 All right, let's let's take some questions and we have a couple of wireless mics here So if you have a question just raise your hand and I would ask that you Not give a speech But ask a question. Yeah a question, but I I have this fantasy that some day There will be a day without Trump in any of the media. His name will not appear His picture will not appear that is a fantasy isn't that I know it's not it's not going to happen Okay, so dial it down a little bit Don't you think that there as you could maybe cover Trump a little less than you do and Relegate his tweets to an inside page or up or not mention them for a day or something like that I think that's what the Chronicles doing. Yeah, I mean, you know, we We don't cover Trump we have cover a lot of things besides Trump But it is I mean I on my phone I wake up and I see I get his tweets, you know, that's the first thing I see I got to change that did I tell you when I got a new iPhone I forgot to turn on Twitter notifications and I was like, oh my god He didn't tweet for a few days and then I realize I took a Trump vacation, but no, it's a it's a it's a great question, but I think it also It's a hard one, right? I agree I think sometimes we're reacting too much to his reacting in a crazy manner, but you know To the point about the actual things that are happening. They're important and these are real people I mean, I'm in the midst of reporting out some of the immigration stuff And it is I mean really deeply upsetting and important I think that we tell these stories and then we tell them in a narrative way, right? That we show people that we don't just say this is happening, but we show what what the real-life examples are Yeah, I mean, I want to break too, but I don't see it coming for another maybe Twitter will enforce their standard Yeah, okay right here. Yeah, find raise my hand Should we stop using we in the media? I've been a journalist for 30 years. Should we in the media stop using the word objective? I have Wondered for a long time. I've wished for a long time that the New York Times might stop using the word objective and Replace it with the word fair I've also wondered if We should stop running at for cover every time though we talk about somebody accuses us of being part of the liberal media because the last time I checked Giving voice to people who have no voice was the foundation of what liberal theology was all about thoughts objective I mean as as as you Journalists know there's no more complex word than objective and it entails balance and and and facticity and and disengaged Independence and and and being just the facts and so and So it's always been controversial. I mean since since the Yeah, I mean the time it was first introduced as a journalistic But Michael should sit is written about this as a journalistic norm. It was under attack at the same time I'm and Jim Rutenberg wrote a piece in the Times and said well, maybe we just have to bail out on objectivity I'm that same time my sense is that You just have to understand object I mean think about objectivity in different ways and understand it in different ways to my mind to say that the claim that there were three million illegal Voters is bogus is a matter of objective fact And it doesn't have the sound of what we would have taken as an objective fact Ten years ago or something but but it's objective It's a matter of fact and and should be reported and considered a matter of objective to my mind It's still an idea like isn't fairly not the term Linguist yes back back there some questions Yes, I was curious. I realize you're not working members of the Washington press corps But if we go to the title of the program the most dishonest people on earth and and enemy of the people and we think about his His conduct during his first presidential news conference where he Said to a reporter your fake news I'm not going to take your question or he told the Reporter from the Jewish publication sit down I'm not going to I know I heard the question. I know what you're right what you're asking. So I'm curious This seems to really try the objectivity again objectivity or at least the the fairness of Working journalists because you are the basic premise of your profession is Being challenged as being dishonest without any basis for it and How do you? How does one deal with that? That fundamental disrespect particularly where your job is to represent a Candid and honest portrayal of here's here's where it gets different member Jorge Ramos Okay, so we are in a situation as working people where we will be physically evicted in a press conference Okay, and and this So this is a new standard a new reality And that's why we're enemy the enemy of the people or the enemy of the state and the use use of that kind of terminology also is Stalin or Mao or Authoritarian Language And I'm afraid that that is a reality that we don't control That's not the reality we control it. I think that this will only be solved when whenever if the public becomes in some way Mobilized to change it But we do control what we cover and how we cover it and how much airtime we give and I will say that a conversation That's happening, you know at NPR and to my understanding in a lot of the networks is like do we just carry the presidential press conference in Its entirety I mean in general there's a question. I think about live interviews and news and you know if we're living in an era where people who are elected to public office are comfortable going on the air and just spouting Objectively untrue statements, otherwise known as lies Then do we let that happen and and I think that that's what I mean when I say maybe access journalism is dead right it used to be maybe even a year ago that the plum assignment for a lot of people was to be in that White House press corps and to be in the room when the you know spokesmen or the president themself were speaking and I would say that that is Still important and and we you know should be there I guess if they let us in but that the real reporting and the real important work is happening outside of that room And so that's something that I think that we're grappling with but you know the press conference that you refer to I mean I think we all on to these don't know if you all watched it live. I know I did Marisa. I think you did We certainly had what we would think Describe as an objective impression of that Sort of unhinged performance, but there was a big swath of the country. They didn't see it. They liked it They like because they hate us like you go, you know and so Is that maybe it is? What's the objectivity there? I mean, you know, it's just it's just opinion, right? It's how you perceive it It's like you said at the beginning you can people can look two people can