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long live singing to the oldies, jamming out

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to something new and everything

0:27

in between. and

22:00

get on the front page of the Oregonian. The

22:02

stories I wanted to write, they really

22:05

weren't interested in. And all of my

22:07

colleagues, so many of them, other journalists

22:09

of color ended up leaving. But

22:11

I honestly, I couldn't think of anything else I was

22:13

gonna do with my life. Like I've wanted to be

22:15

a journalist. Oh, they left a profession. They left a

22:17

profession, right? I mean, at that time,

22:20

it's kind of like it is now. The news industry

22:22

was really in a death spiral. There

22:24

were layoffs everywhere. No one was hiring.

22:26

So it's not like if you didn't

22:28

like what you were doing, you could go somewhere else.

22:31

There just wasn't really a lot of options. And a

22:33

lot of people just get burnt out because you go

22:35

from one newspaper to another, but you're facing the same

22:37

issues. Again, they wanna be able

22:39

to tout their diversity numbers, but they

22:41

don't actually want the diversity of thought

22:44

that you bring in the eye for

22:46

story. But I just couldn't think

22:48

of anything else I wanted to do. Journalism really

22:50

is my mission. It's my calling. So I stuck

22:53

it out just because, what was

22:55

I gonna do besides journalism? I

22:57

couldn't imagine it. Luckily, it worked out for me. I was able

22:59

to come to New York and really have the career. Can

23:02

you tell me how that happened? That I hope to

23:04

have. Like how you- How I ended up in New

23:06

York? Yeah. Was it a resume? Like, what was it?

23:08

Like, you were just like, it's time. Well,

23:11

you know, this is the other thing you learn in

23:13

life. So much of the opportunities you get is not

23:15

what you know, but who you know. You

23:17

have to know things as well, but

23:19

just simply having a good resume and

23:21

putting in the work seldom opens the

23:23

doors for you. It's not even

23:26

just who you know, it's who knows what

23:28

you do, right? Cause I

23:30

know people that like know people. I'm like, yeah,

23:32

but do they know that you're an XYZ? And

23:34

it's like, well, no, but you know, like I'll

23:36

get to it. I'm like, you better come out

23:38

here. Like I am a narrative journalist. Hello. Right.

23:40

Or will they advocate for you, right? Well, they

23:43

pull your resume to the top because I come

23:45

from a working class family. Like my family could get

23:48

you a job at the Tyson plant. They could put

23:50

in a work for you there, but that's- Right. You

23:52

could be on the poultry line, but that's

23:55

literally the only connections that my family had.

23:57

And I really believed I went to the

23:59

right school. I'm doing the right

24:01

internships, that that would open the doors. It just,

24:03

it really doesn't work like that. So one

24:06

of my former bosses at the Oregonian

24:08

left there and came to New York

24:10

and founded ProPublica, the investigative news organization.

24:12

So I worked for him. I

24:15

knew him well. And I had

24:17

landed on this investigative project about

24:19

how the government wouldn't enforce the Fair

24:21

Housing Act. So I called him and

24:24

I was like, I don't know how to do this project. I

24:26

just need help. And he tells me, you know, well, actually we're

24:28

hiring. And you want to come do that project for me? And

24:30

I was like, hell yeah. I need

24:32

to get out of Oregon. I've always

24:34

wanted to move in New York. So

24:37

that's literally how it happened. But if

24:39

I didn't personally know him and he

24:41

didn't personally know me, my career would

24:43

have had a very different trajectory. But

24:45

you know what? Can I

24:47

just also interject here that he also knew

24:49

your work ethic. Like I

24:51

think sometimes people forget that like, even if you're

24:53

at the place that you don't want to be

24:55

at, still do the job that you showed up

24:57

to do because you don't know how that is

24:59

going to carry you in the next space. If

25:01

you had been at the Oregonian, like man, fuck

25:04

the Oregonian. I'm about to do this bullshit. I'm

25:06

going to quiet quit. Then when you

25:08

ended up talking to him at ProPublica, he'd be like, I

25:10

mean, you know, when we

25:12

was working together before, he

25:14

was very fat. So that's

25:16

right. He'd be like, good luck. That was

25:18

for the Gen Zers. Please. Yes, please. Listen,

25:21

I don't ever want to demean self-care

25:23

and the self-care regimen. I never want to sound

25:26

like you're an old school ass woman, though I

25:28

am. But I'm also like,

25:30

what I tell young people all the

25:32

time is you can't control anything outside

25:34

of yourself but your own excellence. That

25:37

you can control. I can't control how they're going

25:39

to judge me, whether they're going to give me

25:42

a fair chance or not. I can't control any

25:44

of that. But what I can say is if

25:46

I don't get opportunity, it's not for anything that

25:48

I did not do, that I will have myself

25:50

in the ready. And then I can look back

25:53

on my life and whether I had made it

25:55

out of there or not, I would feel okay

25:57

about it. Because two things

25:59

for sure. I never sold myself out.

