Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and as always your experience shirpa on today's Quest
for Knowledge. As always, you can email the show at
radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit
fdr LST. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast,
and of course to the premium version of our website
as well. Our guest today is Ryan Wolfe, director of
the Fund for American Studies Center for Excellence in Journalism.
Ryan joins us for a conversation on fixing the Fourth
Estate that includes reaching young journalists with programs alike tifas
New Journalism excellent fellowship. Ryan, thanks again for joining us
at this edition of the Federalist Radio out.
Speaker 2: It's great to be with you, you bet.
Speaker 1: Let's begin there. Let's talk a little bit about trying
to reach young journalists because that is becoming more and
more important when it comes to fixing the Fourth State.
Because I will tell you, as a long time toiler
in the Fourth Estate, I am oftentimes ashamed of the
Fourth Estate. I am I'm really really not only disappointed,
I've gone beyond discipline. I'm sick to my stomach and
a lot of the stuff that I'm seeing out there
in journalism today. Tell us what this Journalism Excellence Fellowship
aims to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, well, I agree.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the media is at a point
where things are are starting to change in lots of ways.
You know, Historically speaking, and you probably can remember this
and many of our listeners, you know, the way to
get started in journalism was to start at a local
newspaper to you know, pound the pavement, go to school
board meetings, report.
Speaker 2: On those kinds of stories.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then you would fimb your way up to maybe
a more regional publication.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then you know, at sort of than a dear
of your career in that area, you would make the
lead to a national outlet and work, you know at
one of the big publications New York Times, Washington Posts,
while journal or have a syndicated column or something like that.
Speaker 2: That time has gone.
Speaker 3: We don't really have local newspapers at this point. Regional
newspapers are struggling. The Pittsburgh Post because, for example, is
going to close. So you know that this system of
how people got into media really started to change in
the twenty tens. The thing that replaced it, and perhaps
many of the you know, present critiques of media come
out of this era.
Speaker 2: They replaced it with a lot of.
Speaker 3: You know, digital online outlets that were really looking to
get a lot of clicks, and they would produce kind
of the crazy headline you know, Facebook click bait articles.
Speaker 2: They'd hire a lot of people.
Speaker 3: From journalism schools, and that you know, really changed who
were journalists. These weren't you know, local guys and gals
who you know, were covering their town. It was people
who went to elite journalism schools working in Brooklyn or DC,
writing flickbait stories to go viral or on Facebook, and
all this was predicated on you know, ad traffic and
and sort of a business model where you can make
money off of getting lots of clicks. That era has
now ended too, so we're in this new phase where
people are trying to figure out how do you make
money in the media, And I think a lot of
mainstream media institutions are starting to see, hey, you know,
there's this whole other audience out there that we maybe
haven't been serving as well as we could have, and
we should try to hear them out, to give them
a voice, to give them a chance, and and bring
them in as readers.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a bunch of these changes currently happening.
You know, the CBS News acquiring the Free Press would
be one, but another would be Washington Host taking its
opinion page in a more conservative, right of center.
Speaker 2: Free market direction.
Speaker 3: So that's and then I think lots of other mainstream
media outlets are seeing this and saying, hey, maybe we
should should hire some people, maybe we should diversify the opinions.
And you know, the idea is coming out of our
newsroom too, And so what's happened is it's it's a
really unique time in media. So with all of that,
we're launching these new Journalism Excellence Fellowships. It's nine month roles,
one on the Washington Post opinion page and one on
the Boston Globe opinion page. And the goal here is
to get you know, these different ideas and different voices
out to talk to new audiences.
