July 25, 2023 • 30 mins
The Daily Show may be fake news, but it has hosted plenty of real news greats, including Christiane Amanpour, Soledad O’Brien, and Dorothy Butler Gilliam. These journalists discuss standing up for the truth, the state of democracy, what it's like to be a Black reporter in America, and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Everyone has been talking about the situation in Iran, and
if you haven't heard about, ten days ago, a young
woman named Massa Amini was arrested by the Morality police
for not properly covering her hair, and then she died
in their custody. Ever since then, Iranians have been pouring
(00:23):
into the streets demanding justice for her death and freedom
for Iran's women. Now. So far, the government has answered
the protesters with brutal violence and has shown no signs
of reconsidering the law that requires women to cover their hair.
In fact, last week, the President of Iran was scheduled
to be interviewed by CNN's Christian Armanport in New York,
and at the last minute he demanded that she wear
(00:45):
a headscarf for the interview, even though the interview was
in New York, and when she refused, he straight up
to cancel the interview and left just left her looking
like she was giving therapy to a ghost. So joining
me now to talk about the interview, the situation in
Iran is Christian. I'm on, poor Christian, what come for
the day job? And let's jump straight into it. You
(01:09):
have interviewed many Iranian presidents. You have never been in
a situation like this before where they demanded of you
that you wear the headscoff not in Iran. Walk me
through the situation and also why you chose to not
do what the presidents of Iran requested.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, very briefly, like you know, with my team, we
wanted to do this interview and we were going to
get the Iranian president's first and exclusive interview on American soil.
And as you know, because New Yorker is no it's
gridlock at the UN. This is the UN Week and
one of the things we like to do is get
voices from all over the world, including the Iranian president.
(01:50):
So I've done this now many years, and I've always
had the first interview with the latest Iranian president and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Never been an issue.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
There is no law in the United States that requires
a journalist to wear a scarf for any interview, and
it was never an issue. And by the way, I
find out that this guy, he had a breakfast, he
had a press conference, and he didn't require anybody to
wear a scarf.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So you know, come to the evening and.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
It's now eight o'clock and then they say he's praying
and he's resting, and you know, we're going to do
it a little bit later. And suddenly an aid came
and said, we would like the president would like you
to wear a scarf.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm like, why, no, I.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Don't have to wear a scarf anyway, cut to the chase,
it is not law, and as a journalist I made
instantaneously a journalistic decision based on the principle that A
it wasn't law, and B you don't get you know,
strong armed by a foreign government or any government when
you're trying to sit and conduct a previously arranged interview.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
It seems it seems like and I can't help thinking
that this was most probably, I guess, in some way,
shape or form, motivated by the timing. You know you
are of Iranian descent. Do you think that there was
an element of him not wanting to appear on camera
with you for fear of a message it may send
(03:19):
to a country that's very quickly turning against this dictator.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Well, I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I mean, I don't know that I'm sure, but I
do actually believe that he did not want to be
seen with a woman whose head was uncovered right at
the same time that in his own country there was
an uprising on the streets, and in fact a woman
had died, a young woman had died because of this
while in the custody of the morality police. And I
would just say that this morality police has been around since,
(03:47):
you know, forty plus years of the Islamic Revolution, but
under some presidents it's less obvious and less strict, and
under some it's much more strict. So this particular president
is one of the very hard variety.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
And he basically came to power by making the crackdown
on all sorts of social norms, including on women's dress
and their activity.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That was a central theme of his campaign.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And you know, clearly it's all gone, as we say,
pear shaped, because I don't think he expected that something
like this would cause the worst.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Uprising in Iran since two thousand and nine. It's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
And your you know, your audience should know and your
viewers that some eighty percent of the Iranian people are
under the age of twenty one. Sixty percent of Iranian
students and university graduates are women. Women have a lot
of power and they want their full rights.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I think they have every right to want that, and
across the world that, you know, I think there may
be some misconception. Some see this as these women completely
going up against Islam, when in fact it's not that.
What they're saying is they have nothing against anybody practicing
a religion or anyone, you know, dressing the way their
(05:10):
religion requires. Their qualm seems to be about the government
forcing people to do it should they not wish to.
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Look, that is correct. The fact of the matter is
that it is the law, at least the social law.
I don't know it's written in the.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Legal books, but it is the social and religious law,
and it has been since the beginning of the revolution,
which happened in nineteen seventy nine. But interestingly, Trevor, you know,
the women came out in the streets back then forty
plus years ago to also call for a change of regime,
but they were not wearing head scarves, and there was
no question at that time where at the beginning of
(05:48):
headscarves being compulsory.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I know women who went into the streets at that time,
including members.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Of my own family, who wanted to get rid of
one monarchy for what they thought was going to be democracy.
Then very shortly thereafter, Iya Tolajomedi said, oh no, actually.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You women you need to be you know, veiled.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And that has been a bubbling cauldron for the last
many many years. I had a wonderful woman on my
show tonight, married John Satrapi. If any of you know
the graphic novel Persepolists, which she wrote about her childhood,
she basically said this, Look, the people of Iran wanted democracy.
The minute you take off the veil, you know, their
dictatorship will go. So the regime is not going to
(06:29):
allow that. But she said, she put it this way,
it's only to keep men's eyes off women. So if
they're so horny, she said, and they're so unable to
control themselves, well maybe they should take a cold shower
or look somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And that's the bottom line. And I'm, you know, sorry
to say, even in.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Your country, Trevor, even in the United States, with this
law that has you know, banned the ability for women
to make their own choices about their own bodies, it's
something incredibly important that we have to you know, keep
an eye on, and that in that moment, I was
not as a journalist or as a woman going to
put a headscoff on and somehow bind myself in some
(07:13):
kind of you know.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well, as always, I appreciate you taking the time to
join us on the show. I appreciate you. You know,
I've grown up watching you cover all of these stories,
and as always I appreciate the work that you do
out there. Thank you so much for joining us on
the Daily Show once again.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Be sure to watch Christian's I'm On Poor show. It
is on CNN I, which airs weekdays on PBS in
the United States. We're gonna take a quick break, but
we'll be right back after this. Earlier today, I spoke
with award winning broadcast journalist Solidad O'Brian. We chatted about
(07:55):
the media's coverage of the election of Donald Trump and
so much more. Sol It out o brian, Welcome to
the Daily Social Distancing Show.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You're one of my favorite people to talk to about
this topic, in particular because you've worked in TV journalism
TV news for what three decades now. Everybody from CNN
to MSNBC, etc. You've also been very critical of how
the media has handled not just the election, but news
in general, let's start with the election and talk about that.
