Ep. 5: Why democracy needs a free press with Thom Shanker and Kelly S. Kennedy

In this episode, Ellen and Joe chat with long-time NY Times Pentagon reporter Thom Shanker and Army veteran, author, and investigative journalist Kelly S. Kennedy about the role of a free and vigorous press in our democracy.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

That they tend to shy away from or even be cowardly about the information space. And this is not about information operations or psy-ops, but just engaging with the public in the information space. Military commanders never run from the sound of fire. They don't let weather stop them. So why on earth are they so cowardly around somebody with a pad and a pencil?

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Hello and welcome to the Vet Our Democracy Podcast, created by us, the nonprofit, nonpartisan, pro-democracy group, we the veterans and military families. In this series, we explore what it means to be a citizen, what veterans and military families' roles are in supporting and defending our Constitution following military service, and how you can get more involved to help create a more perfect union. We're all in this democracy thing together, and it's important for all of us to know our rights and our responsibilities to each other. As citizens, we need to know how our government is supposed to work so we can engage patriotically and positively to bring about the best version of America. So if you care about America, democracy, baseball, mom, and apple pie, this is the podcast for you. Today's episode is all about the role of the press in a properly functioning democracy, considering that our realities beyond the range of our five senses are constructed from the information we consume, what the early 20th century thinker Walter Littman called the world outside and the pictures in our heads, it is especially important for citizens to receive good, true information about current events and public affairs so they can make the best decisions about who our leaders are, what policies should be enacted, what laws should be made, and how our society should operate. With all the challenges facing our country and world today, it is more important than ever that people get timely and accurate information about the issues they care about. Joining us today for this very important discussion are Tom Shanker, the director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University's School for Media and Public Affairs, and Kelly S. Kennedy, the managing editor for the Warhorse, a nonprofit investigative newsroom covering military and veteran issues. I first met Tom in the Bottles of the Pentagon around 2010 when he was the New York Times correspondent covering the Department of Defense. And I met Kelly around 2016 when she and my wife collaborated to write a book about how female Marines are trained. Both have traveled extensively to multiple combat zones covering the post-9-11 wars and risked their lives to tell the stories of young Americans at war and the political decisions that put them in harm's way. Both are incredibly accomplished journalists and authors with very interesting new books out, which we'll talk about later. And I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So without further ado, Tom, Kelly, and Ellen, welcome.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

Thanks. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

Thank you. Excellent. Well, since today's uh discussion is really about the role of the press in democracy, um, I'd just like to get your thoughts to start on why America and arguably the world needs a vigorous, curious, and free press.

SPEAKER_00: 2:59

Sure. I'll jump in here. I uh you know, Joe, an informed electorate is really important to the strength of a democracy. I've spent much of my life living in dictatorships, five years in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, uh, you know, into Iraq and other places when they were either dictatorial or just post-dictatorial. And I'm not sure I'd go as far as Thomas Jefferson who said if I had to choose between a government or a free press, I'd pick the free press, because I think there is a partnership there. But I think especially in the issues that all of us care about, there's no decision that a democracy makes that is more grim or more serious than going to war. And so a free media plays this incredibly important role in informing the public about what the government is doing in its name, with its tax dollars, with the weapons it's buying, and most importantly, how it's going to send men and women, citizens, sons, daughters, moms, dads, brothers, sisters into harm's way. And Joe, all those years at the Pentagon, when you were working in public affairs and I was working for the New York Times, we had a great professional rapport. It was always professional. There was a lot of rub there, but you understood the basic premise of maximum disclosure with minimum delay. That's where the government should be, and the media, a free media, should be on the side of getting it first, but first getting it right, and always to contribute to an informed electorate.

SPEAKER_01: 4:30

Thank you. Yeah, I couldn't couldn't have said it better myself. I think that Tom, that's uh spot on. Kelly, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_03: 4:40

Yeah, I mean, absolutely spot on, but I would say after getting out of the military, I always thought of my role as being a reporter, um, as continuing to look out for my guys, which plays into that too. You know, this idea that uh the government is acting in our name. Well, how are the troops being taken care of? What's the aftermath of that? What will we what will um voting look like in the future when we're thinking about wars, when we're thinking about um harmful effects on troops from tax exposure or the war itself? Like, can we think past just the immediate? What's the long term?

