Best of the Program | Guest: Robby Soave | 1/23/20

Hey, welcome to the podcast.

This is a show that's not going to fall in line with what Joe Biden says we should.

They're telling you about this crazy memo that came out yesterday to the media, and they're fine with it.

They're totally fine.

Also, Adam Schiff, apparently, student, you know this?

There could be a ground invasion in the United States.

We don't know.

Oh my gosh.

We don't know if we don't impeach President Trump.

I've seen documentaries on this.

This is what?

Red Dawn.

No, that wasn't a documentary.

No, I'm pretty sure.

There's two different documentaries on it.

One from the 80s, one recently.

No.

Anyway, that's crazy talk.

Also, I'll tell you why Bernie Sanders will not win in Iowa, but what the Democrats are actually searching for.

And nobody is breaking this down the way they should.

We have that also.

The media

having to remove Trump for the sake of the 2020 election.

Charlie Kirk joins us for a few minutes.

And the China virus.

You're listening to the best of the Blendback program.

Joe Biden's presidential campaign has issued a warning to reporters and editors in a memo demanding that they debunk the claims of corruption against him.

The memo titled, The Imperative for Honest Coverage of Trump's Ukraine Conspiracy Theory deals specifically with the charge that then Vice President Joe Biden, as the Obama administration's point man in Ukraine, pushed for a Ukrainian prosecutor to be fired by threatening to withhold aid to the country.

Wait, wait,

wait.

The fired prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was reportedly removed at the same time he was investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company.

According to the Biden campaign, Trump's impeachment was due in large part to his efforts to spread this theory.

According to the memo, quote, Trump's objective was to pressure the Ukrainian government into spreading a malicious and conclusively debunk conspiracy theory, not true, not

true.

That Vice President Biden engaged in wrong doing when

he executed official United States policy to remove a corrupt prosecutor from office.

Again, this is, that part is true.

He was executing an official policy for the United States, but he knew at the time they were coming after his son.

He knew at the time they were going after Burisma.

There have never been any allegations in Ukraine that Shokin was corrupt.

They've never filed any charges.

They've never told him why he was fired other than

the vice president asked for it.

In the memo, they cite numerous mainstream news outlets that agree with Biden's version of the story and that discredit the theory that Biden pushed for the firing of the prosecutor to cover up corruption.

Accordingly, the memo goes on to instruct the media to state clearly and unambiguously that such claims of corruption have been discredited and debunked.

Otherwise, it is journalistic malpractice, according to the Trump, I mean, sorry, according to the Biden campaign.

It is sufficient to say the allegations are uns

I'm sorry, it is not

sufficient to say the allegations are unsubstantiated or that no evidence has emerged to support them.

This is crazy.

Not only is there no evidence for the Republicans' main argument against the vice president, there is a mountain of evidence that actively debunks it.

And it is malpractice to ignore the truth.

I'm at a loss.

I feel like I say the same thing every day.

but every day it's worse.

I don't even know what to say anymore.

I don't believe this.

Of course, I believe this.

It's happening every single day.

It's just getting worse.

I've never seen anything like this.

Yeah, I did yesterday, but this one's worse.

I don't know what to say to you anymore.

I don't know how to come to you with this news anymore.

Despite numerous outlets having reported the claims as false, Republicans and Trump defenders are not so convinced.

In fact, it was Biden himself who added fuel to the theory's flame when he openly bragged on camera.

He said, I'm telling you, you're not going to get the billions of dollars.

You're not getting the billion.

I'm going to be leaving here and think about that in six hours.

I'm leaving in six hours.

If the prosecutor is not fired, then you're not getting the money.

Well, son of a bitch, he laughed.

He got fired.

And they put somebody solid in his place.

Now,

they put somebody solid in his place?

Until this story broke,

when Biden was laughing about that in a Council of Foreign Relations meeting in 2018, 2018,

not so long ago,

when he said they put somebody competent in his place, he was competent until he resumed the look into Burisma.

And then this story broke again with Donald Trump.

And as soon as that happened, then this new prosecutor was not somebody to be trusted.

He's corrupt too.

The way the media, and we have shown it to you, the way the media has debunked this is completely

and total fabrication.

It is at best sloppy work.

This is the, this is, what they are breaking is the,

or committing is the,

the crime and the sin of omission.