26:01

So even though they were like, we

26:04

don't want you writing about this. I was like, this is what I'm

26:06

here to do. So I

26:08

always maintained, even when it hurt

26:10

me, that I was going to tell the stories I

26:12

got into journalism to tell, and

26:14

I was going to do it as excellent

26:16

as I could, no matter what was coming

26:18

at me. And so you're absolutely right. So

26:20

when I got my moment, it

26:23

is a divine sense of cosmic justice

26:25

that the thing I am most well-known

26:27

for is the exact type of journalism

26:29

that I was punished for doing. The

26:31

blackest shit the New York Times ever,

26:35

ever printed is what I'm most known for. And

26:37

if I had sold myself out, or if I

26:39

had not been excellent because they were beating me

26:41

down, none of this would have

26:43

happened. So yeah, I needed a well-placed, and let's

26:45

be honest, a well-placed white man. I

26:48

needed that, but I had to

26:50

be in a position to take advantage of that opportunity

26:52

when it came. And that I can

26:54

control. Nobody else can control that but you. Life

26:59

is full of things to manage, your

27:01

work, your family, your plans, and your treatment.

27:05

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27:08

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27:10

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27:12

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27:14

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27:16

out the details at kesimpta.com. Brought

27:18

to you by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation.

27:22

So you

27:25

get to the New York Times eventually, and your

27:27

vision has always been journalism as

27:31

activism. How do

27:33

you feel like folks who

27:35

are stepping into the space now? I

27:38

guess the question I'm trying to ask is like,

27:41

I think for some people they think of that as

27:44

like a very specific route, but to me it seems like your point

27:46

of view is that that is journalism. Like

27:48

it's not like this is the type of journalism I

27:50

do. Like that

27:52

is journalism as a craft. Yes, absolutely.

27:55

So one again, to be clear, I'm

27:57

not a journalist. I'm

28:00

a reporter, I report. My

28:02

work is factually sound. I

28:04

spent many years of my career as

28:06

an investigative reporter. So I am in

28:08

a position where I speak out, I

28:10

do the type of work I do,

28:13

because I first built a career as

28:15

a good ass reporter. Like I'm

28:17

not just coming in, just spouting

28:20

my opinion. I built a whole

28:22

career out of that. But I

28:24

also think journalists of color often

28:26

get labeled as being activists. But

28:29

the question is very simple. If I

28:31

cover child protective services as just

28:33

a beat reporter, and I expose

28:35

how child protective services failed a family

28:37

and a child died, I'm not just

28:39

doing that reporting because I'm like, it

28:41

would be cool if people knew this.

28:44

I'm doing that because I want

28:46

that agency to serve children. Well,

28:49

I want people to be accountable

28:51

to the public. That is activism.

28:54

Now, it's not the activism that's marching

28:56

in the street at a Black

28:58

Lives Matter protest. I'm not allowed to do that as

29:00

a journalist. And I don't need to do that. Speak

29:02

to that. Because what I do is I... Why are

29:04

you not allowed to do that? Well, because we are

29:06

not supposed to engage in that sort of activism, right?

29:09

Our job is to report the news, not be a

29:11

part of the news. So to me, our

29:13

role is we're the journalists who exposed

29:15

what happened to George Floyd. We're the

29:18

people who provide the information that then

29:20

leads people to act in the streets

29:22

because they have the information about how

29:24

these systems are failing us or what

29:26

happened exactly when George Floyd died, right?

29:28

That is our role. And that can

29:31

be tricky because for

29:33

many Black journalists and young Black

29:35

journalists in particular, you got into

29:37

journalism because you want to change

29:39

your society. And so trust me,

29:41

it's very hard. I wanted to

29:43

be in the streets. Of course I

29:45

do. But I know

29:47

that's not my role. That my role

29:49

is to provide the reporting, to do

29:52

the digging, to expose the malfeasance. And

29:54

then you pass that baton to activists

29:56

to use that information to take to

29:59

the streets. we have to work together.

30:01

You just look at, for instance, the

30:03

Civil Rights Movement. One of my favorite

30:05

books on journalism is called The Race

30:07

Beat. And it really shows how everything

30:09

that Dr. King, that Fred Shuttlesworth, that

30:12

all of the civil rights activists were

30:14

doing, until the media covered it, it

30:16

didn't matter. Those white politicians

30:18

did not care. Black people had been

30:20

living under Jim Crow. They had been

30:22

being thrown into the river, lynched, killed.

