Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
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subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. Want to welcome back to the program, Corey Valancourt.
He is the politics editor at the Smoky Mountain News
up in western North Carolina. Corey, how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2: Hey Pete. Glad to be back and just want to
thank you and your listeners again for everything y'all did
for us during Hurricane Eleen eight months ago. We still
remember and we won't forget.
Speaker 1: Well, we haven't forgotten you guys either. In fact, tomorrow
I've got Sean Hendrix coming on to give a status
update on as to their relief efforts things in your
neck of the woods.
Speaker 2: You know, it's all relative, Pete. For some folks it's
like the storm never happened. And for other folks, obviously
it's still just a catastrophe that they've been living out
for two hundred and fifty days. So you know, it's
kind of a mixed bag. But really, for us in
Haywood County and West things are relatively normal.
Speaker 1: Is there a sense of any kind of optimism that
things are improving.
Speaker 2: Uh, certainly, but it's measured optimism, and it's incremental. Every
week or every month a new bridge opens back up,
or a new business opens its stores again. So you know,
we're getting there. But as everyone has said for the
past eight months, this is something we're going to be
talking about for five years minimum, if not ten. Then
we're not even at the one year mark yet. So
I think we've bounced back pretty good for only being
eight months out, but certainly a long way to go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is tourist season in full swing, and
so anybody listening that is looking to spend tourism dollars someplace,
please consider going up to the mountains and helping people
with the local economy up there they needed. I was
up there last weekend and there are a lot of
great places that are still intact. They are open, they
are operating. You know, there are parks that are open
and stuff, so it's not complete devastation everywhere. You can
go up there and spend tourism dollars and have a
really good time. So Corey, let me ask you, though
you've got a story here at Smoky Mountain News. We
started covering this, I guess about two weeks ago when
UNC Charlotte was first in the crosshairs of aim accuracy
in media pun intended by the way. I'm a professional
at this, Please don't attempt that at home. So then
we got the second drop of UNC Ashville, and now
we've got Western Carolina that there was an administrator who
who was secretly recorded describing how the school is continuing
to promote DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives despite
a band that was enacted by the UNC Board of
Governor's last year. And you actually talked to Adam Gillett
as well, and I thought this was kind of interesting
because there now seems to be this debate about undercover
video and whether that's you know, ethical journalism or not.
And as a journalist yourself, I was kind of curious,
do you have any thoughts about the use of undercover
video tactics in order to get stories.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Pete. I had thoughts, and the first thing that
I saw when I thought of this was so I'd
done things like this twice. The first time was in
twenty twenty two. I went to Ukraine and I wanted
to get close to the front lines in the south
in Harsonoblast, and so I had to do that undercover.
I'm not really going to talk about how it was done,
but it was done, and you can read those stories
and listen to some of the d stuff I produced
to regarding that trip. But I went in less than
a mile to the front lines. There was no other
way for me to be able to get there and
gather that information. The second time I did this was
when the paper mill closed in Canton, the pact of
Evergreen paper Mill. I got a tip that the company
was calling some meetings, some very unusual meetings, and so
I just went downtown Canton and blended in and looked
around and followed a bunch of employees into a building,
and I was the only one who got to actually
sit there and listen and record what company officials told
their workers. The common theme between Ukraine and Canton. I
would not have been able to get that information any
other way I think came and Julette's work in similar.
In fact, he even told me he didn't think that
if he just approached them as journalists normally do, and say, hey,
I've got some public records requests, I've got some interview requests.
I want to sit down and talk about your DEI policy.
He doesn't think that he would have gotten the information.
So I understand why it might rub people wrong. But
again I will I won't hesitate to do undercover work
with the caveat that there is no other way to
get an honest representation of the information that you're seeking.
Speaker 1: I think that's a fair standard. I do, and I
would agree with that because, like you said, and like
Gilett said, if he were to walk in there and say, hey,
how are you guys, you know using DEI stuff, and
he's got cameras and he booked it as a you know,
media interview, they're going to give him the you know,
the the pr answer. They're going to give him, Oh,
we're not doing it, we're following the law. It's not happening.
