Transcription
This is speaking of your wife. I was also going to put this up on the screen. Uh, she posted that in response to Lulu Garcia Navaro, who posted the New York, I'm sorry, the uh, the NPR story and the correction.
Lulu from New York Times writes, "One of the many reasons I love NPR is this duo fighting to take the blame instead of pointing the finger. A lesson to us all when we f up."
Molly replies, "Yes, they invented completely fake news and then published fake news and their explanation for why makes literally no sense and we love them because they're not pointing fingers."
Do you realize how bad the entire press corps is that it is defending this indefensible thing? And that the Lulu Garcia Navaro post is one of many, many from people in the quote unquote mainstream media who were again congratulating, patting on the back Nina Toltenberg and NPR for owning the mistake as though they had any other option.
But to be clear, it's a smoke screen. They're not owning anything. She's not even telling you exactly what happened because she's not actually explaining how that story got written in the first place and why it was that without double-checking the story just went up. It could be Mark. I mean, I think your explanation might be the one that makes the most sense. Sadly, she's 82 years old. They trust her way too much. Uh, they trust that she hasn't lost her marbles way too much, and she is losing her marbles.
But Chuck Ross, uh, over at the Free Beacon points out that she was fired by the National Observer back in 1972 for plagiarism. Later said, quote, "I was in a hurry. I used terrible judgment." And here's a quote that just crawls under your skin. "A young reporter is entitled to one mistake and to have the holy Jesus scared out of her to never do it again. Never do it again." That's back in 1972. Uh, so maybe, I guess it's a pattern with Totenberg, who also falsely reported that mask story that Neil Gorsuch wouldn't wear a mask and Sonia Sotomayor wasn't attending, uh, meetings or oral arguments because of it. And both Gorsuch and Sotomayor came out and rebuked the story. So it's a pattern, it seems like. Maybe she's losing it, maybe it's a pattern, maybe it's both.
>> Yes. Um, and in fact, thank you for mentioning that. I was going to mention that, um, the the mass story is featured prominently in my wife's book, and there's a lot of discussion about that. Um, look, I don't want to like go into it because, you know, I'm not one, you know, I don't want to respond to this sort of, you know, bad conduct by the media by reporting rumors and innuendo, but it is true that I have heard lots of things about Nina Totenberg over the years, things I wouldn't say publicly because I, I can't verify them. Um, and you would say this about a lot of different things that happen in the media right now. And like, to some extent, yes, reporters are human. You know, maybe reporters when they're young do make, you know, one mistake with plagiarism or whatever. But her career has been marked by, you know, one of extreme sort of bias and partisanship, um, on a beat that is, you know, incredibly sensitive. And she's gotten away with it because she was smart enough to get into a beat and develop good sources, um, you know, in an area that is very difficult to cover. So people just sort of tolerate this, and I, I don't think that that has at all been the right approach. Um, and and further, you make a really excellent point, but I mean, and then this applies to so many stories in recent years about how they're not being transparent at all about how they came about making the mistake. I mean, you look at so many things that have happened in the last 10 years. The media has just gotten like, you know, wrong back to front, reversing cause and effect. Um, you know, mistakes that made people die, you mistakes that completely ruin people's reputations and everything. Um, and the the response to this is the media right now is being attacked. Um, you know, we we're the the thin line between civilization and chaos. Um, you know, and if if the media, you know, is isn't allowed to, you know, do its job fearlessly, then democracy will fall. Um, and so the response to that has not been, oh well, increasing in transparency will increase trust, which will in turn fix these problems. It's been to dig in and and well, maybe no one will notice that we're getting a lot of stuff wrong. Um, and it is so toxic, uh, that they continue to act this way. You know, uh, you know, the New York Times never, you know, New York Times and Washington Post never returned their pullets for reporting stories on Trump's involvement with Russia where like every word, including and and the was wrong.
>> Um, you know, it's just astonishing to me that, you know, we have this situation where the media has gotten so utterly defensive. Well, I mean, the problem is is they're getting a lot of stuff wrong in the first place and getting stuff, big picture stuff wrong in a level that I, I, I never anticipated. Um, you know, and I, I, I never had a lot of faith in the media complex to begin with, but the fact that they're not just getting all the big picture stuff wrong, but the fact they have no desire to engage in behavior that would show transparency and rebuild the trust is what's really shocking to me. Um, and it seems so obvious to me like that's their only option here, and yet they keep, you know, turning it away at every available opportunity.