30:24

But once the media decided, oh, this

30:27

is a story we're going to cover.

30:29

We're going to expose what's happening. That's

30:31

when we were able to bring about

30:33

the change. So you really have to

30:35

have both of those forces working together.

30:37

And I understand my role is to

30:39

do the digging and the exposing and

30:42

to bear witness. And other people's roles

30:44

are to be in the streets forcing

30:46

politicians and others to change policy. But

30:48

again, that is a form of activism.

30:50

That is a form of activism, for

30:52

sure. I believe in democracy. I believe

30:55

in equality. I believe in justice. I

30:57

believe we can have a better country

30:59

than we have. And my way is

31:02

to expose the people who make the decisions

31:04

to keep our country the way that it

31:06

is. How do you feel

31:08

about the way the

31:10

greater journalistic spaces have

31:12

covered the recent and

31:14

current genocide on Palestine?

31:17

OK, now you're trying to get me fired. I'm really

31:20

not. And I thought I was like, how do I

31:22

frame this question in

31:25

a way that does not put

31:28

her in jeopardy? No,

31:30

listen, I think we, my

31:32

biggest critique of journalism in

31:34

general, and certainly in the

31:36

way that they have covered the war, is we tend

31:40

to reflect power and not truth. And

31:43

I think that so much of the

31:45

coverage, especially in the early days, the coverage

31:47

has changed a lot. But when

31:49

the war first started. Well, I wouldn't even call

31:51

it a war. Oh, it's a

31:53

war against Gazans for sure. So I mean,

31:56

some people call it a conflict. Yeah,

31:59

I don't call it that. the war against Hamas. I've

32:01

yet to see the success of that strategy. But,

32:04

you know, I don't think so.

32:06

It's fascinating to me that the

32:09

same profession that talks about independence,

32:11

that talks about holding power accountable

32:14

was so timid in the coverage

32:16

and really was reflecting a very

32:18

particular worldview, which has

32:20

long been the case really in

32:23

mainstream media's coverage of Israel. So

32:25

myself, along with many journalists have been

32:27

frustrated. And I think the place I

32:30

have felt the most liberated to speak

32:32

out on is just the silence around

32:34

the number of journalists who've been killed.

32:36

Unbelievable. More journalists killed

32:38

covering what's happening there than

32:40

any war that we know

32:42

of. Literally. Like, period. In

32:45

a few months' time. And

32:47

if one journalist, two journalists, gets

32:49

killed covering conflict anywhere else in

32:52

the world, our profession rises up

32:54

in a tremendous collective outrage. There's

32:56

a journalist right now in Russia

32:59

who is being held by the

33:01

Russian government. And you see

33:03

ads in newspapers, you see all of these efforts

33:06

to free him and to make sure that we

33:08

keep talking about it and in solidarity. And

33:10

instead, what our profession has largely done

33:12

is treat with skepticism whether those journalists

33:14

and gods are being killed or really

33:17

journalists. Literally like, oh, well, they might

33:19

be members of Hamas. Like, seeing that

33:21

was really what blew my mind in

33:24

terms of the willingness to just that

33:26

easily just give up the

33:28

ethical nature of journalism as a

33:30

unit. Because even like, I think for those

33:32

of y'all who may not be like a

33:35

part of like a certain profession, like as

33:37

a comic, like there's like a camaraderie that

33:39

we share as comics. Like knowing that we're

33:41

in the world in a certain way and

33:43

that that's going to garner a certain type

33:45

of behavior, et cetera, et cetera. And so

33:47

like, when you see other comics

33:49

being attacked or harmed or like during the

33:51

pandemic, a lot of comics weren't able to

33:54

work. And so then people pooled money to

33:56

help. Like that is something that is not

33:59

easily just severed. So the ease with

34:01

which that same connectivity within

34:03

the journalism community was severed from the

34:06

Ghassan journalist was like, it really took

34:08

me aback. And I didn't know I

34:10

was, so that was, um, cause I'm

34:13

like, is that something that, is

34:15

there a journalist group chat where y'all are like, what y'all

34:17

doing? I mean,

34:20

my journalist group chat was Twitter, but,

34:22

um, or X, no, it's Twitter. But

34:24

his mama called him Clay. I'm a

34:26

column Clay is Twitter. Right.