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, one of the things I heard a one of the things I heard a lot from military commanders over the years was essentially the sentiment that why should I talk to the press? You know, they would ask this question almost like they didn't see um one, they didn't look forward to it, because I think they kind of saw it as all risk, no reward. Um, two, you know, with the imperative that the military places on classification and operational security, you know, they saw that as a risk as well. Um but three, there was almost an arrogance there of like, well, I don't have to talk to these folks. And, you know, it was kind of like our job as public affairs folks, but also, you know, the civilian leadership of the departments really, um, a lot of times would weigh in and say, no, you really are going to answer the American people on what our young men and women are doing around the world. So um, you know, how did you overcome that when you were working as reporters uh and still are? Um, you know, covering the military and and I know um uh Tom, you you just recently, or maybe not so recently, left the New York Times, but but fairly recently. Um how did you overcome that inertia or that that resistance?

SPEAKER_00: 6:26

Sure, I would just make uh I would make the case that the relationship between the military and the media is like a marriage. Now, it's a dysfunctional marriage, to be sure, but we stay together for the kids. Now, what do I mean mean by that? You know, my kids in this horrible analogy are the American people, citizens, taxpayers, voters. The kids to the commanders are the troops under their command who need and the commanders understand keeping public support requires communicating with the public about what they're they're doing. I respect their constraints of secrecy, but I think all of us are very familiar with overclassification. But no reporter, at least very few reporters, set out with the goal of I'm gonna go declassify something today. No, the goal is I'm gonna write a story that informs the American people. And if it rubs up against classification, well, there are processes at the New York Times, at other places, war horse to deal with that in conversation. It's never unilateral, it's part of the conversation, but that's like the stalking horse issue, Joe. Classification is not the biggest issue that comes up in the military media relationship. It's access, it's um, you know, the flow of information. Um, and most commanders get it. And as an individual, um reporters have access because of their reputation. If you do good stories, you get good access. If you do bad stories, and I don't mean good or bad from the military's point of view, I mean good or bad as far as accuracy, importance, the things that we hold dear. Not you judging us, but us judging ourselves.

SPEAKER_03: 8:08

I was gonna say, I if you can get your story right, there's no reason to uh the military can't come back at you with, you know, you've got it completely screwed up and you shouldn't have done it. But it also means that the the troops trust you and may bring you information that that can help the force, the the nation, the the guys. It's it's so important to get it right. That's that's the best way to overcome any problems.

SPEAKER_02: 8:37

Well, I was gonna I was gonna be uh super nerdy as a citizen um in this discussion and say, you know, one of the first times that I heard the phrase the fourth estate, um I thought it was really wonky and weird um, you know, in a in a political science class. But actually the the phrase and the the expression the fourth power is is in almost every major European language. Um, and in most democracies, it's considered, you know, the other thing. Um, you know, there's the obviously the uh legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch, but then what what about the rest of us? Like how how do we play in that? And I think we've gotten so lost in this conversation about someone's bias instead of realizing that the whole point of this here is that as citizens of any country where there's all these different people in power, we we don't have any way other than through people that are paid to do this job to find out about those people in power, what they're doing, what their decisions they're making, um what they don't want us to know, what uh what background we need to sort of analyze um those decisions. So um, and I would I would also say that as a military spouse, you know, it's there's an interesting and maybe fraught sense that, you know, is is this journalist going to do something that endangers you know military members or or or whatever? But as you know, hopefully not. And as a citizen, we we have to rely on these people to tell us a more complete story about what's going on and what our family members are engaged in. What's the why? Um, what's the, you know, um, you know, sh how should we put this in the context of American history? I mean, there's all these elements that we could never possibly know ourselves and that are incredibly important.

SPEAKER_00: 10:27

Aaron Powell And it it always sort of m amazed me that you know the military is so smart about all of the domains land, sea, air, cyberspace, now there's a space force, that they tend to shy away from or even be cowardly about the information space. And this is not about information operations or psyops, but just engaging with the public in the information space. Military commanders never run from the sound of fire, they don't let weather stop them. So why on earth are they so cowardly around somebody with a pad and a pencil?