What they're doing is they're saying,

look, this was debunked.

New York Times said it.

You go to the New York Times.

New York Times, it's debunked.

According to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg, it's debunked.

According to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post, it's debunked according to this paper in Ukraine.

Well, then we went to that paper in Ukraine.

Everybody else is just quoting each other.

You go to the paper in Ukraine, and it says

that

Shokin,

you know,

said that

he didn't, it wasn't Shokin, it was the other one, that said

he didn't say that

to

the

embassy.

Right.

This was the ambassador.

Right, the whole situation with Ivanovich and how he had a list of do not prosecute,

which initially was the story told by the prosecutor.

And then he said, Well, it wasn't a list.

No, no, no.

No.

They asked him.

This is how they did it.

They asked him in this interview.

So she, did, do you have the paper?

Did she, she gave you, so she handed you a list.

No, no, no.

She didn't hand it to me.

She gave it to me verbally.

Yeah, that was a single thing.

So she told me.

Right.

And so the Post and the Times and everybody else says he said he was never given a list.

Period.

Debunked.

No, it's not debunked.

He said, she didn't hand me a list.

She gave it to me and I wrote it down.

Yeah, and he brought, when he was talking about names that he wanted, thought was, you know, worthy of prosecution or looking into it, she beat him up on it.

Right.

And, you know, is that different than

giving him a list of people not to prosecute?

She was telling him he shouldn't prosecute those people.

And he was saying, this has been the problem in Ukraine forever.

Right.

This has been the issue.

This is what you guys are supposed to help us stop doing.

Correct.

We're just not supposed to be going after these or protecting certain politically connected people.

We're supposed to be doing the opposite, going after the truth.

Shokin and his prosecutor that replaced him are now on record saying, we don't know how to fight corruption the American way

because it's not a system.

It's you can do this, you can't do this.

Next day, it's yeah, well, we're including this person that you can prosecute, and this one you got to stay away from.

There's no rhyme or reason other than power and money.

Now, when it comes to this particular thing where Joe Biden asked for the firing of Shokin because he was dirty, his claim is I didn't know anything at all, nothing at all about the Burisma

investigation.

I didn't know that.

There's no way for me to know that.

They weren't investigating at the time.

That is provably false.

We have the court records that happened, oh,

coincidentally, within days before the vice president's visit.

The State Department was notified that Joe Biden's son was going to be under investigation.

That's when daddy gets on the plane.

No one in the State Department, no one in the embassy, no one on the

vice presidential staff or president staff was briefed that the vice president's son and his company was going under investigation by the prosecutor, the one that we helped appoint.

Nobody notified the vice president of that.

And then he just coincidentally said, we're not doing any aid if you go into any of this on barisma.

That is fact, verifiable fact, with documents.

It is not malpractice.

It is treasonous to the truth.

You either want to tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may, or you are nothing but a puppet.

Look,

I think my record is pretty darn clear.

If Donald Trump would have been doing these things, and you could prove it, and I would do the investigation, I said to our researchers, dig at the very beginning, dig, let the chips fall where they may.

Find the truth.

I would come to you and tell you, I'm sorry.

And if it would mean the end of my business, I don't give a flying crap.

I don't know how to tell you these things anymore.

I'd gladly go away.

I'd tell you the truth.

If Donald Trump was doing that, I'd tell it to you.

This is corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration.

And what Schiff said yesterday.

Well, I've never seen anything like it.

Oh, yeah, no, I did.

I just saw the memo from Joe Biden, which is exactly the same thing.

Schiff, under oath,

as an impeachment manager,

told whoppers of lies yesterday, but he walked into a trap.

He started talking about

this.

Oh, well, you, I mean, this, this conspiracy.

Well, now, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

If you're talking about this conspiracy, then we should talk to people to make sure that it is a conspiracy.

You're right.

If it's a conspiracy, there are facts out there that show that it's not.

In fact, every fact shows that it's not.

So you want to bring that up with Hunter Biden?

Thank you, Mr.

Schiff.

You just introduced that as a line we can pursue.

Now you must hear from the president's son, vice president's son.

You must hear from him.

And why is it they have to have such Nazi-like marching orders to fall in line, press?

Why do you feel that's necessary to do?

If you have nothing to hide, let him talk.

Let him talk.

