 Thought about it, but now that we're here together, Brett, you know I have the feeling that when you talk, especially when you talk from a bully pulpit, you know a high place You you can give overtones and undertones of what you say and it's it's not not by accident It's it's intentional that you can communicate at another level entirely for example We have had violence. We have anti-semitic act actions all over the country now at an unprecedented rate Only in the last few weeks of his term Why these people being activated? How are they being activated? Somehow a message is being sent and it's not it's not with the words themselves It's with the overtones or undertones of the words perhaps it's what you don't say that sends the message Do you agree? I mean when you make a speech from a high bully pulpit you are talking at many levels It's like an orchestra. It's not just one tone. It's not the leading, you know melody of the song It's all kinds of other communications now. Yeah, I would argue. It's mostly subtext all of all those presidential presidential speeches any kind of major policy speech It's entirely subtext and the literal this is one of the tricks that I've noticed being played lately is They'll go back to the transcript and literally it says something that seems palatable But when you look carefully at what that really means it means something completely different than what's being said Good a great example is in the Holocaust More memorial where the the Jews are mentioned as kind of secondary or tertiary type victims of this when You know, they're not even mentioned in the press release So this is this is the kind of thing where you say well, yeah, lots of people died in the Holocaust But who was the main group? What was the main group? And if you leave that out, you're sending a message Sending a message right any message. Not only what you say about what you don't say what you don't say And it's a long it takes you to say it. Yes came up several times like with the murder of the Indian Kansas City folks. Yeah in Kansas. Yeah, I find it extraordinary and it's it's not what I've concluded personally It's not a mistake. It's not an accident somebody's writing his stuff up and he's you know, I noticed last night when he was You know doing his was it last night doing his You know state of the Union if you will he was reading it from a prompter before during the campaign He was just going off the cuff Was he ever going off the cuff? But now it's from the prompter which means which tells you that somebody's writing it up And this exact subtext problem is coming up because the guy who's writing it up is writing the subtext Yeah writing the the messages that are going to be interpreted by the different interest groups and also I think it's dangerous to View a person's scripted Speech from a teleprompter as something Other than what it is It's a person any person could stand up in front of a group and read off a teleprompter and sound reasonable and rational Well, you really want to look at is when you're not doing that and what do you say? And that's the true Nature of the character. Yeah, and this all go this all points to the fact that in a free society Which you know can always be at risk? I'm always reminded of Ben Franklin coming out of Liberty Hall and was it 1789 and a woman who was waiting outside For the revelation of the big secret they were discussing in there She said dr. Franklin dr. Franklin what kind of government will we have and the answer was a Republic madam if you can keep it if you didn't keep it. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's fragile. Yeah democracy like people Misunderstand democracy as something that's supposed to be efficient and clean and it's actually the opposite Like the more contention the more voices in the room the better democracy is It's slower But you get a better end product. Yeah, now it's the vision of the founding fathers I think yeah, and they were so right about that but the fragility sometimes is greater what seems to be greater than other times People get frustrated about the speed to You know that how fast things happen like oh, do we really have to take this to both chambers of Congress? We really let's just write an executive order. That'd be so much easier And that's not that's not what we're in this country for no and and you can write an executive order It happens to be brilliant, but Humanity is frail may and it may I say Imperfectible And so if you give somebody a lot of power to write fiat executive orders next thing, you know Seen so many examples over the centuries next thing, you know, he takes the power and he takes more power It corrupts him and it makes him, you know infatuated with his own power and then Then you then you know that the founding fathers were right for reasons. You didn't fully understand True, and you also have to understand that even no matter how powerful a person is and need other people to carry out these orders and I think you saw with the immigration executive order how Froth that was for misinterpretation or overzealous interpretation or Confusion or whatever it was there are all sorts of problems because it was just basically dropped on people and Everybody had to just make it up as they went and that's that's not a good way to run government either But there was again a subtext in all of that The subtext is not only in the state of the union type speech. It's in an executive order That's vague and I might take on the subtext is that you immigration guys, you know, you've been frustrated a long time You haven't been able to do what you really wanted to do to do your mission in the way that you would like to do it And I'm unleashing you in that term. I've seen that term used they feel Unleashed now they go out they told now you can make arrests and they make hundreds of arrests of unlawful aliens undocumented aliens And all of a sudden the immigration services of different animal and those guys are unleashed That's what's happening. I think and what troubles me about that is that that's one law enforcement agency There are others too and there is the entire military to which is supposed to get 54 billion extra dollars in the budget this year So yeah, we're just sitting around saying the military is underfunded in the United States We really need a lot more money for our military like on the top of your mind all the time every morning when you wake up I mean, I frankly I think that Trump is is pandering to the military He wants them