SPEAKER_01: 11:03

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean, well said, I uh you know, I've got some pretty strong feelings about that. I think, you know, it's uh what you're describing to me, um it's the difference between physical and moral courage, right? You know, it's one thing to back up your friend who's being mugged or you know, chase a robber down the street. It's another thing when you know that um politics might swing in your face and and and you might have some personal consequences for telling the truth, right? And that's a whole nother calculus where you know the military being very hierarchical, hierarchical, um sometimes you know, left to its own devices can be a very go-along to get along type of of group, right? And and so it's also a monkey-see monkey-doo thing. So like if you have an inspired service chief or commandant who is out there and the and the troops see them engaging with the media, there's a trickle-down effect to that where other commanders, you know, will follow suit, especially if the expectations lay from the top. If they're not doing that, you know, we we had a recent chairman um who ducked the press. You know, for his entire time he was in office. And and uh, you know, I I called him out in an article in the in an op-ed in the Washington Post, but you know, it's just like I'm sorry, like you know, you are at your terminal rank, you owe it to us to speak. And if you don't, it's like the the the first time you want to meet the press isn't when a disaster is on your hands. It's like you got to build those relationships ahead of time, right? So, you know, that's why Tom, when you talk about it being a marriage, yeah, absolutely, because you know, marriages are based in trust and and um and relationships with the media are based on trust. And I took great umbrage and still to this day at folks who kind of disregard or malign the entire media as a group, right? Um, because it's like anytime you say all people in fill-in-the-blank group exhibit fill-in-the-blank kind of behavior, I guarantee you're gonna be 100% wrong all the time, right? So, I mean it's just like bias, prejudice, stereotypes, and the rest of it, and encourage people to think past that and say, hey, you know, it's like, you know, I've had awesome relationships with reporters. Um, I embedded over a hundred in Iraq for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and was directed to arrest one and uh take him off the battlefield because they were given away the position of one of our regimental combat teams on live air. Um and not super proud of that moment in in my life um and being directed to do that, but uh um but I'll still take 99 out of 100 stolen A plus in in any school that you you go to, right? So um yeah, Kelly, what what what thoughts do you have?

SPEAKER_03: 13:43

Well, I was thinking about the long term from that, you know, how often you hear civilians don't understand, or there's the military-civilian divide. So at the same time that we complain that there aren't enough uh veterans out into the world in the world, as soon as a civilian asks us questions, we say things like, Well, you wouldn't understand. And if your commandant or your general has been saying, I'm not gonna talk to the media for all these these years, then why should I talk to civilians? Why should I explain what I've been through when even as a service member I represent the civilian population in the vote?

SPEAKER_00: 14:17

So But Joe, it's interesting. You talked about how there is no the media because we're not a homogenous group. Well, guess what? There's no the military either. And and and that's one of the things that reporters who really covered the Pentagon for years and decades understand. And it's part of our job to be your, not your ambassadors, but your translators, your interpreters. And that's a lot of of what we did. And I joke that, you know, as you know, Joe, from your time in the public affairs shop, there are reporters at the Pentagon today whose first story was probably the dividing of the Red Sea and the Israelites being chased by the Egyptians, right? That's how long they've been on the beat. No other beat in Washington. The White House they pass through, it's getting the ticket stamped, State Department, Congress, everywhere else. But the Pentagon tends to attract reporters who become experts in their own right. And you know who they are. The Michael Gordons of the world, the Tom Rickses of the world, the Eric Schmidt's of the world. These are people who, you know, are as knowledgeable about the military as many of the commanders they're interviewing.

SPEAKER_01: 15:25

Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned Tom Ricks, who's uh a favorite of mine, and provided me some wise advice over the years. But like it was funny because when he wrote Makings of the Corps or Making of the Corps, they were like, oh, these great, we love him, and then he wrote Hebris, and they're like, oh, like we don't like him so much because he's he's showing our warts and strategic failures, right? So but I think um the uh the the check that you know there's an accountability factor, right? You know, when we talk about like the free press and and holding power to account, um because we the people can't possibly even understand what's going on unless somebody's telling that to us, right? And so um can I get your thoughts on that a little bit? Like, you know, where have you seen in in your time reporting that you've been able to, you know, by telling the stories factually, been able to hold people's feet to the fire and and help guide them. You know, essentially I see the press is putting like the bumpers and the gutters on the bowling alley. It's like done right. It's like, yes, people are watching, so let's make sure that you're bowling um down the center, right? Um can you can you talk to me about that?

SPEAKER_03: 16:38

I mean, the the PACT Act, of course, is the first thing that comes to mind writing about the burn pits in 2008 and finally having that come to fruition. Um, but the other one that comes to mind is when I was in Iraq in 2007, I was with the unit that was hit really hard and they were serving 15-month tours, and their commander had been turned out right in the middle of his tour over there. We wrote about those things, and the next thing we knew they weren't they weren't doing middle of of combat tour shiftovers with the commander uh commanders, and they weren't doing 50-month 15-month tours anymore. So, you know, your reporting can have an immediate change and immediate change for real people, not just for you know the government or or whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 17:24

Yeah, and for folks that might not be as familiar with it, the PACT Act um is related to the burn pits that were being burned in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of vets came home very sick from that. Um but due to the way the the law and VA regulations were written, um you couldn't get medical care for inhalation-related injuries and sicknesses and cancers uh because the burden of proof was so high. If I understand that correctly, Kelly, is that right?