But when you go in undercover, you find out well,
kind of, yeah, you may have moved some people around.
But you know, the people are still you know, doing
the work as they like to say, they're just not
They're not doing it out in the open, and they
know they can't because of the band, and so this
appears to me to be the only way that they
could go about doing it.
Speaker 2: I agree one hundred percent. I mean, it's clear, it
really appears that they are actively trying to circumvent what
the UNC Board of Governors dictated I think it was
last May, May or June of twenty twenty four. Some
might call that compliance. You know, by the letter of
the law. They've gotten rid of their DEI officer and
they don't have any official DEI programs, but some folks
are carrying out this work as a part of their
other duties. And at the end of my story, I
believe it says something about how the UNC Board of
Governors needs to clarify or determine whether or not this
is okay. I mean to be completely clear, Pete, I
don't really care about the issue of DEI at this moment,
and not at Western. What I care about is a
publicly funded institution following the rules that were set out
by its governing.
Speaker 1: Board right and in fact to this point of whether
or not you could actually get an honest answer if
you went through official channels. Inside you have a you
have a request where you made requests of the Chancellor
Kelly Brown to do an interview, and they would not
make Kelly Brown available for any kind of an interview.
It sounds like, do you and so do you have
a good relationship with Western and Kelly Brown's office or
Kelly Brown.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, We've had nothing but a great relationship with Western
Carolina University for the entire twenty six year existence of
our newspaper. I've spoken with her many times. She seems
to be a serious, dedicated woman, very pleasant to be around,
you know, so it's not adversarial at all. But I
was surprised that they walked right into Juliet's pratt where
he says, these people are unaccountable and when they get caught,
they don't know what to say and they don't say anything.
And then Kelly Brown's office turned right around and did
exactly that. How So I asked for an interview when
this press release dropped on Tuesday night, emailed them immediately
and started talking to some of the communications people. And
I always do this Pete. It's one of the techniques
that I use. I say I want an interview, I
want to speak with the person, and then they'll send
me back a statement, and then I'll reply and say
I'm so sorry for the confusion. I didn't ask for
a statement. I asked for an interview. I will not
be publishing your statement because last time I checked my mailbox,
I didn't have any checks in there. As your per person,
I'm not here to run your pr and you're not
going to give me a statement that answers none of
my questions. You're going to talk to me like a
normal human being. And if you don't want to do that, well,
it's on you. And in a case like this where
they're basically being accused of not being transparent, this was
the stupidest thing that they could have done, but they
did it well.
Speaker 1: And you also have a pair of June third emails
that were sent by administrators to various Western Carolina University employees.
By you got a hold of some of these emails,
and the emails warned employee. So this is June third,
this is now what almost ten days ago, that warned
employees against speaking to outsiders about DEI in light of
the UNC Charlotte's story, So they were aware that this
was going on because of the UNCC story. Then I'm
sure you know, things got heightened when the UNC Ashtville
story dropped, and so they were telling their people, don't
talk to anybody about DEI stuff. And now apparently it
had already occurred, I guess because they already had the video.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, Pee. So Juliette told me that they
had filmed this. I believe it was clearly before mid April,
because the administrator in the video is no longer there.
The job advertisement was posted for her position in mid April,
so they had been there. Certainly WC was aware of
what happened. You know, Juliette is walking through the office
talking to administrators, asking them questions about d They're all
refusing to comment. So I'm sure that they all sat
down after that and put their heads together and said,
what the hell just happened to us and what is
about to happen to us? And then they saw UNCC
drop and then they saw UNCA drop, and so they
sent up these emails and said, oh, I think we
know what's coming, and it's going to be another one
of these undercover videos, and we're worried about what might happen.
So direct all communication to the appropriate authorities so that
they can refuse to talk to the media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly, it's don't anybody say anything, tell them
to talk to us where we won't say anything. Yeah,
not a great look, but this is look, this has
always been part of the problem with the DEI ban
is that it didn't dismand all right, it may have
dismantled the offices by disbanding them and saying, okay, you
can't do this as an office, right, but they just
reassigned the people, and the people who are in those
offices are not going to have a change of heart
about out the importance of the work. They're going to
find other ways to advance it undercover. And so, like
back to our original conversation, like, that's the only way
you're going to get at this is because if they're
going underground to continue the work, you have to go
underground to follow them and catch them doing it. And
so far, he's three for three this or Aim is
three for three on these. And he said he had
like half a dozen UNC schools or North Carolina schools,
and my understanding is probably UNC Wilmington might be in
the mix, but I don't know any others. Besides, that's
all right, anything else, Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There's actually an article in the Daily tar Heel.