(08:26):
What do you think the news and the media have
gotten wrong in covering the election.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
I think it's always a mistake to platform lies, and
I think the mistake that's been made is to uncritically
quote or tweet quote the president who is lying. We
know he's lying. We count actually the thousands of lies
that he tweets and says every single day, and so
to just quote the president and give him a platform
for something that we all agree or no is a
(08:52):
lie is a huge mistake. And that continued on during
the election and the past four years. So that's been terrible.
But I think post election has gotten better. Post election day, let's.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Let's talk a little bit about that. Because America is
in a tough place, right, It's it's an interesting country
because there is the idea that it's not a monarchy,
right they say, this is this is a society, it's
a democracy. The president is a civil servant just like
every other one. But then there's also a certain reverence.
It's the president. This is the president, and so even
(09:26):
though Donald Trump is lying, the president is speaking. And
so you can feel journalists have this thing where they
go the President told me that my mother is responsible
for the stolen votes, and I asked my mom and
she did not agree, But that's what the President said.
It like, how how do you think the media has
to figure out how to navigate that relationship? Because I
can see a lot of them don't want to seem
(09:47):
disrespectful of the president, but at the same time, because
he's now the president, he can just lie and then
the media has to say what his lie was.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Yeah, there's been a reverence for the office, right, even
though the person is the office wasn't particularly reverent himself
or deserving of the reverence. And I think it's one
of the reasons that we saw, oh my gosh, the
New York Times beginning to call the presidents lies lies.
I'm going to take full credit for that. I I'm
going to take predek for that. It took something like
(10:16):
three years. But things that were lies were lies they
wouldn't want to say, or things that were racist just
saying this is racist. This statement is racist. And I
do believe it's because of that very thing. There's a
sense that whether you like the guy or hate the guy,
the office itself deserves a certain reverence and so I
think that really did slow the media down. Plus, I
(10:39):
would argue, when you want to have access, you have
a president who's reading everything you're writing and everything you're tweeting,
you have to be very careful about how you frame
things or there's a good chance you're not going to
get access.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Franklin, Yeah, that's but that's something I find strange about
American journalism for the most part, Like I live in
a country where you didn't have access. That's just how
it worked, you know. I've lived in countries around the
world where it's like you, you don't have access. Is
not what journalists have access find the things that are
not given to you with access, because access, in my opinion,
often comes with misinformation. I mean, you know, American journalists,
(11:10):
they've had access to so many things. They had access
to the lives about Vietnam, that was the access. So
I wonder sometimes, like why are American journalists so obsessed
with access when that access could be misinformation? It should
be journalism, shouldn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
I think there's a quid pro quote that comes with access, right,
and that is either you're going to slide something nice
about me in your next article or your next column,
you're gonna quote me or you're you know, let's a
I scratch your back, you scratch my back. I get
some interesting, breaking news, and then you get to feed
off of that for a while. You know what you're
seeing right now?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Right?
Speaker 5 (11:43):
The pundits have gone away. No one wants to hear
from the pundits. They're wrong, They're a mess. Who cares
failed Crossman TV? We don't need them, know what they're doing.
TV news organizations are camped out talking to the head
of elections in maricopatality right, Like that is journalism. Yeah,
that is reporting. That is not access someone calling you up.
(12:05):
You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It's just doing
the work. And I would argue most journalists are not
access journalists. They're not going to write a book about
their time at the White House. I'm not going to
tell you funny stories about hanging out with John Bayner.
They go every day and go into communities and try
to figure out what the accurate story is, and sometimes
they get it right. Sometimes mistakes are made, and I
(12:27):
think most journalists do a really good job. But when
you're going for access, I do think it's kind of
screws up your perspective, and yeah, you don't need access
to do good reporting.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
You really don't.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
It's interesting that you bring that up because it feels
like when people talk about the media, what we often mean,
especially in America, is cable news. I mean, for the
most parts, you know, because you are completely correct. If
you read your news, you find there's amazing journalists who
break most of the stories that inform how we even
see the world. But when it comes to cable news,
pundits seem to be more important than facts. Like you know,
(12:58):
you just bring people. You're just gonna be like, I'm
just gonna bring on this one person to say why
Latinos like Trump, and then I'm gonna bring on another
person to say why Latinos don't like Trump. Now, you
guys fight. Thank you for tuning into the news. That's
a great formula for creating conflicts for the screen, but
it doesn't really inform people. It's just people's opinions and
pundits just trying to guess something. And then, by the way,
(13:20):
if they get it wrong, there's no ramification. They can
just be like, oh, yeah, this is why I was wrong.
It's not because of me. It's because the information didn't
match what I was saying.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah, and also I figure the important piece you're missing
is it's cheap. It's cheap you pay all those people.
They are on every show they rotate through. You've seen
the nine person set, right, it doesn't cost any money.
You know, it's expensive going into the field with a
crew for the next three days and shooting and doing interviews,
(13:48):
and then writing your story and bringing it back and
editing your story. That costs a lot of money. And
actually you can hire a guy or two for that
same cost, right, and they'll be on your set for
the next year. That contributor contract is for every show
that they want to be on over the next year.
