 Hi, everybody. Welcome to the future of democracy, a show about the trends, ideas, and disruptions changing the face of our democracy. This week, Knight Foundation, in partnership with the Gallup Organization, released a poll of 20,000 Americans. Their findings were sobering. While Americans continued to value the role of news as a democratic institution and principle, they have become increasingly disillusioned with the news media in practice. Not only do a strong majority of Americans see political bias in news coverage, they are increasingly assigning intent to that bias. Majorities of Americans believe inaccuracies in news are intentional, and 80% say that news sources they personally distrust are trying to persuade readers to adopt a particular viewpoint. A troubling 8% believe news sources they distrust are actively trying to ruin the country. Trust in media has been on the decline for decades, but the intensity and character of this decline is new and troubling. And for news organizations, there are no easy pathways. The battle for revenue is intense. The news cycle is increasingly demanding. And the critics have emerged from all sides. This year in particular, we've also seen renewed questioning of journalistic objectivity, but not on familiar ideological grounds. Instead, from journalists, editors, and consumers of color who have challenged the contours of concepts of objectivity as a mask for journalistic practices that may omit, exclude, or implicitly condemn marginalized voices and perspectives. Today's guest works at the center of these intense forces. Lulu Garcia Navarro is the host of NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. And before that, she reported from the front lines in Libya during the Arab Spring and in Iraq. She's won virtually every award of significance in the profession. It's by great pleasure to welcome to the show Lulu Garcia Navarro. Welcome. I'm so happy to be here. So let's start with the easy questions. Okay. That intro was like, man. Why do you think people are losing trust in the media? What do you see? What do you hear? It's funny when you talk about journalists being on the front lines of this, because obviously there's a couple of things. I talk about this a lot, which is we're in this moment, where we are faced as a consumer of news, this dizzying array of information coming at us all the time. And we have very little understanding of where it's coming from sometimes, who's providing it, and what the point of it is. And so if you're sitting at home, you're just sort of scrolling through your feed, and you're seeing these bits of information sort of come to you unattached from their sources at times. And I think that social media, the way we consume news, has played a huge role in that. But I think it's easy to sort of blame the platforms. I think there's something fundamental in the way that I think journalists have been doing their jobs and news organizations have been doing their jobs that have led to, you know, a huge amount of mistrust. And I think this goes back. I mean, I think there's been huge failures 2016 and the election going back the Iraq war. I mean, you know, these are cataclysmic failures in the way that news organizations that at that point weren't suffering financially, that at that point weren't besieged on all sides, but really did not rise to the moment and did not rise to the occasion. And I think that there are legitimate reasons to feel mistrust and legitimate reasons to feel as if, you know, why should we believe what a particular news organization is telling us? So I'm sort of thinking about Iraq in 2016 is an interesting juxtaposition because it strikes me as more as a media consumer that the criticism around Iraq was, you know, the media didn't ask the right questions. There was a truth to be gotten. We didn't get to it. And as a result, we in some ways are still on this misguided adventure in another country. Whereas 2016 struck me, there was obviously the sort of failure to take seriously that Trump would be present. But I felt there was sort of another vector of criticism, which is this is evidence that I don't see myself in the media, you know, that people who live, you know, outside of kind of major urban coastal areas that also tend to vote Democrat, you know, people who actually sort of live in the middle of the country, the people who are feeling disconnected, who are feeling resentful of Washington and the political establishment struck me, they sort of saw, they sort of felt vindicated by the mist. Like this is the proof that you don't see us. Well, I think that they're rooted in the same thing, though, because the criticism and I was in Iraq during the Iraq war was that, you know, that there were again sort of being led by journalists who were very cozy with the administration, who were being fed information, who were not really looking, perhaps even to the people in their own news organizations who were telling them that things weren't the way that they were being fed in Washington. 