34:29

Okay. What's so crazy about it though,

34:31

Amanda is Western. I don't even like

34:33

using words like that. Right. But journalists

34:35

from the U S journalists from the

34:37

UK weren't even allowed into Gaza to

34:40

cover the conflict. So literally the only

34:42

way to get, I mean, how many

34:44

times did you see standups from Tel

34:46

Aviv that are telling you ostensibly what's

34:48

happening in Gaza, but those journalists couldn't

34:50

even get in there. And if they

34:53

were, they had to do with IDF

34:55

and they had to sign agreements that

34:57

IDF would review everything before publication, which

34:59

we don't journalistically, we're not supposed to

35:01

do. And yet you

35:03

have actual journalists who are from

35:06

that community where they're covering it,

35:08

who are dying, whose entire families

35:10

are being killed. And we're not

35:12

standing up collectively for them. I

35:14

think that has also changed somewhat,

35:16

but it's been shameful,

35:18

frankly. And I also

35:20

recognize that

35:23

spirit that oftentimes black

35:25

journalists who work for community,

35:28

you know, black news organizations

35:30

who do community journalism are

35:32

also discounted as not real

35:34

journalists. Right. Because you haven't

35:36

been professionally trained or, um,

35:39

you haven't been co-signed by a

35:41

big white company. That's right. But

35:44

the truth is our profession has

35:46

only recently been professionalized. Journalism has

35:48

always been a trade for the

35:50

vast history of our country. These

35:52

weren't people who had college degrees

35:54

in journalism. These were, you know,

35:56

Frederick Douglas, right? William Lloyd Garrison.

35:58

were people who just went out

36:00

and began to collect news and

36:02

put out news, but it wasn't

36:04

something that you had a master's

36:07

degree in, that you necessarily had

36:09

a college degree in at all.

36:11

That's changed recently, but who is

36:13

more close to community

36:15

than people who are in and

36:17

of the community? And so you

36:19

would look at this extreme skepticism

36:21

of reports coming from Gaza journalists,

36:23

even if they were working for

36:25

a mainstream publication like Al Jazeera.

36:28

And yet not that same type

36:31

of skepticism from people who obviously

36:33

are also reporting, is a Gazan

36:35

journalist biased towards Gazans? I

36:37

would presume so. Right? Like, especially

36:39

is a Gazan journalist who has seen

36:42

other Gazan journalists harmed? There's going to

36:44

be a bias. And do you see

36:46

the conflict in a different way, right?

36:48

You're not marking that conflict in October.

36:50

I mean, this is the same thing

36:53

that Black folks, right? It's like the

36:55

George Floyd moment doesn't start at the

36:57

George Floyd moment. There's

36:59

decades, there's centuries that read up to

37:01

that moment, but mainstream media often wants

37:04

to tell it from the moment of

37:06

that specific interaction. But while

37:08

we can recognize that a Gazan

37:10

journalist is reporting with a bias

37:12

for sure, we don't recognize that

37:14

the American journalists are reporting with

37:16

a bias, that they're also not

37:19

neutral arbiters of the truth, that

37:21

they're also making decisions. I remember

37:23

the first few weeks of the

37:25

conflict, I was like, even

37:27

when you're reporting on the death toll in

37:29

Gaza, the only people you're interviewing are Israelis

37:31

about what happened to them three weeks ago.

37:34

And that story deserves to be told, but that's not the

37:37

only story that deserves to be told. So I'm like,

37:39

you'll be like, oh, 10,000

37:41

people have been killed in Gaza. Now let's

37:43

go back to the kibbutz and talk about

37:45

what happened three weeks ago. Okay.

37:47

But you also have to be there

37:49

like actually interviewing the living, dying people

37:51

in the conflict area. And it took

37:54

us far too long to do that.

37:56

And if it was a matter of

37:58

access, then we should just... We

38:00

want to interview them, but the Israeli government will

38:03

not allow us to get in, but we didn't do that.

38:05

So... I mean, I did an

38:07

Instagram Live with Mansour from his

38:09

tent in Gaza. So it's like, if we wanted

38:11

to, we would. And...

38:14

We find ways. We find ways. We find

38:16

ways. We find ways. Life

38:22

is full of things to manage.

38:24

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38:26

and your treatment. Consider

38:28

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38:31

take it yourself from the comfort

38:33

of home. If you're ready for

38:35

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38:37

provider about Kysymta and check out

38:39

the details at kysymta.com. Brought to

38:41

you by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. I

38:46

feel like when I'm watching

38:48

certain headlines, I'm like, you shouldn't get to

38:50

call yourself a journalist. At this point, I

38:53

mean, Soledad O'Brien is actually the one who'd

38:55

be like, stop calling yourself a journalist. She's

38:58

like, point them out, point them out. I mean,

39:00

I saw a headline that said, less

39:03

people dying in Gaza. And

39:05

I was like, you wrote that. I can't

39:07

comment on that one. But I'm like, that

39:09

to me, though, is the kind of headlines

39:11

that I say to myself, oh, this is

39:13

the new era of journalism. And I know

39:15

we're about to go to some questions, but

39:17

just in case somebody didn't ask this,

39:20

where does clickbait land? When

39:22

I say clickbait, where does that land for

39:25

you? What does that bring

39:27

up? Okay, so first, just let me clarify

39:29

that journalists don't write headlines.

