That is what led me to predict in advance that donald trump would be president when so many others couldnt see that. Think you get a different picture than this sort of stereo type thats bandied about commonly. Tall the smear into election 2016. Were there campaigns going on sub rosa. Totally. I think 2016 was the epitomy of all the culmination of factors, whether its social media, these smear groups, the smear industry in washington, dc that has grown to huge levels. All the tactics, everything came into play in 2016 and more money was spent, i mean, just gazillions, more actually by Hillary Clinton and her supporters than on donald trump, far more, and yet i guess the lesson is, even though in my view, as i say in the book, the liberal side and the Hillary Clinton side tended to permeate the press and the narrative against trump was ubiquitous and yet he won so i guess commentary of that is that despite all the money spent, despite many republicans, democrats and the media against donald trump, he somehow defied the smear and thats why i call him the wild card candidate of the book. What is the smear industry. The smear industry is a collection of groups i have defined and some of them are paid groups, nonprofits, ill give you examples, pr firms that have Crisis Management functions. Llcs, global law firms, theyre nonprofits, theyre charities in some cases, web sites, they all work together, they all have components that are designed to take them ideas they oppose, often by personally attacking the people most eloquent at expressing the yesterdays they oppose. And the ideas they oppose and what differentiate, ate fleece my definition, smear from the truth because there are often elements of truth within the smear, but its purpose is rited in annihilation and those who are directing the smear often hidden from the public. Want to remain invisible and look like theyre an organic grassroots every time when theyre actually pulling the springs to smear an another idea or people or group. Host can you put a dollar figure on the industry. Guest i cant. Its multibillions but because its not broken down that way, lets say every p. R. Firm has a component of Crisis Management that falls are in the category but not broken down that way. How much they spend on that, but its big money, Everybody Knows that when the call goes in, when someone has to defense themselves or deflect or apack and to the call goes do Crisis Management folks or Strategic Communications people, these are often elements of smears the most basic level and also many hidden ways the smears go on. Whether theyre paid people making comments on the federal register, whether there are people that are paid to represent the use of their name, to sign opedded, i would say huge up in ouch opedded it november the majority are now orchestrated and written by somebody else but signed by someone, and the newspapers know this and the publications often know this, its sort of an open thats how ideas are sometimes either forwarded or stopped and or people are smeared. We have also been hearing recently about Opposition Research firms and their role in smearing. Is this also a growing industry . Guest absolutely. Opposition research is key to nearly every serious campaign, unfortunately. If youre just an average american that doesnt want to think dirt is dug up but candidates have to do due diligence, want to find out what theyll know. Sometimes they offer research themselves to find out what is findable about themselves and that is a big industry and those people get paid a lot of money. Host what are you doing these days . By the way, we want to take calls. What your day job these days . Sunny . My time is largely consumed producing my weekly show called fur measure, and it appears on sinclair stations nationwide, were expanding really week by week to more stations. We are in 43 million house hold, and so its basically a straight news show going to do stories that have not been done to death all week. For example, my lead story this week, visited three countries, the philippines, singapore, and korea, to talk about chinas one belt, one road Economic Policy which thens to put the United States in a back seat. In seethe asia. Why should we care . I spend time having people explain it and explain it in fairly simple terms so people can grasp the comments they dont have time to research. Host there is a tiein between your first book, stonewalled money and your second book the smear. Guest i do. I consider though the smear as a sequel. I saw emergence of movements to control the news and groups becoming very good at getting their nose under the tent of new organizations to influence what we. On tv and dont put on tv. Ive been left pbs, and this book take us it further and looks deeply in the industry, inside the industry in a way dont think has been done before that has developed largely unseen by the American Public but a multibillion dollar industry that halt the summary at its roots. Host i dont think you have ever really publicly discussed your personal politics but in many levels youre presumed to be a conservative. Guest i think now thats definitely the propaganda put out, which is fine if peach want to think that. Used to be called i think largely liberal. So, i think you could pick pieces of what ive done of the years and make an argument im anticorporate, pro corporate, liberal, conservative, what you ant washington to cherrypick but try to do story that are underserve or angles underserve on stories, and just take common sense look at it and ask questions. So, i have many devoted liberal fans and devoted conservative fans. Have received investigative emmy awards for investigating my most recent one was for investigating republicans, not liberals and have won them for investigating liberals. Most of my reporting historically im really not very interested in politics. Dont like it. It seems to come into play or people want to pigeon hole what you do into a political hole but most of what die is nonpolitical. More just watchdogging whatever they powers may be. Host in the more david block plays large