney in the government's Miami office, declined to discuss
17:10
the specifics of the case, but he did address the
17:13
subject of mister Epstein's means and prominent legal team, and
17:16
dismissed a proposal by mister Epstein's lawyers, who opposed the
17:20
application of federal statutes in the case, that he'd be
17:23
confined to his house in Palm Beach for a probationary period.
17:27
Oh that's nice. Huh. Well, at least they they didn't
17:29
do that, you know, they just let him leave for
17:31
thirteen hours a day. It's such a joke. It's all
17:34
for optics. All of this was done for optics. The ultimatum,
17:37
the light jail sentence, all for optics. If they had
17:40
their druthers, if they had their way, this man would
17:43
have never seen a minute inside of a jail cell.
17:47
In their mind, that would be an adequate resolution, mister
17:50
Weinstein said. Our view is that and that is not
17:53
enough of punishment to fit the crime that occurred. Oh
17:56
you showed them, mister Weinstein. You really put your foot
17:59
down by give him this soft ass sentence. You're really
18:02
a hero in this case. You clown, what an absolute
18:06
clown to act like, Oh, yeah, well, we did the
18:10
right thing here. We really threw the book at him
18:12
because you know, we wanted the punishment to fit the crime.
18:17
That did not turn out well, History is not going
18:19
to judge you well. History is not judging you well.
18:22
And personally you fall right into the category of chuckleheads.
18:27
The rest of the chuckleheads who have been involved in this,
18:29
the rest of the morons so called state prosecutors, who
18:32
look the other way and who are negligent. You are
18:35
certainly one of them as well, mister Weinstein. Welcome to
18:38
the club. You DFIs blurred. Details of the case have
18:43
captivated wealthy circles in Palm Beach and New York and
18:46
transform mister Epstein, who shuns publicity and whose business depends
18:50
on discretion into a figure of public ridicule. Yeah, but
18:54
not by his buddies in New York wealth, not by
18:57
the upper crust of New York. He was welcomed right back.
19:00
Do you know why? Because he has money. He can
19:02
use that money to help them out. And at the
19:04
end of the end of the day, once again, we
19:06
understand it's all about them when it comes to these
19:10
sort of people, that they're in a world of one
19:12
and that world includes themselves. He said, Oh, this is
19:18
too much. He said, he has been trailed by stalkers
19:21
and has become the target of lawsuits. Yeah, no, shit,
19:24
you were involved in a child trafficking ring. Bro of
19:27
course you're getting charged with I mean a lawsuits slapped
19:31
at you, slap down at you mean really, so again,
19:34
this guy's writing it like, oh, you should feel sorry
19:36
for Jeffrey Epstein. He has a real tough Meanwhile, this
19:40
guy not a word about the survivors, not giving the
19:43
survivors equal time, right, not covering any of the girls
19:46
who Epstein was charged with assaulting. None of that just
19:50
a puff piece for Jeffrey Epstein. Because Jeffrey Epstein was
19:53
enriching him by giving him thirty grand on the backside. Wow,
19:57
the New York Times, folks, isn't it grand? The paper
20:01
of Record, the Gray Lady, What a cesspool, what a joke. Ka.
20:08
In recent months, he said he received over one hundred
20:11
letters a week asking for money or jobs as a masseuse.
20:14
He recently received a package of gold tinted condoms. Oh
20:17
the humanity, Oh poor Jeffrey Epstein. It has been a long,
20:22
strange journey from Coney Island, where mister Epstein grew up
20:25
in middle class surroundings. Here comes the real puff piece
20:28
where they lay it on you. Right. Oh well, he was,
20:31
you know, charged with these little these minor crimes, no
20:34
big deal or anything. But here let's do the let's
20:37
jump in and let's rescue him with his whole entire
20:39
sob story and coming from nothing and becoming a millionaire.
20:42
And as if that shit matters, there is one thing
20:46
that matters when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein. All the
20:48
other shit you can leave at the door. One thing matters.
20:50
The dude was a pedophile. End of story, end of discussion.
20:54
Nothing else even needs to be said. Really, right, that
20:56
puts him down at the on the lowest levels of
20:58
scumbags on earth. Okay, so all this puff piece shit
21:03
about his background and oh, Jeffrey Epstein gave from a
21:07
poor life and made that's a great, great, great money
21:10
for himself and made such a way in the world.
21:12
And shut up, shut up and kill that shit. This
21:16
shit was dead in two thousand and eight, and it
21:18
certainly doesn't play twelve years later in twenty twenty. Makes
21:21
you look like a fool. He taught briefly at Dalton,
21:28
the Manhattan private school, and then joined bear Stearns, becoming
21:31
a derivative specialist. He struck out on his own in
21:34
the nineteen eighties. No mention of any of the investigations
21:37
in the bear Stearns, none of the drama, nothing like that.
21:41
Just you know, a regular old guy, very good, very
21:43
very good at what he does, middle class guy, worked
21:46
his way up. Teacher bear Stearns. Oh my god, he's
21:49
so incredible. Talk about vomit inducing. His business is something
21:55
of a mystery. Yeah, no shit. He says he manages
21:59
money for billionaires, but the only client he is willing
22:01
to disclose is Leslie H. Wexner, the founder of Limited Brands.
22:05
And I always wondered why Wexner was the one that
22:08
he was willing to disclose, right, And we understand that
22:12
the Wexner connection is a lot deeper than people have
22:17
talked about. We understand that Wexner is a lynchpin in
22:19
this whole entire thing, and Wexner is a big time
22:23
player within the megagroup, and we all understand what's going
22:27
on here. We understand why Wexner was out front, right,
22:30
I mean, Wexner was the face. He was the face
22:32
of this whole entire thing from the aspect of the megagroup.
