A veteran reporter on how to fix the news

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2022

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sean Illing talks with James Fallows, veteran reporter and editor at The Atlantic, about the state of political journalism in America. Fallows has been covering the relationship between media and democracy since the mid-nineties, when his book Breaking the News presciently documented the roots of a growing mistrust in news media. Sean and James talk about the dangers facing the political press today, why national political news is not useful to most Americans, and what can be done to regain the people's trust in journalism. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: James Fallows (@JamesFallows), author of the newsletter, Breaking the News: Dispatches from a Veteran Reporter on Substack References: Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy by James Fallows (Vintage; 1996) Ashley Parker's tweet (Nov. 22) "Exclusive: Naomi Biden On Her White House Wedding" by Chloe Malle (Vogue; Nov. 22) Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey Into the Heart of America by James Fallows and Deborah Fallows (Vintage; 2018) Our Towns (HBO; 2021) Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers "Leslie Moonves on Donald Trump: 'It May Not Be Good for America, but It's Damn Good for CBS'" by Paul Bond (Hollywood Reporter; Feb. 29, 2016) Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann (1922) "Correcting the Record; Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception" by Dan Barry et al. (New York Times; May 11, 2003) "Weapons of Mass Destruction? Or Mass Distraction?" by Daniel Okrent (New York Times; May 30, 2004) "3 Truths About Trump" by James Fallows (The Atlantic; July 13, 2015) The Paradox of Democracy by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing (U. Chicago; 2022) Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Editor: Amy Drozdowska Engineer: Patrick Boyd Senior Producer: Katelyn Bogucki Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Slack. With Slack, you can bring all your people and
0:05.9	tools together in one place. It's your digital HQ where you can increase productivity,
0:11.1	enable flexibility and automate workflows. Plus, Slack is full of game-changing features,
0:16.9	like huddles for quick check-ins, or Slack Connect, which helps you connect with partners
0:20.9	inside and outside of your company. Slack. Where the future works, get started at
0:26.9	Slack.com slash DHQ. I think that the holidays feel like frozen noses. I love walking with
0:37.6	the dog for long periods of time, hopefully it's snowing, and you've got to wrap up warm.
0:42.3	So I think a frozen nose is a sweaty armpit because your wrap top is so warm but then
0:46.1	you're climbing hamps and heath and you get to the top and you're like, oh, and then
0:50.3	you can see the breath, but then your nose is still freezing to top.
0:54.9	Join in every sip with Red Cups now Back at Starbucks.
1:00.8	If you followed my work even a little bit, you know I'm not shy about criticizing the
1:05.2	media. I've never been all that interested in attacking specific journalists, though
1:11.2	there are plenty of bad ones out there. I'm much more concerned about the business model
1:16.3	of the press and the incentive structures that guide and constrain our work.
1:23.5	For the most part, journalists are doing the best they can and for all kinds of reasons,
1:29.7	it's getting harder and harder to do that. In the last five or six years, lots of questions
1:36.4	have emerged about the role of the press. How should we treat bad faith actors and politics?
1:42.4	How do we cover threats to democracy in a super polarized climate? How do we engage
1:48.4	a public that has lost trust in what we do? There aren't easy answers to these questions,
1:56.3	but the questions aren't going away. If anything, they're only getting more urgent.
2:05.2	I'm Sean Elling and this is the Grey Area.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Vox Media Podcast Network, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Vox Media Podcast Network and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.