(news themed music) - Hey! Take some of this news,
that I have found, here. Here's some news. Some American news. The news being that American
news is bad and sucks. It's a beacon of truth, now
reduced to a dusty attic bulb. The glue that holds our democracy
together is a sweltering garbage web dripping,
salty runoff in the form of partisan hackery, and gutless
reporting and other metaphors. News? More like snooze. More like boos. More like pee-yews. I am figuratively on fire right now. Not to be confused with
figuratively in flames, also known as... - [Johnathan] Have you ever
seen him say or do anything that you would describe
as racist or bigoted? - So, the answer is no, absolutely not. You can't not be a racist for 69 years then run for president and be a racist. And what I'll say is that when a lot of the Democrats
called the president a racist, I think they're doing a
disservice to people who suffer because of real racism in this country. - Was birtherism racist? - Look I wasn't really involved in that. - I know you weren't. - Mm-hmm. - Was it racist? - Like I said, I wasn't involved in that. - I know you weren't. - Mm-hmm. - Was it racist? - Look, I know who the president is and I have not seen anything
in him that is racist. So again, I was not involved in that. - Did you wish he didn't do that? - Like I said, I was not involved in that. That was a long time ago. - The other issue that
often gets brought up in this conversation is that he campaigned on banning Muslims. Would you describe that
as religiously bigoted? - Look, I think that the
president did his campaign the way he did his campaign. - He did. - And I think--
- But you wish he didn't. You wish he didn't make that speech. - I think he's here today and I think he's doing a lot
of great things for the country and that's what I'm proud of. - Yum, that's good, and delicious! You might have seen that clip
of evil mannequin come to life Jared Kushner being humiliatingly grilled about Trump's racism by
Axios reporter Jonathan Swan. But the moment seems bittersweet mainly because reporters
flat out drilling into powerful people just doesn't
seem to happen unless the said driller has some kind of
ridiculous non-American voice. - You purport to be an
objective journalist. BBC purports to be an objective,
down the middle network. It obviously is not, it never has been, and you as a journalist
are proceeding to call one side of the political
out ignorant, barbaric, and sending us back to the Dark Ages. Why don't you just say
that you're on the left? Is this so hard for you? Why can't you just be honest? - (laughs) Mr. Shapiro--
- Seriously, it's a serious question. - Mr. Shapiro, if you
only knew how ridiculous that statement is, you
wouldn't have said it. - Hey it's my best friend Ben! Remember that? We talked about it for a
long while not too long ago. At first glance, it almost seems
like people from un-America are way better at holding
US politicians and pundits accountable for their
amazing horse (beep). Which might explain why there's probably a British journalist hiding
under your bed right now. Even Piers Morgan somehow
manages to occasionally hold our president kind
of accountable in a way we don't see from American media. - [Piers] The stats are so against that argument aren't they? - Well what are you gonna do? You're gonna take the
guns away from hunters? You have hunters-- - [Piers] No, I think you can have special licenses for hunters. And actually I sort of
subscribe to the view of the right to bear arms allowing someone to have a handgun or something for home thing. I don't understand, never have understood, why anyone in America needs a semi-automatic AR-15
assault rifle at home. Why do they need it? - Well a lot of them use it
for entertainment, they do. I mean it's really-- - [Piers] Are guns entertainment? - Yes, that's a brief moment
of praise for Piers Morgan. Here's another one of BBC's Emily Maitlis thoroughly hollowing out the former Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Just smashing right through him like a t-rex (beep) an iguana. And like a reptile love that knows no size restrictions, it is beautiful. - [Emily] I wonder why you didn't stand up to the president in the first place and say you're wrong
about those crowd numbers with respect sir, you're wrong. I mean that would've saved
your skin straight away. She used the term alternative facts. She was introducing a
second version of the truth. How dangerous was that? My point is, it became a joke, it became something that defined you. You joked about it when you
presented the Emmy Awards. But it wasn't a joke, it was the start of the
most corrosive culture. You played with the truth, you led us down a dangerous path, you have corrupted discourse
