Institutions Won't Save Us

the Department of Justice. Why do I say that, because the four officers that were involved in the murder of Brianna Taylor are being charged with federal crimes. It is taken way too fucking long to get to this place to arrest the officers that would storm into Brianna Taylor's home. I have so many I got Brittany Grinder coming up in my mind. I got Brianna Taylor in my head.

But with Brianna, people were in the streets. People have been in the streets, people have been asking, begging, fighting for those officers that would barge into her home, break into her home in the middle of the night while she was sleeping, and kill her in her sleep. Right, we watch the trial where it was, oh, no one's at fault here. Police just get to walk in, kill somebody,

walk out, and no one is held accountable. Yes, the family did receive millions of dollars in her settlement, but what does that do when your twenty something year old daughter is murdered in her sleep for no other reason than what being in the right place at the wrong time, and again, no fucking accountability. Well, the Department of Justice has finally stepped in and the Department of Justice has finally brought charges against the four officers that were involved

in her murder. Several of them were dismissed, and they were dismissed back in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one from the force. But we know what happens in this blue fraternity is that you know, you can kill somebody in one town, one state, and get to go and move over to the next place and kill some more people. Right, That's how it works. And so the federal government finally deciding to bring charges after a long, long aggravated weight is something that I will applaud and we will continue

to watch and see what happens. But this is what accountability looks like, I just wish it came quicker speaking of accountability Alex Jones's piece of shit ass and his stupid fucking lawyers. But I don't know if they're stupid or they were just sending over all of the contents of his phone over the last two years to a posting counsel because they were then going to try and push for a mistrial, or they are really that dumb.

But after about I think a little over an hour of deliberation, they the jury has come back with four million dollars so far in damages for the family that

brought Alex Jones to trial. And let me say this, Sandy Hook happened ten years ago, so I just like their child that Alex Jones and all of the children of Sandy Hook would be teenagers now, They would be in high school now, and this man is only now going to trial for years of fucking lies, conspiracy theories putting their lives at steak because of his rabid, fucking hopped up KKK bullshit white supremacy, white frail male base that would take his words and go and try and

attack those families. So far, four million dollars they're asking for a hundred and fifty million, and we will see what this sum total comes out to. But I gotta say this, and I said this on Twitter the other day. Do you know that that motherfucker is making eight hundred thousand dollars a day selling tubs of survival food and like gun paraphernalia. Who knew that white supremacy and male

fragility were so fucking lucrative? My god, did I go into the wrong line of work when all I had to do was slap a sticker on this on a tub of Kraft macaroni and cheese and say that it's survival food and sell it to a bunch of idiots hunkered down in their like gun sheds. I had no idea. Now to terrible news, which is that of Britney Griner.

Britney Griner was found guilty in the sham trial that Russia put together and sentenced her to nine years in prison with criminal intent because sure, you have remnants of marijuana in a vape that you have a prescription for from a doctor, and that's criminal intent. I mean, Russia is a fucking terrorist state, and I just wish that they were pulled out of every single fucking G seven, G eight, every single type of group, like, can we just stop legitimizing the country of Russia? Can we stop

legitimizing Putin? Can we just give them whatever fucking criminals they want back so that we can get our people home? Can we stop with the bullshit like we think that we're punishing Russia for something and just give them whatever prisoners they want in exchange for the Americans that they're

holding hostage. Right, And you know, I'll say this that there was an artist who said after they heard the sentencing come down, that said, you know, I guarantee you that if this were Taylor fucking Swift, if this were you know, any white NFL star, or white NBA star or a white superstar, that America would have done more right from the fucking jump. There would have been campaigns, and there would have been this, that and the other thing.

But for Brittany Griner, for some reason, we were all told not to march, to stay silent, and that oh America was going to do the work. But it wasn't until people got in the streets and kept putting her name in their mouths. Did this federal government, did this administration decide to act so you know what I will tell people is that like this is not fucking done right.

And I heeded the initial warnings of you know, we'll do more harm than good than bring attention to this fuck that Britney Grinder should be home, right, Britney Griner should not be a fucking hostage of Russia on some trumped up bullshit. As a matter of fact, Britney Grinder should have never had to go to Russia in the first fucking place to play ball in the offseason to be able to provide for her family because the w NBA should be paying on par what the fucking NBA pays.