It's a sub cost. It's very easy, and it costs
(14:08):
you no money. Yeah, and then you also have this
built in sense of urgency and sense of drama that
I think everybody feels every story needs. That actually takes
some work when you're gonna do it in a tape spot.
So I truly believe a big factor in that is
just cost.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Is just money.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
You've been someone who's been critical of the media for
a while, especially like and not broadly obviously, you know
you've given props where props are do, but you have
points out the shortcomings when you look at the news,
especially cable news, we have to acknowledge that there is
there is like a certain price to pay for like neutrality,
for instance, like cable news and likes to bring people
(14:48):
on to go like this person believes that black people
are human beings, but this person doesn't agree. Let's talk
to them and see why they say that. This neutrality
on the surface seems to be about impartiality, but really
what it creates as a world where there is no fact.
There is nothing we agree on. It's all up for discussion.
And again, it's great for ratings, but it's not good
(15:09):
for informing people. How do you think news networks can
find that balance, because at the end of the day,
their business is now, but they're also claiming to inform people.
Is there a balance that can be achieved?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Absolutely. I actually think people really want context. I think
it's one of the reasons that podcasts are so successful now.
People want to understand. So wait, walk me through the
history a little bit, and who are these people and
what's their point of view? Exactly right? They want to
hear the well told story, rolled out and explained versus
this guy Rick Santorum, who's going to make up something
(15:44):
because he's not an expert in it a lot except
for being a failed congressman versus pick your other congressman
on the other side. And I think this death of
expertise is really problematic. When we started doing we do
a show about policy called Matter of Fact, We're not Live,
I was like, oh my god, what are we going
to do? The President is tweeting every morning and we
pretape our show on a Thursday for Sunday. So we
(16:06):
decided we would lean in very hard to context. What
is the First Amendment? What does jerrymandering mean? And where
did it come from? How is it possible that you
can live on an income, a minimum wage income, and
not be able to afford a two bedroom apartment. And
because of that, we actually very rarely talk politics. We
(16:27):
talk about policy. We talk about people I have no idea,
if they're Republicans, if they're Democrats, if they're independents, if
they vote, they tell us what's happening in their lives,
and we talk about the policy. And because it's not
framed as this versus this, I think it's a much
more interesting conversation and it does really well. We do
better than most of the cable shows.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
If the election is called, and if Joe Biden becomes president,
then at some point he will be taking office. At
some point he will move into the White House, which
means at some point Donald Trump will no longer be
president of the United States if that were to happen.
And what would your advice be to newsrooms, because I
strongly suspect that they're going to try to keep covering
(17:06):
Trump despite the fact that he's no longer in office.
They're going to be like, what did he say today?
Former President Trump said that Burrito's a part of the problem.
What would your advice be to use networks post Donald Trump?
And people who are watching the news post Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
All that will matter is does his comments? Do his
comments bring ratings? And I'm going to argue they don't.
You can see the poor food for Fox News anchors.
Right when he's been on the phone with them for
thirty minutes, they're like, well, mister President, I know you're
very busy, mister President. I know you've got to go,
mister President, And then he won't get up the phone
so you know, I think if they think they can
(17:43):
get ratings, doesn't matter what advice I give them, because
they will go for the ratings. But I think you're
gonna find that there are not ratings there to be had,
that actually he's not great ratings. He's not ratings gold.
He was ratings gold when he was wow a wacky
over the top who knows what he's gonna do. But
theng and dance is getting very very old. Everybody understands it,
(18:03):
and it's kind of brambly old grandpa uncle who's like,
it's the kind of person you're like, Okay, nice to
see you, and then you move seven seats away. Yes,
you don't want to be part of that. And I
think that he's falling into that category. And I can
tell you only by watching. I feel sorry, which I
rarely do for the Fox News anchors, but I feel
(18:24):
sorry for them as they're trying to get him off
the phone and he won't go.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, I can tell you this. I am glad that
you have a show. I'm glad that you have a
podcast because, as you say, people are enjoying the context,
and I appreciate the context that you bring. Thank you
so much for joining us on the show, and I
hope to see you again.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Don't forget Solidad's public affairs show Matter of Fact as
Sunday's on Hurst, and be sure to check out her
new podcast, Very Opinionated. We're going to take a quick break,
but we'll be right back after this. Welcome back. Jais
So my guest tonight is the first African American female reporter,
(19:03):
columnist and editor for the Washington Post. Her new book
is called Trailblazer, A Journalist's Fight to make the Media
look more like America. Please welcome Dorothy Butler, Gilliam, everybody.
Thank you so much for being here. This is one
of those stories that genuinely hit me so hard because
(19:27):
it feels like you have lived through some of the
most seminal moments in American history and you were also
reporting on it. You worked for fifty years in this business.
What do you think was the biggest change that you
saw in your time in journalism as the first African
American woman working at the Washington Post.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
I think the biggest change was after the urban uprisings
of the sixties when the Kerner Commission, which was a
commission that was named by the President said the media
had in many ways contributed to the fact that the
urban riots occurred, and that was because they had not
(20:10):
integrated their reporting and their editing staffs, and many ways
they said they were just showing US America only through
white eyes. So I started at the Post in nineteen
sixty one. When I went back in nineteen seventy two,
it was a little different because there were more reporters
(20:31):
of color, right, more females, but still it was very white,
male dominated.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You came into this world at a time when it
was just something that did not happen. You walked into
a newsroom where there were only two other reporters who
were black. You were the first African American woman in
this space. And reading in the book was one of
the I mean, just the most harrowing passages where they
had a policy of not reporting when black people were murdered.
(21:00):
One editor even called those cheap deaths that shouldn't be reported.
How do you even begin to work in that kind
of environment? And did you help the editors understand why
it was crucial to report all news.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
I tried to help them, and I think the way
I began working in that environment is because doctor Martin
Luther King was beginning to say to young black people,
go into white corporations and excel. So it felt like
I was almost part of the freedom movement by going
and becoming the first African American woman at the Washington Post.