When Trump would go off on, you know, not born here,

I would say, like, don't, please, can somebody, because that's not helping him.

That's not helping him.

Okay?

But when he's right about, yeah, the birther thing, but when he's right about something, let him talk.

When you have truth on your side, let him talk.

You don't, Joe Biden, have truth on your side.

So you must silence people.

You must silence people.

Yeah, chasing the truth no matter where it goes is something that opinion people should do, that journalists should definitely do.

And you know what?

It's what all humans are supposed to do.

That's how you're supposed to interact with people.

It's not supposed to be the way that Adam Schiff is.

It's just like his human interaction policies need to be revised.

A lot.

A lot.

A lot.

A lot.

Back in just a second.

By the way, we have complete coverage of impeachment.

The recap at 5 p.m.

tonight.

You don't want to miss it.

Only on Blaze TV.

The best of the Glen Beck program.

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I want to play a monologue

from me.

Let's just play a little bit of this before I tell you the context and when it happened.

Listen to this.

Can I tell you something?

There's nothing more frightening

than when our truth becomes entertainment.

And that's what's happening in America.

Truth has become entertainment.

When our news organizations, our newspapers have to do what they have to do for ratings,

when they say, I've got to sell more newspapers, I've got to get another ratings point, and so they start to spin the news, or they start to look for the news that's entertaining and highlight those stories that are entertaining.

That's dangerous, almost as dangerous as when history becomes entertainment.

I don't know about you, but I found JFK by Oliver Stone frightening when it came out, because I knew watching that, people are going to think this is a documentary.

People are going to think this is the truth, and it's not the truth.

Michael Moore, that's not the truth.

That's entertainment.

That's a money-making vehicle.

And it is a political statement.

It's not the truth.

But it's cloaked as the truth.

Short-term thinking.

The death of truth and short-term thinking.

The death of truth is Michael Moore.

Short-term thinking

are those Democrats who are embracing Michael Moore.

You know, Michael Moore is not a Democrat.

Michael Moore is a socialist.

Michael Moore takes the Democratic Party apart.

When Clinton was in office, he was taking Bill Clinton apart.

Now, you've given Michael Moore all of this credibility.

You've given him a stage, a world stage, sitting next to presidents.

You've given him this huge stage, and you've given him your credibility.

Now, let's say John Kerry wins.

God help us all.

John Kerry wins, gets into office.

What do you do with Michael Moore?

How do you say Michael Moore doesn't know what he's talking about?

Michael Moore is a genius.

Michael Moore has enough credibility to sit next to Jimmy Carter in the presidential box at your convention.

And believe me, Democrats, he's going to take you apart as well.

Because it's not that he doesn't like Bush.

That's number one priority.

But his longtime priority is he's a socialist.

Short-term thinking.

You're going to destroy yourselves and your party because you are getting into bed with the enemy of your enemy.

He's not your friend.

That was in 2004.

Look at their bed now.

They are being eaten by socialists.

Hillary Clinton, why do you think she's going after

Bernie?

Why do you think that

they're attacking each other right now?

Why do you think AOC was out this last week saying, you know what, I got to tell you, I mean,

we don't really have a left party here in America.

It's not the Democrats.

They're not targeting.

They're not targeting Trump.

They are targeting the Democratic Party.

And the Democratic Party is so weak.

Look at their field.

It is so weak.

It's going to implode because they engaged in short-term thinking in 2004.

They got into bed with radicals.

And now, as Jeremiah Wright used to say, the chickens are coming home to roost.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

Hey, it's Glenn.

And if you like what you hear on the program, you should check out Pat Gray Unleashed.

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Thanks.

Okay, I'm going to tell you about the three groups of Democrats, and one of these groups are going to decide the future of the Democratic Party and decide the future possibly of the country.

And then I want to tell you the three reasons why Donald Trump is going to be re-elected.

Now, this is speaking of today.

Anything could happen.

We could have an economic collapse.

We could have a war breakout.

Lots of things could happen.

But lots of things could happen on the Democratic side as well, especially if Joe Biden

is your horse.

That thing could fall apart.

I mean, he's not looking

the best

and hasn't been performing well in debates.

Okay, well, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or Pete Buttigiege,

Let me tell you why these people will not win.

There are three groups of Democrats.

And

really,

when you come down to it, there is only one group that is a traditional Democrat.