2016, exactly. Yes, people did not feel that they, their stories were reflected, their realities were reflected and a huge sea change was missed. But I think it has its root in the very same place, which is who is staffing the news, where people were journalists go for their information and who they're in contact with, and also what they deem to be important news, right, what they see as valuable. And so, you know, I think what we're seeing right now to bring it up to this particular moment, you know, with the issues over racial justice, is that you're seeing a cry, not only from communities that are being covered, but from the journalists themselves from communities of color and saying, you know, we're here, we've been telling you that you need to reflect America as it is. You need to be in these communities, not just dropping in, not just covering a story when it's convenient, but actually having a relationship with the communities that you're covering. And so that I think is, is extremely important. And with the collapse of local news, that becomes ever more difficult. That relationship between the media consumer and the journalist has been fundamentally broken in so many ways. You go out there, you talk to people, and, you know, many of them now have never met a journalist before. That used to happen to me in places that I covered overseas, where, you know, they were these closed societies and people had never met a journalist before, and they're like, oh my goodness, when I went to Libya, they were like, I mean, they gave me a standing ovation. They were like, you're a foreign reporter. This is extraordinary. Hey, people will stand up and throw vegetables at journalists. Exactly. This is the difference here now. But I mean, you do meet people who have never had an interaction with the reporter. And the only thing that they understand about that interaction is that somehow you're there to get something from them, that you're parasitic, that you're going to exploit them in some way. And so a lot of time I find now, I have to do a lot of stuff on the front end to make people feel comfortable to say, listen, you might never have had this interaction. Let me tell you what the grand rules are. Let me explain to you how this is going to work, because I want you to tell your story, but I want you to tell your story in a way that you will feel comfortable on the other side of this. And that is stuff that I had to do in countries that did not have an open and free press. And I find I have to do this a lot more here now. I was sort of interested in how you approach this from where you sit, because I sort of think on the one hand, you're at the mothership, you're in the belly of the beast of Washington, it's a national news service. It's still got the B.J. Leaderman theme song, you know, it's the iconic, you sort of iconic. This is a painful thing to me. 1986, it's over. But right, so very more than reminiscent of a much more consolidated media environment. On the other hand, you know, NPR emerges in that consolidated media environment ostensibly to go find the stories that aren't being told to tell the actual stories of America. So what are what are what have you been doing to try to bring that value, you know, the value that's going to feel not that will feel maybe out of place in some other media organizations? I mean, yeah, I mean, I think that that's something that first of all, radio does very well. People are always telling me, Oh, I feel like I know you, I wake up with you, I go to sleep with you. This is weird thing because you're in their ear. It is creepy. Sometimes it is. But you have this sort of sense of familiarity and intimacy and connection that other mediums don't bring. But beyond that, that's what people feel very loyal towards NPR. But beyond that, there is this kind of duty. I mean, NPR suffered from the same problems that every other news organization has suffered from, you know, the fact that it is overwhelmingly white, the fact that for a long time it was overwhelmingly male, that the voices that you hear on air were not the voices that were reflective of the community. And there's a huge push now to try and get those communities to listen to NPR. But how do you do that? How do you take a legacy organization whose listenership is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly educated and and try and attract a younger, more diverse audience who isn't familiar with your content when you have, you know, a theme song from 1986. I'm kidding. But how do you do that? How do you bring those people in? And it is hard. It is hard to move that ship. It has been hard for all sort of legacy organizations to do that. And I think, you know, what I've been trying to do on our show is make people front and center, bring the voices of individuals and their stories so that when you hear a story of a single person, not a politician, not, you know, a mover or shaker, but just a person and how they are metabolizing this experience, that resonates to people. You can see yourself in them. You can feel like you are being heard through their stories or even better, maybe you are being exposed to something that you hadn't considered. Maybe you were hearing something about a community that you have no connection to. And that'll widen your point of view. And so it's a cocktail, it's a mix, but it is so important now more than ever. But there's tons of roadblocks to that. People get angry. People don't want to hear new stuff. Well, I kind of want to get into that, actually, that sort of what does it actually mean to really connect to someone, enable them to see themselves? I will say, I think we're making news. Like I'm expecting to see on Drudge that you're raising questions about the BJ Leaderman theme. So this is an exciting moment for the show. Oh, you clearly don't follow my Twitter feed. I love BJ. BJ, if you're listening, I love you. And yet. And yet. We'll cut that. We're cutting that out. But, but, but so, you know, in the poll, one of the interesting, so we asked people, you know, about kind of what sort of diversity would they like to see in news organizations? And I think that emotion is right. Everyone's got that emotion of I feel disconnected. I don't see myself that I think the poll very much validated that. But is, you