(21:36):
I didn't think I was a trailblazer at that point.
I just was doing a job that I loved. I
had had four years in the Black press, and the
Black press has been very important in America, both in
terms of reporting on civil rights, but going places where
white reporters wouldn't go, where white newspapers wouldn go, So
(21:57):
that experience also helped to prepare me for my work
at the Washington Post. One of the first stories that
I remember a lot was when I went to the
University of Mississippi as part of the team from the
Post to cover the integration of Ole miss And that
was the most horrendous thing you can imagine, because Mississippi
(22:20):
was one of those places where it was a lynching state.
It was the heart of segregation, and the university was
like this bastion of white supremacy. So it was chaotic
on the campus. But what hurt, in addition was that
(22:41):
I had no place that I could get a room
because they didn't have hotels for black people.
Speaker 7 (22:46):
So I slept in a black funeral home and a
funeral home. Yeah, I slept with the dead.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Trevor, this is so insane that you have lived through
that time. I'm honestly fast needed to know in that
time when this was happening. Were you optimistic? Did you
think that you would see America change? Or was the
resistance to integration so strong that you thought it would
last forever?
Speaker 6 (23:12):
The integration was so strong that I never thought I
would see a black president.
Speaker 7 (23:18):
Wow, that was a huge step forward in many ways.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
But of course with America it can help the liberal
and then it can swing to conservatism, and you see
what we have now.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I see what we have now?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I do.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Indeed, you reported on so many stories, and your inclusion
in the newsroom was powerful because it really felt like
when you read the book, you lived through two of
really the most important eras in American history, in modern history, definitely,
and that was women's movement for equal rights and black
(23:58):
people's movements for civil rights. Which of the two did
you feel like had more momentum when you were in them?
Did you feel like, oh, this is going to happen
all this one won't or did it feel like both
were just moving forward?
Speaker 6 (24:08):
It felt that like the freedom writers and the freedoms
I called the whole civil rights movement the freedom movement. Yes,
it felt like it was going to open doors for
so many other people because after the Civil Rights movement,
after the Black Power era. That's when Glorious sim wrote
her article that said, after Black power, women power, and
(24:33):
so after the women power, it's the blacks who were.
Speaker 7 (24:36):
The pioneering minority. And so after women.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
Power, then you had the oppression against gay people being
really looked at and studied and acknowledged. Then you had
the oppression against the disabled. So it's many ways, it's
the black movement. I think that was the most important
movement because all people all over the world were singing,
(25:02):
we shall overcome in China and all around the world,
people who had been oppressed were saying, if that happened
in America, you know, why can't it happen here.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's so powerful when you speak about how when you
first got to the post, your mission was not to
be a reporter that focused on black issues, but just
a reporter who excelled. You didn't want to be pigeonholed
as a black reporter, but then you came to realize
that it was crucial for you to take up that
mantlein reports on black issues. Why do you think it's
so important for mainstream media to look more like actual
(25:38):
America and not just have the voice of predominantly white men.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
It's because you can't really talk about a community that
you don't in some way represent, that you don't in
some way know, that you don't in some way have
more than a stereotyped a notion of what it's all about.
And because with white supremacy in America, that whole narrative
(26:05):
has also been accompanied by an anti black narrative, and
very often, and that's been since the beginning.
Speaker 7 (26:14):
This is twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (26:15):
We have African Americans or black people have been in
America four hundred years. We were here a year before
the Mayflower but you know two and a half centuries
of that was the era of slavery, and then that
the era of Jim crow so or segregation in the South. Yeah,
(26:38):
so the whole feeling that this is this whole anti
black narrative that has been a part of the DNA
almost of America as much as white supremacy, that has
not really been acknowledged.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
It's been kind of glossed over.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
And you pay attention to have you know, the violence,
that violence gets, yes, but in terms of what motivated,
and a lot of it is about poverty.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
You know, poverty is very violent.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
And as you were saying in the segment with the billionaires,
you know, it's very real what's happening in this country,
and it's been happening for a while.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Fifty years of writing, fifty years of finding ways to
report stories even in spaces where you weren't allowed. I mean,
one of the most shocking end I find funny at
the same time stories is when you talked about how
when yourself and colleagues would go to marches, you would
have to disguise yourselves because you couldn't be journalists in
public as black people. You would dress up as clergy,
(27:42):
you dress up as priests and so forth, and nuns,
and you would hide type writers under your clothing, which
I didn't even know how they fit. But when you
look at America today, how do you find that balance
for yourself of both where America has come from and
where America still needs.
Speaker 7 (28:01):
To go Okay.
Speaker 6 (28:02):
First, I should say that those reporters who wrapped their
old royal typewriters got this in old clothes when they
went to the South because they didn't want the white
sheriffs to arrest them. And so they would also disguise
themselves as ministers, and they carried bibles under their arms,
(28:23):
and so that was a way of trying to get
to the story and knowing that they couldn't go as reporters.
But where I see things today, I think it's the
time when media is more important than ever. It was
very difficult when the President started talking about fake news.
(28:47):
It was very difficult because you know, those of us
who came up in the in the legacy media, we
knew about all of the issues of ethics that we
had to adhere to in order to be.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
High by the Washington Post and in order to work there.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
We knew that we didn't take gifts from anybody. We
knew that we had to always pay our own way.
We knew that we had studied in colleges and universities,
and so to have our whole process dismissed the fake
news was not only detrimental to the US, but it
(29:26):
was detrimental internationally because whatever we say about the faults
of America, it still has been the bastion of democracy.
And so when you have something as crucial, you know,
as freedom of the press being detegrated by the top
official of the land, it has a very destabilizing effect
(29:49):
in the whole world.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I could genuinely talk to you for hours, but luckily
I have the book to keep me company. Thank you
so much for being on the show. Trailblaze Off is
available now. A truly fascinating story Dorothy Butler William Everybody.
Speaker 8 (30:06):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on
Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Pluffs.
