First to post a question at any point during the discussion click on the q a icon at the bottom of the screen. In the chat, youll find a link for purchasing copies of free the press. Brians career has range across print and online media and stretches back 40 years. He currently serves as senior White House Correspondent for playboy and hosts the podcast just asked the question which. Features conversations about politics , Current Events and pop culture. During the Trump Presidency brian himself became the story on an occasion or two in confrontational exchanges with administration officials, among them Sarah Huckabee sanders and white house aide sebastian gorka. The white house tried to suspend brians press pass before a judge blocked the move and later chided the white house are havingro violated brians constitutional due process rights. In three the press brian combines the history of changing news media with tales of his own experience in the business. He describes the n disappearance of many news organizations , the spread of bias and the tensions between the government and the fourth estate. He also offers at the end some ideas for reviving vibrant and free press in this country. Publishers weekly called free the press a trenchant study of what ails the american press. Enlivened by brians vivid memories of the good old days. [laughter] i want to hear about those jokes all day. In conversation with brian will be zachary who has the same last name because hes brians son. And hes a writer director and executive producer of the same podcast ryan hosts, just ask the question. Zachary also is a writer of political satire and hasbeen working on a Science Fiction short film currentlyin postproduction. So brianand zachary , the screen is yours. I appreciate it and zach, thank you for doing this. Im open. Ill start out. Brad, ill talk a bit about the good old days because im old. But the story Everyone Wants to know is who was the first president you met and for me it wasreagan. As the story goes, i was upstairs in the upper press, a callow youth of 25 and i was standing up here and unusually back in those days you would bang on the door. At least helen thomas did. And Sam Donaldson who was kind enough to write the intro for this book. And bang on the door and say larry, talk to us. One day i was gup there just seeing how things were going and secret service came through and said the president was going to come through and we all had to leave so we all turned to leave whoever was there that day and i turned to leave and tristan fell on the floor. Ive always been graceful and as i was there on the ground i looked up buand who was standing over me fbut the president of the United States and Ronald Reagan said young fellow, you dont have to bow to me so that was my introduction to dc president ial politics. The book talks about how unfortunately the last 40 years the federal government state and local governments have all destroyed the free press and in doing so it through dismantling the a lot of the guardrails that were in place to make sure we were fair and free and if you talk to whether its someone on the left or someone in the middle everybody says theres nothing wrong with the press. They just dont know what it is. They think they know twhat it is but they dont and this is a book that takes a good hard look at what is actually wrong with the press in the United States. So to that point, i wanted to ask you youve identified the problem. And then i kind of take a step forward. I want to find out how long and how far away are we from fixing things like, is there specific legislation that needs to bepassed like at a local state or federal level. Illstart there. I think on the federal level we need to go back to the fairness doctrine and reintroduce the fairness dcdoctrine and make it applicable across the internet and across broadcast and radio. There are those who say it cant be done but they also said they couldnt do it with television and we managed to do it. And at the state and local level we need to make sure that Public Notice ads are protected. Those are , we had been local newspapers have almost ceased to exist. There is vast news deserts in the United States and we need to cure that by supporting local and Community Newspapers. But those Public Notice ads are a big part of the budget for many small newspapers. They also let people know whats going on in their communities. I wanted to clarify for people listening if theyre not aware of the fairness doctrine and what itentails. Its inherent in me but i want to know if you could. The fairness doctrine as written in 1949 and introduced during the Truman Administration made it possible for, and made it actually necessary that if you were approaching the subject of controversy that you had to provide fair, both sides of the story. Re you had to make sure if you said athat war was inevitable then you also have to say all right, someone on the other side would say hey. And when you took away the fairness doctrine, what happens when the Reagan Administration got rid of the fairness doctrine it created vast news silos where you would only turn to where you wanted to go for the news that youwanted. Your information bubble. So newscasts stopped being information but became entertainment. We ceased telling people what they need to know and started telling them what they wanted to hear. Thats why i say that Good Journalism and capitalism are incompatible though they are also tethered together. Thats the damage of it. Okay. To that point then before the fairness doctrine dwas repealed, i want to get a little bit more specific. With the tv stations, radio stations and newspapers, was for tv