>> Right. Yes. So Barry Weiss, who I has made decisions that I've plainly disagreed with, and who has owners whose decisions I've plainly disagreed with over at CBS News, comes in and it's not even that they're upset about the owners. They will be upset about editorial decisions that are perfectly defensible. And then everyone else in the media is giving their peers a tongue bath for pushing back on Barry Weiss. And meanwhile, they're championing somebody like Scott P when he asks Lulu Garcia Navaro, "Well, what polls? What what evidence?" You know, I asked, "What evidence is there that CBS News is less trusted?" And it's like, you people are 10 years into the Trump phenomenon where the host of Celebrity Apprentice beat the former Secretary of State when all of you said it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. Here it is. It happened. You botched Russia. You botched Kavanaugh. Uh, so many, I mean, just story after story. The Hunter Biden laptop story, just completely flagrantly incorrect. And then not only are you lacking in fury over somebody making such a significant mistake, it's exactly the kind of mistake that makes people say, "What the hell is going on in these newsrooms? Why do I trust anything that comes out of them?" But then again, continuing to obfuscate in their excuse that you are championing. I mean, it is so insanely backwards.
>> Yes. And it has become, you know, the media is supposed to be a conduit, right? We're supposed to be the conduit between, you know, the institutions of power and the and the general public, right? And the problem is is that the media itself has started to think of itself as an institution of power. And in that regard, like they can't fail, they can only be failed. Like you mentioned Barry Weiss. I can't remember, it was a New York Times story or whatever, but like I, I read a story from a major news outlet where people, you know, some, uh, unsourced, you know, people at 60 Minutes were complaining that Barry Weiss was engaging in editorial interference.
>> Yes.
>> How do you engage in editorial interference when you are the freaking editor?
>> Yeah.
>> Like, that's her job.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, like, it's just absolutely astonishing the ego of these people. Um, and they,
>> who said that at, what did they, they were mad that she injected into a a CBS package that, uh, that Renee Good moved moved the vehicle toward the officer who ultimately shot and killed Renee Good, that she had accelerated toward, which, by the way, if you saw the video, I mean, it's actually not a red gold blue gold dress story. You can see that in the video.
>> Yes. But I, but look, you know, I, I don't care whether she did, you know, go in and tell these people to change what they were reporting. That's her job. Like, she is in the position of authority in that organization where, you know, she gets to edit and she gets to say these things. I mean, that's always been the way it is. And I'm sorry that your established institution doesn't get to tow a certain ideological line anymore, you know, and and, you know, and again, it's not like Barry Weiss is towing a particular, you know, particularly dramatic ideological line either. I mean, you know, she is a center-left, you know, lesbian who I don't think trucks with, you know, hard-right MAGA people.
>> But on foreign policy, but otherwise, no.
>> Right. But, but the fact of the matter is, is is the the not being able to say exactly what they want to say all the time and present it to the American people as gospel truth. Having someone look over their shoulder and say, you know, and question their assumptions is too much for them. And then like, and that's fundamentally the problem here. And this is fundamentally the problem. This Nina Totenberg story and was like, "Well, if Nina Totenberg says it, I guess so. I guess we don't have to check this."
>> Run it.
>> You know, run it. And, uh, you know, again, if you know anything about Nina Totenberg, her past, her history of partisanship, you know, and all these other things, she's exactly the kind. I'm not saying she hasn't broken major stories over the years, I mean, she has, but she's also gotten a lot of stuff wrong. She's been very partisan and other things like that. I mean, you know, you this was a huge story. Literally, no one else was reporting it, you know. Um, so this is exactly the kind of thing where you go back to the reporter and you say, "Hey, what's the story here? You know, what are your sources?" Whatever. You know, give me a good reason why we should rush this out. And it doesn't appear that happened at all.