This has been a Comedy Central podcastow
You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Everyone has been talking about the situation in Iran, and
if you haven't heard about, ten days ago, a young
woman named Massa Amini was arrested by the Morality police
for not properly covering her hair, and then she died
in their custody. Ever since then, Iranians have been pouring
(00:23):
into the streets demanding justice for her death and freedom
for Iran's women. Now. So far, the government has answered
the protesters with brutal violence and has shown no signs
of reconsidering the law that requires women to cover their hair.
In fact, last week, the President of Iran was scheduled
to be interviewed by CNN's Christian Armanport in New York,
and at the last minute he demanded that she wear
(00:45):
a headscarf for the interview, even though the interview was
in New York, and when she refused, he straight up
to cancel the interview and left just left her looking
like she was giving therapy to a ghost. So joining
me now to talk about the interview, the situation in
Iran is Christian. I'm on, poor Christian, what come for
the day job? And let's jump straight into it. You
(01:09):
have interviewed many Iranian presidents. You have never been in
a situation like this before where they demanded of you
that you wear the headscoff not in Iran. Walk me
through the situation and also why you chose to not
do what the presidents of Iran requested.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, very briefly, like you know, with my team, we
wanted to do this interview and we were going to
get the Iranian president's first and exclusive interview on American soil.
And as you know, because New Yorker is no it's
gridlock at the UN. This is the UN Week and
one of the things we like to do is get
voices from all over the world, including the Iranian president.
(01:50):
So I've done this now many years, and I've always
had the first interview with the latest Iranian president and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Never been an issue.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
There is no law in the United States that requires
a journalist to wear a scarf for any interview, and
it was never an issue. And by the way, I
find out that this guy, he had a breakfast, he
had a press conference, and he didn't require anybody to
wear a scarf.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
So you know, come to the evening and.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
It's now eight o'clock and then they say he's praying
and he's resting, and you know, we're going to do
it a little bit later. And suddenly an aid came
and said, we would like the president would like you
to wear a scarf.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm like, why, no, I.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Don't have to wear a scarf anyway, cut to the chase,
it is not law, and as a journalist I made
instantaneously a journalistic decision based on the principle that A
it wasn't law, and B you don't get you know,
strong armed by a foreign government or any government when
you're trying to sit and conduct a previously arranged interview.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
It seems it seems like and I can't help thinking
that this was most probably, I guess, in some way,
shape or form, motivated by the timing. You know you
are of Iranian descent. Do you think that there was
an element of him not wanting to appear on camera
with you for fear of a message it may send
(03:19):
to a country that's very quickly turning against this dictator.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Well, I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I mean, I don't know that I'm sure, but I
do actually believe that he did not want to be
seen with a woman whose head was uncovered right at
the same time that in his own country there was
an uprising on the streets, and in fact a woman
had died, a young woman had died because of this
while in the custody of the morality police. And I
would just say that this morality police has been around since,
(03:47):
you know, forty plus years of the Islamic Revolution, but
under some presidents it's less obvious and less strict, and
under some it's much more strict. So this particular president
is one of the very hard variety.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
And he basically came to power by making the crackdown
on all sorts of social norms, including on women's dress
and their activity.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
That was a central theme of his campaign.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
And you know, clearly it's all gone, as we say,
pear shaped, because I don't think he expected that something
like this would cause the worst.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Uprising in Iran since two thousand and nine. It's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
And your you know, your audience should know and your
viewers that some eighty percent of the Iranian people are
under the age of twenty one. Sixty percent of Iranian
students and university graduates are women. Women have a lot
of power and they want their full rights.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I think they have every right to want that, and
across the world that, you know, I think there may
be some misconception. Some see this as these women completely
going up against Islam, when in fact it's not that.
What they're saying is they have nothing against anybody practicing
a religion or anyone, you know, dressing the way their
(05:10):
religion requires. Their qualm seems to be about the government
forcing people to do it should they not wish to.
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Look, that is correct. The fact of the matter is
that it is the law, at least the social law.
I don't know it's written in the.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Legal books, but it is the social and religious law,
and it has been since the beginning of the revolution,
which happened in nineteen seventy nine. But interestingly, Trevor, you know,
the women came out in the streets back then forty
plus years ago to also call for a change of regime,
but they were not wearing head scarves, and there was
no question at that time where at the beginning of
(05:48):
headscarves being compulsory.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
I know women who went into the streets at that time,
including members.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Of my own family, who wanted to get rid of
one monarchy for what they thought was going to be democracy.
Then very shortly thereafter, Iya Tolajomedi said, oh no, actually.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You women you need to be you know, veiled.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
And that has been a bubbling cauldron for the last
many many years. I had a wonderful woman on my
show tonight, married John Satrapi. If any of you know
the graphic novel Persepolists, which she wrote about her childhood,
she basically said this, Look, the people of Iran wanted democracy.
The minute you take off the veil, you know, their
dictatorship will go. So the regime is not going to
(06:29):
allow that. But she said, she put it this way,
it's only to keep men's eyes off women. So if
they're so horny, she said, and they're so unable to
control themselves, well maybe they should take a cold shower
or look somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
And that's the bottom line. And I'm, you know, sorry
to say, even in.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Your country, Trevor, even in the United States, with this
law that has you know, banned the ability for women
to make their own choices about their own bodies, it's
something incredibly important that we have to you know, keep
an eye on, and that in that moment, I was
not as a journalist or as a woman going to
put a headscoff on and somehow bind myself in some
(07:13):
kind of you know.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Well, as always, I appreciate you taking the time to
join us on the show. I appreciate you. You know,
I've grown up watching you cover all of these stories,
and as always I appreciate the work that you do
out there. Thank you so much for joining us on
the Daily Show once again.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Be sure to watch Christian's I'm On Poor show. It
is on CNN I, which airs weekdays on PBS in
the United States. We're gonna take a quick break, but
we'll be right back after this. Earlier today, I spoke
with award winning broadcast journalist Solidad O'Brian. We chatted about
(07:55):
the media's coverage of the election of Donald Trump and
so much more. Sol It out o brian, Welcome to
the Daily Social Distancing Show.