SPEAKER_03: 17:52

That was part of it, but also acknowledging that it was a problem to begin with was a problem.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

So Yeah. I mean, but you know, 19-year-olds shouldn't be coming back from battlefields with like glioblastoma and clusters, right? Like weird brain cancers and all sorts of other things. So like had the press, namely you and others, not broken that story, you know, would those vets be getting care of today? I don't know. I mean, that's that's a really interesting thing to think about. And Tom, like, where have you seen people being the powerful being held to account through the press?

SPEAKER_00: 18:26

Sure. I mean, there's so many examples, Joe. Uh, Dana Priest's groundbreaking work on failures at Walter Reed, uh, that she wrote for the Washington Post. Um, my colleague Dave Phillips The Times had stories just last week about you know brain injuries from you know units in Syria who were filing who were firing historic numbers of artillery rounds, um, those sorts of things. And I guess too, let's not forget that reporters play a role in holding the world to account on behalf of Americans. I mean, the story I'm proudest of breaking in my entire career was during my years covering the awful ethnic wars in Bosnia after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. I was the reporter who first wrote about the Serbian campaign of systematic mass rape of Muslim women. That was in parallel with my friend Roy Gutman of Newsday, who two weeks before broke the story about the Serb death camps. Now, this was after the fall of communism. There was, you know, where's this piece deviden people were looking for? Nobody wanted to focus on the plight of Muslims in Southern Europe. But it was reporting like that that forced the world to pay attention and act. And we put a little bit of justice back in the world because those stories drove the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague to finally file charges and to send then the US military in to start hunting and finding these bad guys. So for sure, this podcast, You Veterans Military Spouse, should focus on the U.S. military.

SPEAKER_02: 20:23

And Tom, you've obviously served covering this space for a very, very long time. I'm curious if there's sort of any nuance between how you may sort of do your respective jobs, you know, coming from very much within. But now, Tom, you're you've been almost within for you know for your career as well. I'm just curious about that that distinction. It's something we look into just because of the trust automatically given to someone who is a veteran and if that plays out for in your own experiences.

SPEAKER_03: 20:56

Yeah, I I always joke that when I was covering cops, I I didn't have to be a criminal, you know, to cover cops. Um when I was covering education, I didn't have to be an educator to cover education. I think a lot of the guys at the Pentagon know a lot more about the military than I do. Um and people do assume that as a veteran, you've got some great knowledge, but I came out as a spec for, I was in for four years. I was 23 years old, three years, 23 years old when I got out, and I I knew nothing. And you know, interviewing Petraeus was terrifying. And so I I think that you get granted a little bit of um trust because people know that you are willing to be part of the SAC. But if you're covering the military, then you're willing to do to be in the SOC too.

SPEAKER_00: 21:44

So I I think there is a value in obviously the military experience, not just having served our nation, but in making you a better reporter. People like Chris Chivers, TM Gibbons Neff, the New York Times consciously sought out veterans for their experience and expertise. And they elevated the entire report. But as Kelly said, you don't have to be a veteran to cover the military. And if you're on the beat 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 years, I think you've earned the right to ask the tough questions. And one of the great things before uh DOD began being a little more cyber savvy, you know, there was there were majors I met on my first special forces embed in Kandahar in 2001 who kept the same emails when they pinned their first star on their shoulder. So you could always find them. Now, that's no longer true, Joe. As you know, they've been wrote rotating the email addresses, but you know, these these officers would respond over the years. You develop relationships with them, and uh it's all built on trust. But that takes time and it takes having a reputation for accuracy and honesty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 22:56

It's kind of funny. Um, Dana's story about Walter Reed, I I was covering it at this the same time. We were kind of um going in at the same time. And I walked in and saw the mold on the walls and thought, ah, barracks. You know, because as someone had served, I missed something that a civilian would see. On the other hand, on the burn pit story, when um Dan Clare was pitching that out to civilian reporters, they thought the army would never do anything that blatantly obvious that was wrong. And I thought that's not the army I remember. So it can play both ways.

