Hi, I'm Anna Marie Cox. Welcome to with friends like these. And before we get started, first,

if you have not voted, stop this podcast right now. Or actually, I think you can probably

continue listening, but open a browser window and go to votesafeamerica.com and make

a plan to vote. You will find all you need there to find out how to vote in your state

with various deadlines are, etc. We are past the time for mail-in ballots. So you'll be

looking for info on where to drop off your ballot or where to do early in-person voting.

And if you have already voted, get to the to a text bank or a phone bank, both of which

happened to be wherever you are. You can find out more about volunteering at votesafeamerica.com

as well. But please, if you happen to get my number, know that I've been contacted approximately

a thousand times already. And I may not text you back, but I have voted. Mark me as done.

Now, as for this particular episode of the show, I conceived of it as a companion to last week's

episode in terms of primarily being kind of media criticism rather than a deep personal journey.

And well, it actually wound up being pretty personal. You'll see.

And in any case, this episode is about how cable news, primarily MSNBC, and news in general a bit,

covers politics, and why it's another area where it's not enough to simply be one of the good guys.

Our first guest is Ariana Piccari, a former Booker producer for the Lawrence O'Donnell show on MSNBC.

She left the network in June and wrote a viral blog post about why. The short version is that she

came to believe she was part of the problem. The long version is the first segment of our show.

Next is Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at NYU, and the proprietor of PressThink.org.

He pulls us back a bit for a structural analysis. And my question for him has to do with the fact that

from the outside, it can feel in this era of Trump fact checking that journalism has changed for

the better. He feels perhaps differently. Lastly, Maria Bustillo's, and I have some disclosure,

...