First, you have the socialist revolutionaries.

These are the people that have always been on the outside.

They have not had a party.

They're communist, socialist, revolutionaries.

They are people like Bernie Sanders that have never really had a home.

Now, those socialist revolutionaries were brought into the party beginning back in the 1980s when they decided they really needed a coalition.

They started bringing them in, but they were always kept at arm's length.

Back in the early 2000s, they started bringing these real revolutionaries in to fight against George W.

Bush.

The people that did not necessarily vote for Democrats ever,

but they were communists, they were socialists, they were literal revolutionaries, people like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn.

These people were always on the fringe of society or just under the radar, but then they were embraced to fight George W.

Bush.

And I warned at the time, you think you're using them?

They've been waiting for this moment.

They, in the end, are going to destroy you.

And they'll destroy you before they destroy the Republican Party.

So there's your first group of voters.

They want

radical change and nothing American.

They do not want the Constitution.

They don't want the guaranteed protections.

They want not equal justice.

They want social justice.

They want redistribution of wealth.

All of the stuff that Barack Obama was

accused of because of the people he surrounded himself with and said, no, no, no, that's crazy talk.

Well, it's not because here they are.

The second group is

the new,

if you will, progressive liberal.

corrupt establishment.

These were the people that started really kind of, you know, with FDR.

They bastardized the word liberal, but they were still kind of holding on to things like the ACLU and say, no, we're for freedom of speech, but really they weren't.

But it was close enough to where most people didn't understand.

And nobody wanted to believe that all of these politicians were as corrupt as they were.

Now we know these politicians are absolutely corrupt.

And I'm not just saying the Democrats, Republicans are too.

Just corrupt.

And they're not in it for anybody but them and their family, apparently.

And they can get rich a million different ways, and they do not want their power to end.

But they're progressive liberals, and they don't want to really upset the apple cart.

They'd like enough of a revolution to where it's not so hard trying to keep elect, you know, keep electing the same people over and over again.

They'd like that to happen.

And then there's the third category.

And I think this is the majority of Americans.

And the majority of Democrats.

They're the forgotten Democrat.

They're the ones that are looking for,

dare I say it, hope and change.

The reason why Barack Obama's hope and change worked

is because almost everyone was looking for hope and change.

I was looking for hope and change.

I was tired of the Bush administration.

I was tired of the backroom deals.

I was tired of being lied to.

I was tired of the never-ending wars.

I was tired of the out-of-control spending.

I was tired of being talked down to and called, you know, not being a patriot if you weren't for the Patriot Act.

I wanted hope and change too.

But when Barack Obama offered it, a lot of people just heard that and they thought, yeah, he's saying what I believe.

That's why I've always said you have to really understand who you're standing next to, who you're supporting, because they might say all the right things.

Barack Obama capitalized on hope and change, but his hope and change required fundamental transformation of the United States of America.

Now there's a difference between revolution and restoration.

I want a restoration of what was right with America while getting rid of those things that are wrong with America.

Corruption.

The out-of-control spending where no one is held responsible for anything.

I want a fair justice system.

I want

truth,

justice, and the American way.

And I think there's plenty of Democrats all across this country that are hardworking people that feel the same way.

They're tired of getting the shaft.

They're tired of being told that they're the problem.

They're tired of being told that,

you know, they'll never make it.

When they know, when they're talking to their friends in the coffee shop, we could fix this, guys, we could fix this.

You know what the problem is.

They really believe they can fix it because they can fix it in their own town, in their own life.

So, what they're looking for

is somebody that's not insane,

somebody that doesn't want the fundamental transformation of America, and somebody that's an outsider.

They're looking for Donald Trump, which is why 18% of those who voted for Donald Trump were Democrats.

They're looking for someone who just, you know, who Donald Trump is.

Is there any question in your mind?

You know, you know, yesterday I saw the news report, Donald Trump broke his record for tweets yesterday.

My response was,

really?

Of course he did.

We know who he is.

Imperfections at all, we know who he is.

And you're willing to accept that

because as insane as he might seem or insane as

his actions might seem to people,

his actions

on the world stage,

what he's actually done, not what he said, what he's actually done,

not insane.

What he's actually done with the economy,

it's working.

Seems to be going really well.

Imagine what it would be if he took those insane trade tariffs away.

But you know what?

It's okay right now.