How about women deserve to be paid the same. And I know that the Women Soccer League just fucking won their case, right, the same case that Serena Williams and Venus Williams brought against Tennis. If Britty Griner had been treated like the NBA players, she wouldn't have been fucking abroad. This case makes me sick. It makes me sick to my stomach to think about a black, queer woman being held in fucking Russia, in a country that hates black

people and hates gay people, and she embodies both. So if you are a praying person, please pray for her. If you are a person that will call your representatives and say that you want pressure right on this fucking administration to do everything and anything that they can, please do that this should have never come to pass. My heart is broken for her and her family, and I hope that years will not pass before Brittany's body and mind is broken by this barbaric, fucking country, before she's

able to come home. Coming up next, my Dear friends, is a conversation that I think is really interesting with a Kaivan Stroff, who we've had on the show before and has done a capstone research project at Harvard on what he deems as the trifecta that is happening in journalism and modern media right now and where the breakdown has come in terms of the Fourth Estate turning into nothing more than reality TV filled with stars that want to line their own pockets. So we get in to

that conversation with our friend Kaivan Stroff. Coming up next, Hey, I'm David. Plots of Slaves Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all the noise and the news Each week on The gap Fest, John Dickerson, Emily Bathlon and I decipher the headlines, break down the races, and tell you what issues really matter. We do not always agree, We definitely do not always agree, but we always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have

a good time. So subscribe to Slate's Political Gapfest. New episodes every Thursday. Get up behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer look at how and why

these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday. Folks. I am very happy to welcome back to Woke f Daily Kivan Schroff, who is a Democratic commentator and has done an amazing Capstone. I believe it's at Harvard, so no dummy here on the trifecta of bad incentives facing

modern journalism. And I think that it's such a wonderful time to have this conversation because the question that I keep asking is has anybody learned anything over the last four years? Did anybody learn anything during the Trump era? So Kivan talked to talk to us about this capstone and why you decided to make this the topic. Absolutely So. I was in on a joint law and policy program at Harvard, and our challenge was to pick an extensive research topic that posed a public problem today, and I

couldn't think of a more appropriate topic. I personally do a lot on social media on Twitter, getting into TikTok as I know you are as well, Yes, And I think one thing that we've seen just as sort of there's been public backlash in the market when certain businesses, you know, engage in unethical, inappropriate behaviors, because consumers have finally learned the power that they have together when they organize like that on Twitter to boycott or something like that.

There's also been similar backlash two journalists who have really dropped the ball in these recent years, again and again and again. And I think at first there was this question of whether it was out of incompetence or a

lack of ability. I mean, I do think there's a people problem, for sure, but I think that there's also a structural problem where the incentives facing journalists today have totally shifted priorities away from truthtelling and informing the American people and to these three you know, overarching incentives that I call it the trifecta of bad incentives, and that is social media, fame, cable news hits, and book deals, and all three of those incentives work together to sort

of push first of all, to draw people into the profession that are more interested in being an influencer and a journalist, and then to in really problematic behaviors, I think, to achieve those ends at the cost of truth telling

and sort of maintaining a reputation with the public. Um. So that is sort of the you know, the project, it's it's it's all, you know, because when you think about journalism, right, like the advent of journalism and the importance behind it is that it was considered the fourth estate, right, it was considered you know, this this um this through way for the American people to be able to understand better the world around them, how their government works, how

society works, and their function within and what has happened right by virtue And I remember doing a podcast about this, like I would say probably eight years ago where I was, I would know maybe ten years ago. I was watching the rise of reality TV and at the same time watching the shift that was happening with news, right, and I said, there is there isn't going to be this clear divide anymore between this reality TV antics, right, and what is supposed to be actual news, what is supposed

to be journalism. And so did you see that confluence as well, like with how how we see TV these

days and caricatures of people one hundred percent? And I think last time I was on the show, I was mentioning, you know, I think like I looked to platforms like RuPaul's Drag Race and The Housewives and all those reality shows are absolutely sort of leading on how to effectively build an audience and communicate and you can use those tools for good and evil, And we're seeing it done, you know, for evil by a lot on sort certainly

the right. But I think also we're seeing journalists engage like this and Taylor Lawrence, who's like a prominent reporter at the Washington Post that covers influencers has said, you know that her she sees media headed to be much more distributed personalities instead of sort of these mainstream networks that we're so used to. But what comes with that is a whole lot of subjectivity that you know, sort

of obscures objective fact and truthfulness. And I think what we're seeing from mainstream prominent journalists is that they are accelerating us to that outcome way before we are ready for it, you know, And I think so on social media prong of this trifecta, there's three behaviors that I think we see, and you know, anyone that's online, I think can identify at least one or two prominent reporters