22:36
He was, you know, the contact for Epstein, and then
22:39
him and Epstein became super close. That's the way I
22:43
see it. That's certainly my opinion of the situation of
22:45
how it unfolded. As mister Epstein explains it, he provides
22:51
a specialized form of super elite financial advice. Yeah, okay,
22:55
I'll translate that for you. A fantastic way to launder
22:58
your money and wash it. That's certainly what I believe
23:01
about the case. Right, these guys weren't given Epstein his money.
23:04
You know, he's not a Warren Buffett, right, He's not
23:07
the oracle from Omaha. This guy isn't some stock guru.
23:13
In my opinion, they were giving him this money so
23:15
he could wash it and then give it back to
23:18
them clean my opinion. Obviously, don't have any evidence to
23:22
back that up, right, But when you look at all
23:24
the banks and all the wacky transfers of money that
23:27
are going nowhere, that disappear in thin air. Yeah, oh,
23:30
come on, you don't have to be a forensic accountant
23:32
to put two and two together. He counsels people on
23:38
everything from taxes and trust to prenuptial agreements and paternity suits,
23:43
and even provides interior decorating tips for private jets. Boy,
23:47
he's just a well versed guy. Haun the just a
23:49
Swiss army knife of information for the upper crust industry.
23:58
Sources says he charges flat annual fees ranging from twenty
24:01
five million to more than one hundred million. As it
24:04
became clear that he was headed for jail, mister Epstein
24:07
has tried to put on a brave face. Oh poor
24:09
mister Epstein. Feel bad for him, the rich guy from
24:13
Coney Island who is gonna go to jail now, And
24:15
we should all really feel bad for him, Yeah right,
24:19
yeah right, everybody should have been cheering that this guy
24:22
was going to jail. Unfortunately, nobody understood that he was
24:25
going to get such a little slap on the wrist, right,
24:28
and certainly the survivors didn't know that he was going
24:31
to get just a slap on the wrist. So you know,
24:35
it's sick. It's sick to eat this and the way
24:37
this is so slanted, as you know, painting him in
24:44
a decent light, because there's nothing about the man that
24:47
was decent. Your body can be confined, but not your mind,
24:52
he said in a recent interview by phone. Oh yeah,
24:55
what words of wisdom from Jeffrey Epstein. But the strains
24:59
were showing. I am anxious, he said in another recent interview,
25:02
referring to how inmates would treat him. I make a
25:04
great effort to treat people equally, but I recognize that
25:07
I might be perceived as one of the New York
25:10
arrogant rich. First of all, you never treated anyone equally.
25:13
You treated people like dirt. Second of all, you might
25:16
be perceived as one of the New York arrogant rich bro.
25:19
You embodied the rich New York arrogant people. Okay, you
25:24
are the face of every one of them. Now, they
25:27
might not all be running around involved in you know,
25:30
human trafficking rings and abusing children, but they're all the same,
25:35
have the same mindset as you, a me first consolidation
25:38
of power, burn everything mindset. And it's gross. It's gross.
25:44
And to be honest, if Jeffrey Epstein ever was served
25:48
up real prison time and was ever put on in
25:50
the actual yard, dude wouldn't have made it. Dude would
25:53
have been killed real quick. He would have been killed
25:55
by other inmates or heavily assaulted by other inmates. And
25:59
has nothing to do with you being part of the
26:00
New York arrogant rich had everything to do with your crimes. Jill,
26:06
will certainly be a big change, Yeah right, Noah, won't
26:09
again trying to pump it up. This guy's trying to
26:11
pump it like Jeffrey Epstein's really gonna be punished, like
26:13
he's gonna be around other inmates, like he's really gonna
26:15
do time, when in reality none of that was going
26:18
to occur. Mister Epstein is a man of precise, at
26:23
times unconventional habits. He starts his mornings with the secret
26:27
ingredient brand muffin prepared by his chef, Really a secret
26:31
ingredient brand muffin. Give me a break. Too bad he
26:35
didn't choke on it. He seems to have a germ phobia.
26:40
Highly doubt that he never wears a suit, preferring monogram
26:43
sweatsuits and jeans. Yeah, he always dressed like some weird, unkept,
26:47
bummy ass older dude. Right, like the dude you'd see
26:50
at the park peeping on girls. Should have known by
26:52
his outfits that he was a creeper. The stupid monogram shoes,
26:56
the sweat pants, the popped collar. Take it all right, buddy.
27:03
And he rarely attends meetings. I never have to be anywhere,
27:06
he tells his pilots when he cautions them to avoid
27:09
flying through chancey weather. Looking back, mister Epstein's admits that
27:13
his behavior was inappropriate. I am not blameless, he said.