to be his friend and I am reminded of seven days in May the Burt Lancaster Kirk Douglas movie about a coup that took place in the fictionally in the in the White House in the early 60s and What you need to do a coup is the military and if you want to resist for example an impeachment process The military can help you save your office. So to speak. Yeah, that's what we would we have the power to do it? Yeah, so going on to the whole question of how well the press is doing in these difficult times So they're being charged with the enemy of the people that charged with fake news Nothing, you know, like the term fake news to confuse everybody about what's true or not claiming for example the New York Times and what even CNN the BBC the BBC is against him Incredible would you ever have believed anybody would ever say such a thing completely unprecedented and unjustified in our time How does the press react to this they must be really unhappy to be criticized that way Well, a couple of the big newspapers have turned it into marketing slogans Washington Post says something about darkness. I mean, it's slipping my mind like in You know, I'm talking about the in darkness we something or other and then the New York Times made their New marketing pitch about truth and how truth is uncomfortable and truth is difficult and Truth is in the New York Times. So they've They're actually doing quite well in this I don't think that's their intention. I don't think their intention is to make more money But I think they're responding pretty well, especially the Washington Post. I've been really impressed with what they've done It's a time for courage time for courage time for courage and It's a time for putting things into the light not for secrecy and Operating in the darkness and I think that's the Washington Post motto's essence is let's do all this in Full view of the public not behind closed doors and I think they have they have really responded pretty well the Regional papers the smaller papers. They're getting crushed by all this and how how how are they getting crushed? Because they are not really players in it, you know, like they're not players in the Trump Circus But they're the targets because they're in the rural communities. They're in the smaller towns, they're in the places where People will attack them for fake news or Stop buying advertisements. They can't attack Trump that way. They're limited Yeah, I mean the New York Times and Washington Post have a lot of resources. They can withstand this kind of pressure the family-owned newspaper and Duluth or something they're they're gonna have a harder time. Yeah, and when everybody in town is mad at them It's not a good thing for them. Yeah, and it's not it's not their issue. Yeah, their issue is covering their town and when the president of the United States calls the media enemy of the people and You have a bunch of like a mob-like atmosphere about that and I can really hurt a lot of people and it really hurts the the ground floor of journalism and Indo in so doing it hurts at all Because the New York Times reporters come from somewhere. They don't start at the New York Times Yeah, I started in Hoboken or something and then they work their way up and if there's no There's no minor leagues Then the major leagues aren't gonna be any good. Yeah, you know, I took a look at the stock price for the New York Times It's a very interesting examination and Over the past few months since they've been having this war with Trump or Trump has been having this war with them I don't think you know you could say it's mutual, but I think he's the one. He's the protagonist and all of this Their stock price has gone down I'm sure the circulation has gone up And so there's you know the question of my mind is the stock price down the circulation is up And they got all kinds of you know, what do you call it? They're they're trying to market themselves now they're coming up with deals and reaching out and they want to they want to get More people to subscribe. They're getting a lot more people and they should still haven't turned it into money They're they're an island in the storm The problem is why is this stock price going down and I got a theory I want to throw my theory at you. My theory is that Advertisers are a large part of profitability And if the advertisers are backing away from you because they are so somehow intimidated then you know You don't have as much advertising and then your stock price goes down because you can't make the same profit without your big advertisers You think this could be happening. I don't know but my speculation would be it's when you go to a partisan type atmosphere as opposed to a a centralized type media source that Appeals to both sides. You're gonna lose audience and revenue And I suspect that's what's happening like the New York Times was not being targeted as this liberal outpost and You know off the charts to the left or something and you probably would have more of a audience stability on the on the right side with conservative readers and conservative advertisers and People who support that mindset, but it's really the president has really set up this us versus them Mantra and if you're posing party calls them if people are advertising in the New York Times and their Primary customers are Trump supporters that could lead them into you know financial trouble. Yeah, I mean I don't know I don't have any idea if that's happening But that's that would be my speculation if you think about the penny press and how You know the money really came into journalism through this centrist viewpoint You know sell newspapers to the left to the right everybody in between we don't just have one side in our paper and Look that makes a bigger audience. Yeah, and that's I think getting fractured right now And that's that's what happens when you have a polarized society as we do Right after this break, I want to come back and talk about the the compromise that's happening You know it seems to me as we talked about it before the show began That a lot of people seem to be willing to give him a chance now because he was making certain rational sounds and therefore You know, they don't take the same positions on him anymore. They're not as quick to criticize him They're going along with the program. They're compromising the principles that they spoke of a few weeks ago I see that in my in my little world And maybe that's happening on a larger scale, but what if that is happening if it is happening, how will