What he did with Iran?

That was insane.

No, it wasn't.

Seemed to have worked.

Seemed to have worked, at least temporarily.

But they're always going to be a problem.

People are looking for somebody not to not

look nuts.

They don't care.

They knew Donald Trump looked nuts.

They knew he looked like he wasn't presidential.

I said that in 2007.

If Barack Obama gets into office, he is so slick, we're going to have a guy who has a gravy stain on his tie and stands up and maybe farts during his speech.

He's like,

we'll fart, huh?

That's who we have.

That's who we have.

And everybody looks at the outside packaging of Donald Trump, the over-the-top, everything is perfect Donald Trump.

And they know,

I don't know how he does it, but he does it.

Now, if his administration was putting together the insanity

of an agenda that was as insane as his tweets and everything else,

he would be gone.

He would at least not be

reelected.

But it's not.

That's the packaging.

The substance is different than the packaging.

And people know that because they feel safe.

They feel like, you know, there's encroachments on things, but we're okay.

At least the president's not crazy in listening to, you know, crazy crazy people on either side.

And he's doing things that we all wanted to do.

I mean, what did Democrats want?

They wanted an end to these endless wars.

What did many Republicans want in 2008?

An end to these endless wars.

We don't want to be lied to.

We don't want people undercover doing things

where they're enriching themselves or they're getting us entangled into foreign affairs without even talking to us about it.

We just want to be left alone and be able to do our work.

And we still also want to be charitable.

So when they look, when the Democrats look at Bernie Sanders, there's always going to be, I mean, it should be about 10%.

But I think we're up to maybe 20 or 30% of this population that is now willing on the Democratic side to go to war.

I'll have a revolution.

I think it's around 10%, but it could be as high as 30%.

Warren doesn't have

the same effect on the voter as Bernie Sanders does, but she also doesn't have...

She has more of the corrupt establishment air

that hurts her.

And he has more of the, yeah, Soviet gulags were great air to keep his numbers suppressed.

But the vast majority of people are not looking for the corrupt establishment.

They're not looking for the

rebel and revolutionary on any issue anymore.

They've been revolutionized enough for a while.

Can we just sit down and relax for a minute?

They're looking for somebody that has hope and change.

Joe Biden doesn't have that.

He doesn't have that.

But Joe Biden,

what he does have

is the feeling that he's not a revolutionary.

He doesn't want to overturn all of American history and fundamentally transform things.

And that's enough.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

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Robbie Suave is a senior editor at Reason, Reason.com.

He's got a great article out now.

A year ago, the media mangled the Covington Catholic story, but what happened next was even worse.

Welcome, Robbie.

How are you?

I'm great.

Thanks for having me.

You bet.

So,

make this case.

It's fascinating.

Sure.

So it's a year later, later and uh i was looking back at you know the story what people said how it kind of all happened this is obviously a big story for me i was one of the first to kind of see the full footage and uh and kind of and try to reverse this narrative that had taken hold right um anyway what struck me is that you know that there so the mainstream media has attracted a lot of well-deserved criticism for reporting this story and getting it wrong.

Outlets like Washington Post, CNN, et cetera, that have subsequently been sued by Nicholas Sandman, et cetera.

But what I was struck by looking back on this again is those outlets

certainly deserve blame.

They got it wrong.

But

they did reverse course when it was called out.

There were so many more ideological writers, pundits, et cetera, who not only did not apologize, they continue to defiantly

insist, and probably do to this day, that the initial media coverage was correct.

There were people who went looking for facts that had nothing to do with all of this.

You know, oh, well, years ago at a Covington basketball game, is this someone in blackface?

And if it wasn't, but even if it was, it would have had nothing to do with whether Nicholas Zandman had harassed this Native American man.

So I was more, I almost feel like we've forgotten that side of it a little bit in the focus on how irresponsible the kind of more mainstream coverage was.

So first of all, let's talk about the mainstream coverage for just a second and what's happening to them.

Any idea, any guess what CNN settled for?

I have asked people there.

I've tried to find out this information.

No one knows.

My just wild guess would be like two or three million dollars.

It would surprise me if they paid more than five.

Wow.

That's what Stu says.

I would be surprised if it was not in double digits.

Or, I mean, in

eight digits.

Well, I just, my frame of reference here is Rolling Stone, the lawsuits from the University of Virginia gang rape that

years ago.