27:16
He said he has taken steps to make sure the
27:18
same thing never happens again. He had by paying everybody off. Wow, this,
27:23
I mean, he doesn't even get called out talk about
27:25
Look at the softball interview here. It's just I can't
27:30
reiterate enough how disgusting this is. That this interview was
27:33
in the New York Times. This is the sort of
27:36
garbage that The New York Times and The Washington Post
27:39
that they love to do. This is the kind of
27:42
the garbage that they always do for starters. Mister Epstein
27:47
has hired a full time mail massage therapist. The man
27:51
happens to be a former Ultimate Fighting Champion. He has
27:55
also organized what he calls a board of directors of
27:57
friends to counsel him on his behavior. And we know
28:00
that's a lie because the supposed masseuse is actually the bodyguard,
28:06
and he organized what he calls a board of directors
28:08
of friends to counsel him on his behavior. Yeah, who
28:10
was on that board? Prince Andrew, Jean Luke, Brenell, Sarah
28:15
Kellen Vickers, Gielean, Maxwell, Leslie Groff. I mean, come on,
28:20
are you kidding me? Right now? A board of friends? Huh,
28:24
We're gonna investigate ourselves. Everything is fine here. We're just
28:27
gonna look into ourselves and I'll have a board of
28:29
my friends hold me accountable, the same people that are
28:31
involved in my criminal enterprise. I mean, this is an
28:34
absolute joke, and The New York Times is a joke
28:37
for even running this. I mean, they should be they
28:40
should be ashamed. And when I talked about paywalls earlier,
28:44
and New York Times is one of the outlets that
28:47
I was talking about. New York Times should every single
28:50
article that they have about Jeffrey Epstein from here until
28:54
the end of time should never ever be behind a paywall.
28:57
That should be their start some of their penance of
29:00
this case. They should be very transparent when they're covering
29:03
this case and make sure that information is for anyone
29:05
who stumbles upon it, because look at the way they
29:10
pump this guy's tires, look at the way he was
29:12
inflated by their journalist. And we can say, you know,
29:17
there's a lot of criticism for Land and Thomas Junior
29:20
here this is a garbage piece, But what about the
29:23
editor that let this run. He certainly deserves some criticism
29:27
as well, or she deserves some criticism as well, because
29:30
this is a straight up garbage piece. And it's just
29:34
it's ludicrous that something like this would ever be run
29:37
in a place like the New York Times, but unfortunately
29:40
we see it all of the time. The symbiotic relationship
29:43
between the legacy media and the intelligence apparatus and the
29:47
powerful is just gross to behold. And it's right there
29:52
obvious for anyone paying attention to what's going on on
29:55
a regular basis. With the legacy media and the rich
29:59
and powerful and the intelligence apparatus, the way that they
30:03
siphon off of each other and the way they have
30:05
a parasitic relationship, it's harmful to truthful news coming out
30:11
and informing the population, because right now, more than ever,
30:15
we need truth. We need journalistic integrity, and we need
30:19
journalists that we can trust. But when you have articles
30:23
like this, and be it, it was in two thousand
30:25
and eight, but when you have articles like this from
30:28
the New York Times, you have to ask yourself, what
30:31
the hell is going on? And it's not like it's
30:33
a one off, right, The New York Times has been
30:37
not very good when it comes to covering this Jeffrey
30:40
Epstein case. Now you know recently, of course they've jumped
30:43
on board, right, everybody, everybody has jumped on board. But
30:47
we have to look at this cape, at this case
30:49
as a whole and where it was and to where
30:52
it's where it's come. And we've got to make sure
30:56
that we're keeping record of the outlets that were pumping
31:03
this guy's tires, because there was a lot of them.
31:06
So we have to make sure that we're always aware
31:10
of where we're getting our information, and even sources that
31:14
have been ironclad throughout history are not as ironclad as
31:19
we would believe. And unfortunately it's up to us that
31:23
every single thing that we hear at this point, because
31:26
there is hardly any truth anymore. There is hardly any
31:30
outlet that goes the extra mile to make sure things
31:33
are right. It's all about being first, it's not about
31:36
being right, and that's a big disservice to the public
31:40
and especially to the survivors in this case, because the
31:45
cover that was laid for Jeffrey Epstein for decade upon
31:48
decade between his servants in the media and people above
31:54
them in high profile positions in academia and business and politics.
32:01
It just goes to show you the reach that Jeffrey
32:05
Epstein had, and it should also go to show you
32:09
that this man was a lot more than just another
32:12
sex offender as he was referred to in this article.
32:16
If you'd like to contact me, you can do that
32:18
at Bobby Kapucci at ProtonMail dot com. That's bo b
32:22
b y c ap U c CI at ProtonMail dot com.
32:27
You can also find me on Twitter at Bobby Underscore
32:32
c ap u Cci. Also be sure to check out
32:35
Mine What's up everyone, and welcome back to the program.
32:39
Like many of you out there listening to this podcast,
32:42
I have a healthy distrust of the legacy media and
32:46
the divisiveness that they pitch on a regular basis. Now,
32:50
personally speaking, I don't watch any of those news programs
32:54
that you see on TV. I don't watch Rachel Maddow.
32:57
I don't watch Sean Hannity, I don't watch Carlson, I
33:01
don't watch Don Lemon. I don't watch any of that crap.
33:06
All of the news I get I get from various
33:09
different sources. And then you go through all of those
33:14
different sources, you read the news and you figure out
33:17
what's what. I don't need to have insert name here
33:22
pummeling me twenty four hours a day with their opinion
33:25
trying to gaslight me. But unfortunately, there's a lot of
33:30
our fellow countrymen who are completely addicted to this shit.
33:37
I know I have people in my own family that
33:38
watch the news just insistently. They just do not stop.
33:42
It's like an all day affair for them. And when
33:47
you have these divisive as broadcast hosts you have these
33:52
quote unquote, I'm using air quotes here, folks, newsreaders on
33:55
TV who are pumping your brain full of non sense
34:01
telling you that your neighbor hates you, this one hates you,
34:04
that one's the enemy. That shit seeps in and the
34:08
people who watch this stuff religiously, and again, it doesn't
34:11
matter what side of the aisle you're talking about here.