local. Guest i devote lot of ink to him because the people interviewed, he conservative smear and liberal smear artist name in almost every instance as someone who is uniquely successful at what he has done with this network of nonprofits, llcs, web sites, under many different names, who appears as though theyre newt that sometimes authorities, to weeps many people are behind them when its really a fairly small group. Been extremely successful in campaigns against people who vote against Hillary Clinton or other idea head supports and he also fascinating because you probably know, he began as a conservative smear artist going everybody the clintons, which we talk about in the book quite a bit, and then he switched sides and became someone who works for the clinton, smearing people on the other side. So for many recents a really fascinating character. Host shary at kiss son is our guest. Thank you for taking my calm dont consider myself republican or democratic oindependentment i have voted for both bodies accordingly. I look for make my own research and vote according with who i think is the best for great country that i love, i arrived being illegal [indiscernible] i find this great country that i fully love so much. I went to europe, traveled around europe, visit countries because my major is languages. A difference between this country and the United States of america. Host thank you for calling in. We appreciate hearing your voice and your view. Lets hit the other coast and let hear from guillermo in los angeles. Hi. Caller good morning, sir. Thank you. Thank you for this enlightens program. Im a yellow dog democrat and i have voted straight democrat since jimmy carter, and when donald trump came down the elevator the escalator 2016, knew he was going to win. He touched something in me i never voted for him, would never vote for him, i despise the man, but he touch a nerve. I knew he was going to win. I predicted it. Used to have a show on spanish radio and i told people, im hispanic, immigrant, and so im quite disagree with the authors opinion in the way. Not so much a smear, is that people did not realize that donald trump represented he was touching a nerve. The immigration issue was gigantic. I knew many years somebody who will touch the immigration issue will win, and that is host all right. All right. Guillermo, thank you very much. Does the smear cover the 2016 campaign and whether or not there were forces working for either Hillary Clinton or trump . Guest thats a big part of the book we planned to wrap it up right after the election with the results and then that happened and the fake news trend happened, which i dug into origins of fake news and the phrase as i think is a prop began to term and the book was about that. I juaned to say yellow dog democrat means he has maybe some less liberal tendencies. Trial to remember host well, no. Yellow dog democrat is somebody who will vote for the democrat even if its a yellow dog. The blue dog democrats are we more moderate democrats. Guest many,es plan a refindded me, we asked people about their political leanings to host would not vote for him even though he touched 0 nerve. I apologize if youre having guest i think the point is, one point i would like to make is Many Americans are not in a box. If you say are you liberal or conservety, democrat or republican, Many Americans are on a sliding scale. On some issues they may feel one way, on other issues they may feel another and theyre constant flay bit of flux depending on person experiences and our system fends to box people in or try toforthem to be boxed in because of our election system. I talk to a lot of people who dont feel comfort enable either box. Host okay, you mentioned that you look for the origin of fake news. What did you find . Guest well, when it rolled out, it felt luke the rollout of a Propaganda Campaign. Went from i googled this almost never in use as a phrase to suddenly every headline every day, and i remember when president obama first introduced this north by chance, he spoke at carnegie melon and said there was a need for people, for someone to curate the news, and i thought, where is this coming from . So, i did some investigation and learned, i traced the origins of the effort to september 13, 2016, when a nonprofit called first draft, came up with the idea to go after news and fake news and then rollout happened from there president obama got onboard the news every day with talking about, Hillary Clinton got onboard and it initiated as a liberal effort in my view, to steer people away from stories they didnt like and some of them were blatantly false many conservative misinformation web sites but at its heart it was possibly an effort to shape and censor information the last place where its free and people can go on the internet and the media doesnt control it and the democrats and republicans dont control it. Look into who funded first draft because i like to knoll money follow the money, and their tax filings werent filed, even though theyre a nonprompt they told me their funding came from google. Googles parent company, alphabet, started by eric smitted who started a first draft initiative. And he became a top hillary donors walk strategist for her campaign. Starts to look like a coordinated effort. Not that theres anything illegal or improper but a coordinated effort to focus people on fake news. Then, to make this long story a little longer, i talk about in the book how donald trump being the wild card he is, was able to coop the phrase and where today people think he came up with it who dont know the origin. It was more of a hostile takeover. He didnt invent the phrase. You. Host i was going to ask you, you answered that, how a group, first draft, could take a phrase and it was reach president obama there had to be a line there, and you see that line as going through google and air schmid. . I see there was an effort on broad scale among the people that shaped narratives every day in the news, to put fake news on the plate of americans there was a plan, roll United States of this campaign, but it got out