look at one article and take very different things away from it Is that what does that matter? So can I give you example of I think a good reporting which came up in that ethics Conversation we had whereas there was a like was it a congressperson who made the comment about the Ninth Circuit? I think it was a member of Congress as somebody elected who came on NPR and told Rachel Martin 80% of Ninth Circuit court decisions are overturned which is not true And so that ran live on the East Coast But when it ran on the West Coast they actually stopped the broadcast and Came in with a voiceover and said that's not true. This is actually the number and then they went back to the interview And then they went back to the interview. I mean, maybe that's what we do I don't know. I think that that That's one way to do it, right? And it's hard to do in a in a I mean in a press conference We're clearly the president has the power like literally he's in front of the room with the mics and but it's but It is something that we have the power to do on live radio or on, you know radio and on broadcast and It's it is harder to do when it's live, but it's an option. Yeah, all right another question Yes, ma'am back there This is still pushing the same sort of question about what kind of stories get told and what don't I the audience I'm starting to feel like we're being gained that We we're understandably consumed by the Russia collusion stories, but at the same time The Mexico wall is being built the Dakota Dakota pipeline is being built these horrific appointments are being made. How do we? We we get a more balanced ear. I it's very very frustrating as a news junkie as I am to Hear the real stories about what's happening while all this crap is going on When you say more balanced ear, what do you mean a ear by the media or what do you mean? An ear that here is what's happening. Yeah, I think those stories are out there I mean, you know NPR covers a lot of them, but it's just I think it's the volume of stuff It's like overwhelming. It's you know, we talk in the news room about trying to drink out of a fire hose You know, it's just like what do you do? What do you cover? I think the Russia Trump story is really interesting myself Just because I have an obsession with oligarchs and and and the subject area But also because it seems to me that it's not in it still hasn't been put in the right context That is that that If if the military were talking straight, they would tell you Russia is our main enemy I mean just militarily because of nuclear weapons and And the number of them that are focused at the United States In our cut in the coverage is also I think a little bit neutered because we haven't talked about the fact that Reminded the public that the man that the president is saying is a better leader than Obama Kills journalists in his own country and overseas Poisoned a journalist with polonium in London has done all kinds of thuggish things And so the actual description of why this is important and why it has many people alarmed particularly in In the in the panoply of people that I talk with as sources in law and federal law enforcement or in the intelligence community Is that this is really unprecedented and and it's it's like Watergate upside down Because all of the issues you may recall that when as Nixon Nixon's demise was in a way because he alienated the FBI He tried to take this make the intelligence community take the rap for various things and they turned on it deep throat Was in the FBI? Well, he was the deputy director of the FBI. So so That's he's starting out going after these these organizations at the top and Beheading those organizations is as a particularly dangerous thing to do And I don't and and talking about Putin in the way that he has is I think a particularly dangerous thing to personally and and I don't think it's actually been told in a way that you Understand it that way It's more like oh, well, he was hanging out with Russians or this guy was seen with an ambassador What is it? You know the his Trump son said we get a lot of Russian money and we're dependent on it But what does that really mean and it's got people in Europe pretty anxious All right, I think we have time for one more question And I'm gonna let the people with the mics decide who that's gonna be and we're gonna stick around for a Yeah, I just Many thanks for an outstanding panel. Oh To what extent is advertising by the oligarchs and the corporateocracy Compromising the ability of journalists to tell the truth Do you mean in Just advertising corporate money Well, I don't know the ratings Trump has been good Financially for the corporate media in general and all media in terms of sales and so on and Advertising rates and so forth. So I don't know that it's had a huge influence in in one way or another In terms of what's going on other than giving him airtime It seems like it's more corrupting in a way the closer you get to local coverage, you know because Whether it's restaurant reviews or you know any if you lose your local Advertising by pissing them off by covering them in a way that Makes them just withdraw their funding. I mean I think it seems like corporate funding Funding of the companies is so much bigger and the sources of money are more diverse in some ways, but Yeah, I would agree and I would say I think that's like an easy Target, but I think kind of back to our anonymous sourcing conversation It's generally not like in media or in one organization of vast conspiracy It is one person whose ear You know who has the ear of an important reporter or editor or one person, you know in positions of power and certainly there's You know terrible instances. I think of journalists or organizations being sort of swayed by advertisers, but I don't think that's generally the way Bad journalism happens. I think it's sort of like death by a thousand cuts more than That sort of yeah, just I don't think that the the what's interesting to me If you look at the history of these attacks on media bias during the Roosevelt years Harold Ickes was Roosevelt's point man on on on media bias He was going after the the corporate that the department stores. He says the department stores and the The car dealers who don't want to report elevator accidents and and the the utilities who don't want to report things and so on but the the bias of the press for him was very much shaped by corporate advertisers and it's now what's interesting now is that when people talk about media bias They don't have that in mind. They have in mind rather these cultural dispositions of the elites and so Well, I want to thank y'all for coming to listen to some of the most dishonest people in the world Marisa Lagos, Jeff Nunberg, Lil Bergman. Thank you all very much