Right.

And honestly, that was a stronger case because Rolling Stone's wrongdoing was actually more egregious.

And

that was merely a couple million dollar payments.

Yeah, we should point out, Robbie, was also one of the guys leading that truth-telling ability there.

Because, I mean, without you, Robbie, I don't know we would have ever had the truth on either one of these two stories.

So thank you for doing that.

That was

important work.

Thank you.

You know, it was my pleasure to really get to the truth of these things.

And I don't, you know, I'm not, it wasn't like I was so ideologically invested in these, either of these stories.

I just sat down to write something, and then you start looking at the other information available.

And both times I started thinking, oh, wow, there's a lot more to this that people haven't really picked up on yet.

So, Robbie, I mean, just look at, let's just look at today, where Joe Biden came out and issued a memo yesterday to the news media that said, fall in line.

It's worse than journalistic malpractice if you say that there's anything at all to these conspiracy theories on any wrongdoing by me or my son in Ukraine.

And they're taking it.

They're taking it.

The media is not outraged by that.

How do we even have hope for the truth with a media like this?

I mean, that's the problem, right?

The problem is we have divided, I think, into two tribes quite neatly.

There's Trump tribe and there's media tribe.

And so the media are not...

The illusion, I think to some degree this always was an illusion, right?

That they're objective gatekeepers and just kind of

calling it like they see it and they're not taking sides and they're fair and down the middle that is that is over and to to some degree they're not even claiming that or they're not not as strongly even claiming that they're in the opposition camp and so all things that happened all developments all all stories news must be must be segmented must be put in either how does this you know how does this help Trump if you're a pro-Trump person or

how does this help and defend the media?

The media is the opposition party.

So that's not surprising to see candidates who represent the media party explicitly calling for them to, you know, to kind of serve on the front lines of a war on Trump, because that is the role they are suggesting that they are going to play.

Not everyone, not all of them, but a lot more than it used to be.

So 2024, I think, is when historically the pendulum should start shifting back

towards some sanity.

Do you see an appetite at all for the truth where the chips fall?

I mean, I don't, I present, I try to present the truth, but I am also an opinion guy.

I'm not news.

I don't know of

anybody

who is

who is huge mainstream that would even consider taking on, no, let the chips fall where they may.

Who's doing that?

I mean,

that's a problem, right?

The kind of thing

I think scaring people sells or worrying people that

a lot of this is even non-ideological.

Just things are worse than ever.

And then there's an ideological component, right?

That we live in in like a more racist and more sexist and more homophobic, et cetera, et cetera, society.

So then, of course, when something like Covington happens, that confirms your thinking because you're looking for it because you're thinking these are this is the worst of all times and we've degraded as a society, et cetera.

You know, I see all the time, again, outlets like CNN, Washington Post, reporting things like hate crimes are higher than ever.

But if you actually dig into the statistics, I really have,

they don't even begin to prove that that's true.

And it actually seems quite ridiculous if you think of how far we've come as a country on many of these fronts.

But they're scaring you with these headlines all the time to worry you into thinking the world is such a bad place.

But I remember I had, and Stu, see if you remember this, I think it was the editor of the San Francisco Examiner, very left.

And I had him on the show because he said Glenn Beck is a journalist, blah, blah, blah.

And

in some way, in a weird way, he was kind of almost endorsing that

journalistic credibility.

And I had him on the air and I said, I'm an opinion maker.

I try to take the facts.

and do my own homework, but then what I present is an opinion.

He said, that's a journalist.

And I said, no, that's not a journalist.

And there was this weird conversation where I had a journalist trying to convince me that I was a journalist and I am not.

But now,

you know, you just said it.

There is no difference between the truth that you get from CNN.

Well, let me use this.

Brian Stelter last week just had on reliable sources, media matters.

Hello?

So these people who cut, yeah, they cut video clips and of people saying things and they make it look like it's really bad.

And then I've learned now I have to go back and watch the full clip.

Right.

Maybe you're missing a very important segment of

what whoever it is just said.

You know, it kind of goes to question your article

because you said, you know, the other media was even worse.

Are they separate anymore?

Is there an opinion media and CNN?

Are they different?

I think social media has made, has eroded this distinction because you have people

who are supposedly straight news, objective reporters who don't have opinions.