39:32

We don't write the headlines for our own

39:34

pieces. And so, so often, the headline

39:37

is not reflecting the

39:39

journalism, the quality of the journalism, the nuance

39:42

and the complexity of the story. And

39:44

headline writing is not easy either. It

39:46

is easy for me to critique everything

39:48

that journalists are doing right, but it's actually

39:50

really hard, what we try to do every day.

39:52

And Lord knows, I don't always get it right

39:54

either. But I do

39:56

think, the reason it's called clickbait

39:58

is you know, you are vying

40:01

for attention with people who've got 10,000

40:03

things coming at them. Yeah. So yeah,

40:05

you try to write that pithy headline

40:07

that's going to get someone to

40:09

click through. Now, whether they read the story

40:12

or not, you need them to click it.

40:14

That's how internet advertising works, right? That's why

40:16

when you're reading an article, it'll have you

40:19

click and say continue reading because those clicks

40:21

are what adds up to advertising dollars.

40:24

And so I do think it's a problem.

40:26

And as we know, most people don't read

40:28

articles, they read headlines. And

40:30

that's all that they end up knowing because they'll

40:32

say, Oh, they didn't talk about this.

40:34

I'm like, you didn't read the article because it's in

40:36

the fourth paragraph. I mean, I've

40:39

literally been defamed because of that. Like someone

40:41

wrote a headline that was a completely false

40:43

headline. And I got def pressed based on

40:45

a headline. If you read the article, you

40:47

see like nothing in that headline is actually

40:50

supported in this article, but the headline was

40:52

all that was needed. You know? Yeah. And

40:54

headlines by definition, does write the headline cannot

40:56

have nuance. So for instance, at a newspaper,

40:59

we have copy editors. So

41:01

they're the ones who kind of are like

41:03

the last layer of defense going through checking

41:05

to make sure the copy is right. And

41:07

they are the ones who also read the

41:09

story and write the headline. Now, again, you

41:12

have a certain amount of space to write

41:14

the headline. So they may try to write

41:16

a more nuanced headline, but it has to

41:18

fit across the page. So they have to

41:20

try to then make it more

41:22

simple so they can use fewer words. I'm

41:24

not justifying anything, but it is hard to

41:27

do right all of the time. And then

41:29

if you also consider the people writing the

41:31

headline, they're working on multiple articles a day.

41:33

They don't have the expertise. They're reading it.

41:36

They're like, Hmm, this seems like the most

41:38

interesting thing. So let me put that in

41:40

the headline. But that wouldn't necessarily be with

41:42

the person who has the expertise, who wrote

41:44

the article, who has all of the backstory

41:46

and the nuance, what I've used for the

41:49

headline. And oftentimes journalists will read a headline,

41:51

go ballistic. Yes. And then

41:53

say, Oh my God, y'all have to change

41:55

this headline. The beautiful thing though, about social

41:58

media is We can

42:00

get corrections now in real time, which was

42:02

not the case when I first started out,

42:04

right? So it comes out in

42:06

the newspaper, you read it, you're like, this shit is

42:08

crazy. All you can do is send

42:10

a letter to the editor that may or may not

42:12

get published. But now, I mean, we see it all

42:14

the time. A headline will come out, people

42:17

will get outraged on the internet, and then

42:19

that headline will change within the hour. And

42:21

I think the beautiful thing is, even as

42:24

news is struggling, it's also become more

42:26

democratized that any of us can actually

42:28

have feedback and change coverage. Just

42:31

a side note, you said something that really

42:33

struck me, because you said journalism only recently

42:35

became professionalized, like it was a trade, like

42:37

it was something that people picked up. And

42:39

I think I've really forgotten that

42:41

I spent a good amount of time doing

42:44

journalism. I used

42:46

to write for XXL and for

42:48

the source, and

42:51

for allhiphop.com, and I was literally

42:53

in this moment, I'm like, Hola, look at you, you're a journalist.