for the entire world by going along with these lies. - With all due... I'm sorry Emily that you-- - So what's happening here? Well to be fair, and also balanced, a word we're actually
going to get around to, it isn't to say that America doesn't have its share of truth-zingers. Axios is, after all, an
American show on HBO. Plus, for every clip you
can see of Sean Spicer getting Britishly dismantled, there's an equally fun American version. - What I said on that-- - [Megyn] No, no-- - Hold on, no, no listen. - No, no you hold on. Was that true or was that not true? - What I said was the
totality of the people who watched it online and everywhere. - No you didn't, we all
heard what you just said. - Yes I did, it just said-- - You said ever, including in person. - In person or around the globe. - Both. - Right, both combined. - No, no, no. - No should I look-- - In person and around the globe
- Around the globe. Correct. - [Megyn] So was that true or wasn't? - To witness an inauguration. - [Megyn] So you're still standing by it? - No, I'm saying that I could've done that a heck of a lot better. But the point was is that
what we are conflating with the number of people
standing in one position versus what I was trying to do, and admittedly not well,
like I'm not sitting but-- - [Megyn] And not truthfully. - [Sean] But, no the number of people who watched it live on Twitter. Hold on. (audience applauds) You know what, look--
(audience applauds) - Hey, good job, lady
who defended blackface. Maybe American media isn't that
bad at calling bull (beep)? But to be balanced-er
than previously balanced, maybe a fired Sean Spicer
isn't exactly a hard target considering that he was
perpetually rolling under the long line of buses his former
boss threw him under. Like, we could all probably take turns twisting his nipples for
a Superbowl Halftime show and get an overwhelming cheer
from all sides of the aisle. My point is, that there
is something at play that makes it harder for American media to hold fools accountable. So what are those things? And why do they make Cody so angry? Let's break it down with
three main problems. Jumping right into the first one while also saving the best for the last thing after I say after this
current sentence I'm saying. Local news is the foundation
of bi-partisanship. Oh and also dying. The fact that newspapers
and, more specifically, local news companies in
general are slowly dying is both depressing, seemingly unavoidable, and obvious to anyone paying attention. You know like, how our
Earth is also dying. It's like that, but with the truth. Except it isn't obvious, because
as Pew Research discovered, 71% of Americans think
their local news media is doing well financially. Something that is wrong. Very wrong. Very, very wrong. While there's a whole
lot to say about that in terms of how it
encourages local corruption, I'd much rather focus on something we tend to take for granted which is that local TV is watched equally by both liberals and conservatives, who tend to trust it
more than anything else. And why wouldn't you trust it? If the media company is local,
then it's filled with people who know the hardships
of that specific area. You'd trust a local restaurant or farm to make a good burger more
than a fast food chain, right? And while there's
certainly a place for both, imagine if your entire town was made up of only Taco Bells and Burger Kings. Not just as restaurants but like, if your kitchen was just a
Taco Bell and a Burger King which, I know, would
be pretty cool at first up until you've had your
50,000th Beefy Fritos Burrito. Still, the first 49,999 would be awesome. I'm getting distracted. The point here should be clear in that you're never going to see
CNN cover the mayoral race of a suburb in Middle America
unless that mayor is a cat. In fact, as more local newspapers die out, studies have found that
fewer people run for mayor. Which probably, you know,
explains why some places are down to half-feral
creatures with visible anuses. Ani? Anuses. And as people get less
involved in small town affairs, it actually adds up to national problems. For example, there's a study that found that factories and plants
actually have less toxic emissions if they are near a local paper that can hold them accountable. Something that will be getting rarer as one Duke University study
found that one in five towns do not have local news. Hey, did you know that local news stations used to have in-depth documentaries? Like, here's a half hour one from 1990 just about the pollution
in one North Carolina river that actually pushed local politicians to change their policies. And while these still exist, to an extent, they are going extinct. You know, because of all the
things I've already said. Oh! But here's a thing I haven't said yet. A decrease in local news
