T america boom bust producer brant job or an r t america correspondent john hardy thank you guys for joining me thank you for the boom bust team for coming out and daniel i want to start mask you actually these big private equity firms like all the global new Media Investment group who are buying up all these local papers all around the country and then slashing and burning them essentially how are they making money off of these scorched earth tactics like why are they even getting involved what whats the prize for them right now its a familiar formula similar to the essentially the same playbook that we saw in the 1980 s. Where people and corporate raiders would find need to stress kompany you know raid it divest it and then just get rid of the body essentially when they were done draining the blood and thats essentially whats happening in a similar way with these newspapers corporate conglomerates like as you mentioned all the acquiring the denver post Gatehouse Media recently acquired gannett and. Basically they go in they pile up debt they look at where we can cut costs thats labor is a big cost so you end up in this virtual vicious cycle i should say of staff cuts leading to less coverage leaving a less interest and its and we see that happening and this essentially just rips apart local journalism and local journal is important and i want to ask you you know john and brad like how important is local journalism and are these local newspapers and the fact that were losing them is pretty dangerous as it is it absolutely is and you know what to Daniels Point i worked at i worked in radio before i came to television and the same thing happened with radio as you mentioned in the eightys they got Domestic Companies like Clear Channel now our media purchased up all of these especially small market radio stations markets what we would call about 50 to 250 because they were able to buy them dirt cheap they could fire most of the employees have 3 people working in the station and theyre not doing what they were built to do which is serve the public good and local radio not quite as important as your local newspaper but news radio stations keep you apprised with weather and everything thats going around in your town as well and we would see this and they would buy them and then they would of course find out they couldnt make money on it because they werent putting any money into it they would salame and then to back to a local buyer for dirt cheap and it was investigated journalism that usually gets caught right away is usually thats like one of the biggest expenses of them gets her hacked up its going to put yeah i started my career in print i was a local News Reporter i started in los angeles but then i looked more for a small paper in idaho and work in new mexico local news is vital you know the big papers arent necessarily going to be covering those local ag stories in 20 falls idaho and the massive dairy operation thats polluting the groundwater and maybe that the times of the post isnt going to be coming in there and doing a series of investigative pieces about that and i work for one paper. Or that this exactly happened to a massive you know Major Company took control and not so much the paper i worked for but others were slashed were cut jobs were cut it went into chapter 11 and reorganized and on and on it goes and i got out of print i went i made the jump to the to the dark side. Because in 2004 the recession hit the jobs dried up there are hiring freezes across the board and so i mean with a tear in my eye i got out of print because i saw the writing on the wall sadly its true too because we even you know when youre talking National News international it was all that we feed that feeds us so its a feeder system ultimately be a local story about corruption or whatever maybe may lead into bigger corruption and then thats when the bigger the bigger papers and the more National Stuff comes and theres a good story lets see how it plays on a bigger scale and so when you cut the legs like cutting the legs off of good Investigative Journalism you see this happening over and absolutely and what you see now is sadly. Independent journalists are having to pick up that slack and they dont have the funding they dont have the time i mean sometimes you see people from d. C. In new york having to go out like we saw this with the Dakota Access i mean while it wasnt being covered i mean it was being covered on a local level but you see these independent journalists who are actually able to go there and dig deep into it to spread that story around the nation and thats what local journalism is supposed to do but in bismarck and Fargo North Dakota i mean its amazing that i dont even know today if they still have a daily paper they may only be out for 5 days a week now which is going to happen a lot around and i want to i want to move so over we. Want to move this over to the should we be afraid of the plot of a movie in this case the joker should we be afraid of that movie to the extent that we are many of the u. S. Military now warning people about going to see the theaters to see this movie jobs there would you should we really be afraid of this movie im looking forward to. I mean im going to go see i dont know if im going to go to the theater just because i get annoyed by people in the theater so thats just my own problem im not necessarily concerned about being shot so no i dont think so its a movie i understand there are concerns and i mean for the u. S. Military to be putting out is really unbelievable the f. B. I. To the f. B. I. Has is monitoring online chatter and monitoring any any Online Activity for any threats or anything like that its incredible that this day and age we you know a movie is going to