This is the FCB podcast Network. A preassa day that we won't with pain and then we won't to say, oh we got it does? No one can take that Owen this gonna be okay, A preassa that we won't with say, then we won't to say, oh we got it does? No one can take that oway don't. Don't be okay. Welcome back, everybody to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis. This is a podcast where we take hot topics, hot button ideas, and we discuss the talking points on those ideas, when we draw those talking points all the way out to their logical conclusion. We're actually going to be doing that today because some days I say that, but I don't do that. I'm just talking. But today we're actually going to engage some critical thinking with my guests. I'm so pleased to have her. Please welcome to the show. Show Batchia Unger Sargun. She is the opinion editor editor at Newsweek magazine and Batchia I'm going to tell you a story about how Newsweek made me a conservative, but I'll tell you that down the road. And she is the author of Bad News, How Woke Media Is undermining democracy and the forthcoming second class, how the elites betrayed America's working men and women. Batchya, Welcome to the show. This is such a huge privilege for me to be here with you because I am a longtime fan of yours. I've been following you forever, and I just think you are one of the most important voices right now. So I'm so so jazzed to be here with you. Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh, what a kind thing to say. And I'll tell you that and maybe maybe you have had this experience as well. Is it's difficult in this industry to remain a reasoned voice because it doesn't really pay that well. But you hit the nail on the head just talking about things that are important to say. And I think it's important to keep a level head, particularly when we're moving into twenty twenty four. But understand that we're still all in this country together, whether we like it or not, so we have to figure out how to work things out. I was really interested, though, in your perspective, Batya, because because of a tweet you put out recently, So before we get to that, I want to ask you a little bit about your background. How did you get into the news business and what prompted you to write this book about the media. Oh wow, great question. I got into journalism kind of by accident. I was writing my PhD dissertation. I'm like so embarrassed to admit that I did that now, because it was such a waste of time, But I did. I spent seven years writing a PhD dissertation. Yeah. While I was doing it, Hurricane Sandy happened, and there was just all this stuff happening in my neighborhood in South Brooklyn that nobody was writing about or talking about. And I kept being like, how come nobody's mentioning this? How come nobody's mentioning that? And a friend of mine said to me, well, why don't you write about it? And I was like, I can't write about it. I don't know how to write articles. I don't know how to do any of that stuff. I only know how to write, you know, arcane incomprehensible PhDs about you know, books that nobody's reading four hundred years. You know, this is not my jam. But together, we, you know, worked on this piece. And I called I think probably I called and wrote to about three hundred editors, and most of them totally ignored me. I got a few rejections, and then City Limits, which is this great publication, was like, oh yeah, we'll publish that and we'll pay you three hundred dollars. And there was something about writing something that felt significant and meaningful and that people read and engaged with and knew about the plight of these people and what they were going through. There was just no going back. It was I was like, my friend was like, Okay, that was fun, you know, moving on with our lives, and I was like, no, this is my life now. And somehow just kind of like it's the idea that you could write something and force people to read it and now, including like people who hate you, which is like has its own, you know, unique kind of special deliciousness. Right. I just there was no I just could. I just was like, I'm going to try to make this work as much as I can. And You're right. There were some very, very very lean, lean years. I'm very lucky my husband was really supportive, but it was really really difficult to the beginning. The challenge of not losing your head is so true, and it's doubled by the fact that because our audience is right back to us now and reply to us and let us know very strongly what they think. It's very hard not to have audience capture, which is when you start to give the audience what they're asking for. You see this on YouTube tube a lot. I think the big YouTube news channels all now have the same politics because the YouTube audience wants the same thing and they are incapable of saying no to it. Reach so right that that is like, it's so hard, Like when you have some one of the hardest things is when somebody says to you, I love your work. I followed you for a decade. I think you're so right about things and so courageous, and you're so wrong about this, and you so disappointed me. How could you possibly think this. It's very hard to not sort of give it and be like, well, look, this person knows my work, they trust my work. They and to have this mindset of like, listen, if they trust me on all these other issues, they're just gonna have to accept that. Like, I don't lose respect for people just because I don't agree with them on a certain issue. Like I'm like, you know what, I don't agree with this person, and they're all the more precious to me because I respect them and don't agree with them on this issue because it keeps me honest. You know what, I'm gonna amen to all that preach it. Yeah, I love what you just said. Because actually the last couple of weeks, that's been the theme of this podcast. I addressed a couple of controversial issues coming from the conservative YouTube sphere, Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh talking about Martin Luther King talking about the Civil Rights Act, and I had a lot of issues with the way that they were framing those things and the timing of it. I just didn't think we're trying to win an election in twenty twenty four. I don't know why you would want to run down Martin Luther King, a very hallowed figure, while we're going after the vote of people who hold him in esteem. So I've been exploring that, But one of the things I've been saying is it's really really hard not to get caught up in that in this business, because that is what pays. Outrage pays, and you just nailed it. You get addicted to you suddenly want to please your audience, and it's really really hard not to be that person, not to fall in into that. You want to please your audience, and you want more audience, so you want people to bring your audience back. I find it particularly difficult being a black conservative because I know that some of my opinions about particularly minority issues in black issues aren't going to line up with my white brethren in the conservative movement, or they're going to sound strange or accusatory even sometimes, And I have to really fight against that instinct