SPEAKER_01: 23:37

Yeah. Yeah, no, and you know, I think you know, I'm grateful because you know, I have I've I have friends who you know are going to the VA right now to get care for burn pit-related illnesses. And if it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for folks like Patty Kaim, who you know broke the story and kept on beating that drum, right? You know, it's just like I I really don't think that that hundreds of thousands of veterans would be getting care today because of that. Because, you know, it's just like it's it's so funny how you know Congress can find a ton of money for going to war uh and for the Raytheons and BAEs and Textrons and all the rest of them. But when it comes down to, hey, you know, we need a few billion to take care of these veterans who are sick from um, you know, toxins on the battlefield, they're like, oh, what's the pay for? Like, come on. You know, it's uh there's a there's a moral responsibility that that extends. And that's you know, one of the things when they were talking about privatizing the VA, you know, uh a lot of us were like, nope, you're not gonna do that because it's it's not just a healthcare system, and and yes, it is large, and yes, it is complicated, but it is a physical reminder of our duty to the men and women who fight our wars, right? You know, I mean it's you know, in brick and mortar, right, in every state in the country and territory. So um, no, that's good. I I think one of the things, you know, you hear about, well, the press gets it wrong, or I don't even know what to believe anymore, is a comment that came up and both at Brookings and then also talking to my father over the weekend, he's like, you know, I don't even know what to believe on on the news anymore. And I'm like, well, that's a problem when Americans can't decipher fact from fiction, right? Um, could you talk to me? I've heard journalism talked uh kind of described as the first draft of history in in a way. Could you talk to us like about like what your what are your thoughts on that? Like, how does the process eventually get it right, even if the first story's off or wrong or you know, doesn't have all the facts? I mean, you know, first reports rarely are are 100% accurate, but but how do we how does the truth eventually come out through the process of journalism?

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

Well, Kelly mentioned that she was a police reporter. Most of us of our generation were my first journalism job, it was night cops in Oklahoma City, and my best editor, a guy named Mike Shannon, taught me get it first, but first get it right. Um, and and I think that, you know, to to your father, Joe and to those who talk about, I don't know who I can believe, I I really have to politely and respectfully disagree with him. I think if you look to the mainstream, respected media, um, and a lot of the newer online organizations, um, they do get it right most of the time. I what breaks my heart, and I use that word completely knowing what it means, what breaks my heart is that traditional, accurate, honest, fair journalism is being lumped into this whole fake news world and social media. I'm an absolutist when it comes to the First Amendment. Everybody has a right to say what they think, but discerning uh can consumers of news have to know the difference between the New York Times and some blogger on the street, you know, between the war horse and some website posted by some chucklehead at his mom's table eating Cheerios and his boxer shorts. And unfortunately, it's the conflation of this whole media universe that is the problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:14

Well, and and how would you oh I want to hear Kelly's thoughts, but I also I'm curious for both of you how you know if if it's like if if you're saying, you know, trusted journalist, you know, picture 101, I'm curious how both of you would tell a listener, a citizen, how to define what a trusted journalist is. Um it used to be easier because we all the most trusted person in America was Walter Cronkite, right? I mean, it was easy. We we knew that he was saying something that people were paid to do the research to back up what he was saying. Somehow now that looks like it's not trustable, trustworthy.

SPEAKER_03: 27:53

I think um when I hear someone say that they don't trust the news, the first question I always ask is, what's your source? What are you reading? What's what's the newspaper you read every day? And usually people don't have an answer for that. So I feel like if you want to trust the news, then you have to put some work into it. You have to you have to find a good news source. And there's a million resources online that say, you know, here's where they fall right down the middle, when here's where they're a little over here, here's where they're over here. Um but you need to put in the work. You need to you need to find a source that you trust and and watch it. But also you can pick more than one, you know, like even during the the hospital bombing in Israel, if you were watching more than one source or reading more than one source, then then you knew there was confusion and no one really knew exactly yet what was going on. And and then all the headlines started to make sense. Um I I don't think picking one headline and then saying this place is bad or or this place is great is is the way to do it. I think you have to put the work in.

SPEAKER_01: 29:03

Yeah. I mean, and I love that because you know, from the military aspect, what you're talking about is open source intelligence, right? You don't just take one report and say, okay, well, this is what's happening, or the enemy's doing this, or the the the leader of Iran's doing this from one single report. You're gonna go to multiple sources and multiple periodicals, multiple um uh points of information and then compare them, right? And see like where are the where are the uh discrepancies, where do they where does it start to rhyme to to build the story of what's happening? And I think I think that makes a lot of sense. And and I've heard some people describe it as get your news like a salad bar, like don't eat just all potatoes or all beets, like get a little bit from each and and take a look around and see. But um, but yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. And there's even organizations out there like ad fontas who actually rate news organizations, right? You know, they're they um you can kind of see where they sit right or left to center, and and are they more factual or opinion-based? And so um that's kind of interesting and exciting.

SPEAKER_03: 30:04

Yeah, or misinformation, it'll it'll tell you that too.