Speaker 1: Well, that I think is absolutely critical because take a
look at what is happening and we'll talk more about
this in our JAY schools across the country has been
happening for some time. You know, I like the fact
that you're getting some students who are coming in with
at least a broader worldview than we have seen from
the big publications, corporate media outlets New York Times, Washington
Post and others. But I can't help but think Ryan
when I take a look at all, For instance, the
New York Times. As you mentioned before, the media model
is changing, of trying to find different ways to capture
different audiences, and the New York Times a while back
purchased The Athletic. I don't know if you saw the
story of late, but there are some very frustrated people
with the Atlantic Athletic. There was a reporter there who
was covering the Australian Open, a tennis tournament, and asking
each young American tennis player one anti Trump question after
the other. And to their credit, these tennis players said,
you know, I'm a tennis player. I'm in the middle
of a tournament here. I don't want to be distracted
and I don't want to be a headline from somewhere,
And they actually called the guy out. This was a
young reporter. Again. If this is where the New York
Times continues to want to go then I think they're
going to continue to alienate their market players. Again, this
reporter was asking things like, well, you know, a lot
of things have been happening over the last year, tennis player,
how do you feel about representing America and the American
flag in this time period? And that is not, to me,
a legitimate question for a tennis player to answer.
Speaker 3: It's an odd person and location to ask that. Yeah. Well,
I would say two things on that. One is that
the New York Times is business model is very different
than pretty much any other publication in the country. They're
making money off games and recipes, games and recipes print
money for the New York Times, and so they're not
thinking or sort of what I was saying about, maybe
we need to look at during new audiences.
Speaker 2: That's not really where they're at.
Speaker 3: They've found new audiences who want to pay for other
products they have, and so that's just a unique thing
about the incentives driving the New York Times just to
look a little different.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I would say is that.
Speaker 3: The news side of publications, you know, often are and
this might seem like, you know, it's the opposite of
how it should be, but sometimes the news sides can
be more ideological or ideologically driven than opinion pages. And
so you know, if you look at sort of some
of the headlines coming out of CBS News, everyone.
Speaker 2: There is very frustrated by I think very reasonable.
Speaker 3: Not everyone there, the ten anonymous sources or whoever they are,
are very you know, they're struggling with these very I
think basic, straightforward changes that Barry Weiss and her team
are asking them to make.
Speaker 2: So you know, I think news pages.
Speaker 3: Have perhaps a longer half ahead of them as far
as regaining the trust to the public, whereas opinion pages,
perhaps because they're just more open about, hey, this is
what we think. Are actually kind of an easier place
in many circumstances to have a diversity of use.
Speaker 1: This is what I like about what you folks do
at the Foundation or excuse me, the Fund for American
Study Center and in the Excellence in Journalism. What I
like is that you are bringing in and trying to
position kids, young people, I should say, because I'm an
old guy, and so I say kids, But to get
journalists to think about the full story here more than anything,
not to be another activist journalism. That's what I think
of when I think of the guy at the Athletic
who's asking these really stupid questions of young tennis players
in the Australian Open. That's what I think of when
I think of Don Lemon. And we have a little
audio from Don Lemon of late, who has gotten himself
into a good deal of trouble for claiming to be
an independent journalist. And I have to chuckle at the
term journalist. And I always have to put in air
quotes when I think of Don Lemon, but that's a
matter of opinion. But here he is going in following
the mob storming a church in Saint Paul as they
go in in the middle of the church services and
scream at the congregants and kids are crying. They don't
know what's going to happen, because we've seen this story
unfortunately at more than a few churches in this country.
Or someone walks in and they have weapons and start
shooting the place up, so you don't know what's going on.
Don Lemon is covering this and he he's doing it
live streaming and he says, well, here, I don't care
what you say, pastor about how this is wrong to
invade a church, and the church services. Why, I've got
the First Amendment on my side, and that's the kind
of stuff that we've seen. But let's listen to a
little bit of that. That incident here with with Don Lemon,
what do you.
Speaker 3: Think of it?
Speaker 5: I mean, this is unacceptable, it's shameful. It's shameful to
interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship. But there
were folks. I have to take care of my flock.
Speaker 4: Listen, we live in there's a constitution in the First
Amendment to freedom of speech and freedom to a similar protest.