I believe it was June third or June sixth where
they're talking. This was before the Western Carolina stuff drop.
But they're talking about AIM and what they've been doing.
And there seems to be some suspicion that Chapel Hill
maybe in the mix or maybe next or somewhere down
the road. And we haven't seen anything out of Chapel
Hill yet, So I guess if you're a fan of
this kind of work, stay tuned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good bet. I can't imagine they would
not go to UNC Chapel No. Right, Okay, Corey, good
to talk with you, Sarah. I appreciate your time. Keep
up the good work. Corey Valancourt. He's the politics editor
at the Smoky Mountain News. Thanks, buddy, appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Always a pleasure. Pete bye bye see it.
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a couple weeks ago, we interviewed Adam Gillett from Accuracy
and Media after they dropped their first undercover video sting
operation at UNC Charlotte. Since then they hit, well, they've
dropped video from UNC Ashville, and now yesterday they dropped well,
it may have been two days ago, but the reporting, Yeah,
I dropped on the tenth. Another video. This is out
of Western Carolina University, and according to The Charlotte Observer,
a new ut ofcover video from an activist media organization
purports to show a former administrator at Western Carolina University
quote pushing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts despite the UNC
system repealing DEI programs last year. But the university is
standing by its record regarding compliance with state and federal
rules on DEI. What does that mean? It's standing by
its record? What record? Because this is also part of
the record now, and this would indicate that you're not
in compliance. No, the university is saying we're not doing it.
The university is denying that they're doing it. In initial
comments about the matter sent to the News and Observer.
The university also said that the the undercover interviewers did
not present themselves to the administrator truthfully. Oh no, wha
wait a minute. Are you suggesting that an undercover journalist
posed as not a journalist in order to get you
to speak honestly about what you were doing, knowing that
you would not tell them honestly what you were doing
if they presented themselves as a journalist. No. No, the
university is pointing out that these undercover agents, these provocateurs,
these saboteurs, they didn't say that. They just said that
these journalists posed as quote, students in distress who asked
leading questions. So it's the journalist's fault that your administrator said, quote,
we're trying to embed that kind of diversity, equity, inclusiveness, inclusive, excellent.
It's a new term really across like every area should
have responsibility for that. It shouldn't just be like an
office or a figurehead. So the work is still occurring
very much here at Western you just might see it
called different things. And so the undercover operative said, and
if you embed it, it can't be legislated out. And
the administrator Karen Price said, quote, there you go. Now
you're understanding the strategy behind what it is. The real
villain here, obviously, is the journalist. I think we can
all agree. How dare they misrepresent themselves as a student
in distress? I don't know what kind of distress, like
some like, oh my.
Speaker 3: Gosh, rizzle the DI programs. I feel unsafe like that
kind of distress. Then the Charlotte Observer piece, it's actually
a News and Observer, but it's mclatten and it was
republished at the Charlotte Observer.
Speaker 1: They want to point out about the ethical concerns regarding
undercover journalism. This is a very important aspect of the story,
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So back to the Charlotte Observer story. In a piece
by Corey Dean at the Charlotte Observer, but it's also
the News Observer, so Corey Dean may actually be out
of the Raleigh office, but Corey Dean reports generally it
is considered unethical for journalists to report undercover, and I
have to I have to tell you, I am I
am unaware of this, this general consideration. I've like I
grew up with the you know, major like twenty twenty,
remember that News magazine doing undercover videos and stuff. I
remember watching media as a kid on the nightly newscast
and all of the news magazines, and they would do
these undercover investigations. This was standard fair. Remember the Food
Lion undercover expose. Remember where the twenty twenty guys they
blew up a Ford Explorer in order to try to
convince people that these cars were blowing up. Remember that one. Okay,
maybe that's not a great example. It really even wasn't undercover,
although I guess the planting of the explosives was undercover.
