Speaker 1: Joining me now is the man that the show is
Speaker 1: named after, a guy. That's such a coincidence that they
Speaker 1: found a guy named Guy Benson to host the Guy
Speaker 1: Benson Show.
Speaker 2: That's almost like a miracle. Really.
Speaker 3: Yea, it was the one requirement actually for the job,
Speaker 3: which is how I got it.
Speaker 1: There you go, how long have you been doing your
Speaker 1: radio show?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Where did you come from?
Speaker 2: Guy?
Speaker 1: Give me your backstory? Give me your elevator's speech of success?
Speaker 2: Wow? Well, I where do you want me to start? Birth?
Speaker 3: I mean, I studied broadcast journalism in political science in
Speaker 3: college at Northwestern in Chicago. Started my career in Chicago
Speaker 3: doing a weekend radio show and doing some writing for
Speaker 3: National Review and write Bart back when Andrew was alive,
Speaker 3: and then got hired by Townhall dot Com to move
Speaker 3: to DC in twenty ten, So fifteen years ago, moved
Speaker 3: to the DC area working at town Hall.
Speaker 2: I've been there ever since. I'm still there.
Speaker 3: Started appearing probably around two thousand and nine on Fox
Speaker 3: and some other networks as well. They hired me on
Speaker 3: air here at Fox on the TV side as a
Speaker 3: contributor in twenty thirteen, so I've been here about twelve
Speaker 3: years now. As a as an on air contributor, and
Speaker 3: the radio show started with a co host, sort of
Speaker 3: a right left type thing for a year back in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen. My co host then left the network for
Speaker 3: a while, so it became the Guy Benson Show in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. And here we are chugging along and growing,
Speaker 3: and we're grateful to have the platform and always grateful
Speaker 3: to chat with folks like you.
Speaker 2: A great station in Denver, so.
Speaker 1: You have Denver roots as well, so you're no stranger
Speaker 1: to Colorado. Even though you're coming out this weekend, you
Speaker 1: already know what to expect. I can't even sell you
Speaker 1: on how fabulous it is.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean so, my in laws are in Denver,
Speaker 3: and so I've spent a lot of time in Colorado
Speaker 3: through the years. Even before I got into that relationship
Speaker 3: years ago, I'd been to Colorado multiple times, but now have,
Speaker 3: of course as a very special place in my heart.
Speaker 3: And as you alluded to, I'll be going back out
Speaker 3: there later this week to a truly beautiful part of
Speaker 3: the state where I've actually never been. I've been to
Speaker 3: so many of these incredible resort towns right years, but
Speaker 3: I've not been to Beaver Creek. So I'm over the
Speaker 3: moon for that, and I know, setting aside some of
Speaker 3: the issues that I certainly have with Colorado's politics, it's
Speaker 3: hard to argue with its topography and so many of
Speaker 3: its people. And to be invited by a great group
Speaker 3: like the Steamboat Institute to a beautiful, gorgeous, jaw dropping
Speaker 3: place like Beaver Creek, that's an easy yes.
Speaker 1: Well, you made a good choice because not only is
Speaker 1: Beaver Creek gorgeous where this event is held, the Steamboat
Speaker 1: Institute's Freedom Conference. I usually go. I had a little
Speaker 1: surgery and I wasn't sure if I was going to
Speaker 1: be as recovered as I am right now, so I
Speaker 1: am not going this year. It is the best nerd
Speaker 1: event west of the missis, hands down, no better event
Speaker 1: for nerds ever. But they just do a spectacular job
Speaker 1: bringing people like you in and bringing people Michelle Tavoy
Speaker 1: is going to be there, Chris Wright's going to be there,
Speaker 1: the Energy Secretary. They just line up this this all
Speaker 1: star lineup, and people sit around and talk about nerdy
Speaker 1: stuff like freedom and free markets and things of that nature.
Speaker 1: What is your nerdy topic? Which panel are you on?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And by the way, I think one of the keynotes
Speaker 3: is being delivered this year by one of my colleagues,
Speaker 3: Rtt Bayer here at Fast News, who has Zelensky on
Speaker 3: the show today on a special report. I'll be on
Speaker 3: a special report tonight reacting on the panel, So looking
Speaker 3: forward to seeing Brett out there in the Rocky Mountains.
Speaker 3: My particular topic is I'll be on a panel with
Speaker 3: a really great media panel talking about the crisis I
Speaker 3: think of American media and gotten to this point, and
Speaker 3: a question of like.
Speaker 2: Can it be improved, can it be fixed? Is it dead?