know, there was, there were really big differences on what people wanted to see. The only place people were unanimous was not a lot of intensity to see more gender diversity, which I think just shows sort of how entrenched misogyny is sort of no matter how woke you are. We don't need more women. But exactly. I was, I was very surprised by that result. Well, maybe I wasn't surprised, but disappointed by it. But there was this surprise. Although some many were responded to the poll. I mean, so that's the even among women. So, but, but the, the, there was this big split between, you know, black Americans were overwhelmingly clear that they wanted to see more racial diversity in news organizations. And then kind of, you know, not symmetrical, but Republicans are prevailing the white were really clear that they wanted to see more ideological diversity in news organizations. And so, you know, again, as a journalist, how do you navigate that? Like, what are the voices you're supposed to bring in to connect to people when, when, when one person's diversity is another person's like aggressive speech act? This is exactly that is you have touched on exactly the problem that, that the media is facing. And, and I will say the media and I hate to say the media, because as you know, there is no such thing as the media Fox News is not, you know, NPR and NPR is not, you know, the dredge report. It's an entire ecosystem that has different values and operates in different ways. However, for the purposes of the conversation, it is really hard to sort of thread that needle. But I think more and more, and I welcome this, there is a feeling that journalists and journalism has always operated at its best when it focuses on a few core values, which are neither progressive nor conservative, but about celebrating what is, you know, humanity, celebrating people's rights, trying to amplify people's concerns, speaking those concerns to power. And that is not an ideological thing that is not either left or right, that is simply, you know, the job that we do as the intermediary between the public and authority. And so when, when we do that, and whether it is speaking about transgender rights, you know, that can sound, if you're a conservative, and I come from a family with many conservatives, that can sound like you are being, you're trying to push a particular agenda. But at the same time, you know, you are also amplifying, you know, other types of stories that are important to conservatives. And so this is the thing that is incredibly important. A lot of consumers nowadays, if my email traffic is anything to go by, simply do not want to hear something that does not align with their personal point of view. They don't want to hear it. And they hear bias. And this is especially for me as a broadcaster, they can't see my face. But if I pause in a certain way, or I might ask a question that's a little bit strident in tone to their ear, they hear bias, you know, I've been accused of being, you know, a Trump supporter, I have been accused of being a rabid Democrat. You're perfect. No, no, it's not perfect. It's actually not perfect. Because I mean, you know, I dealt with this in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where you'd say, well, if both sides are criticizing you, you must be doing something right. No, no, no, it just means you're getting your head ripped off and your limbs too. And it's not pleasant. And so what I always try to tell people is, you have to sort of, as a consumer of news, you are also part of this equation. You are now an editor. You make choices. You have responsibilities in this media environment about what you click on, how you consume it, what you pass on on your feed, you know? I mean, it is so important. And I have journalist friends of mine, my husband for one, who have passed on things that he's like, oh, wow, that just got a flag on Facebook. And I was like, well, did you check it? And he's like, well, I didn't. And I was like, well, you know, you should have. I mean, and it's hard now because we're busy and it's difficult. But we have to be responsible for the stuff that we're disseminating because we are disseminating news as consumers. I want to go deeper on that. So I do think that we should be thinking a lot about the individual responsibility for some of the broader forces driving this. So I do think the polarization element of this, that we view everything as being on A side. If it's not on R side, we're suspicious. And the stakes of every transaction are ultimate for everything. Now, that's something I think we bear. There's institutional actors that have a lot of responsibility for that. But I think we as individuals at some point have to say, we don't want to live in a society in which in which everything is at stake and every interaction, whether you choose to wear a mask or not is indicative of your whole worldview and therefore your design ability, you know, as a member of our society. I will say, though, on the on the news consumer side, I get antsy sometimes about the responsibilities that we want to place on consumers, not necessarily because I think it's a kind of victim blaming. But I sort of think the triumph of institutions like journalism, these are post enlightenment institutions is that we don't have to do the process ourselves, right? The triumph of knowledge is that if you're wearing the white lab coat, you're the doctor, and I don't need to know as much about medical sciences you do to get advice from you that I can use and get healthier. And journalism is a profession in that kind of way. We want people to trust in the process, right? We want people to trust in the