to not go there sometimes. But you you really nailed it, that this idea that we're we have an audience, and we we become, for lack of a better term, sometimes we become slaves to that audience. So but you said another thing it really interested me. You said you didn't start out here, you were writing a PhD. And you were doing something totally different. I'm the same way, right. I'm an actor. I'm a former actor and came in became a writer. I've always been a writer, but sort of you know, poetry, fiction, drama. Became a writer because I was concerned about what was going on in politics, and I was staying at home with my kids, and I wanted something else to do and that didn't involve, you know, being treated like just like a jungle gym all day long. So I got into that. But there are so many people in this business who are that way, and I think we are seeing this and it seems to be something you might be addressing in your next book. But we're seeing this divide between elite media and people like me and you who have just Look, we need information and we're not getting all the information. Do you see because now you're the now you are media, Now you're the opinion editor at Newsweek, do you see that divide among media? Sort of they're the elite crowd. I went to Jay School, I did all the right things, I took all the right tests, I took all the right trainings, and then people like me or even people like you, who are look, I just don't think we're getting all the information and the world needs some more perspective. Oh yeah, absolutely. Like the class divide exists between the left and the right, it exists within the GOP, and it definitely exists in media. Conservative media is actually much better at speaking to a kind of working class crowd. But you're totally right that, like the media figures themselves. A lot of them are part of the elites on the on the conservative side. I just have to say, I so mad respect what you're doing holding the line because look for people like us who think that wokeness is like a disease that is hurting black people, right, who want black folks to have a choice for a better option, right to then see that other option descend into attacking doctor King, Like it's just so disgusting, but it's so hard to be like I'm the anti woke person who still worships doctor King, Like, but that is where most Americans are, Like that is where the vast majority of Americans are, and like all you want is for like I'm not even a Republican, but I want black folks to have a choice because the fact that they have no choice has made everybody to ignore them and allowed the situation to develop that is right now. And so when you have these influencers like spitting on the multiracial working class coalition that could be theirs for the having like freaking offend doctor King, Like what is wrong with you? But it's such a lonely space, right, because actually I wanted to ask you about this so the arts have they're so totally captured by like the woke left. Did you experience that as a writer as an actor, Like were you already a conservative and were you were like whoa, like these people really hate me? Or like what was that like? So I had a conversion. I had a political conversion as a young mother. So I didn't start out in the Indian I'm training. I'm a trained actor. I went to I have a bachelor's in theater and did theater for a long time, moved to California and started trying to break into the film industry. That's when I decided to retire because I wanted to stay home with my kids, and that's a hustle. I didn't want to hustle. So when I started out, everything seemed fine, right because I was just like everybody else. I was liberal, black, default democrat voter, towed the same ideological line as everybody else did. When I came to California that I had my conversions a little before then, and so still was very naive about the open mindedness of liberals and democrats. And so I did have a couple of experiences where I walked into audition rooms and It was right around the time of Obama's second term when we moved here, so there was an election going on and people were asking me. I would walk in right and election was on everyone's mind, and I would walk into a room and just sort of off handedly, someone would always ask, like, what do you think of Obama? Are you and me being always being opinionated, being blatantly honest at every turn. Don't ever ask Kia Davis a question you don't really want the answer to, because you will always get the answer. I would say, oh, no, I'm not voting for Obama. I really don't want universal health care. I don't care what he's doing with the for what he's doing at the border. You know. I would say all these things, and I literally was turned away. I remember one guy was like talking to me as he's handing me these sides to read we call sides, which are just scenes handing me these sides to read. He's passing them out to everybody. You take this, you take this. And he's doing this as we're having this conversation about Obama, and he says, well, are you a Republican. I've never really identified as a Republican, but I do vote Republican, and so I said, well, I'm conservative. Yeah, I'm very conservative, and he was like, oh, you know what, I think we're out of scenes. Stop. I mean just like that, God, thanks for coming in, but like to hear an actual story like that, Like you know, it's subconsciously happening, you know what's happening behind the scenes, but to have it actually happened to your face, Oh my god. Yeah, that was illuminating. And but the but the upside is that with the with the evolution of the internet, culture no longer is exclusive to the progressive left. So there's way more opportunity to get involved in the arts these days. And I am. I have my own production company on the side. I've actually produced a short film and I and my children are in the arts as well, and so we're working on short films together. So amazing. Yeah, I think that's so important, like creating culture for for the rights, so so important because so much of what is imbued it's just in everything. I mean, art now is so terrible because everything has to have that same woke message, like every movie and every TV show and every book and so it's all trash. But it's like parents need something to give their kids. And it's so funny because I noticed, like when Barbie first came out, it was very popular in the South, and I feel like it's because like people just wanted a fund, Like people aren't thinking they're just gonna take their kid to you know, this movie, whatever it is. It's like, but it was obviously like a leftist film with a lot of like really problematic messaging and imagery and so forth, and like it's just like the they need people need an alternative, and there's so much capture on the left. So it's it's incredible that you're doing that. Well, you know, it's did you see Barbie? I did see it? Yeah, did you like it? It could have been? Yeah, I mean it's not. It wasn't as mad as it could have been. Absolutely. My take on it is my daughter wanted me to go see it with her. She's sixteen, and she's like, I think you'll really like it. And I wasn't going to see it because, come