that affect? Journalists how will it affect this whole battle between the you know, these newspapers who have been standing up Will it affect their willingness to stand up? Let's take the short break come back and see what you think about that. Okay Hey, has your signal just been taken over or am I supposed to be here? This is Andrew the security guy your co-host on hibachi talk, please join us every Friday on think tech away I've got the Beagle sisters here with a healthy tip We encourage you to enjoy the food you eat this holiday season and keep it local and healthy Yeah, eat the rainbow and if you need any produce come to the red barn on the north shore Aloha, I'm Reg Baker the host of business in Hawaii the broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2 30 Today we were very fortunate enough to have a dr. Miller and her service dog muffin And we talked about the ADA and we covered some of the different do's and don'ts of having service dogs in your establishment And how to sniff out the fakes Please tune in for business in Hawaii on Thursday to find out all about service dogs. Aloha Yeah, it's we can't get a handle on exactly what's going on We don't know where we are in the tipping point here and where the tipping point is tipping But one thing I want to mention is a dead cat the dead cat scenarios when you have a business meeting and this is all driven Out of sort of business mentality. I mean your business being you make an outrageous position Okay, that just shakes everybody up at the table and they're just reeling and then you know you throw a dead cat on the table and Everybody forgets how outrageous your position was because throwing the dead cat on the table is much more outrageous It's the it's moving the news cycle ahead So you forget what happened just a minute ago and I think that's part of what's going on We're all off balance here because the news cycle is moving so quickly and some so many surprises and outrages if you will Are happening that we forget what happened and if you forget then you were doomed to repeat it Aren't you? Yeah, well, I think maybe another way to look at it is that he's pushing the expectations so far a field And when he comes back to some just wacky position, we're like, oh, well, that's not so bad That's a tolerated. That's it. Oh, we're gonna build the Great Wall of China on the Mexico border. Oh my gosh Oh, no, no, now we're just gonna build a fence. That's okay. Yeah Yeah, it's a business negotiation trick is what it is Anyway, it really it resonates for me. So going back to the question that the cliffhanger if you will be before our break You know if so are we having? Compromise now. Why are we having why are people who are so strong? It's marginal. It's not everybody But why are people who are so strong in their position the criticism of Trump only a few weeks ago now? Softening and saying well, you know, maybe he is rational Maybe he can come out of this and be a civilized human being. Maybe he can be a good president even maybe he can be a good leader even And I don't believe that Most people I know don't believe that but there are people who now are entertaining that thought and is you do you think that's playing around the Country do you think it's playing with the press? I I hate to be a cynic but I think that this is part of the changing narrative in media to keep people interested in the story if If if the president keeps doing the same thing over and over people get bored of it But we have this we have these kind of meta narratives in our society that we like to always go back to We have the racial algae or pull up your bootstraps one And then we also have the redemption like the prodigal son where you know somebody messes up messes up messes up Oh, but they learn their lesson and then they come back and now they're good again And I think that was the storyline last night was oh, well No, we'll forgive him now. Maybe he's okay 21 standing ovations. He got mostly from Republican So I don't I think part of it is this this changing narrative that keeps the people interested I don't I don't know if it's necessarily something that the media Organizations sit around and plot like oh, let's change our narrative today But they're probably think what's the most interesting part of this speech Oh, this is different than what we had yesterday. So let's play that story and that's how it shifts the other I think the other Big part there is that people want the country to do well. So you have this inherent Desire to not hate your president. You don't want the country to go into, you know, apocalyptic chaos you want Things to work out and every little kernel you get you kind of hold on to so wishful thinking is wishful thinking but it's very dangerous thinking because As history has proven many many times that these these folks in power No, aren't going to suddenly have some epiphany and change They're going to continue doing what they're what they've done to get to that power position and They might do small things that you like like the the Germans could make the trains run on time But it was not something that equates to some of the horrible things they did on the other end Yeah, I think we always have to remember this is the Trump show It's just like the apprentice. It's trying to keep the audience ratings high Trying to keep people interested trying to develop a persona that surprises you if not delights you and Every day you want the public to follow you and he's been doing that I mean what I what I just described is exactly what he's been doing and the press has been following it Some people say the press are gullible because they follow it and you know They bite on his bait all the time Even the New York Times the first 20 articles in every single edition. They're all about him after a while people You know become mainliners on what what what about Trump? What do you do today? What do you do today? And he's got to do something different organizations have bought into that too. Yeah, if if the president Had the same sane rational type of tone Tomorrow and the next day and the next day people get bored. So I'm predicting here on video that this is going to change For the next few days. I don't see this is like a permanent change. It's true. True. It'd be something else to Surprise and either delight or make us out outraged again But let me go to the the principal question. We're here for you know So we have now that I was just astounded. I mean if there's a stronger word I'd use it the