34:16
If you watch this stuff on a regular basis and
34:19
you're getting these bone headed ideas pumped into your head,
34:24
well you're gonna have a certain way of looking at
34:27
your neighbor, right, or you're gonna have a certain way
34:30
of looking at your country as a whole. But the
34:33
reality is these people that's how they get rich. What
34:38
you think there's money in, you know, talking about moderation,
34:42
You think there's money in telling people to stop the bullshit.
34:46
That's not where the money's at. And just look at
34:49
even content creators, all the people out there that are
34:53
trying to play on your emotions all the time and
34:56
get you fired up and telling you to hate the
34:59
Republicans or the Democrats or the unjabbed or the jabbed.
35:04
I would be very cautious of those people. We have
35:07
it bad enough with the government playing those games and
35:11
the legacy media play in those games. But then you
35:14
add a whole entire ass grifter class to it, and
35:17
you have just a Frankenstein of stupidity. And that's why
35:22
I just avoid it at all costs. I prefer to
35:25
read the news, I prefer to choose what outlets I'm
35:30
looking at, and I don't want some dumb ass sitting
35:33
on a TV yapping at me all day because the
35:36
reality is that person that's sitting up there that you're
35:40
spending twenty five hours a day reading or watching on TV.
35:44
I mean, that person doesn't care about you. That person
35:47
wants to get rich, and the more people that tune in,
35:51
the better their ratings are. Right, So let me get
35:53
some red meat from my base and any person that's
35:56
not explaining both sides of an issue to you, especially
36:00
in a place like Twitter, for example, if you go
36:02
on someone's profile, right you click on it, and their
36:06
whole timeline is just pumping nonsense propaganda for one side
36:11
or the other, and they're not explaining the nuance of
36:13
the issue to you. Well, that person is playing on
36:16
your emotions and they're probably grifting. See these problems that
36:22
we discuss. They're difficult problems, right, they're not black and
36:27
white issues. There's a lot of nuance. But you have
36:30
these people playing their tribalistic bullshit and a lot of
36:33
them are in the media, and well, what happens is
36:37
you have a whole bunch of people who don't trust you,
36:41
or only trust the people that are speaking inside of
36:44
their bunker within the Ecker echo chamber. And that's a
36:49
big problem with the divisiveness in society right now. So
36:54
today we have an article from The Guardian headline broken
36:59
and Distrusting, why Americans are pulling away from the daily news.
37:03
This article was authored by Chris mcgrel. Look, they say broken,
37:09
I don't buy that, but distrusting one hundred percent who
37:13
out here believes the legacy media at this point. Look,
37:16
there's a reason so many of you have found your
37:19
way to this podcast and others that are way bigger
37:22
than my podcast, And then why you listen to it
37:25
every day Because you're tired of being bsd with, You're
37:28
tired of being told nonsense and you can't relate to
37:32
these morons that are making millions and millions of dollars.
37:35
But getting up there and telling you, oh yeah, we're
37:37
for the people. No, you're not. Guess what if you've
37:40
never struggled in your life, you've never went through it.
37:45
Like my dad's funny, he calls it old poor, we're
37:48
old poor. There's gonna be a lot of new poor
37:50
people now and they're not gonna have to know how
37:52
to deal with it. But we're old poor, you know,
37:54
a play on the generational wealth. And there's gonna be
37:57
a lot of people that are really going to be
38:00
in for a surprise. This might just be another negative
38:05
news story, and if it is, there is evidence that
38:08
many of you will turn away in despair. Look, there
38:12
is a lot of that too. There are a lot
38:14
of people who tune out the bad news these days
38:16
because there's so much of it. And if you just
38:20
pound yourself and innudate yourself with all of this bad
38:23
news on a regular basis, it's bad for your psyche,
38:27
especially if there's nothing you can do about it. I
38:30
know me personally, that's the worst for me when you
38:34
have an issue and you're helpless to deal with it,
38:37
say somebody sick in your family, or that's the worst
38:40
feeling for me in the whole world. Being enable to act,
38:45
being enable to help, or being enabled to do something
38:49
to fix the situation is just the worst for me.
38:52
And I'm sure a lot of people feel like that
38:54
when they turn on the TV and they see these
38:56
issues that they have no control over. The Reuters Institute
39:02
revealed last month that forty two percent of Americans actively
39:06
avoid the news at least some of the time because
39:09
it grinds them down or they just don't believe it.
39:12
Fifteen percent said they disconnected from news coverage all together.
39:16
In other countries such as the UK and Brazil, the
39:19
numbers selectively avoiding it were even higher. Look, I get it.
39:24
This has been a wild run. We've been on folks
39:26
since this pandemic has started. Especially, this has been a
39:29
wild ass run. And people's mental state is not good.