Speaker 5: We're here to worship. We're here to worship Jesus because
that's the hope of these cities. That's the hope of
the world is Jesus Christ. We're very respectable, but please
don't push me there. We're here. We're here to worship Jesus.
That's why we're here. Okay, that's why we're here.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 5: That's what we're about, which you think Jesus would be understanding.
We're about the mode. We're about straying the love of Jesus.
Speaker 4: Did you try to talk to them as as everyone
is willing to talk.
Speaker 5: Okay, I have to take care of my church. And
my family. So I asked this, you actually would also
leave this globe.
Speaker 4: You don't want us to worship.
Speaker 5: I'm always worship. I'm a Christian. We're here, well, we're
here to worship.
Speaker 2: We're here to worship.
Speaker 5: Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I apprecive that. I'm sure as someone who follows journalism
very closely, this this popped up on your radar? Is
this where so called independent journalism is heading today? Invading churches?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I hope not it's but it is. It's interesting.
You know that Don.
Speaker 3: Lemon doesn't understand the Firstmen very well and sort of
the difference between public and private spaces and a protest
and a sort of you know, disruption of other people's
rights to assemble and worship. You know, I I'm a
little concerned that he didn't get a very good education
at CNN.
Speaker 2: About these sort of rules.
Speaker 3: But I would say that, look independent journalism first, I
you know, I always question what being independent means. If
you're embedding with a protest group, it doesn't seem particularly
independent to me, and you kind of have to wonder
how that's getting organized. How he ended up there. You know,
it of course is not at sort of the the
extreme level of the example I'm about to use, which
is much worse, but it sort of reminds me of
the reporters who are embedded with the Palestinians on October seventh.
Speaker 2: How would they rund up? You know, how do you
end up?
Speaker 3: Are you really independent if you're in the right place,
in the right time to cover a story like that?
Speaker 2: Right? And so, you know, I think the.
Speaker 3: So I think the main thing is that with independent journalists,
one challenge and this is both on on left and right.
I just think you know, you saw it particularly agrees
like egregious breach of journalists and ethics with Don Lemon
in this case, but all independent journalists actually need to
learn and inform them of what journalistic ethics look like,
especially if you're going to try to be confrontational in a.
Speaker 2: Setting you know that like this. You know, I think.
Speaker 3: Maybe for decent people or people with manners, you know,
you wouldn't even consider this. But I think, you know,
just understanding the First Amendment would have prevented Don Lemon
from making this mistake. And now you know, ah, he's
will likely face some kind of lawsuit, some sort of consequences,
and you know, I doubt he he really understood what
he was getting himself into.
Speaker 1: Well, Don Lemon has been down that road before. Let's
listen to a little bit of this. It's Don Lemon
trying to explain that coming to the United States illegal
without documentation coming in is not a criminal offense. Folks
that he was asking about this on the street put him,
put him straight on that.
Speaker 2: Okay, crossing the border illegally is not a crime.
Speaker 4: No, it's not a criminal act.
Speaker 5: It's a misdemeanor.
Speaker 2: So why are they being sent back and saying.
Speaker 4: That they're breaking the law.
Speaker 2: That's the point, Okay, as somebody that we don't.
Speaker 4: Know what they're breaking the law because they won't tell
there's no due process, where's the evidence? That's the whole point.
And if they are breaking the law, most people will say, okay,
then they need to go at their criminals. But if
they're not, why are they being rounded up and sent out?
Especially when he promised to deport the criminals and now
he's not doing that.
Speaker 5: I don't think we're going.
Speaker 2: So minnor is.
Speaker 4: He's not a criminal act. No, if you get charged
with a misdemeanor, that's.
Speaker 1: Not a criminal.
Speaker 4: If it's not a criminal act because we have different
levels of crime. Everything is not the same.
Speaker 1: We have different levels.
Speaker 4: Of actually say crime, but it's not it's not you're
not it's not a crime. You're not breaking the law.
I mean you are breaking the law, but it's not
a criminal act.