astounded with the fact that he excluded known You know first-line media from a White House press conference that is outrageous I mean I've never in the history of this country or anywhere except maybe out of Nazi Germany Would you exclude known media? You know who are read by millions of people from a White House press conference and systematically exclude the guys who weren't you know giving him Kudos the guys who were criticizing him. They're the ones who guys put that is such a perversion of journalism and the truth and Democracy in general and yet he got away with it. Nobody sued him could have I I think could have Know the outrage was not nearly as palpable as I thought it would be what happened there Well to begin with it. They did it in a kind of pilot way. It was a gaggle Situation not an official press conference. It was kind of like a side Deal they had a pool reporter in there So their rhetorical play on this was this was a pool event and we weren't excluding These groups we're just offering a pool which means that one reporter Sits in for the others and this happens quite often unfortunately where There's just not enough room to accommodate all the media that wants to be in the in the place and One group will one one organization or a couple organizations will get chosen from the from the masses and and we'll represent everybody and then The agreement in that is that you give your all your raw media to the to the group and everybody can use it as if it's theirs Now in this case, I think they were trying to see what they could get away with it did cause a big uproar and I think if it would have continued there would have been lawsuits and and much more problems But it was it was outrageous now the question thing. I think the interest like the interesting dichotomy here is The president gave a very long press conference of a few days weeks ago where he answered questions for You know over an hour and he answered them from all sorts of people So that is actually sort of an unusual behavior in terms of you know, like if you look to George W. Bush or something He would call on the most softball reporters in the room and answer three or four questions and then skedaddle out of there Right. So this This approach was I don't know if he was daring people to ask him questions or what the situation was But I thought he could handle it thought he could handle it didn't handle it very well Handled it very poorly, and I haven't seen him do it again. We'll see if he tries it again, but I Don't think it's that unusual for presidents to try to call on folks that will be sympathetic to them Like my concern about what happened with this exclusion is that a the public in general doesn't realize What what happened and what that means? be I think as you said it's a pilot and When it when he wants to do it again, he will do it again and so we probably have a long-term track a trajectory on this and I worry that the press will be intimidated that it will affect their reporting Just as a practical matter is reality. Oh, I think that if you saw the fawning last night I think he would you would have evidence for that this was a President who met with the TV reporters Tried to smooth this out Gave this somewhat rational State of the Union address and then the TV particularly a TV cable news type folks were fawning over The speech like it was, you know the Gettysburg address or something. He's playing them. Yeah, it was a really It was here talk about Astounded or astonished or shocked to see the fauney and so quickly he turned that's what disturbed me It's a practical thing. It's a business thing. It's a money thing is protecting their organization from economic being economically undermined And I wonder you know going forward if this kind of thing happens where they get played and he plays his good cop bad cop thing You know and tries to manipulate them sort of say to masochistically into being intimidated and winning by intimidation as his style What happens to about democracy you have one minute? Well, I mean the troubling part of this is all the behind-the-scenes Maneuvering where the press secretary will say oh, you don't you don't want to do this story Well, I'm going to pitch this over to so-and-so your competitor and give them a scoop that you can't have And there's all sorts of that stuff going on including a planted story recently to disparage a reporter I'm forgetting his name, but basically the the idea was there was a conference call. There was some kind of question asked the reporter laughed at Sean Spicer's response and The press secretary turned it into laughing at the The issue which was about a fallen soldier And tried to plant the story that the reporter is laughing at the death of the soldier And that actually got published and so these kinds of talk about intimidation I mean you think the white house is going to plant stories about you Laughing at the death of a soldier. You can only imagine the trolls that came after that reporter I think it's a really serious threat to democracy And we we have to I mean it's easy for us you and I to sit and say we got to support journalism But it's really going to come down to the bigger audience. You know, are you going to Support your newspaper and support your websites you visit to or you're going to Rally for journalists and media coverage or are you going to let them just take the beating and And you're suffer the consequences as well I'm with you Brett. I remember my own experience Oh during one of those Gulf wars driving into Kaniyia base and I would say With lots of passion in my heart. I would say to the century there. Thank you. Yeah every time. Yeah, thank you And I think we should say thank you to the press when they are courageous And we should encourage them to be courageous every bloody one Because they're human beings and they're getting up and they have families they have Issues outside of work They're taking this punishment And the reward is very small. So Gratitudes of start and Also advocacy for journalists and the first amendment. Yeah When something like this happens, you know Call your senators and say, you know, you don't accept it. Yeah And that goes for, you know, we should love the press. We should support the press We should be more action active, you know in in supporting them and giving them courage And the same thing with with those guys who teach journalism that you wage my dollar That means you Brett Brett Opengard our regular contributor on such things. Thank you so much