42:56

I was a journalist, yes. Yeah,

42:58

you were, yeah. And also, I

43:00

wasn't just writing the story, I

43:03

wanted people to hear something

43:05

from these people. And my questions weren't

43:07

just like, hey, what's your album? So

43:10

I don't know, you just awakened something from

43:12

me that I, because people have been telling

43:14

me lately, thank you for the work you're

43:16

doing, whether it's on Instagram, and I'm just

43:18

like, well, I'm just sourcing things and sharing

43:21

them, or trying to provide context, et cetera,

43:23

et cetera. And over, I'm like, you're kind

43:25

of journalist-ing, but I don't wanna claim that

43:27

because people really do this as a goddamn

43:29

job, and I will never take on someone's

43:32

craft that I'm just like, kind of, I

43:35

don't like the dabblers. People who like dabbling something,

43:37

and they'll be like, yeah, I'm a DJ, that's an

43:39

iPhone. That's an iPhone, cut

43:41

it out, cut it out. But what

43:44

I was gonna say about that is

43:46

that, I think the responsibility of truth

43:49

is like the biggest difference I've seen

43:51

in people who are journalists, and people

43:53

who are just like in these positions.

43:55

And when I look at the

43:58

older videos of- of anchors, like Connie

44:01

Chung and such, and how they echo

44:03

the anchors that are frustrating so many

44:05

of us right now, who are considered

44:07

journalists, right, they're like called like news

44:10

journalists, or like, and I'm like, no,

44:12

that's an anchor, they're reading a prompter.

44:14

But they're given this title of journalists

44:17

because they're like, I guess, talking about

44:19

news. I'm not joking,

44:21

Nicole, I don't realize how much

44:24

Fox News shit was happening before

44:26

Fox News. Like I didn't

44:28

realize how much swaying was happening. I saw

44:30

an interview of Connie Chung interviewing Amira Baraka

44:32

the other day in 2001 post 9-11. And

44:37

she was standing 10 toes down, 10 toes

44:40

down, on like,

44:42

no, you don't know what you're talking about. And now

44:44

here we are in 2024. And

44:46

it's like, well, ma'am, you didn't know what you was

44:48

talking about neither. But you had the

44:50

system at your back, right? Like you had

44:52

CNN at your back. And I wonder how

44:54

much of that was not

44:56

just them having CNN at their back, but on

44:59

their back to push this particular

45:01

agenda. And so many of us didn't know

45:03

better than to understand that like, oh, this

45:05

is somebody who knows the news. He's the

45:07

guest. She's on the news channel.

45:09

She's the journalist. And it's like, no. So that's

45:12

one of the things I'm noticing now as we're

45:14

seeing journalism shift in terms

45:16

of it dying, I'm seeing

45:18

more people start to question what

45:21

does this space really mean? And

45:24

being deliberate about lifting up people like

45:27

yourself who are representing it

45:29

in a way that I feel like they

45:31

want it to mean. Like, I think people

45:33

want journalism to be about activism and about

45:36

actual truth and not just about saying what

45:38

happened today. Yeah, so let me just speak

45:40

out on behalf of my profession. I've spent

45:42

a lot of time critiquing the profession. And

45:45

I've been a print journalist my entire career.

45:47

And so I really tend to see journalism

45:49

through that lens, even though I think

45:52

the way most people interact with journalism is through

45:54

television. And I can tell you there

45:57

are, within my organization, within

46:00

every news organization, people

46:02

just as dedicated. This profession

46:05

does matter. And we

46:07

all fail to some degree. I

46:09

wish we could be more self-reflective

46:11

as a profession, but most

46:14

people I know really are trying to

46:16

do a service. Most people

46:18

who got into journalism did get into

46:20

journalism because they think it's critical

46:22

to our democracy and to a fair society.

46:24

It doesn't mean they don't have flaws, they

46:27

don't bring their own biases, they don't reflect

46:29

the hierarchies of our society. They do. But

46:32

they also spend months and months and

46:34

months tracking down public records and sitting

46:36

in on school board meetings and reading

46:38

the budget for all the people who

46:41

would never go to a county commission

46:43

meeting. And I hope our

46:45

profession is not dying. We're struggling. We're

46:48

struggling a lot because people don't think they should

46:50

have to pay for news. They don't understand that.