makes voters far more polarized on party lines. Which is something that should piss off both Republicans and Democrats. After all, if you hate Fox News or MSNBC for being politically slanted, it's partially because they are designed for a much larger demographic of people. Again, it's Taco Bell versus Burger King, Pepsi versus Coke, Disney versus... (groans) Point is, it's two
giants attempting to win the favor of millions of people as opposed to a local station simply calling out the bull
(beep) right in front of it. It is super bad because
as we moved to digital it meant that even local
papers had to catch up resulting in a situation
where less than one-fifth of local content is even about local news. And sure, this is a
problem in the UK as well and pretty much everywhere. But America is huge and therefore hit the
hardest by this problem. This is why Fox is the most watched news station in the country. Not because the majority of
Americans are watching it, but rather that it's the only
station selling a specific and hyper-partisan narrative. Meanwhile, the rest of America is split between multiple sources. While Fox had 3.6 million
people watching in 2018, that's only a third of those watching CBS, NBC, and ABC combined. So imagine if the people watching Fox, and really any major station, instead watched their local news. Now ignoring that a lot of
those local news affiliates are owned by Sinclair Media who force many to run segments
praising the president, but ignoring that,
watching more local news would mean a way larger
amount of reporters and personalities would be influencing much smaller pockets
of America instead of, you know, one loud Nazi guy. Oh Tookan Coral, you piece of (beep). This actually brings me to the next point. Because while Fox News
is clearly a problem, desperately trying to not be Fox News can also be problematic. What I mean is, while Fox has no problem with being a safe space for
those cuckservative snowflakes sipping on their gallon-sized
Chick-fil-A Lemonade, other mainstream media are
undergoing a weird crisis in the face of an obviously bad president. Mainstream media is obsessed
with being quote balanced. Fun fact, according to
a survey of 636 articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and
Wall Street Journal, between the years 1988 and 2002 the media gave an equal amount of coverage to climate deniers as they
did the scientific consensus. In other words, their
effort to be "balanced" was actually incredibly unbalanced giving way more exposure to a fringe and very wrong belief as
if it were equally valid. And while we've since gotten a bit better at covering climate change, it kind of makes you wonder
what new and fun things the media is trying to be "balanced" in their coverage about. You know like all the Nazis
that, just a few years ago, were being covered as the hip new bad boys on the right despite being Nazis. But surely we've come away
from writing doting essays on Richard Spencer and allowing him a national spotlight, right? Like, no? The answer is no? Okay then. Great. If you haven't figured it out, I'm not talking about impartiality here but rather giving equal
attention to both sides of something when one of the sides is objectively wrong
and/or toxic like Nazis. This problem has been
amplified by our president claiming there's a media bias against him, which he's kind of not wrong about, at least in that the
majority of news coverage about him is negative. More than previous presidents. And often that news is way too focused on his awful character than
policies which are also awful. And that's the thing
Trump is, objectively so, one of the worst presidents we've had. Like, you could argue that his historically low approval rating is caused by his negative coverage but in a survey of 170 scholars from the American Political
Science Association, he ranked in the bottom five
amongst Republican scholars. Like, I hate to break this to you, but he's a very bad president. The problem obviously being
that any of his supporters hearing me say this will accuse me of being unbalanced and biased. Orange man bad! But it's just, the facts. Orange man indeed bad. He just did a photo shoot where he smiled and gave a thumbs up
next to an orphaned baby whose parents were
killed by a spree shooter who was motivated by the
president's fearmongering. Like, this isn't a discussion. You can like some of his policies and his party and still
understand that he is, historically and objectively,
a dog (beep) ghoul. Which is why headlines like
this are super disheartening and should be changed even if they get mocked for bending to the liberal mob. But also, they shouldn't
be changed to this, either. Like, the problem with the headline was that it didn't give
people the broader context of what was happening and
in fact was the opposite. So a much better headline would have been "Trump Urges Unity