on, it's a Barbie movie. What could it possibly be about? So I loved it, but you're right, I mean I loved it in spite of some of the leftist messaging in there, which I've come to be accustomed to. As long as you're not banging me over the head with it every second, I'm fine, give me something good. But I think why it was so popular is because it was blatantly marketed towards women. It was a blatantly female centric offering. We didn't I kept waiting for the trans surprise or whatever other sexualities that wasn't there. It was blatantly market It was about women for women to women. Oh yeah, that's really smart. Yeah. I also really enjoyed it. There were a few things I didn't like about it. The thing that mainly bothered me about it was the way it was trying to have its cake and eat it too, trying to both pretend that it was being critical of this franchise while capitalizing on it. And the speech that everyone got excited about by America Ferrara, where she's like, you have to both be really skinny and act like you're not trying. It's like that whole drama is like the drama of the upper class professional, like over credentialed woman who wants to have it all. Like I can't stand when women both complain, like when they complain about like everything you have to do to be attractive to men, Like you can just decide you don't want that. Indeed, many women are deciding they don't want that. Like the idea that this labor is being forced on you, it's not. It's your vanity that's forcing it on you, and you can very easily say no to it. It's you're complaining that there is labor you can do to be attractive to men, and I don't get that. It's like, yeah, if you work at something, you will achieve this goal. Like they're complaining that the goal exists and the pathway to it exists. Like that seems to me an insane thing to complain about. Like that speech, No working class woman could relate to that, because it's like they're not worried about looking good for men. They're worried about feeding their families, you know what I mean. It was so like it was that really bugged me. But other than that, I did really enjoy obviously enjoyed Margot Robbie. The acting was incredible, Like it was fun. It was just that that really so I love them, and I think that the smashing of the babies in the first scene I found like very offensive but aside from that, I think it was pretty you know. And one more thing, which is like, I know, we don't have to talk about Barbie, but it'll come back to what we're talking about for the when the guy slaps her butt, right, And it's like the idea that America is still this like raging patriarchy. That is such a canard to make women who made it feel even better about themselves, right, to make rich women feel like they deserve to be rich because it's a patriarchy and they must have struggled so hard to make it. And I feel like there's the same canard about racism. Like the unspeakable truth about America is that pretty much ninety nine percent of Americans truly want black people to exist, like everybody really not to I'm sorry to obviously exist, but I mean like they want black people live to succeed. Everybody wants that, like the idea that words divided and only the good Democrats and only the progressives want that, and everybody else like wants black people to fail. It is such a canard, and they do it because if they can convince their voters that the other side really wants black people to fail, they don't actually have to deliver for black people, right, They don't actually have to help or get create that upward mobility for them. So I think that that thing where upper class, rich liberals convince themselves that the country is sexist and racist, like, they do that as cover so that they can continue to enjoy the benefits of inequality. But it's income in equality. It's American dream inequality, you know what I mean. Yeah, there's a really great book that you should read. I don't know if you have ever read it, but it's by Shelby Steele. It's called White Guilt. It's all about this game changer, but it's all about this. It's a lot about boomers because Shelby Steele's a boomer, but it is about that guilty like I've achieved and now I feel guilty about it because other people haven't. I'm going to give you, I love what you just said. I'm going to give you an alternative point of view on that as well. I think everything you just said was right bang on. I think another way to look at it, too, is that these people are entrenched in that. Yes, liberal white women like Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie make these movies that talk about this patriarchy and how press they are. But they do live and work in a very patriarchal, misogynistic, abusive industry. Everyone around them is an abuser, right, That is the world they live in. That is why they look at us who are not them, Look at us anyone who's center or to the right, anyone who doesn't tee that progressive line. They look at people like us and they say, well, we're the good guys, right, And this is how the good guys act. This is how Harvey Weinstein acts and he's on the good side. Right. This is how Bill Clinton acts, and he's on the good side. So if our good guys are this bad, how bad must the bad guys be. That's the world that they are that they are embedded in and coming from. So yeah, in Greta Gerwig's world. Yeah, of course. Now to your point, absolutely, that's the pathetic part about it. It's like you're you are perpetuating the problem. You're in this industry, you're part of the problem. You haven't blown any whistles. You didn't bother to tell everybody about Harvey Weinstein long as it was, you know, as long as your career was in jeopardy. You're the hypocrite, You're the misogynist. You're the person that is laying the groundwork for all of this misogyny and abuse to continue, and you make movies talking about how much you detest all this abuse. So it's all like everybody is living in this pool of their own urine for and they think they're thinking that it's a regular old swimming pool, and so the rest of our pools must be really filthy if their pool's that bad. That is genius. I never thought of that, and it's such an original take, but it's so obviously true. That's just brilliant. I hate to say it. It's not my take, I have to say. I read it. I read an article about this from somebody. Didn't think to note it at the time, but that's stuck in my mind. It was way back in twenty sixteen, after people were freaking out of the Trump election, but it's something that has always stuck with me and I think about it all the time. Of course, we seem bad to them because they're bad. Guys are terrible, but I love, Well, let's talk about this because it's going to lead me into what really prompted me to reach out to you. So there's been a bloodbath in the media sphere when it comes to layoffs. The La Times is laying off people left and right. Washington Post is going through layoffs. We know Amazon has already gone through layoffs in their media sector. So we're seeing a lot of people, a lot of progressive folks, you know, losing their jobs and after spending so many years hassling the rest of us for complaining about policies that cause