Speaker 2: No, if you're speeding, drinking you pulled over, y.
Speaker 4: That's not a criminal Well no, if you're speeding is
a misdemeanor.
Speaker 5: Right, So still breaking?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well if you want to, if you want to
qualify that, we're do with semantics. But what I'm saying
but what I'm trying to tell you is everything is
not the same.
Speaker 1: It's all not one thing.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 5: What is it the law that would is it a
law to come over the law? Is there a law?
There are?
Speaker 4: There are rules that are processes that you should follow. Yeah,
so you're breaking rules, you're breaking the rules, but you're
not necessarily breaking a law.
Speaker 1: We are talking today on this edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour with Ryan Wolf, director of the Fund for
American Studies Center for Excellence in Journalism. Ryan joins us
today for a conversation on fixing the fourth estate that
includes the kinds of fellowships and programs that that the
Fund for American Studies is running like the New Journalism
Excellence Fellowship. I the OtherSide of what we were talking
about with Don Lemon or you know, it's the same,
it's in the same arena. It's independent journalism. What did
you think of Nick Swisher? Excuse me? What was his
n Nick Swisher? Surely Nick Shirley. Excuse me. I don't
know why I want to call him Swisher for some reason,
But Nick Shirley, what did you think of his independent
journalism that kind of broke open or at least put
increased focus on this fraud scandal hitting Minnesota. And what
he really did was what they we used to do
when we were young journalists, and that was go to
places a shoe leather approach.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I loved the spirit of it.
Speaker 3: I mean I love that he went out and you know,
brought a camera and went and actually tug in and investigated.
Speaker 2: Uh you know, these these areas.
Speaker 3: That I like that he had the the older guy
with him who did all the research and and uh
so he he knew where to go and Nick when
and and and did the videos. And you know, I
I I think that's great. You know, I think sort
of at our programs, you know, we definitely encourage that
kind of go out, find the story, do the job spirit.
At the same time, I think, you know, there's there's
a role for kind of uh some some more serious
investigative journalism.
Speaker 2: That's let's just say more more in the paperwork.
Speaker 3: Uh that that can you know, cross the t's and
dot the i's on all this stuff. But but also
would anyone pay attention to the story if it was
just paperwork?
Speaker 2: Probably not right.
Speaker 3: So it takes It takes lots of different people, and
you know, I think someone who's just going out and
asking questions and tracking down leads.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what journalism is all about.
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Speaker 2: It's not just.
Speaker 6: About the CPI inflation numbers. Government is now saying health
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Speaker 1: Well, I'm often reminded in I've worked with a lot
of good editors and I've worked with some not so
good editors over the years, and I'm sure that all
of those folks would have varying opinions of me. But
I think about the CEO of The Federalist, Sean Davis.
I think what he says is is right on for
young journalists, for journalists of all kinds. He says, you know,
the sources good, all fine and good, but give me
the documentation. And the way that I think an excellent
journalist goes about things is they get the documentation to
back up the stories from the sources, and the sources
are the faces of that story oftentimes. That's That's really
what I hope to do as a journalist, what I've
hoped to do throughout my very very long career in
this business, And frankly, that's what i'd like to see
from journalists moving forward. Although you know, we're seeing so
much from a lot of corporate media outlets where they
seem to have to take a side, particularly in the
Trump era. Is that getting any better? I know you
referenced some of these other areas where it's really more
so about making sure that you don't lose half your audience,
like Jimmy Kimmel and Steven Cole Bhar have done. In
the news arena, Are they getting the message because you
look at the polls, Ryan, and you see that the
news business is somewhere around Congress in terms of popularity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, trust in pretty much every American
institution is quite low. You know, there's a few that
have tried to or have done a little bit better
in maintaining trust, but in almost any American institution, if
you look at the polls from twenty or thirty years ago,
compare those poll numbers to today, they're going to be lower.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So the media, I think is one of the ones
that had gone down the most.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of reasons for it.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, some of it's we see more
of the behind the scenes. You know, reporters on Twitter
express their personal opinions twenty four to seven because they think.