But I was not aware that this is a general
consideration that generally it is considered unethical for journalists to
report undercover, because to me, that's just another way of
getting information that you can't otherwise gets. As Corey Valancourt
pointed out, and he did not know. I was going
to ask him about that, because I'm reading this from
the Charlotte Observe piece. The Smoky Mountain News piece doesn't
cover this generally considered an ethical standard. The Society of
Professional Journalists in its Code of Ethics. It does exist, people,
I hear you laughing. There is actually an SPJ code
of Ethics. It suggests reporters should avoid undercover or other
surreptitious methods of gathering information unless traditional open methods will
not yield information vital to the public. Well, there you go, right,
So why would you even put this into the story?
A revised statement? So Western Carolina issued apparently two different statements.
In the first one they were like, oh, they didn't
present themselves truthfully, and then they revised the statement to
take that out. Yeah, Like, that's because it's not a
good look. You got caught. Well, one person, you had,
one administrator, Karen Price, she got caught. She was the
director of institutional Assessment at Western Carolina and she is
no longer there. She left back in April. But the
way Western has handled this is not too good, not
too great. Okay, the director of this is what they
said in a statement. The director of Institutional Assessment featured
in the video has no role in policy or compliance
decisions and was not authorized to speak on behalf of
the university. Now, if that sentence sounds familiar, it's because
that's almost exactly what the other university said too. And
it's a little too clever by half. It is answering
a question that is not asked, right, this person has
no role in policy decisions doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
Compliance decisions doesn't matter because they're saying decisions as if
like this person's in charge in directing others. That doesn't matter.
Are they doing it? Are they themselves doing it? And
then that she was not authorized to speak on behalf
of the university doesn't matter. The question is was she
doing it? When students presented themselves and said, hey, are
you we still doing DEI stuff? I really, you know,
would really like I want to make sure that we're
still doing DEI. Oh yeah, don't worry, We're still doing DEI.
So either Karen Price was lying about that, or the
people that populated these DEI offices throughout the UNC system
and then got reshuffled into other departments are still doing
the work. And I always say it like that the
work is because that's what they say, and they're just
so tired of doing the work. We're out here doing
the work every day. They're out doing the work, and
the work never ends, and the work shall set you free.
According to Marxism, that's how you are set freeze the work,
and so you always have to be doing the work
and if you are not actively doing the work, then
you are part of the institutional systemicism, whether it's you know, racism, capitalism,
whatever the issue of the day happens to be. Because remember,
the issue is never the issue. The issue is always
the revolution. You just swap out whatever issue is handy
at the time, whichever one is making the headlines, whichever
ones you can weaponize against your political opponents. The issue
doesn't really matter. The issue is the revolution, and so
you're always doing the work in order to achieve the
perfected utopian society. In the Heygalian vision, hegel the philosopher,
So that's where all of this stuff sort of comes from.
So this statement doesn't really help much either. Corey Valancourt,
he talked with Adam Gillett, who is from the Accurate
in Media, and he said, first off, hidden camera investigative
journalism is by far the most honest form of journalism.
When the New York Times quotes an anonymous source quoting
another anonymous source, we don't know if these people said
the things that they supposedly have said. We don't even
know if they exist. And before you think that can't happen,
it has, right, go look up a movie called Broken Glass.
Fantastic movie. It was a scandal about Stephen Glass, reporter
at the New Republic, I believe it was. And he
just fabricated stories and people and events, and one of
his editors finally started like getting suspicious, and that's what
blew the lid off the whole thing. When reporters quote people,
we don't know exactly what the reporter was told. We
don't know the context that it was told in. This
has always been a beef of mine whenever they attack
like James o'keef and they're like, oh, his videos are
selectively edited. Every single news story is selectively edited, every
one of them. They have to be because you sit
and do an interview with somebody for ten or fifteen minutes,
but you only have a one minute window to tell
the story, So you selectively edit sound bites. And it's
the job of the reporter to ensure that the sound
bite that is selectively edited does not take the person
out of context. And that's where your bias comes in, right.