us to lose our jobs. So in particular, our favorite, one of our favorite reporters out there, Taylor the Wrenz, who a lot of people from this show will know. We've talked about her all the time on this show every but he does. She really is the epitome of progressive reporting. She's somebody who she's the one who docked libs of TikTok and caused all that. And she put out a tweet a little video basically lamenting the all of these layoffs and talking about how traditional media is dying and this is a bloodbath, and you guys, what are we gonna do? Like this is scary if if the media goes away, we don't we don't know what to do, and and she said, so here's the tweet. It's from Disclosed TV. They tweeted her video. It says, wappos Taylor Lorenz. Pretty much the entire digital media ecosystem that myself and a lot of other millennial journalists came up in has been completely hollowed out. You tweeted this. This is what I thought. It was brilliant, he said. I can't get past this line that she says in here. Radio is essentially dead from NPR. Talk radio is thriving. You say, eight and ten americans listen to the radio. But because the vast majority of talk radio is conservative and it's audience's working class, it simply does not exist to left wing journalists. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem that we have. And why when I went to look at your bio and I saw the title of that book, I ordered it right away. I don't have it yet, but it's ordered. I thought, this is it. She gets it, This is totally it. This is the problem that we're in. It's not a lack of information, it's a lack of dissemination of information that we have, and it is creating a false divisiveness in this country. Taylor Lorenz is an educated journalist. She literally went to school to be a quote journalist, and she doesn't know that conservative talk radio is one of the most thriving industries business. It's indicative of the disconnect. I totally agree with you. We act in this country like the divide is right versus left, or like we have a racial divide. Like that's all nonsense. The vast majority of Americans who are working class are much more united than they are divided on all of the issues pretty much, you know, issues that would surprise you, you know, like so, for example, the vast majority of working class Americans, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, want a complete moratorium on immigration and universal health care. So who are they supposed to vote for? Republicans or Democrats. There's one party that's open borders but talks about healthcare, and one party that believes in policing the border but will never say the word healthcare. It's a crap, shoot, you know, half of them go this way, half of them go that way. Right. Actually, now it's more seventy thirty right, because increasingly this kind of multi racial working class is voting for the Republicans, but it's a total crap shoot. They would never hate somebody who chose the other party. It makes zero sense. But if you're part of the everything your party says you believe, it's like a checklist, like you get your marching orders from the party. Because polarization is an elite phenomenon, because polarization puts money in the pockets of media and political elites, and so they don't have an identity beyond what their party tells them to believe, because that identity is the one that protects their privilege and their status. This happens in the elites on both sides. By the way, so tailor Rentz came up through this boom and digital media, which was created specifically for the over credential top ten percent, you know, these outlets like vox and but also, by the way, like the entire media followed in that direction. So the legacy media, and this is detailed blow by blow in my book, saw digital media and immediately started aping all of these websites. So BuzzFeed, for example, The New York Times hired like five people from BuzzFeed News in a single year. Right. They wanted to ape everything that was happening in these digital media sites that were created for this hyper educated, credentialed leftist top ten percent people exactly like Taylor Lorenz. She came up in an industry that was creating content for people exactly like her, and they the media was turning on what used to be its model, which was appeal to the vast middle, appeal to the most people. That used to be how you made your money as media. It's still how conservative outlets make their money is through traditional ads. The more people listen, the more your ad is worth because people are hearing your ads. The problem is is is when you're trying to get ads from people like Louis Vuitton or Cardier, right, they don't want their ads to be seen by the vast middle. They only want their ads to be seen by the elites, right, the people who are in the market for a Cardier watch. So the New York Times, which wants those Cardia ads, started to tailor its content to the kinds of people who would buy a Cardier as well. The example of this is one week, I remember when I used to subscribe to The New York Times, Its New York Times magazine arrive and on the cover was Angela Davis, the activist and communists. My mom's favorite activist was an ad for a Cardier watch. And those things go hand in hand. They are two sides of the same coin. Because goodable who can buy Cardier watches, they are woke because they don't want to talk about class, because they want their ideology to protect them from having to share anything with the working class. So those things go hand in hand. So the New York Times and all the legacy out started creating content for that elite so that they so they wanted to narrow who was going to read this. They want Republicans to hate their content. It's not a mystery. Everyone's like, how come they got so leftists? It was totally by design for purely economic reasons. Now, what that did was that left all of conservative consumers of news for talk radio and Fox News and Roger Ales and Rupert Murdoch. There was a huge vacuum because ninety five percent of journalists are liberals, right and leftists, but they're only speaking ninety five percent of journalists are speaking to ten percent of Americans. That left ninety percent of Americans just free for the having to any media that didn't insult their values and call them racists, and insult the fact that they're religious, and insult the fact that they think that there should be two parents raising a family, and so forth, and so conservative media is completely thriving. Conservative podcast, conservative radio, conservative cable is still totally thriving. And this is completely invisible because these people not only only speak to the same people who are exactly like them. They don't know any Conservatives. They don't know any working class people. They don't know anybody who listens to Joe Rogan. They just don't know anybody like that. And because they don't know anybody like that, they don't exist to them. I mean, you just blew my mind because I now I understand the connection between ad dollars and content. Obviously, as a content creator, I do understand that, but I never really thought about that piece of well, yeah, if we want this elite