Despite Divisive Rhetoric" or "Trump Urges Against
Racism Despite Being... "You Know, Pretty Racist
Most Of The Time." You may see those headlines
as sounding slanted, but they really aren't. They are objective statements
about the president, who has openly said
and done racist things. A lot of racist things. Like if you look up the word racism and then compare it to the
things he's done and said, they fit that definition. - [President Trump] He doesn't
have a birth certificate or if he does, there's
something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now somebody told me, and I have no idea whether
this is bad for him or not but perhaps it would be, that where it says religion
it might have Muslim. And if you're a Muslim, you don't change your
religion, by the way. - He once tried to make a
season of The Apprentice where white people competed
against black people. We elected an objectively racist president who doesn't need to be praised when he does something not racist. But let's be clear, the media absolutely does point out his racism. I'm not saying otherwise. In fact they cover it a lot. What I'm actually saying, along with what a few
people have also said, is that maybe we need to cover it more? Like, the way the BBC
finally came out and said, "You know what? We're no longer going to "cover climate change like a debate." American news should just say "we're not going to pretend
like it's not a major problem that the president is a
compulsive liar and racist" and go from there. You know? Just try it on, see what happens. Like ABC and CNN and NBC could have little "Days Passed With
President Who Is A Racist" ticker clock on the bottom of the screen. Every headline could be
"Trump, A Frequent Liar, "Blasts Meg Ryan Or Whoever On Twitter, "But Is Also A Racist... Seriously "That's A Pretty Big Problem To Have." I know it feels like a slippery slope for the media to treat a president like he's objectively bad
because it comes off as partisan. But Trump is objectively bad
and should be treated that way. Especially when the
media's false balance is kinda the reason we're in this mess. (news themed music) 30 years ago, when Trump was still running for the nomination, he actually got more than
double the free media exposure of any other candidate. The rise of media coverage
happened between June of 2015 to February 2016, which
perfectly coincides with his rising poll
numbers during that time. It didn't matter if the
coverage was negative. They put him on TV more than anyone else, and so naturally, people assumed it meant he was a serious and important contender. Once we got to the big event, we were dealing with a Republican nominee who was not only racist, but jam-packed with cartoonish scandals and lawsuits. Specifically, 3,500 of them. And yet, in the interest of balance, not only did Hillary
Clinton's single email scandal get more coverage than
any one Trump scandal, but literally all of
his scandals combined. Like literally this is true
according to an analysis by the Columbia Journalism Review that found the media
had written 65,000 words on Clinton's emails versus 40,000 words on all the Trump scandals. Because lord forbid anyone comes across as liberally biased when
covering a presidential election where the Republican candidate is a provable grifter and racist. So glad they were so balanced and fair because that definitely
worked out for the country. So, why did the media cover so much Trump? Well, to quote the former
CEO of CBS back in 2016, "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." Thanks buddy. Way to light our democracy on fire and sell the sweet, sweet ashes. I hope the child detention
centers were worth it, champ. This actually brings me
to the final problem. Money ruins everything
and we should abolish the concept or maybe just
tone it down a little bit. I wanna go back to that
Jonathan Swan interview with Jared Kushner, and the fact that most of the headlines and
coverage and Twitter hype was specifically around that
one moment about birtherism. Because yes, it was an absolutely
precious moment in time. But Swan himself had
an even better reaction when asked about it later. - I'm not gonna complain
about what gets picked up or whatever but like, you know, when people see that one clip they think that that's the only... You know, it was such a wide interview. We really covered a lot of ground so, I just hope people can see
the whole thing as well. - Now you could argue
that he's using the moment to promote the larger show on HBO, but he's not wrong about this point. That interview with Kushner is filled with even more moments like
the one so widely shared. Moments that we should also be watching and keeping inside of our
brains in the form of memories. Memories that we can use
to make decisions later, when we vote about things. - Look I'm not here to