46:53

It costs a lot of money to be the one sitting

46:56

in all these meetings and revealing all

46:58

the shenanigans of our elected officials and

47:00

powerful people. And I fear, Amanda, that

47:03

it's going to be one of those things

47:05

where it's hard for us to realize what

47:07

we're losing because we feel like we're getting

47:09

a lot of information, but we're not getting

47:12

a lot of good information, of vetted information,

47:14

that actual journalists

47:16

have standards. We have to

47:18

actually verify things. We

47:20

have to be able to prove that

47:22

these are facts. We have to have

47:24

sources. Most people don't actually

47:27

understand the degree to which journalists

47:29

stay up at night every time you publish

47:31

a story because you're afraid that you got

47:34

something wrong. All of us do that if

47:36

we're actual journalists. And that

47:38

when we lose it is

47:40

when we will realize how much we need it

47:42

and it might be too late. I don't agree

47:44

with our founders of this nation on almost anything,

47:47

but one thing they understood is you can't have

47:49

a free society without a robust press. And

47:52

I just think that our

47:54

democracy is in danger if

47:57

we do not maintain a strong

47:59

press. And we are in a bit of a

48:01

death spiral, especially with local news. And I'm not

48:03

sure what we're going to do to save it,

48:05

but I just fear that the average American won't

48:07

realize what's lost until it's gone. Do

48:10

you feel like the standards that you named

48:12

are being upheld professionally in the same way

48:14

that you were held to when you came

48:17

into this space? I think for most journalists,

48:19

yes. Not individually from the journalists, but from

48:21

the actual powers that be. I

48:23

do. Yeah. I do. I

48:25

mean, I take Fox News out of that

48:27

altogether. I don't consider Fox News a news

48:29

organization. I think most

48:32

news organizations do try to adhere to

48:34

standards. Again, fail all the time. I

48:36

critique media all the time, but they

48:38

strive for it. I do think so.

48:40

I think most people in news take it

48:43

very seriously. Now, the problem is, of course,

48:45

we have a lot of billionaires who are

48:47

just buying up news organizations who see

48:49

them as they hoped as a money-making scheme, which I

48:52

don't know how you were a good businessman and thought

48:54

that was going to be the case. They're

48:56

not actually interested. I think some of

48:58

the ownership is not necessarily interested in

49:01

service standards. It's

49:04

like Boeing being run by billionaires who don't care

49:06

about, these planes should actually fly without pieces

49:08

falling off in the middle of the plate. No,

49:10

that was DEI. That was all

49:12

DEI was the cause for that. It was actually

49:15

Hamas. It was Hamas. It was Hamas. So

49:18

I'm blessed enough that I work for, you know, The

49:20

New York Times is still family-owned, and it

49:22

is owned by the same family that

49:24

founded The New York Times, and they

49:27

care about journalism. Doesn't mean we don't

49:29

make mistakes, but I don't ever come

49:31

to work thinking I work for an

49:33

institution that does not actually care about

49:36

journalism. So I think most are.

49:38

I do think we get confused about the

49:40

difference between punditry and journalism. Yes. Right? So

49:43

lots of people you see on your TV

49:45

news aren't journalists. Nope. But people think it

49:47

is. But you understand why people think it

49:49

is, right? Of course they do. Yes. I'm

49:52

watching a news channel. I'm

49:54

assuming that the people who are speaking to

49:56

me, unless they're an expert in the government

49:58

or an expert elsewhere, are. journalists, but

50:00

many of them are not. And so I

50:03

do think that that is confusing to people.

50:05

And I think that that leads to

50:07

the distrust that many people have of the

50:09

news. And then we all get lumped together.

50:11

Again, the New York Times does something very,

50:14

very different than the hour long cable

50:16

news show on CNN. We don't do the

50:18

same things. Now there are reporters at CNN

50:20

who do the same things, but they're not

50:23

the ones hosting the show. Right? So

50:25

I think that that has helped build

50:27

distrust, but I think on a

50:29

daily basis, people get

50:31

into this profession because they see it as a

50:34

tremendous service and they feel an

50:36

obligation to try to

50:38

report the truth, even if again,

50:40

they often do so very imperfectly. Well,

50:43

we have some questions from the people

50:45

because the people are

50:47

very curious about just your thoughts on

50:49

everything, but we're going to keep it

50:51

specific to this. Now, I shout out

50:53

to all of our Patreon members. The

50:55

SEAL squad is in the building. So

50:57

if you want to listen to these

51:00

questions, you got to head on over

51:02

to my Patreon. The

51:25

Last Dose. So before we go, how, if

51:27

at all, has journalism, being

51:33

a journalist, affected

51:44

your love life? Damn,

51:49

you know, that was not, I

51:51

have been interviewed many, many, many,

51:54

many times. And I've

51:57

definitely never gotten that question. I thought I might

51:59

get it. question about my shoe fetish, but we're

52:01

going to go with my love life. Because,

52:05

you know, as a comic, this is probably the

52:07

question that asks my husband and not me. I

52:10

will tell you one thing my husband, he

52:12

would joke about is when I'm in

52:14

the throes of a story, nobody better

52:16

talk to me, period. I go down

52:18

in the basement. I stay in a basement for

52:20

days up on end. If I was a man,

52:22

I'd come out with a beer and I'm not

52:24

a pleasant person to be around. Writing

52:27

is hard. Journalism is hard. You

52:29

know, trying to translate what's

52:32

in your head to the page is

52:34

grueling. Most journalists hate writing. We just

52:36

love having written. Once it's done and

52:39

out in the world, it feels amazing,

52:41

but process is grueling. So yeah,

52:44

that's all I'll say about that. Well,

52:48

we appreciate you sharing even that tidbit. Thank

52:50

you so much for the work that you

52:52

do and that you continue to do and

52:55

for what you are inspiring folks to do.