And of course, everyone has opinions.

So this was almost always a little silly.

But then you can see what they're saying on Twitter.

You know, you're getting their knee-jerk, unedited reactions to news, to things like Covington or whatever, or like just Justie Smollett.

And

they're falling over themselves about how horrible this is and smearing anyone who even is slightly skeptical of it, not in the news story that they're going to write for their paper, but on their social media feed.

So then you're seeing what they really think,

what has not been worked on by an editor.

And almost that's clarifying, and it's like a good thing that was allowed to happen because now there can be no more delusions about this.

Yeah, and you go into a lot of this, the great examples in your story.

I mean, some of the people who are saying how punchable Nick Sandman's face is,

you go through a ton of them.

One in particular, who I believe referred to you as a professional contrarian, which is quite the title.

But they went on to say, even after all of this footage came out, not only was it

wrong to change your mind on the story and think that, you know, these kids didn't really do anything, you were a sellout if you came out and corrected yourself.

They actually went after the people who had the courage to correct themselves on the story.

Yeah, that's right.

They were shaming people who said they're sorry.

And that was really the point of my most recent piece: is to say,

it's better to be wrong and apologize than to be wrong and

but insist you weren't wrong and cling to that wrongness and then try to attack people for having a shred of integrity or more integrity than you do.

Yeah, that was a piece at Deadspin that was just utterly vile and Deadspin is a is a really kind of mean-spirited place anyway.

But I would say that Deadspin is.

or was or was right.

Yeah, well, that was one of the things I wanted to I was interested in Rob, because when I read I was reading your piece and I hadn't I had missed the initial

Deadspin piece when it came out, and I thought to myself, gosh, you know, you make a mistake like that, then you double down on it in the nasty way that you cover in the piece.

I went back and read her piece and thought to myself, gosh, she must have paid a price for this, right?

Like, journalistically, like in your in your job, you probably have a tougher time getting a job.

No, she's gone to a more mainstream outlet and has a better job than she did when she wrote the piece.

She was rewarded for this behavior and now is that I believe Vice and has a nice big role over at Vice.

Yes, and I remember people at the time, a year ago, this was,

so there were people at slightly more mainstream, not mainstream, but in like an Atlantic type, leftist or more respectable.

I remember people sharing that piece and citing that piece in clearly in a way that like, this is what I wish I could have said.

This is is how I, this represents my thinking, but I can't get away with that in my position.

But

so I'll just put this out for you to, you know what I mean?

There was a lot of that.

Yeah.

There was a lot of that.

Yeah,

I mean, it doesn't surprise me.

But I mean, it is remarkable that someone goes through that.

You know, Deadspin, obviously, you know, they were

a big attitude place and, you know, obviously went through all of its troubles and is basically gone now.

But to go over to now Device, which again, I'm not saying is a mainstream site and it certainly has some of the same characteristics as Deadspin, but again, it has shows on HBO and it has these big relationships with advertisers and all this.

And she gets rewarded for this stuff.

I mean, this is why it's impossible, I think, for people to take the media seriously when sometimes they do need to take it seriously because this stuff continues to happen over and over again.

Robbie, what happens next?

Where do we go from here?

Oh, that's a difficult question.

I mean,

I wish we could have

some faith in the media.

I wish they were more responsible and could earn back the public trust in some cases, because a lot of, you know, I'm a journalist.

I know a lot of people who do good work.

And

I think sometimes it all gets written off because of these high-profile total disasters.

So there needs to be some kind of settling down or taking a breath or stepping back.

Or I just wish people, the journalists themselves, would refrain from having this need to like

tell crazy, viral stories without any additional information.

Like, I mean, the fundamental fact of the Covington story is that it wasn't even a story.

It was a trivial incident between people who were not, who had no social significance.

So, there was no reason to write about it in the first place.

So, that kind of news judgment that privacy matters a little bit, that we should not use all the technology we have today to watch people all the time and call them out for wrong thing.

I mean, that takes an act of personal responsibility on the part of the media that maybe they will get there.

Yeah.

After their response to Joe Biden's memo, where he said, step in line and don't report on any of this stuff,

I think we're a ways before they start to turn around and go, hey, maybe I'm headed in the wrong direction.

Robbie, thank you so much.

Robbie Suave, senior editor at reason.com.

Thanks.

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