be trusted, I'm here to-- - Well you are frankly. I mean, to look at it
from their point of view, and you're a businessman, you always look at things from their view. You've got three Orthodox Jews. - Mm-hm. - On the negotiating team. Two of you have at different
points funded settlements, Jewish settlements in the West Bank. You've got the actions you've taken so far moving the US Embassy
in Israel to Jerusalem. You've cut all aid to the Palestinians including hospitals in East Jerusalem. And you've shut down the Palestinian diplomatic
office in Washington. I mean, can you not see why they might not want to talk to you and that
they might not trust you? - All right so there's
a difference between the Palestinian leadership
and the Palestinian people. - How many conversations have you had with Mohammed Bin Salman about the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? - Again, the discussions I have
with whether it's, you know, individual Palestinians
or with world leaders or with other people, I keep
those discussions to myself. The people who need to know about them in our government that are,
it's related to the jobs that they're doing, they
know about those discussions. But again, those discussions stay private. - But since we're dealing
with internet news that is focused on what's
trending and clickable, all of that fell to the side. And it makes sense that
Swan would be bothered by that considering what
happened to him last year when he interviewed Trump. - [Johnathan] On immigration,
some legal scholars believe you can get rid
of birthright citizenship without changing the Constitution. - With an executive order. - Exactly.
- Right. - Have you thought about that? - Yes. - Tell me more. - Because of that flubbed question, he was accused of seeming
supportive of Trump's idea to terminate birthright citizenship. And that accusation
completely overshadowed the rest of the interview, which had some pretty
powerful moments in it. - Conversely, I think if you were, from what I've observed
from the more successful interviews of Trump, if you
approach him on the ground at which he's comfortable. And then, you know, you
can ask something tough on the back of that. - You've got fervent supporters, they love you, they listen to you. Enemy of the people, enemy of the people. - They like me more because of that. - And boom. They like you more but what happens if all of a sudden someone gets shot. Someone shoots one of these reporters. - I totally-- - Honestly, like I don't
think you think we're the enemy of the people do you? - I don't, I don't. But if you gave me false reports, I would say that's not a
good thing for our country. - But don't you worry at all. You are like the most
powerful man in the world and if you say that word enemy, enemy. - I think I'm doing you a service. - When the scandal broke, someone at Axios leaked the
company's Slack channel, which features Swan making
this exact same observation. Despite the interview
containing a (beep) ton of relevant information
about our president, the media obsessed over this
goofy smile he did instead. Because that's what was
getting more clicks. In other words, for
better or for worse, Swan, a man who grew up in a household
of Australian journalists, didn't like the idea of
pulling only the most headline inducing parts of his interview. And while my mind reading
abilities don't extend to other countries, his frustration might have something to do with how the media works in his country. Specifically, that while they do have several commercial networks, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a channel that only gets its funding through the government and
contains no advertising. It's also just as watched
as the other stations, unlike PBS which now has ads. Of course the most famous
example of overseas and government funded
news has to be the BBC, which operates thanks
to a television license that citizens must pay for access. It's basically a news tax, allowing the BBC to avoid commercials. If you're British then this is a painfully obvious observation that I am bringing up right now. It's also something we
desperately need in this country. Not necessarily a federally
funded news channel, but rather a source of news
that doesn't give a (beep) about having to compete financially. You can see just how important
this would be when looking at how we've been covering
climate change over the years. As MSNBC's Chris Hayes once
pointed out on Twitter, climate change is a ratings killer. His tweet prompted a climate scientist to reveal that she had been bumped from one of Hayes shows twice
for this specific reason. So in other words, no one wants to rock the
boat or cover something that isn't going to get a lot of views. We can attack Sean Spicer