ad money, we have to appeal to the elite. That never crossed my mind. That is really something. And you know, I interrupted you to say, Angela Davis, my mom, I have hippie parents. My mom's favorite activist was Angela Davis still is to this day. And I know, but when I was growing up right now, My mom, like most hippies, was from a middle class family, right which she deliberately rejected to choose poverty for us. And there was some kind of like valor in that for her. So I grew up with the messaging from my mom that that poverty, a poverty is superior because rich people can't be trusted. But be poverty isn't our fault anyway, because rich people can't be trusted. And there was this this view my mom and I. By the way, I don't know if you know this about me, but I'm Canadian. I grew up in Canada, so yes, so I had my dad's American That's how I got here. But so I was raised and baked in socialism really and so we have we just were raised with this idea to mistrust rich people. So yeah, it blows my mind that my mom's favorite hippie activist, Angela Davis, is now in the New York Times next to an ad for a Cardier watch. Furthermore, doesn't bother my mom at all. Doesn't The disconnect is not there for her, it it that is what or my mom being don't trust the government and then suddenly turning into a get vaccinated and stay in your home person because the government says so through COVID. You know it, Just the disconnect there is astonishing. But what you I'm going to tell you this story about how Newsweek made me a conservative. Oh yeah, okay, So, and I'm writing this in my book right now, and I'm actually looking for this copy of this magazine. It's not in the archives, So batya if you ever come across it, if you ever find a way to get this for me, please do so. In two thousand and four, I was really on this fence. My father in law was the first black man I ever met who called himself a Republican and a conservative, and we were serving. We were running an after school program together. It was through the church, and I was the director. And so I was beginning to see how some of these policies were working up close. In thought they worked for the black community and realized they didn't. But it was right around the election time twenty two thousand and four, and my father in law was talking to me about media bias. We talked about Russia and Bahlacks. My father in law loved Rush Limba, and so we would talk about all of the crazy stuff that Russia would would do and have a back and forth, and he was talking to me about how I don't get all the information because the media decides what I see, and the media has bias, and my opinion was always like, no, they don't. They're just giving me information, you know, to me how I interpret the information. So he said, well, I don't think that's true. Everybody has a bias and they'll come through in their work. I'm just going to challenge you to start paying attention to the media you're consuming. So I said, okay, fine. Next week, I was a faithful Newsweek subscriber. Newsweek came in and it was an election issue. It was a special edition. It was two sided. One side was dedicated to the George Bush campaign. If you flipped it over, then the other side, for the other half of the magazine was dedicated to the Carry campaign. I was like, great, this is it. Here's proof. I'm gonna read through this. I'm gonna go show dad. Look they did this thing, and it was both sides, and I started to read and I read the Carry side first because that's who I was gonna vote for. I read the Carry side first, great, glowing this is what Carrie has to do to win. Here's what his daily campaign looks like. What a great guy, cool guy. Flip it over read the Bush side. The whole thing was framed from the point of view of what Carrie had to do to beat George Bush. It wasn't anything about here's what he believes, here's what the campaign is doing, here's what George Bush is doing, and here's how Carrie has to respond, and this is why it's a bad thing. And I remember like that was like a lights on moment for me. I was like, are you kidding me? Dad was right, this isn't I'm not getting all of this, And it was one of the things that prompted me to start being more curious about my media. So that's how great story. I know Newsweek doesn't come off too well in it, but I still love it. At the time. On Newsweek, I've noticed the shift. I mean, I know you're over there, and I've noticed the shift the rebranding. I think Newsweek's doing it right. Actually, if I would have to say that Newsweek is actually one of the more intelligent publications these days because they figured out what was happening in media, and they figured out or seemed to have figured out that there are other audiences out there that aren't being captured and the conservative or even these days, we're all conservative if you're not towing the left, but the right of center crowd is right for the picking and they're very online. So true, Yeah, we're there, so that is, but that you're right, we live in this bubble. Taylor lives in this bubble. The immediate elite live in this bubble. The elite period live in their bubbles. They don't live where we live, but they're giving us information from where they live. So yeah, there's going to be a huge disconnect. We don't live the same lives as the people who are giving us the information, hot topics, the news of the day, in depth interviews, and a whole lot more. This is the Outlaws Radio Show. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts today. That's out Laws, the Outlaws Radio Show, n FCB podcasts. Absolutely And you can really see this in labor coverage. So like in the seventies, up until the seventies, when there was sort of the old model where you were trying to get the most readership labor strikes, for example, were always covered from the point of view of the working class, of the striking laborer. They would interview the people striking and be like okay, because they were the readers. There started to be this shift in the seventies and the eighties, really in the nineties to where they started to represent labor strikes from the point of view of the inconvenienced consumer. So they would interview like, you know, the person who's waiting for the bus to get to their office job, right, because that was the reader that they were trying to get. Today, if you look at how labor is coverage in places like the New York Times, it's always like they'll either cover labor strikes of like journalists, which is just absolutely hilarious. Like, you know, the median income of a New York Times journalist is like one hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year. I was joking with my husband the other day, like what's next, like the CEO's union, you know, like it's ridiculous. But or they'll cover it from the point of view of like there are these people who are act leftist activists who will get jobs at places like Amazon or Starbucks with the specific intent of trying to like help get you know, organized, you know, a union in those places, and so those people will feed stories to like the leftist outlets. And because the leftists are now communicating with other leftists like they would