Speaker 5 (08:04):
Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
You're one of my favorite people to talk to about
this topic, in particular because you've worked in TV journalism
TV news for what three decades now. Everybody from CNN
to MSNBC, etc. You've also been very critical of how
the media has handled not just the election, but news
in general, let's start with the election and talk about that.
(08:26):
What do you think the news and the media have
gotten wrong in covering the election.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
I think it's always a mistake to platform lies, and
I think the mistake that's been made is to uncritically
quote or tweet quote the president who is lying. We
know he's lying. We count actually the thousands of lies
that he tweets and says every single day, and so
to just quote the president and give him a platform
for something that we all agree or no is a
(08:52):
lie is a huge mistake. And that continued on during
the election and the past four years. So that's been terrible.
But I think post election has gotten better. Post election day, let's.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Let's talk a little bit about that. Because America is
in a tough place, right, It's it's an interesting country
because there is the idea that it's not a monarchy,
right they say, this is this is a society, it's
a democracy. The president is a civil servant just like
every other one. But then there's also a certain reverence.
It's the president. This is the president, and so even
(09:26):
though Donald Trump is lying, the president is speaking. And
so you can feel journalists have this thing where they
go the President told me that my mother is responsible
for the stolen votes, and I asked my mom and
she did not agree, But that's what the President said.
It like, how how do you think the media has
to figure out how to navigate that relationship? Because I
can see a lot of them don't want to seem
(09:47):
disrespectful of the president, but at the same time, because
he's now the president, he can just lie and then
the media has to say what his lie was.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Yeah, there's been a reverence for the office, right, even
though the person is the office wasn't particularly reverent himself
or deserving of the reverence. And I think it's one
of the reasons that we saw, oh my gosh, the
New York Times beginning to call the presidents lies lies.
I'm going to take full credit for that. I I'm
going to take predek for that. It took something like
(10:16):
three years. But things that were lies were lies they
wouldn't want to say, or things that were racist just
saying this is racist. This statement is racist. And I
do believe it's because of that very thing. There's a
sense that whether you like the guy or hate the guy,
the office itself deserves a certain reverence and so I
think that really did slow the media down. Plus, I
(10:39):
would argue, when you want to have access, you have
a president who's reading everything you're writing and everything you're tweeting,
you have to be very careful about how you frame
things or there's a good chance you're not going to
get access.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Franklin, Yeah, that's but that's something I find strange about
American journalism for the most part, Like I live in
a country where you didn't have access. That's just how
it worked, you know. I've lived in countries around the
world where it's like you, you don't have access. Is
not what journalists have access find the things that are
not given to you with access, because access, in my opinion,
often comes with misinformation. I mean, you know, American journalists,
(11:10):
they've had access to so many things. They had access
to the lives about Vietnam, that was the access. So
I wonder sometimes, like why are American journalists so obsessed
with access when that access could be misinformation? It should
be journalism, shouldn't it.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
I think there's a quid pro quote that comes with access, right,
and that is either you're going to slide something nice
about me in your next article or your next column,
you're gonna quote me or you're you know, let's a
I scratch your back, you scratch my back. I get
some interesting, breaking news, and then you get to feed
off of that for a while. You know what you're
seeing right now?
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Right?
Speaker 5 (11:43):
The pundits have gone away. No one wants to hear
from the pundits. They're wrong, They're a mess. Who cares
failed Crossman TV? We don't need them, know what they're doing.
TV news organizations are camped out talking to the head
of elections in maricopatality right, Like that is journalism. Yeah,
that is reporting. That is not access someone calling you up.
(12:05):
You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It's just doing
the work. And I would argue most journalists are not
access journalists. They're not going to write a book about
their time at the White House. I'm not going to
tell you funny stories about hanging out with John Bayner.
They go every day and go into communities and try
to figure out what the accurate story is, and sometimes
they get it right. Sometimes mistakes are made, and I
(12:27):
think most journalists do a really good job. But when
you're going for access, I do think it's kind of
screws up your perspective, and yeah, you don't need access
to do good reporting.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
You really don't.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
It's interesting that you bring that up because it feels
like when people talk about the media, what we often mean,
especially in America, is cable news. I mean, for the
most parts, you know, because you are completely correct. If
you read your news, you find there's amazing journalists who
break most of the stories that inform how we even
see the world. But when it comes to cable news,
pundits seem to be more important than facts. Like you know,
(12:58):
you just bring people. You're just gonna be like, I'm
just gonna bring on this one person to say why
Latinos like Trump, and then I'm gonna bring on another
person to say why Latinos don't like Trump. Now, you
guys fight. Thank you for tuning into the news. That's
a great formula for creating conflicts for the screen, but
it doesn't really inform people. It's just people's opinions and
pundits just trying to guess something. And then, by the way,
(13:20):
if they get it wrong, there's no ramification. They can
just be like, oh, yeah, this is why I was wrong.
It's not because of me. It's because the information didn't
match what I was saying.
Speaker 5 (13:28):
Yeah, and also I figure the important piece you're missing
is it's cheap. It's cheap you pay all those people.
They are on every show they rotate through. You've seen
the nine person set, right, it doesn't cost any money.
You know, it's expensive going into the field with a
crew for the next three days and shooting and doing interviews,
(13:48):
and then writing your story and bringing it back and
editing your story. That costs a lot of money. And
actually you can hire a guy or two for that
same cost, right, and they'll be on your set for
the next year. That contributor contract is for every show
that they want to be on over the next year.
It's a sub cost. It's very easy, and it costs
(14:08):
you no money. Yeah, and then you also have this
built in sense of urgency and sense of drama that
I think everybody feels every story needs. That actually takes
some work when you're gonna do it in a tape spot.