generate this kind of not only buzz how about just the fact is it a good movie or is it just being hyped up because of this or is it actually legitimately does Joaquin Phoenix do a fantastic or an oscar worthy. Anyway i dont have a lot of notes on the let him go for. A batman comics fan and so as just as a fan i dont plan to see the movie i just deepens my doubts about the way theyve managed the d. C. Extended universe. But you know setting the fanboy concerns aside you know its understandable that i think theres a lot of misunderstanding people who arent in it who dont know comic books and dont also dont know just the modern subculture of disaffected young men that surrounds this they dont know the context and so theres a lot of fear that doesnt quite understand exactly what theyre scared about you can understand theres been a lot of Mass Shootings there are a lot of disaffected young men out there but you know one of the commentators have listen to on this is lizzie was legally who goes to struggle session podcast about sort of fan boy. From you know a progressive perspective and hes he raised the point that people should not be so quick to perhaps give pop culture over to the right or are nihilists perhaps in this case that you know that we shouldnt necessarily say ok well lets let the pepes take ownership. This disaffected character that ever coming up you know its interesting but i dont i want to ask you this because its interesting to me we had movies in our past this movie of actually is kind of based on 2 major movies taxi driver king a comedy these movies released in the seventys when there was a lot of turmoil and all that kind of thing have we become less adults like you could release movies that dealt with hard subject matter back then but now suddenly oh were just we cant handle it well i think i dont know what people want to see from these films if this is a problem for them you know we have theres a lot of films about Mental Illness and unless youre locked up in an institution or something or crying in your bed then we dont think thats Mental Illness this is a whole nother form of talking about Mental Illness when my favorite movies in that genre is falling down the Michael Douglas film from early ninetys i believe but there were a lot of movies like that i dont think we see them as much anymore of people completely on raveling because the weight of the world has become too much for them and thats a reality of the world that we live in today and i feel like a lot of people when they criticize this type of film theyre saying no that doesnt happen thats not a real life situation and i only want happiness in my entertainment which is an absolutely ridiculous i thought i think this is the type of i mean obviously the violence is strong but its a movie its based on a character as daniel said whos already kind of has a violent yeah but. This is a reality of the way people feel yes its traumatized and made to be. Huge but the fact is people feel like this every day that the world does not work for them and they should go out and kill people but it does make you feel like you have no choice and should we should we actually spend less time worrying about the real impact of a film a piece of art and more worried about ok what brought us to a point where were actually worried about people who see this might be influenced by lets actually start looking at that and looking at all of the issues with society that made that happen in the 1st place you know young white males out there that might react badly to. Gun violence i mean after falling down which was a movie people banning their cars on the floor of the freeway including myself as much as i wanted to have time last time i saw i did last time i saw Something Like this was when Natural Born Killers came out there sadly was copycat crimes by that but lets actually look at whats causing these kids to fall into that trap rather than blaming and going after the movie i want to thank you all for coming on absolutely leisure all right everybody as we go to break watchers dont forget to let us know what you think of the topics that we can be sure to check out watching our podcast which is now available on spotify awful music and everywhere you look at the podcast coming up top of the wall it opens up the gallery on mass shooting drills with us schools and parents fear over the jokers influence over their kids and what to see this watching the hawks. Senator Chuck Schumer famously said shortly after trump was elected to take on the Intelligence Community they had 6 ways from sunday at getting back in line to the russia gate and this nonsense with ukraine. This characterization appears to be spot on should be all fear the deep state. Run going to follow and then comes out of a war. Of the sort of one among what i would are them. A far left turn lane to be made to hide not the high i might. Add to the salon month and in front of the sensor on. Top of some thought it was almost an image but the lock of the. Then that it is someone that we do bore. Me and by north it so many people because they copied him is so good that even such a bad copy sending. And not feel to me would be. On the field to find the next guy. Who looked up never get anything done the infidel to feed the dog she even dumped the attempt. To deflect some of the c. E. O. Things to the deflection of what is happening say. That is a god given that i got up from idiots or. That he and others are going to. Now you know what about that on the morning. That you can buy a gun you go thats a leg up. On the net you dont want to buy them theres a thing the streets alone control cannot hold. Under one person and. 100. 