process, but they don't, right? But they don't. And so I mean, I can tell you, come to NPR, you're going to get the absolute best information. I give talks all the time, especially to young students about why fact based media is so important, the fact that we have editors that check things, the fact that we go through things. And if we get it wrong, there are consequences for that. People get fired if things are egregious, if we plagiarize, for example, you know, that there is an entire system based around giving you the best information that we can. Now I can tell that to somebody, but if you still want to get your information from TikTok, like, you know, there's a limited amount that I can do about that, you know what I'm saying? And that is the problem that we find ourselves in, because as mainstream news organizations, and I can tell you, you know, in the past 20 years that I've been a journalist, every time there's something new, I can't tell you how many marketing people it's like, oh, well, you got to jump on Snapchat. Oh, well, you got to jump on TikTok. Oh, well, you know, and at a certain point, it becomes incredibly difficult to keep chasing, you know, diminishing returns as everything gets more segmented. And so I do think we have to come up with a better way of getting our message out. But to your point, and this I feel very strongly about it is not just up to the consumer. It is also not just up to the mainstream news organizations. There is systemic problems here. And I do believe that there has to be some kind of oversight. Now what that looks like can be very different things, you know, in Australia, the government is now trying to make compulsory that Google and Facebook give revenues to local to news organizations. You know, I'm not advocating for that. But what I'm saying is that the system as it is isn't working. We're seeing a collapse of the ecosystem here. There are news deserts all over the country. Trust is at an all time low. And, you know, we need to have some kind of discussion about what needs to happen going forward. And let's let's face it. At the end of the day, when you have a president who is continually attacking the media, who's continually saying it's fake news and your liars and your bad people and, you know, whether or not you believe it, that is going to that is something that's going to be injected into the bloodstream. And that is very difficult to pull to sort of roll back. I've seen it in other countries. I've seen it in Venezuela. I've seen it in Argentina. I've seen it in the Middle East, Russia. You know, once that rhetoric gets embedded, it is very difficult to roll it back. And it puts journalism and journalists in an adversarial role, which is not where we comfortably live. We like to be adversarial when it's when it's wanted. We like to speak truth to power. But we don't want to be media versus government or media versus the people. You know, we're not an institution that works like that. You know, we are of the people. We, you know, we're regular people. And framing it like that has put, I think, American journalism in a position that it has not found itself before. Yeah, I mean, to me, I think it's sort of the axis of adversarial. It's the adversarial axis. It's the who's the media versus I think what's what we the I think democratic institutions should be dueling with each other. But they should we should assume they're all working on behalf of the American people. And they're trying to do it in their different ways. And I think you're right. I think it's not helpful when you have elected officials questioning sort of the just the basic integrity of the of the institution, the warrant, the the raison d'etre of the institution. But let's go back to social media. I mean, what, what do you would you would we be better off? Do you think without social media? No, God no. Absolutely not. Let me let me be clear. And I'm a huge critic and I have been on the record for years about the perils of social media. But social media has done something really important, which was it was the first place where it amplified voices in communities and marginalized communities and allowed them to have their viewpoints be heard, allowed them to form their own communities, allowed them to to discuss things with one another. Of course, there's always been community papers, you know, that is that observe various segments of the society. But, you know, what social media did was was, you know, sort of equal as a playing field field in a lot of ways. And so, you know, you have, you know, black Twitter and Latino Twitter and, you know, all sorts of different things, horse Twitter, you know, people able to Mr. Red is the only follower. But people are allowed to, you know, talk to each other and communicate and express their points of view in a way that's accessible and open. And so that is really important. But what did we do? We allowed, we unleashed this incredibly potent thing. And it just kind of took over everything. And there was no guardrails. There was no training for young people on how to deal with it. We're trying to play catch up now in the most desperate way. You know, after the fact, we're trying to say, okay, now we need to put in schools, show people what's the difference between propaganda and basic facts, which, you know, we're trying to show how to be responsible on social media. We're trying to say, like, hey, anything you put on social media could be used against you in 20 years from now. It's being used in ways that we don't even know. And so, and so that is the problem that I have with social media now. And again, that is a structural problem. That is something that, you