SPEAKER_00: 30:08

Yeah. Well, and in a in a perfect world, what Kelly, uh, what you and Joe are saying, you know, would work. Unfortunately, we are not even in the you know, first best option in a second best world here. I mean, people love only getting the news they already know they want to know about. People only want to have their biases affirmed. So rather than you know, um the Walter Conkite school, the New York Times school that gives you a full plate so you don't have to go to the buffet. People only want the daily me. And how we spin back time to where people do what you, Kelly, and Joe are saying. I mean, I wish it was tomorrow, but I'm afraid the era is gone where people are energetic, open-minded, uh, adventurous consumers of news. And that's why we see the incredible polarization we have in our country today. And I guarantee you all know this. We are weaker as a polarized nation than when we are together.

SPEAKER_01: 31:06

Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah, we we've got a saying around we the veterans of military families, it's like if when Americans are at each other's throats and tearing at each other, we're we're doing our nation's enemies job for them.

unknown: 31:16

True.

SPEAKER_01: 31:16

You know, because the folks in Moscow are laughing, the folks in Beijing are ma laughing, the folks in Tehran are laughing. Um every time they see Americans tearing each other apart over social issues, right? So um when can can you tell me because I see it less in print um and more in broadcast media, but like the conflation between news and opinion. Um, you know, where certain networks have like dedicated news segments and news rooms, right? That and the news comes on at like noon and typically six and and you know, eight in the morning. But in between those news broadcasts is a whole lot of opinion and a whole lot of celebrity talking heads. And I can understand from a certain perspective how it gets confusing. Like, am I listening to the news broadcast or am I listening to somebody's opinion about what's happening in the news? How how how can we navigate that better?

SPEAKER_00: 32:11

Turn off your TV.

SPEAKER_01: 32:14

See the television.

SPEAKER_00: 32:16

Yeah, I mean, not only because I have a face made for radio, but I it just again it breaks my heart that uh the television landscape has is really being driven by these market shares. I mean, yeah, you have Fox on the right and MSNBC on on the left, and CNN struggling to figure out where it fits. And my problem with Fox, again, I'm an absolutist when it comes to the First Amendment. So Fox wants to skew right, if MSNBC wants to skew left, I support that. But the problem is this when Fox says it's fair and balanced, even during the opinion sections when it's not, it its viewers then come away thinking that everybody can be as biased as that and still claim to be fair and balanced. And I know people criticize the New York Times for being left of center, the editorial page is, but our news columns are only aggressive and going after the truth. And those in power always see those as coming after them as being from the left. But Fox and MSNBC, secondarily, have trained Americans that bias in your news is what news is, right? And that is so bad for our country.

SPEAKER_01: 33:29

Yeah, definitely couldn't agree more. And I think it's something where as an industry, major news organizations could do a lot to help people if they wanted to, by just even putting in the lower third of the TV, right? You know, this is an opinion section, or have an opinion versus this is the news section, right? You know. Um, because there are journalists over at Fox to this day I still correspond with that that I I have good relationships with that I know they're straight shooters, right? You know, Jennifer Griffin being one of them, um, who is not afraid to tell the truth. Um and even when it flies in the face of politics at her organization, so um you know, and I think in newspapers, it's a you know, you know that the editorial page is kind of you know page 27 near the back, and you know, they it's a big mass head, you know, opinion in that part. So yeah, I think newspapers do a lot better job of making that bifurcation. But could you talk like I think a lot of Americans are confused because they don't even understand how there's a separation within news organizations that opinion and news folks typically don't even talk to each other. Is that correct? Do I have that right?

SPEAKER_00: 34:39

Very much so. Absolutely. I mean, the the opinion pages don't call us for background. I mean, they they do they uh my I'm a matter, I'm I'm no longer part of that we, but there is a church-state divide between the opinion and the news section. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 34:56

I've been in newsrooms where they call the reporters in to to sort of interview them. The editorial board will just to get background information, but we weren't part of their decision or and and they weren't telling us what they were thinking, but we we were just there to help inform their decisions. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 35:14

So I I have a question just about, you know, uh again as a as a citizen but also as a as a military spouse, how do you feel about, you know, the okay, the last 20-something years of of coverage was obviously if you were covering the military, you were covering war. And um, you know, how do you feel um your role and your your your sort of you know comrades in in pens uh role? Um you know, what impact do you think the stories, the TV, the writing about the last 20-something years of war, what impact did it have on the way Americans perceive the war and maybe even have you know our our our taste for war, our interest in continuing?

SPEAKER_03: 35:57

That's a huge one. I mean, I I feel like reporters did a pretty good job of of reporting on Iraq and Afghanistan, and it didn't necessarily feel like I don't necessarily feel like it changed the outcome. You know, it felt a lot like as we were saying, you know, this thing is going wrong, or you need to tell us more about this, or you've taken out all the infrastructure in in Iraq now, but um those those things didn't necessarily change, and we still ended up in the place we ended up. So as far as how it affected government policy, not not overwhelm overall in the in the big way it needed to. Um public opinion, I I don't believe we have a taste for war right now. But that changes as people forget. So I I don't know. You know, I didn't seem very hopeful.