00 guns and youre going on going to. Run the 1st ignore you then are going to mock you then they will join you. To. Safety can be as simple as a. B. C. Always be careful but what does it mean when always be careful becomes always be terrified with over 20 deadly shoot School Shootings and 21000 alone parents and teachers across the United States are being told the key to keeping your children safe is through active Shooter Drills earlier this year during an active Shooter Drill an Elementary School in indiana teachers described an exercise in which they were asked by local Law Enforcement to meall down against a classroom wall before being sprayed across their backs with plastic pellets without warning witnesses also told indiana lawmakers that the local sheriffs conducting the drill told them this is what happens when you just cower and do nothing the outrage from parents in the scientific studies tracking the Emotional Trauma and effectiveness of these drills hasnt stopped them this week in ohio Franklin High School in Warren County parents and students were told that during a controlled drill students and staff will be practicing barricading in classrooms and evacuating the building in addition officers fired blanks from a shotgun. A rifle in total 2 officers fired 13 rounds each during the course of the drill Warren CountyPolice Lieutenant gary massey said parents were informed of the browns before it took place many feel it only traumatized the children and does nothing to stop a School Shooter who is most likely amongst the very children taking part in the drill and in movie news this week joker starring Joaquin Phoenix isnt just making the u. S. Military put out warnings but actual movie theaters as well the Alamo Drafthouse in austin texas posted then deleted a note on their Facebook Page stating this is not a joke joker is r. Rated and for good reason theres lots of very very rough language brutal violence and overall bad vibes its a gritty dark and realistic taxi driver asked depiction of one mans descent into madness its not for kids and they wont like it anyway there is no batman so lets take a gander at the world of fake violence and real trauma and step into the gallery. Thanks. Thanks for joining me now is the host of news use hughes got email use and america correspondents fair and fronsac and rachel thank you so much for joining me today so ladies one of the things that parents and psychologists concerned is this push for kids to be prepared to fight during Shooter Drills and or if theyre being attacked if theyre in that situation i want you guys to want to look at a clip from an Elementary School safety video here in the u. S. Take a look at this it is frightening and barricaded are not actions fight yell at the attacker or attackers throw objects and be aggressive this should be your last resort but it is something you should be prepared to do. Im going to start with the mom at the table is that what no. Absolutely not in fact any but the same person that came up with the idea of shooting bullets even even fake rounds into a school of Elementary School or high school probably can have that video and they should be fired immediately that right there causes so much trauma im traumatized just listen youre going to someone told my children that they need to fight like that im saying no you run you hide and hopefully you can protect others but you do not in any way engage that shooter yet you got so i i dont have kids i have nieces and nephews while i dont agree with going and attacking the shooter i come from the standpoint that when you have a lot of these School Shootings you often hear kids where they say well i thought it was firecrackers i dont know what it was and i think while it is traumatizing that kids hear what bullets sound like they need to know what they sound like because thats because that i think thats the reality of the situation today is you have kids where they dont know they all have video games so heres implode video game one thing thats also look at it from the standpoint of you have a little kids that are learning about guns from the standpoint of being innocent children in school and theyre lying about them from the Police Officers shooting them so why dont we take kids out of the gun range teach him out about gun safety teach them how guns actually should be used so good as they ever find themselves in an incident like that maybe they will know that its a gun instead of a firecracker but at the same time we should be teaching them this fear and teaching them that the only time youre going to see a gun is when its an active shooter or its a Police Officer that does not go to get process right and i think thats the thing that kind of i think theres a confusion in the messaging because there is this idea that theres no problem guns are fine in their hands of the right people but we are constantly showing them you know this idea and giving them this this sort of idea that theyre you know if you see a gun if you hear a gun now i understand the idea of they have to know what it sounds like or. So they dont freak out an audio tape of it if that if youre concerned about heres what gets me on this and yes our Parents Group they had the nuclear bomb drove they had to go we grew up with a tornado just i dont like it that our children are having to go through these drills but guess what they do and there is a course of you do talk them through at least in the parents know this but it sounds like they did it 1st and then told the parents by the way were also going to be shooting blanks conversations happened going into this going that side of it this all across the board is a very bad idea night the point that you point out more than likely that she was going to be in that school right there so theyre getting the same training of what to avoid so therefore i