that stand out. But there's hundreds of people engaging this way, right, So there's the blurring of lines between professional and personal social media, which makes sense because a lot of times these reporters are verified because they're a New York Times reporter, they have hundreds of thousand followers because of their role, and then they're pivoting to tweet every take that would never get by an editor that they have no experience or background to be commenting on, but it's sort of

elevated because it's on this larger platform with hundreds of thousands of followers that people are following for the news, not for Dave Whitegel's you know, racist jokes or you know,

bad food takes, those types of things. I think, you know, that was one episode that stands out, but everybody seeing that every week we're seeing, whether it's a Maggie Habermid episode or Dave white Gel or you know, I'm sure you know more conservative people felt that way about Jim Acosta, but every day we're seeing these media figures center themselves instead of just focus on communicating important information to the

American people. That's one. Then two right, there's this direct backlash between journalists that get called out then by people like you and me and regular news consumers, and then they're fighting in public suddenly with people that are supposed to, you know, the next day read their recording and feel its subjective and trustworthy and truthful, and it's it's incredibly unprofessional. But again it's it's moving us faster on that timeline

towards partisan news. And then finally, you know, I think we all see different reporters try to go viral. I don't know if this has happened to you, but I've had a lot of people, you know, try to DM me their stories and things like that, which, again, like, if it's good work, I'm happy to amplify it. I'm on Twitter all days, so I'm seeing it. But there

is that sort of questionable issue of blake. Why are journalists in the dms of you know, social media people asking them to plug their reporting it again, it creates a perverse incentive there when you're then going to cover that person or something like that. So you know, it's funny because for me, you know, people have always confused me and said that I was a journalist and I'm not, right, Like, I'm actually very clear about the fact that I did

not go to school for journalism. I'm not a journalist.

I'm actually an opinionator. And there is a difference, right Like I come from a place that is not neutral, right Like, I come from a place that is and I and I try for the people that listen to me, that read, you know, my work, like I try and make that very clear, like um, because I want folks to understand that there is a line there was a line anyway between what it was considered opinions, right, like you being asked to write a piece from your vantage

point versus somebody who is employed by a Washington Post in New York Times where they're not employed as an opinion writer, they're employed as a reporter. And that you know, so I just want you again for folks who are not necessarily in the minutia to understand the distinctions between those things. Yeah, and then you know, sort of so the next player, of course, and these all sort of

operate together, but the order doesn't really matter. Is you want to have a lot of social media followers because that's going to get you on cable news and get you a book deal, which a lot of these journalists want a book deal. That's like considered sort of like you know, a major career goal. And especially when you go to the White House Press Corps and you know, you're sort of immediately incentivized to create this reality television as you noted, because the minute you do that, you're

going to be covered across network news. They might invite you on a show to talk about the viral moment. And so again, you know what in the Trump era, it's a little hard to disaggregate what was appropriate journalism standing up to a really corrupt leader. And there were

some great moments, really brave moments from journalists. But you know, then we see under Biden somebody like you know, do Sye there, who's literally just exists to troll, create viral moments, get Twitter traction, and I saw, like really concerning there's a lot of buy it, I think across the industry

from this approach. Eric Wempel, who's you know again, a prominent media critic for The Washington Post, basically said of Doucy's trolling, you know, that's his job to get, you know, to elicit sort of anger and reaction from President Biden. And I actually just fundamentally disagree. I don't think that the American people are sitting there watching these sort of exchanges hoping for drama that you have reality TV if

you want to watch that. People want rectation, and so the incentive to go fight with Biden or catch him off guard, or you know, any leader that's not actually prioritizing truth, you know, asking those follow up questions they never seem to ask to any buddy when they come on their show that's about truth seeking, you know, So

I think that's another incentive. And then, of course the book deals as we've all seen, not only is there the issue of self promotion, where if I'm following Jake Chapper because I want to know breaking news because he has special access, then I got to see him plug his book every fifth tweet, like or plug a Collie's book, right, Like that's like, that's sort of a perverse incentive because we know, as we just default know that salespeople are

not objective, and we want our journalists to be objective. So if you're hawking a book to me every five seconds, of course I'm going to think, well, maybe you're, you know, positioning yourself whether on what you cover or how you cover it, to sell this book more than you know, to tell the truth to the American people. And because again these things are all interrelated, we see people saving those scoops, whether it's Maggie Haberman or Bob Woodwork or

you know those two New York Times. Oh yeah, Mark right, right, Bob Boardward couldn't let us all know about COVID, right, And what Donald Trump had said about COVID in December twenty nineteen when he was interviewing him for his book Fear, but he would hold that information when Donald Trump told him, oh, this is some really bad stuff. It's worse than the flu. It's airborne, and he would hold that until he was

ready to release his book months. I mean literally, it's not too dramatic to say life's gonna you know, been saved because of that. Yeah. Absolutely, And again like why

are they doing that? Because you need to have something newsworthy so that when you go on cable news months later after you submitted your book, you have something that you know is going to drive the news cycle because even though not that many people are watching cable news relatively, that is still what drives a lot of book sales.