A hidden camera investigative journalism shows people in their own words,
discussing exactly what's going on. He said, and he's exactly right.
He's exactly right. All right, if you're listening to this show,
you know I try to keep up with all sorts
of current events, and I know you do too, And
you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources.
Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which
is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's
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also supports ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. The piece by Corey Valancourt at Smoky Mountain News.
I think he did a good job doing the store.
You don't know his view on DEI at all when
he's telling the story. In the video, Karen Price is
heard detailing how Western Carolina has adapted to the new
political climate by decentralizing DEI responsibilities, repurposing roles, and dispersing
funding more broadly throughout the university structure without formally violating
the rules. Right, So this is an end run around
the DEI ban. Charlotte Observer reports the employee Karen Price
has not been employed at Western Carolina since mid April,
per the university. Initial comments from the university said Price
retired at that time. Price is seen in the video
making comments implying that while Western Carolina no longer has
a DEI office or employees explicitly devoted to the efforts
the university is quote trying to embed DEI across the campus. Quote,
the work is still occurring very much here at Western
You just might see it called different things. Now, do
you think it's coincidence that so far all three of
the administrators that have been caught on undercover video saying
the exact same thing are saying the exact same thing.
Do you think that that's a coincidence? Why are they
all adopting the exact same strategy and saying the same
thing at all these different college campuses. They go on
to Yeah, they go on to identify Accuracy in Media
as quote known for its controversial and provocative tactics that
in recent years have included displaying an image of Adolph
Hitler raising his arm on a truck intended to denounce
anti Semitism. Well, I ask Adam Gillett about this very thing,
because you may recall when the college campuses first erupted
in their Islamist slash Marxist tentifadas, and the campuses the
college administrators were either unwilling or unable to shut them down.
They gave permission structures to these tentifada hamas hollas to
continue their harassment of Jewish students and the like. And
what Accuracy in Media did was got some box trucks
with the big video monitors on the sides of them,
you know, and they they drove around with the people
who were like the campus organizers, the campus leaders and
stuff that were allowing this stuff to occur or were
participating in the actions, and they drove these things around,
these trucks around, calling them out for their anti Semitism.
That was point. But you don't really get the full
sense of what exactly that operation was about when you
just read this sentence that, oh, it displayed an image
of Adolf Hitler raising his arm, intending to intended to
denounce anti Semitism as it's intended to denounce it. It did.
It called out people by name, It docksed them publicly
parking in front of their homes, saying you got a
guy here who's an anti Semi. And then people were like,
I can't believe you're doing this right. That was the
operation that they ran. The recordings came or come roughly
a year after the UNC Board of Governors repealed a
policy that mandated DEI programming and jobs across the state
sixteen public universities in the North Carolina School of Science
and Mathematics. Across the system, nearly sixty DEI related positions
were eliminated, but more than one hundred and thirty so
more than double were quote realigned or purged of their
ties to DEI as a result of the repeal. Yeah,
so you got one hundred and thirty people that were
hired to do DEI stuff that then got repurposed or
realigned into different areas. Do you think that they have
stopped the work. The policy change also resulted in universities
closing DEI offices or units with similar purposes or names.
But again, the people that got reassigned are continuing the
work underground. They went underground to continue their DEI efforts,
and they talk about it when they think there's no
camera rolling. You put a mic in their face. No, no, no,
we're in compliance. We're not doing any of that. We
completely followed the law and the spirit of the law
and or doing all of this stuff by the book.
The Observer story goes on to say at the end,
at one point, after Trump took office, Western Carolina removed
diversity and inclusive excellence as a core value in its mission,
but then restored the language after the News and Observer
inquired about the change. So Western Carolina's got some problems
going on. They don't know which way to break on this.
They seem to be a bit confused right. Western by
the way, is also facing an investigation by the US
Department of Education over allegations that the university quote refused
to comply with Title nine and to ensure sex separated
intimate spaces in federally funded institutions of higher learning, and
we covered that a couple of weeks ago as well.
This had to do with the trans issue, so Western
has got some problems. All right. That'll do it for
this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Not do
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