Speaker 3: Where do we go from here about the so called
Speaker 3: news media. So there will be a lot to unpack,
Speaker 3: as you might imagine, we'll have an hour to do,
Speaker 3: so that won't be nearly enough time, but we're going
Speaker 3: to take a good bite at that topic in that conversation,
Speaker 3: and as you pointed out, such a great room. I've
Speaker 3: actually been to this conference with Steamboat before, but it's
Speaker 3: been I think about a decade. Yeah, they had us
Speaker 3: out I wrote a book ten years ago with Mary
Speaker 3: Catherine Ham, my best friend, and they had us out
Speaker 3: there very generously at the time, and we did an
Speaker 3: event or two with them.
Speaker 2: But since then it's just been either you know.
Speaker 3: Cross wires or schedules didn't work out, and they always
Speaker 3: are inviting so many great people. I was just so
Speaker 3: delighted to be back on the radar this year and
Speaker 3: heading back out there this week.
Speaker 2: It's a Friday panel. I know that you are going.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, I talked to my listeners
Speaker 1: about this. If it's you know, for the whole weekend.
Speaker 1: The tickets are four hundred and ninety five bucks. You
Speaker 1: got to also get your lodging stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: for that money, for four hundred and ninety five bucks,
Speaker 1: to get access to the people that you have access
Speaker 1: to for guys, panel, I want to touch on that
Speaker 1: for just a second. Guy, because I talk about this
Speaker 1: all the time, you would think that in a competing
Speaker 1: media format like talk radio or in your case, like radio,
Speaker 1: or like television, we would want to see the demise
Speaker 1: of newspapers and you know, news organizations that have just
Speaker 1: been really destructive over the last few years. But I
Speaker 1: am in the exact opposite camp. I think we've got
Speaker 1: to fix this. I don't think you can just let
Speaker 1: it go down to citizen journalists who who you know,
Speaker 1: may do a great job about some stuff, but they
Speaker 1: now to have the same kind of access. What are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the state of media overall and do
Speaker 1: you think it needs to be fixed?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it certainly needs fixing, because it's deeply,
Speaker 3: possibly irreparably broken. But part of the question is do
Speaker 3: they want to be fixed? Do they want fixing? And
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if they do. I think a healthy
Speaker 3: country and an informed public relies on good, credible, truth
Speaker 3: seeking journalism without fear or favor. The problem is there's
Speaker 3: a lot of fear and a lot of favor from
Speaker 3: the people who purport to.
Speaker 2: Have neither of those things going on. Right. They purport
Speaker 2: to be these middle of the road, we're just.
Speaker 3: Here to tell you the truth, and they say all
Speaker 3: these wonderful things, and they've got all the slogans and
Speaker 3: they're very self congratulatory, and then they very often are
Speaker 3: just a bunch of biased hacks.
Speaker 2: And that's almost putting it kindly.
Speaker 3: And when they do it over and over again and
Speaker 3: it gets to a point of like institutional corruption and
Speaker 3: raw and the public doesn't trust them.
Speaker 2: It's not just conservatives.
Speaker 3: I mean, you look at media credibilities absolutely deservedly in
Speaker 3: the toilet. But at some point, of course, there's going
Speaker 3: to be a whole ecosystem of other options that crop
Speaker 3: up as a replacement or at least another alternative, because
Speaker 3: people don't trust the legacy media. And yeah, I think
Speaker 3: it's actually important to have these vibrant newsrooms and news
Speaker 3: organizations with resources and training and ethics.
Speaker 2: To go and do the job.
Speaker 3: It just seems like a lot of the people doing
Speaker 3: the job, especially at a national level, on the political
Speaker 3: side of things, they are much more interested, it seems,
Speaker 3: in narratives and agenda fulfillment than doing.
Speaker 2: The actual job. So they've kind of forfeited trust.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they don't seem to want to fix things,
Speaker 3: you know, even as there's you know, the collapse in
Speaker 3: trusts and a collapse in business models and a lot
Speaker 3: of people getting laid off and all that stuff, they
Speaker 3: don't or they can't course correct because they're so invested
Speaker 3: in their partisanship, in their ideology, and because I think
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases, you know, if they as
Speaker 3: rush limbo us to say commit of journalism that go
Speaker 3: against what their audience wants to hear, you know, they
Speaker 3: risk running a foul of their audience or their bosses,
Speaker 3: and so it's just kind of a bunch of competing narratives. Look,
Speaker 3: I'm all for opinion journalism and a whole multiplicity of options.