So I truly believe a big factor in that is
just cost.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Is just money.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
You've been someone who's been critical of the media for
a while, especially like and not broadly obviously, you know
you've given props where props are do, but you have
points out the shortcomings when you look at the news,
especially cable news, we have to acknowledge that there is
there is like a certain price to pay for like neutrality,
for instance, like cable news and likes to bring people
(14:48):
on to go like this person believes that black people
are human beings, but this person doesn't agree. Let's talk
to them and see why they say that. This neutrality
on the surface seems to be about impartiality, but really
what it creates as a world where there is no fact.
There is nothing we agree on. It's all up for discussion.
And again, it's great for ratings, but it's not good
(15:09):
for informing people. How do you think news networks can
find that balance, because at the end of the day,
their business is now, but they're also claiming to inform people.
Is there a balance that can be achieved?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (15:21):
Absolutely. I actually think people really want context. I think
it's one of the reasons that podcasts are so successful now.
People want to understand. So wait, walk me through the
history a little bit, and who are these people and
what's their point of view? Exactly right? They want to
hear the well told story, rolled out and explained versus
this guy Rick Santorum, who's going to make up something
(15:44):
because he's not an expert in it a lot except
for being a failed congressman versus pick your other congressman
on the other side. And I think this death of
expertise is really problematic. When we started doing we do
a show about policy called Matter of Fact, We're not Live,
I was like, oh my god, what are we going
to do? The President is tweeting every morning and we
pretape our show on a Thursday for Sunday. So we
(16:06):
decided we would lean in very hard to context. What
is the First Amendment? What does jerrymandering mean? And where
did it come from? How is it possible that you
can live on an income, a minimum wage income, and
not be able to afford a two bedroom apartment. And
because of that, we actually very rarely talk politics. We
(16:27):
talk about policy. We talk about people I have no idea,
if they're Republicans, if they're Democrats, if they're independents, if
they vote, they tell us what's happening in their lives,
and we talk about the policy. And because it's not
framed as this versus this, I think it's a much
more interesting conversation and it does really well. We do
better than most of the cable shows.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
If the election is called, and if Joe Biden becomes president,
then at some point he will be taking office. At
some point he will move into the White House, which
means at some point Donald Trump will no longer be
president of the United States if that were to happen.
And what would your advice be to newsrooms, because I
strongly suspect that they're going to try to keep covering
(17:06):
Trump despite the fact that he's no longer in office.
They're going to be like, what did he say today?
Former President Trump said that Burrito's a part of the problem.
What would your advice be to use networks post Donald Trump?
And people who are watching the news post Donald Trump.
Speaker 5 (17:21):
All that will matter is does his comments? Do his
comments bring ratings? And I'm going to argue they don't.
You can see the poor food for Fox News anchors.
Right when he's been on the phone with them for
thirty minutes, they're like, well, mister President, I know you're
very busy, mister President. I know you've got to go,
mister President, And then he won't get up the phone
so you know, I think if they think they can
(17:43):
get ratings, doesn't matter what advice I give them, because
they will go for the ratings. But I think you're
gonna find that there are not ratings there to be had,
that actually he's not great ratings. He's not ratings gold.
He was ratings gold when he was wow a wacky
over the top who knows what he's gonna do. But
theng and dance is getting very very old. Everybody understands it,
(18:03):
and it's kind of brambly old grandpa uncle who's like,
it's the kind of person you're like, Okay, nice to
see you, and then you move seven seats away. Yes,
you don't want to be part of that. And I
think that he's falling into that category. And I can
tell you only by watching. I feel sorry, which I
rarely do for the Fox News anchors, but I feel
(18:24):
sorry for them as they're trying to get him off
the phone and he won't go.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, I can tell you this. I am glad that
you have a show. I'm glad that you have a
podcast because, as you say, people are enjoying the context,
and I appreciate the context that you bring. Thank you
so much for joining us on the show, and I
hope to see you again.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Don't forget Solidad's public affairs show Matter of Fact as
Sunday's on Hurst, and be sure to check out her
new podcast, Very Opinionated. We're going to take a quick break,
but we'll be right back after this. Welcome back. Jais
So my guest tonight is the first African American female reporter,
(19:03):
columnist and editor for the Washington Post. Her new book
is called Trailblazer, A Journalist's Fight to make the Media
look more like America. Please welcome Dorothy Butler, Gilliam, everybody.
Thank you so much for being here. This is one
of those stories that genuinely hit me so hard because
(19:27):
it feels like you have lived through some of the
most seminal moments in American history and you were also
reporting on it. You worked for fifty years in this business.
What do you think was the biggest change that you
saw in your time in journalism as the first African
American woman working at the Washington Post.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
I think the biggest change was after the urban uprisings
of the sixties when the Kerner Commission, which was a
commission that was named by the President said the media
had in many ways contributed to the fact that the
urban riots occurred, and that was because they had not
(20:10):
integrated their reporting and their editing staffs, and many ways
they said they were just showing US America only through
white eyes. So I started at the Post in nineteen
sixty one. When I went back in nineteen seventy two,
it was a little different because there were more reporters
(20:31):
of color, right, more females, but still it was very white,
male dominated.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You came into this world at a time when it
was just something that did not happen. You walked into
a newsroom where there were only two other reporters who
were black. You were the first African American woman in
this space. And reading in the book was one of
the I mean, just the most harrowing passages where they
had a policy of not reporting when black people were murdered.
(21:00):
One editor even called those cheap deaths that shouldn't be reported.
How do you even begin to work in that kind
of environment? And did you help the editors understand why
it was crucial to report all news.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
I tried to help them, and I think the way
I began working in that environment is because doctor Martin
Luther King was beginning to say to young black people,
go into white corporations and excel. So it felt like
I was almost part of the freedom movement by going
and becoming the first African American woman at the Washington Post.
(21:36):
I didn't think I was a trailblazer at that point.
