When To Call A Thing What It Is
Question Everything
Brian Reed
4.6 • 707 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2024
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Brian stops doomscrolling and starts doom-living. He brings two journalists he saw duking it out on Twitter into a studio, where they debate how to report on lies and racism in the Trump era. Then he finds a journalist who’s putting their big theoretical questions into practice – at a personal cost – as she covers one of the most messed up stories of the election cycle.
Watch the unedited conversation between Jeff Jarvis and David Folkenflik.
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“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From placement theory and KCRW, I'm Brian Reed. This is Question Everything. |
| 0:06.1 | So I've been known to spend my fair share of time on Twitter. I'm primarily a lurker, doom scrolling, and following other journalists, and people I'd call, I guess, journalism thinkers. |
| 0:16.1 | These are like professors, media critics, columnists who are often duking it out over headlines or more |
| 0:21.7 | esoteric things like story framing or reporting tactics. It's my catnip. Since starting this show, |
| 0:28.5 | I've gained a bit of a reputation around the office for reposting tweets on our Slack here |
| 0:32.8 | at Question Everything, sometimes at odd hours a bit feverishly, with the idea being, hey, isn't there |
| 0:38.6 | something interesting here? How about this is a story? My staff ignores me most of the time, |
| 0:43.4 | but for today, they humored me. And I'm glad they did, because it led me to a story that's so |
| 0:49.5 | genuinely enlightening and important right now in these final weeks before the election. |
| 0:54.7 | It started with two longtime journalists and media critics I follow, who I saw get embroiled in one of these Twitter fights. |
| 1:00.8 | This one caught my eye because it felt particularly expansive. |
| 1:04.5 | It was about the state of journalism and what should or shouldn't be done about it. |
| 1:08.7 | There was a piling on, and the exchange went viral. |
| 1:11.9 | And in the midst of it, in a surprising display of civility for Twitter, one journalist said to the other, happy to discuss in substance. |
| 1:19.7 | And so, with my staff's blessing, I invited them to do just that, in front of microphones, of course. |
| 1:26.7 | Let me finish my message. It's, sir, of course. Let me finish my mic. |
| 1:28.0 | It's inadequate to do what, Jeff? |
| 1:31.2 | Our field, a field that I've devoted my entire life to is failing. |
| 1:38.9 | In this discussion, we end up talking about a lie, one specific lie that's been wreaking havoc. |
| 1:45.6 | And we examine what the media should be doing to counter it. |
| 1:48.9 | Which leads me to a person who's actually trying to put some of the ideas these guys are debating into action in the real world, |
| 1:55.9 | all while living through one of the most messed up stories of this election cycle. |
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