and radio. Newspapers had other problems. Newspapers have e long had far greater problems and newspapers have had the problem of television and radio and the internet taking away their audience. Once radio opened up, that shortened the news cycle. Newspapers used to be great places to go for information and depth of information. As you know i collect old newspapers and one of the greatest copies of an original copy of the newspaper that i have is from 1865 and its Abraham Lincolns new York Observer and the news account of Abraham Lincoln assassination. Theres a lot of history books that ive read and the thing about newspapers that are and still great is you cant hack a newspaper. Its the same today as it was in 1865 when it was printed. What were doing now is h ephemeral. It can be changed, it can be erased but one of the things that made the newspapers so great and by the way one of the things that lets christianityspread was that the bible was printed. It was the greatest thing ever printed for hundreds of years. The first thing they invented was a top print seller. Everyone read the same source material and thats what newspapers were. The same source material and it was, it helps the United States become a little bit more civilized and at the beginning when our congress got together for one of its first things, first meetings one of the first things they did in congress was to subsidize newspapers and allow them to transplant newspapers cheaply through the us mail that help educate and helped us become an informed, educated electorate. But the fairness doctrine tried to codify on television some of the very principles and precepts that had gone he into newspaper that were thought of for a long time and it worked iand there was never really any serious repercussions for those that didnt do it because most people didnt do it and because they did do it everything everybody hopped on the bandwagon and said weve got to do that. And we dont do that anymore. Both sides is a fine edge to walk. Im going to tell you, im not going to report that when i report about men going into space im not going to have somebody heading by my side telling you the flat Earth Society version of it. Im not going to have people w saying the holocaust didnt happen and not going to listen people telling me s january 6 was a walk in the park. I was there, that wasan insurrection and it was dangerous. I wont repeat the lies but for reasonable people and reasonable facts when facts are vetted reasonable opinions can differ and we need to air those. If you dont mind i want to take a point back. Just to talk about you a little bit more because i want to know why you feel your uniquely suited to understanding the problems facing the American Media and you dont obviously need to go over but i need to know why. Because my oldest son told me i was. That is a strong argument. You know this and i dont mind sharing it withyou. Ive been a reporter, i started in high school as a reporter working for the jefferson reporter in kentucky parttime. I went to college at the university of missouri and was as my fatherinlaw said in mizzurah. My first job after leaving college and getting married and having the oldest son sitting here with me. We were in texas and ive traveled quite a bit. And done quite a bit. I think one of the unique things, what you dont get to see from reporters is because of the constriction in our news business, there are fewer reporters today. Theres twice the number of people in on the planet as the day i was born, half the number ofreporters. And in laredo o texas, there was 100,000 people. There were two daily newspapers in english and i think one or two in spanish. There were three or four television stations that did news. Several radio stations. And i went back k fthere last year and the year before for the border crisis and there was 300,000 people so theres three times the number of people as when i was living there and theres one newspaper, one television station. I know youre still doing the weather but thats whats happened to journalism so theres few of us left who know what it was like back in the good old days and i felt like it was my responsibility to pass on to others what journalism really was. What i grew up believing it to be and what we can make it once again. Thats the short story. To that point, thank you. Its obvious that theres a lack of Institutional Knowledge fois bad for the news media but why does it specifically matter that somebody has 30or 40 years of experience. H why does it matter more than hiring someone directly. You need to know people. You need to spend your time. I hope im still learning after all the time i spent doing this but i think you need to know your way around council meeting, a pta meeting. You need to Cover High School sports. I thinkyou need to cover , you need to make yourself aware of whats happening in the City Managers Office or county clerks office. Pl know how to talk to people. A lot of people and its happened several times when ive walked into the white house and had people come up to me and go i dont know what im doing here. I was dropped into thisand its their first job out of college. And they really need to have more iexperience. Youre going to be taken advantage of. The elitism that they talk about in journalism exists and its because we hire people who are straight outof college. Maybe they got their masters degree but theynever once had to cover a High School Sporting event, never once had to go and cover a pta meeting, neveronce had to do those things. You dont have the experience. And how to get information from a variety of people. Its what binds us together, one of the great things about the