>> In fact, the editors themselves don't appear to understand what's happening. It's like they're going back to Totenberg after the fact,
>> and being like, "Oh, what we said about how you got the story wrong is wrong." I mean, like, what on earth is happening there? I mean, you know, the inmates are running the asylum over at NPR, but I, that's been the case for a long time, I think.
>> Yeah. And actually, this is a great point. The lack of curiosity among people who are now taking Totenberg's apology sincerely and just accepting it and congratulating NPR for handling this major misstep with class, as, uh, the implication is from some of these posts. That tells you, if you're just a a regular American, that really tells you everything you need to know about the failures of media and whether or not you should trust these quote unquote mainstream media outlets because they are not even curious enough to poke holes. Some of them are. Brian Stelter has, uh, as I mentioned, Matthew Keys has, but if you're just uncritically accepting Totenberg's story and then congratulating her for issuing it and her outlet for issuing it without any pause and saying, "None of this adds up. It doesn't make sense." That's the lack of curiosity that has basically destroyed the industry over the last 10 plus years, particularly,
>> right? And it's it's not just a lack of curiosity. We need to get right down to it's a lack of like standards.
>> I mean, there used to be, there was a certain way that things were done in the media, and especially in the post-Trump world, like these things have all just been completely abandoned. You know, um, uh, when I, you know, was in journalism school way back in the '90s, um, you know, anonymous sourcing was incredibly rare, and there was a lot of discussion about where and when it was appropriate and stuff. And now it's just the order of the day, and no one questions anything about it. You know, um, there was a major story in Trump's first term where, um, there was, I think, a, uh, a, a, a leaked email to CNN where it was purportedly a Wikileaks email, um, released.
>> Oh, yes. The Manu Raju.
>> The Manu Raju report, right? Where basically it showed that, you know, Wikileaks had released a bunch of information that were of hacked Democratic emails, and there was an email reporting that Wikileaks had sent this to Donald Trump Jr. before it was public, right? And this is a big to-do in the Russia era because Wikileaks has ties to Russian intelligence, yada yada yada, and all that stuff was, you know, questionable. Well, as it turned out, CNN ran with the story. They ran with a story without seeing the email that purportedly said. So, it's literally like, "Trust me, bro." It was, uh, um, it was it appeared to come directly from the staff of, um, Adam, um, California, Adam Schiff's staff.
>> Um, and then what was crazy about this CNN story is, um, that two other media outlets immediately confirmed the story, including NBC News and I forget someone else. And no one had seen.
>> Kendallian, I think. Kendallian confirmed the Manu Raju story.
>> No one had seen the email. It turned out that the email had, like, the the people that leaked the the quote unquote email or or rather didn't leak the email and just gave CNN the information, misread the date on the email. So he, Donald Trump Jr. got the thing when this is all public or whatever. And like the whole thing was insane. You have people, you can't confirm anonymous sources, and then and then like, you know, this is journalism 101, and this is exactly what was going on. And then on top of that, they're reporting the contents of an email they had never seen. I remember talking to, uh, um, oh my gosh, my 50-year-old brain here is really kicking in here. Um, um, um, um, um, press officer for George W. Bush, who's now on Fox. Ari Fleischer.
>> Ari Fleischer. Yes. Great guy. Uh, sorry, Ari. Uh, I know who you are.
>> Um, anyway, Ari Fleischer was telling me about, like, he worked for some congressional committee in the '90s, and they wanted to leak something to the press, and they tried to leak it to the Wall Street Journal, and the Wall Street Journal was, "We're not touching that until you actually give us the document."
>> Hm.
>> And like, that's how it should be done. And Ari Fleischer was telling that story out of respect. Like, you know, you're dealing with the media or whatever, like, if they're, you know, you're going to leak something, like they better, you know, know what they're doing. And we're in this situation here where the idea that one 82-year-old woman can just report something this dramatic, and there's no apparent editorial oversight or, you know, um, demands for, you know, reparatorial proof of any of this is just absolutely crazy. It's nuts. That should never, ever, ever, ever, ever happen in a newsroom. And yet, this kind of thing happens with absolute regularity in the last 10 or 15 years. It's it's absolutely appalling. And as you know, citizens and consumers of media, we should be really upset and demand more.
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