SPEAKER_00: 36:57

No, I mean uh that's fascinating. I think um, Ellen, the most specific answer I can give you is how it affected the reporters. Um, you know, I was in newsrooms, I'm old enough to have been in the newsrooms in the 70s when the draft ended. Uh uh I I I had to register, so I was with Selective Service, but in the 70s when the draft ended, newsrooms suddenly began uh flushing out all their veterans just because they aged out. Those from World War II, uh Korea, Vietnam. So from the mid to late 70s up until 9-11, newsrooms had fewer and fewer veterans with each passing year. And that's not good because you want reporters to understand the different parts of our society. So, for better or worse, the forever wars did inject back into newsrooms at every organization across America: small town papers, mid-size, the elite press, people, men and women who had covered war, traveled with the military, had military comrades in arms, and that I think created empathy, not bias, but empathy and knowledge that makes the report better.

SPEAKER_03: 38:09

That makes sense. I remember reading Embedded when I was in school, um, in grad school, before I went back into reporting as a military reporter, and just being blown away by how sort of naive it felt compared to what reporting feels like today.

SPEAKER_01: 38:26

I think one thing when you talk about especially war correspondence, I mean, definitely have a special place in my heart having lived through the 03 embed process where I think we probably had more reporters traveling with uh servicemen and women since maybe World War II, um, maybe Vietnam. I mean, it's been a good long time since uh the press had that access to the military. And thinking, you know, these folks are coming to tell our story and risking their lives to do it, right? There's no guarantee that they're gonna go back home to their families uh when they're embedded in infantry platoons and companies. I mean, right at the point of contact, uh, to the point where, you know, uh there's a guy, an author, a very prominent author, was supposed to go with First Reconnaissance Battalion. And after he got the nuclear biological chemical brief and the VX agent and what it does to your body and all that stuff, he came to me and he said, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't do it. He said, I've got a family back home, and I said, Hey, it's no shame. I said, You're always welcome, the doors open. And the the guy that they sent me after um Hampton left was uh Evan Wright. And that's how the whole uh Generation Kill got started, right? So um, and and Evan, you know, is willing to go forward. Um, but you know, I think about you know, Tom and I were kind of talking a little bit before we started the recording, um, and maybe this is kind of like a good one kind of final thought before we we wrap it up, um, is that covering war has an impact on the reporters just like it does on the troops. Um In many cases, you know, whether it's physical injuries like Bob Woodruff or Kim Dozier or, you know, folks who have left pieces of their bodies on battlefields while covering war, um, or not coming home at all, um, or just you know, having gone to uh to combat one too many times. I mean, how how do you how do you as reporters kind of work through that? I mean, you've both been downrange. Um, what's being done for reporters? Because I think there's a lot more being done for vets um in this regard.

SPEAKER_00: 40:30

Kelly, do you want to start? Do you want me to go first?

SPEAKER_03: 40:32

What's your uh sure? I I am part of the Dart Center for trauma journalists. Um and they they bring journalists who cover trauma out for a week to talk about how uh being essentially a first responder without the respect is is is tough. It's really hard. You see a lot of the same things that first responders see. Um they always give us an example, the the hurricane in New Orleans, where on the sides of the roads there'd be free food, free water water, no reporters welcome, even though that's also where the reporters lived and it was also the reporters' homes. Um I would say it affects people exactly the same way. Um a lot of us came back with um PTS or depression. You know, you see sad things, you get sad. So um there are several organizations now set up where reporters are trying to help each other. There's more knowledge within the newsroom. You know, if I see one of my reporters needs a day off, I say take a day off, you know, I ask what they need, try to be open-minded, open-eared about what they're going through in a way that I didn't really have with my editors, starting out as a cops reporter where they were just like, you know, go do it. And no one ever asked you how you were afterwards.

SPEAKER_00: 41:56

So yeah, so it's a bit of a cliche, but you know, the saying goes that if you go off to cover a war, the war covers you. Um and the thing about the forever wars, uh, reporters have been covering conflict for most of their adult lives. I mean, World War II was intense, global, but it was relatively short by by comparison. Uh, you know, I was going in and out of Iraq for 13 years. And I was after spending two years in Bosnia. The the reporters that that we've mentioned, I mean, our our colleagues and friends are still out there covering Ukraine and Gaza, and that's with Libya in in the middle and and Syria. And what are people who haven't either served in the military or covered conflict, what they don't understand, they always think that the PTSD or the stress or whatever comes from the day or days when the artillery shell landed close by or you heard the bullet whizzing by your ear. Okay, those are profound experiences to be sure. But what I tell people is that every foot patrol in Kandahar, every time you roll out of a Ford operating base in Iraq, your soul gets sandpapered because you know this could be the last thing you ever do. And the accumulation of that, I'm not downplaying the bullet whizzing by your ear or the rocket attacks on where you're staying, but it's that day after day continuous sandpapering of the soul that people who haven't lived that life don't understand.