all we want, after the fact. But we best not be rude to the president lest he revoke credentials. Because no access means no ratings. Meanwhile, British media and politics tend to be more cynical,
less party-devoted. And that's probably at least in part because they don't have to worry about upsetting the rich people. (sobbing) - Won't somebody please think I'm-- - [Male Voiceover] The rich people. - And that brings me back to
that Jared Kushner interview which premiered on Axios which is American run and airs on HBO. Its co-founder has publicly
expressed his heavy dislike for the clickbait nature of digital media. In other words, much like the BBC, Axios isn't funded by commercials. It doesn't have to worry
about maximizing clicks or losing sponsors as long
as people are paying for HBO. Much like how people pay for a TV license. It's almost as if, perhaps,
more streaming companies should get into the news business. Like, just saying it out
loud feels extremely wrong and it doesn't change it
being corporately owned media and a big problem in a lot of ways which we've gone into on this show. But it's absolutely something that companies like
Netflix are considering and might be really helpful for. After all, remember how hard-hitting network
documentaries are dying? Well guess where they all moved to. And so, if done by the right
people, we end up getting multiple daily news shows
on streaming channels. Ones that have no concern
with sponsors and hype. Well things might start
to change for the better. What I'm saying is hit me
up on Twitter, Netflix. And take me into your warm
arms, you corporate monsters. (news themed music) Give me your money? What? Hey, thanks for watching, Netflix. And for you money, Netflix. And everybody else for watching. Make sure to like, subscribe, do all the YouTube
stuff, you know the deal. And check out our patreon.com/somemorenews if you wanna support us. And our podcast, Even More News. We got merch on TeePublic. We got videos that you might
not have seen on this website you're watching this video on. Thanks Netflix.
cody is breadpilled.
Some More News is one of the best youtube channels.
Manufacturing Consent expands on this, if you have a spare three hours
ive been rly focussed on the idea of starting a local paper/publication (we dont have any local news here now). this has 100% confirmed in the importance of that.
i think this kinda shit should be a top priority alongside establishing locally, regionally, nationally and internationally integrated leftist organizations.
This is kinda weird to watch as a local journalist. So here's my thoughts on the vid and the state of journalism.
1) Local News is dying: I mean kinda. Staff jobs are rapidly disappearing. But a lot of journalists aren't staff reporters. They freelance, or like my job, it's basically contract labor. So local news isn't dead; it's changing. It is still hard to make a living though. I have another job to help pay the bills.
But taking his point on face value, what's the solution? If newspapers aren't doing well, it's because people don't read newspapers anymore.
2) Balance as bias: I feel like this really depends on the outlet. Cody spends a lot of time focusing on broadcast news (which indeed is terrible, don't watch it. watch the movie Network to learn why TV as a medium doesn't mesh with news), but other outlets are much better about this. It also depends on the type of journalism. Not every reporter covers national politics. In fact, most don't.
3) Money: This is probably the strongest point and the biggest problem facing journalists today, imo. People don't want to pay for news, but I need to make a living. Cody says the solution is media not caring about money. The only way to do this is through government funding, which already exists. The PBS Newshour still does really great journalism (despite budget cuts forcing them to run ads). NPR is really great. We have non-profit news outlets like ProPublica. And other outlets are adopting subscription models like HBO instead of running ads, like NYTimes and WaPo. And Cody sorta props up BBC as a good example, but they have their own problems. Because they receive state funding, they tend to be pro-government in the domestic sphere. They only hold politicians to the fire when its other countries.
Other random thoughts: I kinda hate when people use the term "the media" because its so vague. It reminds me of when people talk about "The West," "Whiteness," or whatever else. What are you specifically talking about? Does Cody's Showdy count as media, or YouTube in general? Is Buzzfeed media or just Buzzfeed News? A lot people get their news from Reddit and Twitter; are we including that? What about non-fiction books and documentary movies? I feel like when Cody uses the word, he generally means broadcast, but that's only a portion of what we would consider "media."