Speaker 2: That's their job or part of their job.
Speaker 3: And you know, there used to be policies where reporters
you know, couldn't register.
Speaker 2: To vote, and you know, how.
Speaker 3: To keep their personal opinions to themselves and these things
all kind of protected media institutions and help them see
journalists as being more independent. And so, you know, I
think a lot of it is these these older norms
falling away, this sort of social media influencer culture coming
in and replacing it. And so, you know, I think
ultimately what you were saying about, you know, strong sourcing documentation,
so not relying on anonymous sources for every story, which
is seems to be the case more and more frequently,
and you know, actually showing the public, hey, this is
you know, how we got this story.
Speaker 2: These are facts, you know. I think that's great.
Speaker 3: And look, some outlets are trying to do different things,
even if they might lean you.
Speaker 2: Know, one way or the other.
Speaker 3: But the outlet Somemaphore has you know, sort of the
facts the reporters take, you know, sort of.
Speaker 2: A counterview all in a news article.
Speaker 3: So some places are trying to say, hey, how can
we build trust into things differently?
Speaker 2: But I think.
Speaker 3: In politics it's it's quite hard these days for people
to think that way and you know, I think a
lot of the issues are very emotionally charged, you know,
and it's hard for sort of you know, rules, norms, facts,
documentation to override the sort of emotional part of any
contested political issue that you get into.
Speaker 1: I think you noted something that really has been emergent
over the last few years. It probably goes back longer
than but we've certainly really noticed them in the last
election cycle, the influencer crowd. And I think the perfect
example of that happened, you know, early on in the
Trump administration when Trump turned to influencers to release what
turned out to be a nothing burger of an Epstein report.
And I think the administration really got burned on that,
and I think the influencers got burned on that because
what they brought to the public only further confused and
infuriated the public. How much are in influencers going to
still be able to influence moving forward after incidents like that?
And are there young people coming out of journalism school
going why did I go to journalism school? I just
spent one hundred and fifty thousand dollars I could just
be an influencer.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think you're going to see more
and more of that, and.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the problem with influencers is that
they're not reporters most of the time, and even if
they do reporting in specific cases, they often don't have
the experience, the tools, the knowledge that would.
Speaker 2: Be helpful to them and what they're trying to do.
Speaker 3: So, you know, I think one of the challenges for
influencers is if you're trying to cover a news story,
if you're trying to get documents from the federal government,
and you're trying to help an audience understand that. You know,
one thing I'll say about influencers is they probably tend
to have a certain ego that would not lend them
to take my advice, which is to let someone who
has more of a journalistic background actually help you look
through these things and work with your audience.
Speaker 2: You know, but that would probably create a better outcome.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, I think the future probably lends towards,
you know, influencer brands, but perhaps with more of an
actual journalistic staff for the ones who want to get
into that business. Although I think for many for many influencers,
the news business is not really something they want to
actually put resources into So it'll be interesting to see
where the rubber hits the road and whether.
Speaker 2: Sort of.
Speaker 3: Influencers in you know, conservative social media spaces, whether they think,
you know, they are a news organization and they want
to do real reporting, or if they are sort of
amplifiers of sort of actual news.
Speaker 2: Outlets that are doing themselves.
Speaker 1: Is the influencer Ryan? Is that born out of something
that and I worked with a news organization, a national
news organization many years ago. One of the things they
talked about is enlisting the assistance of what they called
citizen journalists, and those were, you know, people who weren't
really trained to be journalists, but they would show up
at city council meetings or county board meetings. They would
gather documents and they would roll video and get stuff that,
you know, because of shrinking budgets and resource issues, that
could assist in news coverage. Now, we had some great
success with some of that, some of it was really
a pain in the tuk us because it made you
have to work that much harder because you had to
go back with certain people and verify everything because a
lot of times you would get something that really wasn't
good and sometimes you could get some things that could
get you before you know a judge. So is this
kind of the extension the influencer movement? Is that the
extension of what has been called citizen journalism in this country?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, it makes th think of
the Elon musk We you know, you're the media now,
And it's in a way it's true, just in the
sense of anyone has a phone and can record something
and can put it online for the world to see,
and that's the power that you know, didn't exist for
the average person until you know, the last really fifteen
years or so. So, you know, I think I think that,
on one hand, that's true. The influencers are somewhat of
an innovation on top of that in the sense of
now you're you're kind of having a little more concentration
in who disseminates information, retweets to reposts.