39:33
When you put people locked up in their house by
39:36
themselves and they can't go see their family members who
39:39
are dying, they can't go out and be a productive
39:41
member of society because society is stopped. Shit's going to
39:45
be bad for some people. Some people were already on
39:48
the brink. Some people were on the edge, and this
39:51
was the little shove that they might have needed to
39:54
really put them into a manic state. Almost in the
40:00
United States, those who self identify on the right US
40:04
are far more likely to avoid news because they think
40:07
it is untrustworthy or biased, but those on the left
40:11
are more likely to feel overwhelmed, carry feelings of powerlessness,
40:15
or worry that the news might create arguments. The Institute said, Oh,
40:19
I don't believe that. Let's not act like people on
40:21
the left aren't out here actively looking for arguments. You know,
40:25
there's a whole lass, like litany of check marks you
40:29
have to check or you're going to be attacked by
40:31
the so called left. And when I say the so
40:33
called left, I don't mean real leftists. I'm talking about
40:37
the loud voices on the left that are no different
40:40
than the loud voices on the right. They're just pumping
40:42
out a different message, but it's the same core concept. Right,
40:46
hate your neighbor. They're wrong, We're right, follow us. The
40:53
Reuters Institute said that alongside the rising number of people
40:56
avoiding the news is a drop in trust and reporting
40:59
in the UA to the lowest point yet recorded at
41:02
just twenty six percent of the population. Well, that's your fault,
41:07
meaning the legacy media's fault when they're out here and
41:10
they're talking about Bill Richardson going over to Russia as
41:13
a representative of the United States of America and there's
41:16
not even a byline that he's being credibly accused as
41:19
a rapist. Then that tells you everything you need to
41:22
know about the legacy media. And look, my gripes are legit.
41:26
For those of you who have been following this podcast,
41:28
you know the deal. I've laid out my issues with
41:32
the legacy media time and time again for three years now,
41:38
so this isn't something new for me. But these people,
41:41
nobody trusts them, and that's because they're busy planned politics.
41:45
All of these activist journalists out there stuff that shit.
41:48
We're tired of it. You can have an opinion, but
41:50
save it for your opinion piece. How about you just
41:54
tell us the news? Is that too difficult? What it
41:56
really comes down to, folks, is all of these college
41:59
educator did jack and apes that run around and spit
42:03
the news at you. They feel like you're dumber than them,
42:06
and that they have to not only tell you the news,
42:08
but they have to tell you how to think as well.
42:12
And I've always found that super offensive. And I know
42:14
a lot of other people do as well. And this
42:17
is again another reason why people are going to alternative media,
42:21
listening to podcasts, you know, whatever it might be, because
42:25
there's no trust left in the legacy media and they
42:27
did it to themselves. All of this rang true to
42:32
Amanda Ripley, a former Time journalist and author of High Conflict,
42:37
Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out. She
42:39
confessed in a Washington Post column that she was embarrassed
42:42
as a reporter. To admit that she has been actively
42:46
avoiding the news for years. Ripley said, left her so
42:50
drained that I couldn't write. I mean, guys, I'm not
42:54
trying to be heartless here, but your job as a
42:57
journalist or as a person in the media is to
43:01
do exactly that. You have to follow the news, even
43:04
if you don't like it. I mean, you think it's
43:07
enjoyable talking about the things we talk about here on
43:10
a regular basis, and for peanuts on the dollar compared
43:14
to what these rich ass journalists are making. So please
43:17
miss me with that. The problem is these journalists, a
43:21
lot of them anyway, are activists. And while that might
43:26
ring and play well and check out with your base,
43:31
remember the loudest amongst us on both sides is just
43:34
a small percentage. And then the rest of us who
43:37
are in the middle or leaning one way or the other, left, right, whatever,
43:41
we just want real news and we want to stop
43:43
fighting with each other. But there's a big push. Every
43:47
time someone, you know, tries to mend the fences, somebody
43:51
tries to you know, bridge the divide, all of a sudden,
43:55
the attack dogs show up. Oh, you're hurting the cause
43:58
or and I'm real really tired of it. And guess what,
44:03
I know a lot of you out there, especially listening
44:05
to this podcast, you all feel the same way, and
44:08
you're tired of the bs, You're tired of the histrionics,
44:12
and you want these people to just do their job,
44:14
politicians and journalists. So she rationed her consumption, cutting out
44:22
television news altogether and waiting until later in the day
44:25
to read the papers. But it kept coming at her
44:28
on her phone and social media. Look, you're not I
44:32
know they're trying to set it up here for us
44:34
to feel bad for this woman who is a reporter here,
44:39
But I'm sorry, I don't you chose to be a journalist.
44:43
What did you think it was gonna be all Rosie.
44:47
Your job is to bring the harshness of the world
44:50
to the rest of us and to hold people in
44:53
power to account, not to do political hit jobs, not
44:57
to come through and push your own political agenc does
45:00
in every piece you write, because people are tired of it.
45:03
And guess what, it's not just me telling you that.
45:06
Take a look at the numbers. How many newspapers are
45:08
closing per week, how many of these newsrooms are getting
45:12
a shakeup. Look at what Gannett's doing with the opinion pieces.
45:16
That's because people are tired of being preached to. Just
45:20
because you went to NYU or Hohod or Yale doesn't
45:25
make you smarter than anybody else. What that says to
45:29
me is that you were just privileged enough to be
45:31
in the position to go to a school like that
45:34
doesn't make you any better than anybody else. And frankly,
45:39
if you take a look at the work that the
45:42
legacy media has done at say the last ten years,
45:46
I would be embarrassed to call myself a journalist. My
45:49
pronouns are not journalists. If you look at the Reuters
45:56
data and extrapolate it out, we can estimate that roughly
46:00
one hundred million American adults are not getting their news needs.
46:04
Met Ripley said, that's one of the first true things
46:07
they've said in this article, and again that's where people
46:10
like me and other podcast hosts and other alternative media
46:13
comes in. The results, said the Reuters Institute, is that
46:18
Americans are backing away. Prior to the invasion of Ukraine,
46:22
consumption of traditional media TV and print declined further with that,
46:26
with online and social consumption not making up the gap,
46:29
it said, and yet major long standing news organizations are
46:34
skeptical because their audience numbers just keep growing. Professor Emily Bell,
46:39
Founding director of the Toe Center for Digital Journalism at
46:41
Columbia Journalism School, said that while there are short term
46:45
peaks and troughs in engagement with the news around major events,
46:50
the long term trend is up. Well. Yeah, that's because
46:53
you guys have gas lit a whole entire generation to
46:56
think that everything you say is you know, word bond.