never talk to, they'll never interview the workers who don't want the union, you know. And actually there was an amazing New York Times article that did there was they were talking about the unionization effort at the Bessemer Amazon in Alabama. They had an Amazon warehouse and they were, you know, there were some of these like leftists were trying to organize a union there, and the union effort kept failing, like every time there was a vote, you know, two thirds would vote against it. And the New York Times actually allowed in a quote by a middle aged black mother who was working at Amazon who had voted against it and kept voting against it, and the New York Times reporter, well, why do you keep voting against this? And she said, well, I already make twice the minimum wage. I got benefit health benefits the day I started working here, which none of my friends got at their jobs. My manager is really nice to me and takes very good care of us. And when I asked the union, what are you you offering us? Their answer was Black lives matter. But I already know that. I'll go ahead, girl, Oh that one slip past the censors exactly, exactly. Wow, what that's amazing. You're and you're absolutely right. We're not getting the whole story. It's kind of why I started this podcast and why I say like, I want to explore ideas. I want us to break down our talking points. Look, every now and then, I rarely watch conservative media. I'll watch it in clips or the stuff that comes across my reels. I prefer to watch liberal, progressive media because that those are the places I feel need a response. So every now and then I'll spend a day watching CNN, you know, and or MSNBC, and I come away from that day feeling angry and rare aged, upset. And I always think to myself, yeah, yeah, if this was all I watched, if this was the only place I got my information, I would be scared of my neighbors too, because that is the constant messaging. And so what I want to do is encourage people to be curious. It's the thing I always tell my kids, like, do whatever you want, think about, think however you want, vote however you want. Your political opinions will be your own. I only ask that you be curious. Just stay curious, and curiosity will take you very far in your intellectual and spiritual journey, even if if you commit to staying curious. One thing, Batya, I want you to comment on this. One thing that I think requires curiosity is the notion to read beyond the headline. In curious people only read headlines, and we are saddled with a nation full of headline readers right now. But you and I both know, because we're in this industry, that the headlines are rarely representative of the full story, because even we have points of view and perspectives that we want to be upfront and center. And so I think that this it's probably the budget BuzzFeed phenomenon, right. The idea of the click the clickbait headline has created generations now of incurious people, and in curiosity is killing us. And I'll just you pointed out something very subtle and very important, which is, the more you want a headline to be true, the more time you need to spend in Just say that again, say that one more time. The more you want a headline to be true, the more important it is to investigate whether it is, because your confirmation bias is going to be pushing you to not pay attention to the details here. And I'll just give you an example for myself where I was. You know, the recent story about the ADL telling law enforcement to investigate libs of TikTok. I almost shared that before looking into it, because I'll tell you why I was on the lookout for. It's very difficult with the ADL because I feel like, on the one hand, it's really really lost its way. I have big, big disagreements with the leadership about the direction they've taken on that. Just to pause that ADL is anti defamationally for anybody, anti defamation league, yes, which used to be an organization dedicated to protecting Jews from hate crimes, but under new leadership is now extremely left wing and extremely woke. And I've had a lot of conversations with the leadership there. I've been invited to have conversations with them in which I told them exactly what I think about the direction they're going in and how problem I think it is and how bad for Jews and how bad for America. I'm like, this has happened, these conversations, right, But on the other hand, a lot sometimes the criticism of them is very very very accurate and legitimate, and sometimes it just goes overboard. You can criticize an organization that is making mistakes in a legitimate way, and you can criticize an organization that's making mistakes in an anti Semitic way. And so some of the criticism has veered too far. I think, even though I myself a very critical event. All of which is to say I was on the lookout for a headline I could share to be like, look, I get it, I too think that they're making mistakes. You know something, I could say, this is really problematic, right, So when I saw that, I was like, oh my god, this is so terrible. This is so anti American, this is so awful, And I literally almost tweeted it, and then I was like, you know what, I'm gonna find out if it's true first. And it turns out it really wasn't accurate that the way the headline was portraying it. You know, they have a newsletter that goes out to a host of members of law enforcement it's not specifically law enforcement. And they didn't specifically say look into these people. They said, these are the sources of some of the other accounts that we're seeing amplifying hate. You could say that's good, you could say that's bad. But to say that they took a list of names and gave it to law enforcement, I don't know. You know what, It's possible that some of your listeners are gonna be like, that's just as bad. There's no difference between that. To me, it seemed like there was a difference between the way the headline was portraying it and the truth of the matter. And so I had to relinquish this moment where I could have said to my father, look, I get it, I see I get it. I know that they're bad. You know, I like and I have to you know no, because it's not exactly right. It's not exactly correct. And the more you want something to be true, the more the easier you are to dupe. Like when you see a headline you go, oh my god, I know it. I knew they were terrible. You're in You're in dupe mode. You are literally sitting ducks for like people to dupe you. And so it's really I mean, sometimes it's bad, Like you know, the bad people in this country are very, very bad, you know, But it just always pays to take an extra moment. And I've had so many times where I didn't take that extra moment and I regret it. It's so bad, and like, spare yourself the humiliation, you know. Just look, yeah, just look. I tell my listeners this all the time. If it's if a headline is too good to be true, it is, it probably is if. And there are times, obviously, I mean, we live in an era that's almost impossible to parody these days. There are times when it's like, yeah, I can't believe this is true, and it really is, but double check. I had this conversation just yesterday with my sixteen year old daughter. She