Community Newspaper is with all thats when all thats left is national news, its divisive by its very nature. Democrats, republicans. People dont even know what socialism is or capitalism is. They hear these e buzzwords and slogans and that was one of the things we were warned about back in the 50s. During the mccarthy era. Thats also inthe book , its the 1958 conference. The speaker there is hotalking about how if we dont pass this now that were going to be overtaken by a slogan as him and propaganda and we have been. Its the fact that you and i may disagree about an issue at the national level, fine but every one of us wants our streets paved wants to make sure the streetlights work. Why cant we get a local Grocery Store . Why cant we get clean water . Most of the Major National stories all were given birth in a Community News room. And thats why youve got to havethat Community Journalism. Montgomery county where i live theres more than 1 million people. When i first moved here there was a daily newspaper the montgomery journal. There were two weekly newspapers or three aand the Washington Post covered at it as well as reradio and television. Today theres none of that. Thepost has scaled back its coverage. When he bought the Washington Post bezos killed the weekly newspaper they ran so thats the problem. If you dont have reporters on the ground, tits that ability to gather news, that ability to be tied into your community. We are called the enemy of the people that we are not , we all are the people. There just arent enough of us doing the job. Also when you have boardrooms that are controlling things and itboardrooms are usually on these large venture capitalists that only two or three other newspapers, that was never supposed to happen. There was legislation introduced in the 80s to limit the ownership and itwas still. The stronger newspapers will survive and its better for the First Amendment andthats not true. You need more voices. One of the most Unsung Heroes of mine in journalism said there needs to be real diversity of ownership if were going to have diapers the of ideas and we dont have that. Thats what experience will teach you but more than anything else i think it just teaches you whats going onin the world. I didnt know when i was 25 years old what i was doing and i told many reporters that worked for me i said this is what i think. And i go i dont care what you think, what do you know . I dont barely care what i think. I want to know what you know and teaching people how to that fax, thats the important thing. Journalism is printing stuff that isnt propaganda and isnt pr so youre going to anger someone with the facts. Even in high school sports. To that point, in the book you quote a wise man. You say ijournalism is about bringing up information you want buried otherwise its nothing more thanpropaganda. So yes, that point where, how do you see it being fixed in the future . Obviously you need cooperation between the government and private corporations that accomplished eglegislation. Is that what youre eating for their . This is the most controversial aspect of the book and its a thing that angers large boardrooms the pemost and that is that you need to break up a media monopoly. You have to create smaller more competitive companies. Atthe same time thats not the cure all. Reinstituting the links to which we drive, roger ailes helped destroythe United States and theres no other way tosay it. He last on to nixon and then reagan and fox news and created the crap that we have to deal with today. Theres no way you cannot deny that but theres more that needs to bedone. We need a National Shield also reporters. I went to jail four times, i walked out of jail my young son in my hand. Oh yeah, that was you u. Im walking out of jail after two weeks having to spend time here because i set a source confidential and there others that have done that and you shouldnt have to do that. You shouldnt use the espionage act to go after reporters as president s have done. You need aside from putting the rails back on and making sure the fairness doctrine and National Shield law, you need to start at the ground level and you need to ousupport through subsidies and tax breaks, you have to support Community Journalism. Thats where it all begins. If we dont support Community Journalism we are done. Its that simple. You dont understand that then god help us. The Founding Fathers understood that quite well. And those that you are not long for government. How many of the people who voted to impeach ronald impeach donaldru trump in the Republican Party are not running for reelection . Its hard to survive in a divisive environment and we need to make it less divisive. Community newspapers help bind communities together. You may think, think about it, how many times parents cut the pictures out of a Community Newspaper because their kid was in it . How many times have you gone and go gee, whats going on this weekend . Go to the newspaper and find out. How many times, theres a a gt part in this book when talking to a guy about community ads. The salesman used to go, and read these Public Notice as income okay this is us in the state so, this person got this job and thats how they would approach them and say im a cars salesman in your area or on doing this. Lets get together and talk. It was way of bringing our Community Together. Weve got to do that. When your community is together youre less likely to want to kill your neighbor or go after your neighbor or accuse them of being antiamerican if youve also shared, your kids are on the sameou teen or you Work Together to get a road page or all of the things that bring a Community Together are part of t