So it's all related, and again it's not part of that puzzle is informing the American people, you know, at this crisis moment for democracy and a crisis moment of course relatedly for the media industry, which you know, I

think is sort of imploding. We're seeing. So so let me let me ask you this because it's something that I find that I have found very troubling throughout my career in media, which is, you know, we look at the types of stories, and I'm particularly talking about cable news right now, So we look at the type of stories that make it into segments, that make it into shows, and you know, I know by virtue of being inside these places that these newsrooms do not look like me right,

that they are filled still still just sprinklings of people of color and sprinkling of women or non binary folks like as sprinkling, it is mostly still white men that get to make new decisions. And because they come from this vantage point though of quote unquote neutrality, there has been this discrimination towards people of color, towards queer people, towards women, about us not being able to be quote unquote neutral or objective because we embody some of the

same demographics as the stories that we're covering. What do you say to that, Because to me, I'm like, there's a difference between being objective, being neutral, right, and also just being honest. And the fact that white men have always been the ones to have been said are the ones that can be neutral absolutely, So it's such a good point, and I think, like to your point, you know, people that defend the status quo often like to you know, sort of do that under the guise of being neutral.

But the status quo is not neutral. It has all the history behind it, right that led up to that moment, to all the points you just made. I think one

interesting thing. So in my research, I sort of started off with a deep dive into the history of journalism in America and you know, trace it to how we got to this moment, and what you bring up comes up in sort of you know, recent decades of journalists understanding the pitfalls of you know, it's impossible to actually be objective, and of course you're coming from a perspective, and often that perspective we know is you know, disproportionately

white and male. Um. But that doesn't mean that we throw out the project of objective truth telling all together, because I think the added value the journalists should be bringing is not They're sort of subjective. This is my background experience that I'm sort of super imposing on the news, but it should be. I'm somebody that's spent ten years covering Capitol Hill. I know, within the bounds of reason,

this is normal behavior. And I'm using that objective experience that's personal too, because it's my experience to say this was outrageous or to say this was a huge deviation, right, Like, those are the types of ways that you can sort of still be objective and of course bring that experience in, but it's the useful, relevant experience and not you know, random and appropriate experience. So I think that's a huge issue.

And I think again, like not solving that diversity issue is so huge because it's been years now, and you know, I still still people complaining about like, oh I can't get like a a young white man's never going to get a book published again. It's like I don't right, Like I don't know if you've seen those viral tweets from people but like this, like crying about how their editors are like, oh, yeah, we'll never give this a chance. Like,

I don't think that's objectively true. If you go look at the New York Times bestseller lists, right, I think there's a lot of invasion first. Yeah, yeah, that white men are hurting same in journalism, you know, Like I was able to speak with some prominent reporters for this work, and they say that they care a lot about the issues of diversity and inclusion. Everything we see going forward doesn't seem to match that. If you ask those people to follow up and say, okay, so what procedures do

you have in place? They don't have the answer that they're looking at it with that in mind, I guess, but they don't have the lived experience necessarily to do a good job. And we've seen that over and over in the coverage of Vice President Harris, who I think has been extraordinarily disrespected, treated much a double standard, and it's almost just normal. And again, because you have this critical mass of media leadership that is not diverse, they

all defend each other. So they're never gonna say, yes, we mistreat did Paumala Harris. They're never gonna say, yes, we mistreated Hillary Clinton. You know, five years later, you'll get one or two hot takes that nobody reads that are like, oh, you know, actually, I was a journalist the New York Times and I covered the Clinton campaign, and if we did a terrible drop, that never has the same effect as you know, the initial coverage and mistreatment.