she uh, And I'm always it's the bane of everyone in this house's existence that I use everything as a lesson. I just a curse of being in the talk space. But so my daughter is looking on social media and she's like, oh my gosh, Mom, did you hear that this actor sent a death threat to this other actor because he got the part he wanted in this new Disney movie. You know, like Johnny sent a death threat to Billy and I was like really, and she said, yeah, he I'll read it. He said something like oh I hope he dies or something like that, and he's about to get canceled. So I said, well, did he mean it? And she's like, well, I don't think it matters if he meant it. I'm like, well, when I see something like that, my first thought is are they friends? Do they know each other? Is this because if I pull up some of my text messages with my best friend, if someone were just isolating some of those things, you know, there's a lot of problematic talking there, which is you talk to your friends differently than other people. So I said, I don't know, seems like I would be looking to see if somebody pulled that out of context. So she said, well, let me look, and so she went into the little write up that's someone had about it, and sure enough, at the bottom of the write up was a comment from this other acting actor saying, no, we're best friends and that was a joke he made because I got the part and he didn't. It wasn't a death threat. So she said, you were right, and I said, see, that's why you always have to read be on the headline. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. So then she decides she was going to be a social media warrior and tell everybody about that. But I don't think she was very popular. Good for her. Also, how sweet was it when she said, Mom, you were right? Yeah? I definitely cherish cherish that moment. But that's what I do for my own children, and is what I do on this podcast. I want people to think about what they're seeing, because there has been a concerted effort to stop us from thinking these days, in all areas of an all corners and entertainment, in schooling, in talk radio, it just in everything. We're supposed we're supposed to shut our brains off. I'm not supposed to think about what an XX chromosome and an x y chromosome means. I'm not supposed to think about that. Just think about the social aspect of this. I'm not supposed to think about if two plus two really makes four five is the compassionate answer. So I'm not supposed to think about what's under We're being asked to turn our brains off. You said something Batya that made me think you said, you know, I resisted tweeting that ADL article because in the end it was just confirmation bias, and you know, it was kind of like, well, I know you could look at it this way, but what you were talking about there, Batya was nuance. That's what you were talking about. And new ones may not be dead, but it's broke and there's not a lot of room for nuance anymore. So the nuance comes in conversations like this, digging in comes from talking to your neighbors, that comes from alternative media reporters like Taylor Lorenz cannot tolerate the nuance because intelligence is in the nuance. Exploration is in the nuance. Intellect is in the nuance. Analyzing is in the nuance, and none of these kids are taught to do that. And honestly, and I think this will probably appeal to your listeners. It's much easier to control people who are not finally attuned to nuance and who are not thinking critically. So, if for no other reason, like you know, I'm sure that you've got a healthy dose of you know, libertarians in your listenership. Conservatives, people who really value their freedom and think of themselves as independent thinkers. The rubber hits the road on your ability to be a freedom loving critical thinker only in times when you are resisting messaging that is designed to dupe you, right, And that is when people are talking about your enemies like that is why it is extremely important to kind of resist that and resist seeing your enemies as a caricature, because therein lies your own enslavement to yours sides message. And so I would encourage everybody to do exactly what Kira tells you to do. Think critically, be curious. Yeah, give people the benefit of the doubt, look into things, look behind the headline, look deeper, and never lose your humanity. Well, let me ask you this as we get ready to wrap up here. We've guard to gone longer than I thought we would, but so we'll probably have to have you back on definitely when your next book is. I know that it's available for pre order, and we'll talk about that. But I get this Quo asks this question a lot. It's the theme of the show this week. I'm going to get back into how we find unbiased media. I get asked this question a lot. I've already answered. I know what my answer is. I've done a whole episode on it, and I'm about to talk about it again. But what as the opinion editor at Newsweek magazine, which is still held in a lot of esteem by many people, what is your advice to people who are out there asking, okay, batya great? How do I find media that isn't biased or isn't trying to do me? How do I know? I would say, you can't. You need to find people that you disagree with who you can respect, because everybody has a bias, and most people are biased in their own interests. And the thing that makes you stupid and easy to control is not having access to unbiased information. It's critical thinking. It's being able to question what is in your interest, and the only way to do that is to have people in your life who you respect, who are on the other side of things like so, for example, I'm Jewish, I'm extremely pro Israel. I have very close friends, very close friends, people I love with every fiber of my being, who I disagree with completely on this issue, who are Palestinian who see things from the completely other side, and we are locked in this conversation for the rest of our lives. God willing, because that is how I stay honest, Like I can't stay honest if I am only hearing from people who agree with me. But you know, also like there's a lot of dishonesty on the other side. Like there's a reason I've chosen this on I think it's the right side, and I think the other side is like wrong and problematic and can veer into really ugly territory. But so what I do is I do what you do. I mean, I have you know, Fox News up in one browser and CNN or not CNN anymore. I really can't anymore with CNN. See on the other side, you know, and I follow how each side is developing their narratives. I follow people on both sides. Now, a lot of people don't have time for that, you know. But so I would say to that, it's like, it doesn't really matter what you're getting it if you're willing to put in the five extra minutes to verify whether something is true. And we all have time for that. I mean, we're all scrolling on Instagram or scrolling on Twitter. We're scrolling. I would say, stay off of TikTok because TikTok is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party literally, not that you can't get anything good off of it. They're losing it to undermine us as a country and to under so I would avoid TikTok. But if you're