of their hands and i think donald trump may be the only politician that could have done what he did. Just said every time they called him that, he called them that. So by january of 2017 the washington post, who loved the phrase for a while, was crying uncle and saying we need to retire that phrase. Stop using that phrase. So part of the mostery of donald trump and his only ability to turn around propaganda or initiate his own propaganda. The most recent book is called the smear martha youre on with. Im calling because i recently saw a program on hbo called last week tonight with john oliver, and on that program he was giving a story of the onesided kind of National Feed that was sent through sinclair stations to their local networks, on their local news programs, and showing that the story was not changed in any way and read exactly the same on each station. I dont remember the story but it was rather onesided, and i dont know if youre familiar with that program, but my question, i think, is related to sinclair broadcasterring, you may not know their politics too much but do you think that as Sinclair Broadcasting is supporting a release various companies in local markets in the control of multilocal station and newspapers . If you understand that question. It was again host martha youre referring to the media ownership changes the fcc is looking at currently. Caller exactly. Sinclair. Host sinclair is looking at merger with the Tribune Broadcasting company. Sharyl, anything you can or will address . Guest yes. Cant tell you anything about corporate policy. My program is done under sinclair, and theres been a large propaganda movement, people who wouldnt normally know about our hear about station owners, now theres comedy shows as skis part for Propaganda Campaign to attack sinclair which is seen as a threat by the people who dominate the media landscape and people of certain political affiliationsment sinclairs owner is a conservative, wealthy, i think can billionaire, the ownership of them, just as i work for liberal billionaires when i work at cnn, ted turner, and cbs, reedstop, there are people connected politically would work at the top of these organizations who contribute money to democrats and republicans. I dont remember everybody questioning it within worked for the liberal people for 30 years. It didnt real impact, is a saw, our news on a daily basis though, corporate bosses did not get intertwined with the daily news coverage. There are were other issues but doesnt mean they came into the mushroom and influenced or coverage i. Think ted turner worked hard when it was acnn to make us stay factual it. Likewise, sinclair at the top, the conservative who does head sinclair, is not enter feared with my programs. Ive heard no interference compared to cnn im are so cbs toward the end had a great deal of interference trying to do independent stories. Its been a freshness to go into another independent program that doesnt try to shape the news and put out narrative. These are legitimate questions to be asked. I certainly dont blame people for saying, gosh, sinclair is owned bay conservative guy. What does that mean for your news . I would argue they should be asking the same questions in fairness of the predominantly liberal organizations thoughts ive worked for net past, that also spin out story easers day from analysts onesided, that u. S. Measure runs on all the affiliate that are seen by many more people than the sinclair stations. So, you have to dig in and wonder why only one station owner is getting all this press on comedy talk shows and on capitol hill when the others have existed in that same bailiwick for some long, kind of unquestioningly by the same people. Host who is the owner of sinclair. Guest david smith, and he is probably not the owner, just the one that i dealt with when i was being hired. We discussed about my program being independent and i said, i wasnt really planning to work again in the business necessarily, and when they proposed an idea for me to do a Program Just Like i used to do, the report used to do at cbs, which was just professional in nature and investigative, said it cannot be conservative, not be anymore conservative that mysters at cbs were conservative or liberal. He said dont worry about that. You del people the proof, theyll probably be conservative. I said we can tell the truth and havent had a bid of interference, so, again, less interference working for the conservative billionaires than i certainly had at cbs the last two years, working for a liberal billion year. Thats the book stonewalled. You alluded to this but the power of the internet when it comes comes to the Smear Campaign. Guest i almost got chills when i was speak us with one summary smear operator, military guy, we can start a whole movement with 140 characters and hand of fake twitter conditions and you look at the solicitation the government has put online, soliciting software for people maintain social media accounts, fake social media accountants but look like they have individual ip addresses that rotate. They do it with connections, where if you look up these people, theyll have friends that look real and be friends with people you know, look like they do things and go places, why is the government, i why are corporations and Political Forces maintaining these fake account . They know social media is the number one way to influence opinion right now, whether its votes or whenever delayed may want to get out and virtually control that dynamic and it give me chills. A rumor or innuendo or fake news if you want to call it that, that has been seen by relatively few people and do. Can now develop a global following overnight and at the knownallal tricks available to manipulate images and photography and video that make something look like happened that didnt. This is vomited on the landscape and is hard to separate fact from fission. Host lets hear from another caller. This is elizabeth in crested butte, colorado. How. Caller hello. Im about to lose my mind. Im tired of being patient with everybody. I think donald trump is a depraved