47:01
But the reality is all the stuff that they're talking
47:04
about is all based on red meat and divisiveness. Belle
47:11
said that in recent years, the total story read by
47:14
Americans has grown to be much larger than she would
47:17
have ever imagined, so I start from this position of
47:20
is this really happening? People say I'm sick of the news,
47:23
I'm actually taking steps to avoid it, or I'm not
47:26
paying attention to it. While one has to take them
47:28
at their word statistically, I would like to see a
47:31
bit more evidence it's actually Choue she said, And I'm
47:35
using that tone of voice because that's how I imagine her
47:38
speaking down to the rest of us. Oh, I don't
47:41
know if I trust you, if you atch the news
47:43
or not. And this tone right here, how she's speaking
47:47
is one of the major reasons why people are turning away.
47:50
The condescending attitude, no self reflection and certainly never a
47:57
oh I was wrong moment. They never do that right.
48:00
It's always someone else's fault. The Guardian's audience figures reflect
48:05
those doubts. Readership in the US rows sharply through the
48:08
first months of the COVID pandemic, fell back a little,
48:11
and then spiked to a new high during the twenty
48:14
twenty presidential election. It again peaked after the Russian invasion
48:17
of Ukraine in March, but the Guardian's US long term
48:21
trend is up, and even when readership falls back, it
48:25
remains significantly higher than before the pandemic. Bell also pointed
48:30
out that although younger people may be turning away from
48:33
traditional news sources, that doesn't necessarily mean they're turning away
48:37
from the news again. They are not, and even older
48:41
folks are turning away from traditional news searching out something better,
48:45
something that fits more with their views on life. Podcasting
48:51
has an incredibly strong young audience. This is a long
48:54
form storytelling format which really appeals to the under twenty fives,
48:59
which I don't think anybody could have predicted. Well, she's
49:02
not wrong about the long form storytelling format. We've been
49:05
telling a story basically for three years here on this podcast,
49:07
connecting the dots, so there's no doubt that people are
49:11
looking for something different. A couple of years ago, I
49:15
was teaching a group of undergraduates and they were largely
49:18
uninterested in the basic output of The New York Times.
49:21
But if you mentioned Michael, Michael Barbara and the daily podcast,
49:26
The New York Times Daily Podcast, they got incredibly over excited.
49:30
She said, Well, a lot of times, what's happening is
49:33
the people can relate to what these podcast hosts are
49:36
talking about, and when the podcast hosts are normal people especially,
49:41
it's more relatable because we're coming from the same place,
49:45
right we You know, I'm not out here. My audience
49:49
isn't the educated havad class. That's not who I'm talking to.
49:54
You know. I speak from my own experiences, from my
49:57
own life speriences, and if that resonates, great, But a
50:03
lot of these people, these journalists especially, they don't do that, right.
50:07
There's no back and forth with their audience. There's no
50:11
answering emails from their audience. You can't directly speak to
50:15
these newsreaders. For the most part, go up to try
50:19
and go and talk to Tucker Carlson on the street
50:20
and see how that works out for you. Now, flip
50:23
the script and try out with your favorite podcast host
50:26
and see how quick they stop and talk to you
50:27
in the middle of the street or wherever you are.
50:30
Because for the most part, when we're talking about podcasts,
50:33
especially indie podcasts, us hosts are just normal folks like you,
50:38
going through it the same way you are. It's possible
50:44
Americans say they're turning away from some news because so
50:47
much more is coming at them, but at the same time,
50:50
they still consume more than they ever did. Still, Americans
50:54
exhausted by it all, maybe increasingly likely to retreat between
50:57
big stories. It is also possible that people say they
51:01
are turning away from some news because so much more
51:04
is coming at them, but at the same time they
51:06
still consume more than they ever did. Well, yeah, it's
51:10
just not coming from traditional sources anymore, that's all. And
51:15
that's what the panic's about. The market is shifting, and
51:18
the powers that be they know that they don't control
51:21
the market where it's going, and they're freaking out about it.
51:27
Ripley said that she had been inundated with messages from Americans,
51:31
both in and out of the news business, who feel
51:34
as she does about what seems to be a relentless
51:38
barrage of negativity. Many of them said heartbreaking things. Somebody said,
51:42
I felt like my brain was broken. She said, Look,
51:45
you can search out bad news or you can look
51:48
for good news. Nobody says you have to be completely
51:52
locked into the media cycle every single day. It's okay to,
51:55
you know, disconnect, and I frankly, I would highly highly
52:01
recommend that get outside, go on a hike, go camping,
52:05
spend time with your family. Stop watching the news. It
52:09
is absolutely mind melting. One of the biggest issues we've
52:16
ever had is that oblong box that sits in the
52:19
corner of most people's room, with all of those brainwash
52:22
experts on it all day pumping bs into your ears.