I just was doing a job that I loved. I
had had four years in the Black press, and the
Black press has been very important in America, both in
terms of reporting on civil rights, but going places where
white reporters wouldn't go, where white newspapers wouldn go, So
(21:57):
that experience also helped to prepare me for my work
at the Washington Post. One of the first stories that
I remember a lot was when I went to the
University of Mississippi as part of the team from the
Post to cover the integration of Ole miss And that
was the most horrendous thing you can imagine, because Mississippi
(22:20):
was one of those places where it was a lynching state.
It was the heart of segregation, and the university was
like this bastion of white supremacy. So it was chaotic
on the campus. But what hurt, in addition was that
(22:41):
I had no place that I could get a room
because they didn't have hotels for black people.
Speaker 7 (22:46):
So I slept in a black funeral home and a
funeral home. Yeah, I slept with the dead.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Trevor, this is so insane that you have lived through
that time. I'm honestly fast needed to know in that
time when this was happening. Were you optimistic? Did you
think that you would see America change? Or was the
resistance to integration so strong that you thought it would
last forever?
Speaker 6 (23:12):
The integration was so strong that I never thought I
would see a black president.
Speaker 7 (23:18):
Wow, that was a huge step forward in many ways.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
But of course with America it can help the liberal
and then it can swing to conservatism, and you see
what we have now.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I see what we have now?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I do.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Indeed, you reported on so many stories, and your inclusion
in the newsroom was powerful because it really felt like
when you read the book, you lived through two of
really the most important eras in American history, in modern history, definitely,
and that was women's movement for equal rights and black
(23:58):
people's movements for civil rights. Which of the two did
you feel like had more momentum when you were in them?
Did you feel like, oh, this is going to happen
all this one won't or did it feel like both
were just moving forward?
Speaker 6 (24:08):
It felt that like the freedom writers and the freedoms
I called the whole civil rights movement the freedom movement. Yes,
it felt like it was going to open doors for
so many other people because after the Civil Rights movement,
after the Black Power era. That's when Glorious sim wrote
her article that said, after Black power, women power, and
(24:33):
so after the women power, it's the blacks who were.
Speaker 7 (24:36):
The pioneering minority. And so after women.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
Power, then you had the oppression against gay people being
really looked at and studied and acknowledged. Then you had
the oppression against the disabled. So it's many ways, it's
the black movement. I think that was the most important
movement because all people all over the world were singing,
(25:02):
we shall overcome in China and all around the world,
people who had been oppressed were saying, if that happened
in America, you know, why can't it happen here.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
It's so powerful when you speak about how when you
first got to the post, your mission was not to
be a reporter that focused on black issues, but just
a reporter who excelled. You didn't want to be pigeonholed
as a black reporter, but then you came to realize
that it was crucial for you to take up that
mantlein reports on black issues. Why do you think it's
so important for mainstream media to look more like actual
(25:38):
America and not just have the voice of predominantly white men.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
It's because you can't really talk about a community that
you don't in some way represent, that you don't in
some way know, that you don't in some way have
more than a stereotyped a notion of what it's all about.
And because with white supremacy in America, that whole narrative
(26:05):
has also been accompanied by an anti black narrative, and
very often, and that's been since the beginning.
Speaker 7 (26:14):
This is twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (26:15):
We have African Americans or black people have been in
America four hundred years. We were here a year before
the Mayflower but you know two and a half centuries
of that was the era of slavery, and then that
the era of Jim crow so or segregation in the South. Yeah,
(26:38):
so the whole feeling that this is this whole anti
black narrative that has been a part of the DNA
almost of America as much as white supremacy, that has
not really been acknowledged.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
It's been kind of glossed over.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
And you pay attention to have you know, the violence,
that violence gets, yes, but in terms of what motivated,
and a lot of it is about poverty.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
You know, poverty is very violent.
Speaker 6 (27:11):
And as you were saying in the segment with the billionaires,
you know, it's very real what's happening in this country,
and it's been happening for a while.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Fifty years of writing, fifty years of finding ways to
report stories even in spaces where you weren't allowed. I mean,
one of the most shocking end I find funny at
the same time stories is when you talked about how
when yourself and colleagues would go to marches, you would
have to disguise yourselves because you couldn't be journalists in
public as black people. You would dress up as clergy,
(27:42):
you dress up as priests and so forth, and nuns,
and you would hide type writers under your clothing, which
I didn't even know how they fit. But when you
look at America today, how do you find that balance
for yourself of both where America has come from and
where America still needs.
Speaker 7 (28:01):
To go Okay.
Speaker 6 (28:02):
First, I should say that those reporters who wrapped their
old royal typewriters got this in old clothes when they
went to the South because they didn't want the white
sheriffs to arrest them. And so they would also disguise
themselves as ministers, and they carried bibles under their arms,
(28:23):
and so that was a way of trying to get
to the story and knowing that they couldn't go as reporters.
But where I see things today, I think it's the
time when media is more important than ever. It was
very difficult when the President started talking about fake news.
(28:47):
It was very difficult because you know, those of us
who came up in the in the legacy media, we
knew about all of the issues of ethics that we
had to adhere to in order to be.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
High by the Washington Post and in order to work there.
Speaker 6 (29:03):
We knew that we didn't take gifts from anybody. We
knew that we had to always pay our own way.
We knew that we had studied in colleges and universities,
and so to have our whole process dismissed the fake
news was not only detrimental to the US, but it
(29:26):
was detrimental internationally because whatever we say about the faults
of America, it still has been the bastion of democracy.
And so when you have something as crucial, you know,
as freedom of the press being detegrated by the top
official of the land, it has a very destabilizing effect
(29:49):
in the whole world.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I could genuinely talk to you for hours, but luckily
I have the book to keep me company. Thank you
so much for being on the show. Trailblaze Off is
available now. A truly fascinating story Dorothy Butler William Everybody.
Speaker 8 (30:06):
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch
The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on
Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Pluffs.
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