Speaker 3: I think that is good, but you need some referees
Speaker 3: to try to keep, you know, keep the truth front
Speaker 3: and center. And I think the refs mostly play for
Speaker 3: one team, and they can deny it, but it's obvious,
Speaker 3: and so they have a real problem on their heads.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you when they started writing books
Speaker 1: about Joe Biden's decline, and in my mind when I'm watching,
Speaker 1: I refuse to buy the books. I'm not gonna line
Speaker 1: in the pockets of people that I feel we're complicit
Speaker 1: with the entire cover up. There has been no apology
Speaker 1: like I would love to see major media figures saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, not only did we do this badly,
Speaker 1: we realize now why we did it badly and it
Speaker 1: was our own bias. Can you that kind of announcement,
Speaker 1: apology whatever, in terms of restoring some sense of some
Speaker 1: semblance of trust, at least in the baby steps, because
Speaker 1: they would show some seriousness about the issue. That lack
Speaker 1: of seriousness where Jake Tapper sitting around going my god,
Speaker 1: they fooled us all And I'm like, no, they didn't
Speaker 1: fool any of us over here. They just fooled you guys,
Speaker 1: because you wanted to be fooled, all.
Speaker 2: Right, And they probably weren't even fooled.
Speaker 3: No, they were just going with because the goal was
Speaker 3: to win the election, and they failed at that. And
Speaker 3: now the truth can suddenly be told. Now it can
Speaker 3: be told. Some of them have apologized to some extent.
Speaker 3: There's been some soul searching, at least sort of a
Speaker 3: facsimile of soul searching, and some degree of apology. That's fine,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, some admission of this is fine
Speaker 3: to me. It's pretty meaningless and empty if they do
Speaker 3: the same thing again, correct, And of course it won't
Speaker 3: be about Joe Biden's sanility because Joe Biden is no
Speaker 3: longer relevant and so you know, he doesn't really matter
Speaker 3: to them and he's disposable, right, so once he was gone,
Speaker 3: then they could tell the truth. It's more of high
Speaker 3: stakes political fights. Are they willing next time to tell
Speaker 3: truths that are very unpleasant and detrimental to their own side,
Speaker 3: whether it's the Democratic Party or the left or whatever
Speaker 3: it is, And are they willing to do that consistently,
Speaker 3: or are they going to go right back to their
Speaker 3: battle stations and all their bad impulses and just do
Speaker 3: the version of the thing all over again, in which
Speaker 3: case sort of being like, golly gee, we got it
Speaker 3: wrong and we're so sorry. That will amount to nothing.
Speaker 2: Well, guy, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you watched Marco Ruby on the Sunday Shows yesterday,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they did, right. They came in knives
Speaker 1: of blazing, ready to do anything to make this process
Speaker 1: seem like something it clearly wasn't. And I thought to myself, well,
Speaker 1: they really haven't learned anything. I would love that kind
Speaker 1: of dogged determined this if it was on both sides
Speaker 1: of the aisle. Unfortunately it's just on one side of
Speaker 1: the aisle. Guy, I'm excited for you to be able
Speaker 1: to go to the Freedom Conference this weekend. It is
Speaker 1: going to be another just incredible, incredible event. I'm jealous
Speaker 1: always when I can't make it, and this year, as
Speaker 1: I said, I just was unable to make. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to pull up the list of speakers very very quickly.
Speaker 1: To your point, Brett, there, your colleague is going to
Speaker 1: be there, Michelle Tafoya is going to be there. Look,
Speaker 1: Guy Benson right there at the top. You got top
Speaker 1: billing there and so many other people that are just
Speaker 1: going to be super smart and you will leave there
Speaker 1: if you guys go to this. And I think they
Speaker 1: still have tickets available. I know that the Hyatt is
Speaker 1: sold out, so you're gonna have to find other accommodations.
Speaker 1: But this makes me smarter. Every single time I go,
Speaker 1: except for the panel, they always give me the goofy panel,
Speaker 1: like they're like, hey, do you want to work with
Speaker 1: the guy with the puppet this?
Speaker 2: Of course I do.
Speaker 1: Of course I don't want any heavy lifting at this thing.
Speaker 1: But now you're gonna have a blast. And I want
Speaker 1: everybody to go check it out at some point, And
Speaker 1: why not this year when Guy Benson is going to
Speaker 1: be there.
Speaker 3: Well, that's very kind of you to say, and I agree.
Speaker 3: I mean, if there's if there are any tickets left,
Speaker 3: there's not many. Yeah, I know they're expecting a really
Speaker 3: good crowd. I know it's a significant investment, but it's worthwhile.
Speaker 3: A great lineup. I'm honored to be a part of it.
Speaker 3: Always a great group of people, smart, thoughtful, fun, beautiful, place, What's.
Speaker 1: Not to love exactly, and then it ends with a
Speaker 1: Coyote gold margarita party. So really, there's nothing, nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with the entire weekend. Guy, I really appreciate you making
Speaker 1: time for me today.
Speaker 2: Oh you bet, thanks many thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: All right, that is Guy Benson.
Speaker 2: You can hear his radio show.
Speaker 1: You can see his townhall work at townhall dot com.