52:28
Particularly with the pandemic, there has been a lot of unsettling,
52:31
nerve wracking news. You can't avoid it. It creeps into
52:34
every crevice of your life. It's invasive in a way
52:37
that it wasn't even ten years ago. Belle, who sits
52:41
on the Guardian Media Group's commercial board, agreed, the sense
52:44
of being overwhelmed, particularly with troubling and bad news, is
52:49
very real. It's exhausting. She said. People feel for their
52:52
own mental stability that there are a certain number of
52:55
things about which you can't do very much on a
52:58
daili basis, where opting out of the news might be
53:01
something that is very appealing. Look, people don't want to
53:04
feel helpless. They do not want to feel helpless, and
53:07
they don't want to be talked down to either. That's
53:10
a big problem with the media. But when you feel
53:12
helpless about something like I was just saying, it's one
53:15
of the worst things in the whole entire world, one
53:17
of the worst states to be in at least in
53:19
my opinion. Belle said that part of the problem is
53:26
how news now comes at us. Three decades ago, Americans
53:30
would read about the Rwandan genocide in the daily newspaper,
53:34
dropped on their doorstep, or heard about it on radio
53:37
and television, and then turn the page or listen to
53:40
the next news item. Perhaps they would have read about
53:43
it again the next day. The news cycles twenty four
53:47
hours now and again, with the TVs going twenty four
53:50
hours and the news stations on. It's bad for people's
53:53
mental health. And a lot of these crazies we see
53:57
out there that end up going out and shooting places up.
53:59
How many of them have been wound up by rhetoric
54:02
they heard on TV. Look at the dude who went
54:04
and shot up the Senate baseball game, James Hodgkinson. Dude
54:08
was all wrapped up on wacky ass uh political rhetoric.
54:14
Dude who went into Buffalo on flip side of that
54:18
wacky nonsensical white replacement theory and all this other bullshit
54:23
these grifters talk about on a regular basis to make
54:26
their bank accounts fatter. All of that rhetoric is disastrous.
54:30
It's all dangerous, and the people that are spitting it.
54:35
They should be real, real, ashamed of themselves. The way
54:41
that we have designed our news communications infrastructure is to
54:45
be absolutely relentless. She said. If I read one story
54:48
about somebody being made ill or dying, possibly because they
54:52
have had to have a COVID vaccine, I get fifty
54:55
stories about people dying from every single news outlet in
54:58
the world. So the overwhelming impression you could get is
55:01
that something bad was happening with vaccines, even though it wasn't,
55:05
and even though every single story was more or less accurate,
55:09
it was only representing a tiny bit of what was
55:12
happening in the real world. Look, I'm not getting into
55:15
any of that stuff. Ever. Some dumb ass sitting here
55:19
in his studio telling you about your health, Yeah that's
55:21
gonna track. Well, that's a good idea. And all of
55:24
these people out here that have been giving health advice
55:27
throughout this whole entire pandemic go get f't bro I'm
55:32
so tired of it. The loud voices on both sides. Oh,
55:35
the jeb oh, the unjab, oh claws schwab Oh, you're
55:38
gonna have nothing and be happy about it. Shut up,
55:42
just shut up. Molly Bingham, the founder of orb Media,
55:47
which reports on global efforts to create a more sustainable future,
55:51
sees an additional problem and a loss of confidence and
55:54
how news is covered. Well, that's because they lie to
55:56
you on a regular basis. That's why there's no confidence.
56:00
These dudes are out here pumping all kinds of garbage
56:02
lies every single day, and lies that are demonstrably provable lies.
56:10
As the Reuters Institute noted, there are Americans on the
56:13
right who don't trust much of the media because it
56:17
doesn't reflect their political beliefs, and so they turn away
56:20
or stick with sources that tell them what they want
56:22
to hear. Hell, hold on a minute, here, are we
56:25
going to be fill about that? Or maybe it has
56:27
Maybe it has something to do with people don't want
56:30
to be called names, derided, called enemies of the state, terrorists.
56:35
So maybe that's why people aren't tuning into your station
56:38
or reading your newspaper. When you automatically chop off fifty
56:42
percent of the people who are going to consume your content, you,
56:46
my friend, have no one will blame but yourself when
56:48
shit fails, And that's exactly what goes on. I mean,
56:53
come on, let's be real. How many of these agitators,
56:57
let's call them what they are, These agitators on the
57:00
news stations are sitting here and dividing people. Oh you're
57:04
a deplorable, Oh you're a shit lib or. It's ridiculous.
57:10
It is absolutely ridiculous. But can you blame people if
57:14
they don't want to tune in to Don Lemon or
57:17
Tucker Carlson if they have different political views, they feel
57:22
like they're being attacked, right, And for me, that's just
57:26
weird on its face anyway. It's like a bunch of
57:28
raccoons standing around trash can asking why everybody's attacking their trash. Well,
57:33
because it's trash, that's why we're attacking it. But Bingham,
57:43
who made a well received documentary about armed resistance in Iraq,
57:46
sees a wider credibility problem. There is massive simplification if
57:51
you look at the current conflict in Ukraine and the
57:53
way the American media has cast it in a narrative
57:56
we're all very comfortable with of good Ukraine resisting bad Russians.
58:02
But there's also this sort of cognitive dissonance because when
58:05
Iraqis were opposing the presence of foreign troops in their country.
58:08
They were terrorists, they were very bad, She said. I
58:12
think that very simple storylines are alienating because they don't
58:16
reflect our experience of the world. And that is where
58:19
the podcasting and long form comes in, where they just
58:22
scratch the surface. We spend countless hours on a topic
58:26
and we try and pull that curtain back and get
58:28
to the bottom of it as well we can. And
58:32
the idea is to have as much context as possible. Right,
58:35
but when you're talking about these legacy media outlets, it's
58:41
become a whole different thing. It's become let's score political
58:44
points for whatever party we align with, and let's carry
58:48
water no matter what, when in reality it should be
58:52
all guns blazon on all these politicians. One of the answers,
59:01
said Ripley, is solutions based journalism, and she has some
59:04
of her own. I've spent a lot of time talking
59:06
to people who study what humans need to thrive in
59:09
an information saturated environment. There were three ingredients that were missing,
59:14
and those are hope, agency, and dignity. Those are things
59:17
I find every time I go out in the field
59:19
reporting terrible tragedies, but I didn't always include them in
59:23
the piece. She said, Well, I'll never do that, folks. Sorry,
59:27
you're always going to get the raw here. I believe
59:30
that all of you are capable of dealing with it.