know, I can talk about what media institutions did wrong with the rise of social media. We gave away our platforms. You know, we didn't charge for them. You know, the public now is not used to having to pay for content. And we have no control over the algorithms that either promote or don't promote our content. And that is hugely problematic. But at the end of the day, you know, it was a massive experiment that we've all been undergoing. And we're only now realizing how problematic it is. What do you make of, I think in part because of the stakes, both the stakes of the COVID pandemic and the kind of the clarity around what constitutes accurate health information, where it comes from. We've seen some of the platforms take steps around verification. They've gone places I never thought they would go. I mean, they, taking down a Bolsonaro tweet earlier in the spring, I'm sure you followed the Trump campaign's Twitter account was shut down for a period of time after they put a video of the president giving health misinformation. What do you make of some of these more aggressive maneuvers to maybe not do the work of verification, but to your point, to use the, to actually wield the machine to better distinguish for the consumer between accurate and inaccurate information? Well, I think, I mean, I think it's long overdue, but it's also not enough. And it's also deeply problematic. I mean, you know, I mean, it's one of these things that is, it's many things. It's not just one thing. I mean, you're asking now social media organizations to have to censor the president when he when he does the same thing on Fox News. You know, so it becomes really difficult. And it seems selective. I mean, it opens itself up right to this criticism of, of, of, okay, why are you censoring the president and you're not censoring, you know, Joe Biden. And obviously, there's answers to that question, which has to do with the basic veracity of what one person may or may not be saying, but it does get into some difficult territory, right? What is political speech? What is promoting a particular point of view? What is a conspiracy theory? You know, are we allowed to say conspiracy theories? What are what is hate speech? These are things that actually in the United States, unlike Europe, we haven't really had to deal with. It's all been protected under this idea of freedom of expression. And there's also been a deep misunderstanding of what freedom of expression means. You know, freedom of expression means simply that the government can't shut you up, but a social media company can. You know, I can't go into a private person's house and say whatever I want, they can throw me out and they're right to. They're not shutting down my freedom of expression. They have every right to not have to listen to what I want to say. So these are all things that are being litigated in this very confusing environment. And we in the mainstream media sort of at the center of this, in a way insulated from it because we have standards and practices, you know, we have editors, we have an entire system in place that determines what we can say and what we can't say. The FCC, for example, regulates speech on broadcast, you know, I can't say bad words, even though sometimes I would like to, you know, huge debates about when the president said, you know, something about certain African nations, whether we could say it on air and whether we would get fined for that. And so, you know, we are having these debates all the time, but, you know, in the general public, that's a much more difficult thing for people to sort of understand. They don't live in this world where they're constantly parsing language and trying to understand where those things sit. They're having to think, I think, rather, we are having to think about these things in a much more comprehensive way. How do you, how do you as a journalist think about your participation in this ecosystem? And journalism organizations are producing a lot of the content that is the lifeblood of these networks. And then individual journalists are sometimes encouraged, sometimes allowed to use these platforms as well as a way to communicate and engage with audiences. And one of the questions we're getting from our audiences, how you think about that, you know, is social media for a journalist just the continuation of the practice? Is social media a place where you exist as an individual? There was actually just a study out this week that said that, you know, part of the challenge on Twitter is that a lot of Washington journalists are just talking to each other and they've created their own their own echo chamber. So how do you think of this as someone who has a platform and as someone who participates on social media? Well, I've always, I've had a long time a big problem with company media company social media policies, especially again, with the advent of social media, because what they were wanting you to do is to have a platform to have a sort of personality to attract, you know, listeners, viewers, readers through that personality, because that is really the way a lot of people communicate. They like you, they trust you, they follow you, they're more likely to listen to you on your particular platform. But at the same time, don't cross that line, don't express an opinion, don't, you know, don't retweet something that is problematic. And the way that that was being determined was really complicated. And you never knew where the line was, particularly, and specifically for journalists of color. You know, if you are someone who is African American, and, you know, you are talking about these, talking about the protest for