SPEAKER_03: 43:32

And as a journalist, you're not going to the safe places. So even as an embed, you're not going in with the unit that's like not getting hit. You're going in with the unit that's getting hit.

SPEAKER_01: 43:42

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, and I I think, you know, I was so grateful for that experience in 2003, um, having been able to plan and execute, I think, the largest media embed program that that first Marine Division certainly has ever had. Um, because it showed me like I was just blown away. I was like, you know, these folks are coming here of their own free will. Like, you know, some Marines, like, I bet you, you know, if you said, hey, pal, you know, would you rather go home? They'd be like, yeah, I'd rather go home right now. You know, and uh um, but there they were, you know, and you know, I think of you know Scott McWinnie from CNN, you know, just out in the middle of the street with his video cameras, you know, his bullets are zinging by and RPGs are flying everywhere. And um, I mean, some in you know, some incredible acts of of bravery on the parts of the press to to cover that war. And um, and and not just that, but even small things. Like, you know, we were in had had no communications whatsoever, but you know, for NBC to toss a SAT phone to a Marine, you know, machine gunner and say, call your mom and let her know you're okay. Right? You know, I mean, little things like that that most people haven't seen and don't even really understand, like, you know, that was a gift, right? That was a gift, and and for America to be able to see and know like what unit was where and who was embedded with first LAR and the rest of them, you know, like they were able to kind of follow their their Marines, you know, and soldiers and and I mean everybody, right, through the through the entire conflict. And uh I hope that if God forbid we ever go to war again, that the press still has that kind of access, right? Um, but um this has been a fantastic conversation. I I could keep on going. I I want to ask you like one thing. I think the most important thing we might have talked about is like how do you decipher fact from fiction? Um if you could just each give me like one good tactic, one good actionable thing people can do to kind of cut through the fog and get to the truth. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 45:41

I I grew up in the Chicago school, Joe, where they say, if your mother says she loves you, check it out.

SPEAKER_01: 45:47

I love that. Get a second source. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_03: 45:54

Yeah, just more than one source. If you're if and if it sounds like it's nonsense, it probably is. Like the conspiracy theory thing. If it sounds nuts, it's nuts. Like, check it out.

SPEAKER_01: 46:08

I had somebody ask me yesterday, they like during the military, I'd be like, hey, what about those UFOs? And I'm like, my God, I said, you know, like as bad as we are as keeping secrets, like, no way. Like, there's just no way. I I mean, oh my god. Yeah, I mean, I think people watch too many Hollywood movies thinking that, you know, we have a national secret in his air tight. I mean, something like that's gonna get out for sure. So um, yeah, and I think the other thing I would say is if you're feeling fear, right? You watch it, you read something in the press, you see something on TV, and you're feeling fear, take a deep breath, pause, and ask yourself, to whose benefit is my fear? Right? Because we know that when we are afraid and our fight or flight mechanisms kick in in our brains, our thinking, rational part of our brain literally shuts down, and we can see that and functional MRI. So, like, you know, I know as a longtime communicator and student of propaganda, if you can make somebody afraid, you can manipulate them. So, you know, and fear sells, it sells like a drug. So I'd say be brave. Be brave when reading the news. Take a breath, check it out. So um, thank you, thank you so much, so much for for coming in today. I know both of you lead very busy lives, and you know, I I lean on you quite a bit from time to time, and and uh I'm I'm so grateful for you and your colleagues. Um you know, I would just encourage people listening to think about before you malign the press, just know that there is a whole core of veteran press, you know, people who have or war correspondents who have been traveling with young men and women in the military since since the revolution and risking their lives to do it. And we all owe them a deep debt of gratitude. So um thank you so much for listening. If you found this podcast episode interesting or useful, please share it with the people you know. This episode was co-hosted by Joe Plunsler and Ellen Giftson. The audio and video were edited by Cameron King. Vet Our Democracy is a production of We the Veterans and Military Families, a 501c3 nonprofit, nonpartisan, pro-democracy organization focused on promoting positive and patriotic civic engagement to strengthen American democracy. Find out more about us at we the veterans. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 48:25

Thank you for having me.