59:32
One thing that I could say about this audience is
59:36
that you're some of the most intelligent people I've ever
59:40
dealt with. That's for damn sure. From the emails I
59:42
get and from the back and forth I have with you,
59:45
I learn as much from you, folks and emails and
59:48
conversations on Twitter and elsewhere as I'm sure you learn
59:51
from me. And people just want to relate to the
59:55
people that are talking to them. They don't want to
59:57
be you know, talked down at or told hey, I
1:00:00
want you to do this or you need to think
1:00:02
like that. And for me, you know, that's never my deal.
1:00:06
My format here is I open the door and if
1:00:08
you choose to walk through it, then that's great. If not,
1:00:10
we'll move on to the next story. But the legacy media,
1:00:14
they just pound you down and then they try to
1:00:17
make you feel bad if you don't think like them.
1:00:22
All of which raises a whoy old question that is
1:00:25
stock newsrooms for years, do readers, listeners, and viewers really
1:00:29
want positive stories? Bell is skeptical. We often say if
1:00:33
only journalists would write more good news stories. This is
1:00:37
a horrible thing to say, but people tend not to
1:00:40
read the good news. She said. I think that's a
1:00:42
bit of BS. I think you gotta have a good mixture, right,
1:00:45
And that's why we do the That's Wild series and
1:00:48
we talk about some of the lesser, you know, heavy
1:00:52
deep topics that we do. You gotta find that balance, right,
1:00:56
You have to find the balance. And I think you
1:00:58
owe that to your listeners or your viewers or whatever,
1:01:01
to make sure that you're not having a stale, you know, content,
1:01:06
ship to them, make sure that you're switching it up
1:01:09
as much as possible. But if every time I turn
1:01:11
on the TV and all you're doing is talking about
1:01:14
Nancy Pelosi, well I really don't want to hear about
1:01:16
it anymore. I'm tired of it. For instance, you could
1:01:21
look at some of the progress that has been made
1:01:23
against climate goals. Now it's not thoroughly good news, but
1:01:27
still progress has been made. If you write a fairly
1:01:30
long considered piece about that, it tends to get fairly
1:01:33
low traffic. If you have a piece saying Britain is
1:01:36
going to go to forty celsius one hundred and four
1:01:40
fahrenheit next week. Everybody is going to read that piece. Well,
1:01:44
that's because there's a lot of people who believe in
1:01:46
all of the stuff the media tells them, and they
1:01:48
feel like they're having their confirmation bias scratched. Oh look,
1:01:52
my worldview is right, and everybody does that, right, They
1:01:56
search out the news that fits with their worldview. They
1:01:59
go with what's comfortable. And that's why I advise doing
1:02:02
the opposite. Go against the grain, get comfortable being uncomfortable,
1:02:07
read news from outlets that you don't like or agree with.
1:02:11
Read it all, then make your own decisions. Ripley acknowledges
1:02:16
the problem. I think there's some truth to it, but
1:02:19
I don't think it's the whole story. Increasingly, stories that
1:02:22
are hopeful, surprising generate curiosity. Those stories go viral. Stories
1:02:27
that offer hope, agency, and dignity feel like breaking news
1:02:31
right now because we are so overwhelmed with the opposite. Well, look,
1:02:35
that definitely is the case. We're up against it, folks.
1:02:38
You know I'm not gonna sugarcoat shit. Things are not good.
1:02:41
We ain't done yet, though what we're beaten. The party's over.
1:02:45
We should just roll over and say to hell with it,
1:02:48
not me. So for me, it starts with personal responsibility
1:02:53
with who I'm voting for. And I am not voting
1:02:56
for not one of these incumbents on the ticket here
1:02:59
in Nevada. No, not one single person who is holding
1:03:01
office right now has done a good enough job to
1:03:04
earn my vote. So I will be voting all of
1:03:07
the incumbents out. And I think that it all starts
1:03:11
at a local level, right. We need to hold these
1:03:13
people responsible. And if they don't meet up with the
1:03:16
ideals that we think our politicians should have, if they're lyons, smarmy,
1:03:20
sons of bitches, device of assholes, all they do is
1:03:23
talk about this one or that one and don't provide
1:03:26
any solutions to our problems, those people should be jettisoned.
1:03:30
The question is will that happen, because there's a lot
1:03:34
of people who have retreated to their bunkers, folks, and
1:03:37
who want nothing to do with anything not inside their
1:03:41
echo chamber. All right, that's gonna do it for this episode.
1:03:45
Hope that all of you are having a great Sunday,
1:03:47
and I hope that all of you have had a
1:03:49
great weekend. If you'd like to contact me, you can
1:03:52
do that at Bobby Capuci at ProtonMail dot com. That's
1:03:56
bo bb Y c apu Cci at ProtonMail dot com.
1:04:01
You can also find me on Twitter at b O
1:04:04
b b y underscore c A p U C c I.
1:04:09
The link that we discussed can be found in the
1:04:11
description box.