racial justice, you know, you're gonna, it doesn't mean that you're biased, but you're going to be looking at this in a completely different way. I mean, when you look at the situation on the border, I'm Hispanic, I'm gonna be, you know, I am the daughter of immigrants. I am a recent immigrant myself. I just became a citizen in 2017. I'm going to be understanding that differently. And that's good. And that's important. And that's actually something that I bring to the table. And so these ideas, these old ideas of what is bias, what is neutral, that were determined by I'll be honest with you, sort of a particular cadre of white middle class men, mostly, at a certain point said, this is what neutrality looks like, that the white gaze is neutral. That is something that I think is really being questioned now. And, and we have to sort of push it aside. That said, because we are in this place, what everything is being litigated, it is so important to keep our credibility. And so I'm a firm believer in the middle, I really am. I mean, I have seen this in every country that I've been that has pulled itself apart, the middle, the institutions that hold the middle, the institutions that that say, we are not of the extremes. Those are the first ones to get battered down. Because once the middle is gone, then the extremes can go at it. And that is sometimes what, you know, what works, especially if you're trying to animate, you know, certain elements in society. And so I'm a real big believer that you do also have to preserve the sense of fairness at the very least. I think there are, there are sort of two critiques, and I'll try to frame them as sort of the most generous way to them of the of the of this of this discussion about kind of recentering sort of the dismantling the kind of white male neutral gaze that I would be interested in your take on. So one critique would be to say, you are correct, you know, the the neutrality is an illusion. But the problem is, if it's based on your experience, then how can I how can I as an editor or as an institution help you figure out the difference between adding context and and and giving your perspective. So that's sort of one critique. And then the sort of the other critique is a version of I think Barry Weiss's resignation letter from the New York Times, which is maybe the other view was not neutral. But now if I don't conform to what you say is the correct view, then I don't have a place. I'm curious how you react to those those two lines of argument. Yeah, I mean, they're they're interesting. But I mean, what I would probably say about that, and I'm not going to get into the Barry Weiss thing, although I have thoughts. But what I would probably say about that is that at the end at the end of the day, neutrality is of course, an illusion. I mean, nobody comes, you know, into into any job not having an opinion. That said, one of the great things I love about working at a news organization, like the one that I work for, and the other ones that I have in the past, is that, you know, journalism is about the clash of ideas. It's about coming to the table. And if you've ever been a journalist, you know this, you have it out with your editor, I've had screaming matches with my editor about why I believe something needs to go in. And then we will and then if we can't come to an agreement, it gets pushed to somebody else. Do you know what I'm saying? And it gets litigated. And I think the best journalism comes from that. It doesn't come from a place where my point of view or your point of view is privileged. And that has been the problem for too long, that a certain point of view was privileged. It doesn't mean that the white male gaze should not be a part of that conversation. Of course it should. As should mine, you know, as should the people whose voices that we're amplifying. I mean, it is a complicated mix. But my point is that that's where journalism does its best work, I think, where you have that push and pull. You have that discussion. And you can come out on the other side as to the greater questions of like, where are people's place? And if someone like Barry White should be at The New York Times and if there's some kind of orthodoxy. I mean, that presupposes that The New York Times is the only place to be. I don't, I mean, I'm sorry that she felt the need to resign. But at the end of the day, my point is that there are many, many news organizations, there are many places for a person like her to have her voice heard. And I don't know that The New York Times has a responsibility to, like anything, to be the end all and be all for absolutely everything. Neither does NPR, you know, neither does anyone else. I mean, you can leave a news organization at any time that you want to. This isn't the government, you know what I'm saying? This isn't like, I'm not, you know, we are representing the American people. But at the end of the day, this isn't a government tax, you know, payer funded job. This is something that, you know, it is a privilege to work for. If you want to work for it, you find that it is a place that you feel accepted at, you can. And if not, you know, there are other places where you might feel more comfortable. Yeah. And I was certainly, you know, wasn't meaning to ask about an individual. I think though, I think I'd get back to what you were talking about earlier. The question is, do enough people see enough of themselves in major news organizations that those news organizations can say, we're telling, we're talking to America versus we're talking to a small slice in reinforcing that small. No, I mean, I think, I think that's right. I mean, we can't. And I