52:57

And, you know, I think what's been

52:59

great about my audience is that they're

53:02

really an action-based audience. A lot of the

53:04

people that listen to this podcast, like they

53:07

really want to live in their best

53:09

selves and preserve the best parts of

53:11

this society to the best of their

53:13

ability. And you gave folks real tangible

53:15

ways in which they can, you

53:18

know, not only engage in supporting the

53:20

journalism that they want to see, but

53:22

how they too can engage in being

53:24

journalists that they want to

53:27

hear more from. And I will also

53:29

say that I think a lot

53:31

of folks understand

53:33

that being Black in

53:35

America is a very unique experience and

53:38

that we need people in all spaces,

53:40

not just in medicine, not just

53:43

in politics, but also

53:45

in journalism who are in that

53:47

space with a bias about us.

53:51

A bias for justice. I'll claim that. I know

53:53

that was your close remarks, but I just want

53:55

to add two quick things. Go for it. We

53:57

all have the potential to be journalists. Some of

53:59

the... most important reporting has been done

54:02

by citizen journalists, and particularly around

54:04

police brutality, right? When mainstream media,

54:06

you know, Eric Garner, Walter

54:08

Scott was buying the line of the

54:10

police. It was citizen journalists who recorded

54:12

what was happening in their communities and

54:14

bypassed the media and went to social

54:17

that caused that to become a mainstream

54:19

media story. And the year

54:21

I was awarded the Pulitzer, the young

54:23

lady who filmed George Floyd's murder was

54:25

also awarded a Pulitzer as a citizen

54:28

journalist. So I want us all

54:30

to feel empowered that when we see

54:32

things in our community, we can record and

54:34

we can bear witness. That is the role of all

54:36

of us. And the last thing I want to say is

54:39

I'm just so appreciative of you, Amanda,

54:41

the way that you use your platform.

54:44

Comedians always have been some of the

54:46

most kind of searing cultural and political

54:48

commentators, but not everyone uses their platform

54:50

in the way that you do. I

54:53

love following you. I learn things from you

54:55

every day. And you are such a

54:58

voice of justice, even though I

55:00

know how that causes people to

55:02

come at you. I'm just grateful, jokes

55:05

are one thing, but this is real life and

55:08

this is real death for a lot of people. And you

55:10

could be using your platform in many, many other ways. And

55:12

I'm just grateful that you choose to use it this way.

55:14

And I say that sincerely. Well,

55:17

I'm gonna cry because

55:20

I'm a cancer and because I really,

55:24

and because really I do honor your work

55:26

and your work has, damn, I really am

55:28

gonna cry. And your work has, your

55:31

work has like affirmed just like

55:33

my existence, like in so many times. Like

55:35

there's just been so many times where I'm

55:37

just like, see, see, see, I'm not just

55:40

saying it, it's real. You're

55:43

not crazy. No. It is a conspiracy

55:45

against us, you're not crazy. And

55:48

I just want you to know, I was on

55:50

a fly, I told you

55:52

this in DM, but I'll say it for

55:54

the people, like I was on a Delta

55:57

flight last year and started watching these, you

55:59

know, these. So masterclass tidbits

56:01

on black history and

56:04

you and other great black women. I'm being

56:06

specific because I felt like the brothers was

56:08

weak. But y'all was really, you know,

56:11

you and Gwen Ifill and

56:14

Professor Kimberly Crenshaw and Angela

56:16

Davis, et cetera, were really

56:19

revealing to me in literally like

56:21

12 minute segments, Nicole

56:23

Hannah Jones, like, oh

56:25

my God, there's so many holes to

56:28

my scholarship. And like what y'all did in

56:30

that one flight, I came on that flight

56:32

one way and I left that flight different.

56:35

And I literally

56:37

left that flight realizing like, oh,

56:40

you have to dedicate yourself even

56:42

more than you already had. Like there

56:44

has to be a whole other level

56:47

of purpose that you have to dedicate

56:49

your voice, your platforms, your purpose to

56:51

not just educating others, but

56:53

educating yourself. And I think I had kind of

56:55

lost my way in that. And

56:58

you got me back on track, so thank you. Thank

57:01

you. Just thank you. Thank you

57:03

for what you do. This is a black girl love moment.

57:05

It really is. It

57:07

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