on Instagram, if you're on Twitter, find people who don't see the world that the way that you do, but who you can still respect. So like not tayl Lawrence, although I have to say I really I enjoy her content for the same reason that you watch CNN, which is it really helps me understand where the other side is coming from. But I wouldn't say I respect her. But there are definitely leftists that I still respect who I talk to a lot. It's extremely important to have those people in your life, and like, if you want them to respect you, you have to respect them. So you have to put in the work to find somebody, just one voice, who sees it from the other side. You know, Honestly, there's a real problem because a lot of the wolks are very like intelligent. They go to school, they learn how to like manipulate language in a way that's like I'm like, WHOA, that person's like really smart. Like they'll attack me and I'll be like god, it's like it really nailed me this time, like they're not like idiots, but they're evil, you know, like they're they're they have really bad values, you know. So it's like I'm not saying fine those people though, those people are entertaining to see, like how how much someone can manipulate the facts to make it sound like their side is right. Find people who you can respect, who you disagree with. There's like nothing more important to stitching back the fabric of the society and all. That's the perfect answer. I basically say the same thing. The other thing I always just tell people is if you don't want to be engaged and all that, and you like just your confirmation bias, just the acknowledgment that you're getting bias media, I think is enough. Just know. I mean, I'm fine with I always tell my you know, I have liberal friends, and I'm amost like, I don't care. I don't care if you hate that I'm on Fox News or hate this outlet or this person. But just know that when you watch CNN, you're not getting the full story. Because I think that even just the knowledge that Okay, I know I'm not getting the whole story, but this is the side I agree with. And this is what I want to hear. Even just knowing that will help. It'll put a little stop gap in between you and hating the other side, right, because right, we see and I see conservatives don't get off the hook with us. And I say this all the time on this show. Whoever you think I'm talking to when I talk about this stuff, I'm always talking about you, whoever you are out there, I'm always talking about because we all I know people. Yeah, d'rer Yeah, I hate that. No, I'm talking to you, right, you're the one you're getting just as bias media. You have judgments about the other side. I'm talking to me, you know. So I think self examination is always the best way. Well, Batya, before I let you go, and before I ask you to tell everybody how to get in touch if you get all of your things set up. The second book, just briefly, that's coming out because it does seem like a great follow up to examining this issue of elites in the media. Yes, thank you so much, Kira. The book is called Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's working men and women. If you liked anything you heard here today, there's a lot more of it. In the book, I wanted to understand if working class Americans still had a fair shot at the American Dream, and so I set out to answer that question by talking to working class Americans across the country, and the book is it's. The politics of it are really interesting. It's not what you would expect. There's a lot there I think that libertarians would like, but there's also a lot that will challenge you. And it's it's, you know, for everybody, there's stuff there that's going to anger both sides. A lot of working class Americans do have access to the American Dream, and a lot of them don't. And so I sort of spoke to many many people. A lot of them are profiled in the book. You'll meet amazing characters. And then I started to talk to experts and bring experts and working class people together in conversation over what solutions could help them make their lives a little bit easier. So, on the one hand, I mean, some people do still have a shot at the American Dream. But on the other hand, I do feel that we've sort of broken the contract with the working class whose labor we rely on. And it's really my best attempt to struggle with these issues. You know, my husband's a libertarian, and so there's a lot of a lot of Shabbat meals where we are locked in battle over economics. So it's the book is very much in conversation with the libertarian point of view, although I myself am I call myself a Trump Marxist these days, I oh Trump was in that. I think class is the key to understanding America today. And so that's sort of what the book is about. And it's available for pre order on Amazon. It'll be out April second, and I would be just thrilled if you would read it and let me know what you think. I'm so excited to be having this conversation, of course, and we'll include links to everything in the show notes in how can people get a hold of you on social media? Follow you? Okay, So I'm on Twitter at Bunger Sargon, and I just started an Instagram page to help promote the book, which is batya Us. And there's a little bit more of sort of behind the scenes of what it's like to be a journalist today on Instagram, a little bit less buttoned up, which is, you know, Twitter tends to be where my rage happens, and I'm finding as a gentler medium where you can sort of be a little bit more of yourself. And Newsweek we publish a daily debate every single day, a debate about the big topic of relevance to American life. Yeah, that's it, Well great, don't forget to get her book that's currently out bad News, how woke media is undermining democracy, and then go pre order the next one. Batya, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure. Oh my gosh, Kira, this was like such a pleasure for me on so many levels, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel in such a better place right now, and I'm just I'm so grateful to you for everything you do for our nation, and you know, for having me. What a pleasure. Thank you so much, the honor was all mine. Well, everybody, don't forget like and subscribe to this podcast. Download it. If you've never downloaded it downloaded you can delete it later, but the downloads are very helpful for my bank account, So download this. Don't forget to sign up for my subject just kiradatas dot subsect dot com and go buy my book of course, drawing lines why conservatives need to begin to battle fiercely in the arena of ideas. To go and work on my second book, which is now overdue. So that's what I'm going to do. Everybody again, Thank you to our guests, About you, everybody until we may get a meet again. Don't forget every once in a while, just stop and listen to yourself. OP prayers asoda that we won't with say then we won't to say oh we gott it? Does no one get dig that? Owen da it is gonna be okay? Pop prayers that we won't with say then we won't with say oh we got it? Does no one get dig that? Owen gonna be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where Real Talk lives visitors online at fcbpodcasts dot com.