think, I think this is exacerbated in a lot of ways. I'm just seeing someone here speaking of Washington journalists in your chat, talking to each other. How do you describe the phenomenon of CNN analysts? I mean, and the person goes on. I mean, this is something that I talk about a lot, you know, because yeah, going on cable news and becoming a pundit, and it's the same people talking to each other all the time and giving each other the same opinions and then that gets pushed out everywhere. I mean, I thought the lesson of 2016 as far as I understood, and I wasn't here in 2016, I was in Brazil to be clear. But I thought the, I thought the lesson of 2016 was we're supposed to go out and get in touch with people and go to where people live and tell their stories. And instead what happened is like, it became the Trump show. And so like, everyone got sucked into this completely sort of what I think is a very problematic relationship where it's like, you know, you are symbiotically attached to each other. And what I believe has been forgotten and all of that is the wider narrative of the American people. So Ergo, why am I show? I'm always like, where are the real people here? Where are they? I want to hear from actual people that are not, you know, other journalists or pundits or people, you know, with opinions about what's happening. You know, I want to hear from actual people who are living something. I want to hear their lived experience. And I think that the closer we get to that, the better we are as reporters. Do you guys have, we have just a little bit of time left, but on that point, do you ever, do you have intense debates about like, look, we're just not going to do the Trump tweet today? Like, we're just going to, I don't care that that's what absorbed all of Saturday for America. We're going to, we're doing something different this morning. What's that discussion like? I mean, if you sit around our table, I think that that is the discussion. I think very early on in the Trump administration, I certainly felt having worked in other very places where there are a lot of, you know, political tension, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, you know, Haiti, you know, Latin America, Venezuela, Cuba, all these places, you know, I think it's incredibly important to sort of keep your eye on the rest of the country. And, and not let anyone, and by the way, by Trump, I mean anyone, be your assignment editor and tell you what is important. Things are important that happen in Washington. It is incredibly important to know what the policies are. It is incredibly important to know what the leadership is. It is, it is, there is no question about that. You cannot avert your gaze. At the same time, we have a responsibility to understand how those policies are actually affecting people in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. You know, we can't avert our gaze from that. And those two things have to sit equally. And they haven't been, in my view, they've been lopsided. So on that note, a last question for you go. Let's say you became head tomorrow of a major, you don't want to make it about any particular person, but a major news network on broadcast or, or one of the leading kind of national global kind of print digital publications. What would your top priority be? If I became the leader of a New York Times or, or, or NPR or something of that stature, you became CEO tomorrow, what would your top priority be? What would my top priority be? You know, I think I have to say our CEO has articulated very clearly. And I, and I 100% support him on that, which is it is to bring diversity into our newsroom and to diversify our audience. Without that, we will not survive. And, and from that, that goal, many good things come, which is looking at the kind of content that you have, looking at the kind of stories that you're telling, looking at the type of voices that you're getting on there. But you that needs to come with leadership, you need to say, that is so important. This is the most important thing that we do. And so, you know, yeah, that's what I do. Well, if you're not listening to Lulu Garcia Navarro every Sunday on NPR, your Sunday is incomplete. So please tune into, to Sunday weekend edition. You can also follow Lulu on Twitter at LourdesG Navarro. You can also tweet controversially. She does not treat controversy about anything other than themes on NPR. And you can also catch her on the up first podcast on NPR. That's npr.org backslash podcast, as always, we'll send all of this to you after the show. Lulu, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It was a pleasure. All right, everybody, we've got some incredible shows coming up to follow up on this conversation. Next week, we'll have Yaval Levin, a leading commentator and editor of National Affairs. And on, and then a week after that, we have the distinct pleasure of having Wade Henderson, the former president of the Leadership Conference on Human and Civil Rights, one of the great civil rights leaders of the past decades. As a reminder, this episode will be up on the website later. You can see this episode in any episode on demand at kf.org backslash fdshow. You can also subscribe to the future of Democracy podcast on Apple, Google Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, email us at fdshow at kf.org. Or if you have questions for me, just send me a note on Twitter at the Sam Gill. Please stay for 30 seconds to take the survey that's on your screen. And as always, we will end the show to the sounds of Miami songwriter Nick Counting. You can follow him on Spotify. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.