So I'd look to you know, places like the Griot for example, even just Brittney Griner right like, we're follow up on that story for every week that you know, we've been waiting. Now that they you know, had the sentencing and trial and everything. It's getting coverage today, But I find it hard to believe that, you know, somebody of a different identity that was in a similar situation would not have been driving totally different, much more persistent

media narratives up until this moment. And do we know if that affects the outcome? You know, I mean hard to say. You know. One of the things that too, I find really troubling is, I mean, we we always will see a double standard, a triple standard, depending on who is being covered and who is doing the covering of that story. But what I find really troubling now, um, which I think is the purpose of your work, is

that we are in crisis. You said it earlier, like this country, this world is in crisis, and the media is not doing anything to educate people to use their their their their mouthpieces to be able to inform the public at these times of crisis, whether we're talking about climate change, our democracy and the rise of authoritarianism in this country, we're talking about abortion, any of these things. And so what do you think, like, is there an answer here or is this just going to, honestly cavan

continue to just get worse you know. So so I do address you know, a couple of different solutions in the paper, and obviously one is more public funding of journalism, which I think the idea of, you know, it's a hard thing to execute, but internationally there's some successful models, and I think the idea there would be to have a credible competitor to CNN and these other outlets that are engaging in reckless behavior, whether that's an MPR or

something like that, which you know doesn't get a whole lot of funding MPR compared to things like that the way its structure, but I think actually something that's even more necessary and more structural, so of course harder to do, is every important industry we have, whether it's you know, being a lawyer, being a doctor, and I would put of course being a journalist. You know, at that level, you know, these are people that should have a skill set.

There are people that I should know, right Like, I know you took chemistry if you are a doctor, but I don't know that you ethics or sociology or history or any of those things. If you're a New York Times journalist, and I think you know one of those issues. There's this sort of catchway two of Okay, so is the answer more credentialing and more school and should people go to journalism school? But of course all those institutions

are historically exclusionary and offensive and hard to access. And at the same time, does that mean we should just not regulate this hugely important industry, you know, like the law is a self regulating industry. Essentially you have the bar association, right, Like, what if there was a sort of more formal structure where you had, you know, some type of counsel that thought through policies and put out

best practices, whether they were actionable or not. And what if, you know, it was more mainstream to go to journalism school. And maybe these are hard topics. So I'm not saying there's a right or wrong answer. How should journalists behave online? I think we've seen some bad examples of what not to do, but at least give people that are going to be in this important profession the chance to debate that. And here's maybe one theory of age online. Here's another.

At least I'm more thoughtful and not just tweeting out every meme that I see on Reddit, you know, with the platform of the Washington post political news desk behind me and often you know, contributing to misinformation when I'm doing that because you know, as funny as these little hipster jokes are among you know, maybe people like us that follow like the you know, minutia of media whatever, most people have no idea what those people are talking about or what the joke is, you know, like they're

not getting it right, just confusing people that want to learn and want information. So yeah, well, Kivan, I think that the work that you have done is really important. I think that it's conversations that we just are not having, and I don't you know, I hope that now, but

again I'm still not sure. I hope that now though, people realize the importance of the media and what it was supposed to be and what it has become, and at the very least, by our eyeballs, which provide the ratings and the money, you know, begin to show these networks and outlets what it is that we actually want, because it is going to be viewer based and reader based, right like, it isn't going to be these people deciding, you know what, I don't want that six figure book deal,

you know what, I don't want all these hundred thousand followers. It is going to be about people demanding the type of information and news that they need, otherwise they're going to lose viewers absolutely. And I think, like, you know, how I end sort of my research because I'm like, these are a bunch of solutions that are really hard and probably won't happen. But the one thing we can do right now is what you just said, which is

educate people about this problem, call out and frame. That's why I thought this project was important to me because I think so much of education has been you know, just adding terms and codifying and you know, creating a body that people can like reference and build off of, even if it's so intuitive that you know, as a consumer, I think so many of your listeners will have already identified themselves a lot of these issues, but sort of adding vocabulary and creating a framework by which I want

people to recognize, you know, like that is a journalist right now who's talking to me something, or that is a journalist right now who's just designed this tweet to

try to get you know, engagement and go viral. Or I just saw this journalist like you know, saving a scoop while they're on their cable news hit I should have known this three months ago, and call it out and don't reward that behavior, and don't buy that book and tell your friends yep yep Kaivan, trev I hope that you will come back and join us again soon. Appreciate you, Thank you so much, and I will keep following along on by from TikTok. That is it for

me today. Dear friends, on woke app as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, Get woke, Dear Dear God, get woke and stay woke as fuck. Get up. Behind the scenes. Look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts

from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and take a closer look at how and why these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from the Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Tuesday