Speaker 2: You know, that that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: I think the stuff you're talking about, I think the
media outlets, you know, And this was sort of like
that early twenty.
Speaker 2: Tens, late you know, aughts phenomenon.
Speaker 3: They thought they would be the ones to disseminate that
information from social media, but they sort of got out
competed and also lost a lot of trust in the
last you know, a few decades, and I think that
has led to influencers who.
Speaker 2: Have an audience that is maybe more niche.
Speaker 3: But really trusts them and and then they sort of
look through, you know, they dig through the depths of
X and you know, try to find content to to
tweet out. I think the problem is from a journalistic
point of view, is that what you're saying, you need
people who are going to actually verify things as being factual.
One big challenge I think that's coming around is that
AI is going to be a real game changer in
this space as far as verifying the acts and.
Speaker 2: Whether photos and videos are real.
Speaker 3: And and so the value of real journalistic institutions I
think is going to increase again. But I think the
question is is who are people actually going to trust?
And that's very contested.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I don't want to sound stodgy about this because
I think some of the best reporters out there and
in the past have been people who didn't necessarily come
from a journalistic background. I mean, I can tell you,
for whatever my journalism is worth, my journalism career is worth.
I didn't go to a journalism school. I went to
school as an English major, for sure, and then I
kind of fell, you know, but backwards into every broadcast
and journalism job that I was ever in, and I learned.
I learned on the job. And I think that's exactly
what you are providing is the absolute is the ability
to really learn the craft, what it means means to
vet a story, what it means to talk to sources
to get information. I think that is what the fun
for American Studies, the Center for Excellence in Journalism has
done for a long time. But you mentioned AI, and
I would be remiss if I didn't ask you where
that will lead us in journalism. You kind of touched
upon it, But are you concerned at all that AI
will eventually drive journalists out of business and then become,
you know, again that trust issue that we're dealing with.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, there's been a two ways to look at
this question. One is kind of how does AI change
the content that people consume? And there's there's sort of
an optimist and a pessimist view of this. The AI
optimists say, you know, it will kind of AI will
optimize content for you know, the people looking at it,
so you'll get the algorithms will produce sort of the
perfect content that you want to see and you want
to watch, and it'll be so good and you'll never
stop watching. The other more pessimistic side says, you know,
the AI slop thing is going to basically drive people
off of social media.
Speaker 2: And I'm a little bit more in that camp.
Speaker 3: So I think in some ways that's an opportunity for
people who are real people producing content themselves as opposed to.
Speaker 2: You know, AI content, And.
Speaker 3: But I think the question long term is is, you know,
what does it do to attention spans? What does it
do to viewing habits? Do people watch TV? Do people
read you know, news websites or sub stacks or whatever
it may be. You know, those those are some hard questions,
but I think and it might get worse before it
gets better. But I do think AI content is not
very high quality, and people are going to start seeking
out quality and journalistic outlets can provide that.
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 3: Other part is that, you know, there's a lot of
people just sort of the advent of AI is creating
broader questions about technology used period and how much you
should be using technology, how much you should be on
your phone. You see this at a lot of you know,
schools that are banning phones, you know, in class now
for example. So, uh, you know, part of me wonders
if you'll see more people who want to, you know,
read print publications kind of go.
Speaker 2: Back to a prior era.
Speaker 3: One magazine tablet magazine started printing recently nationally, so you know,
there may be a counter trend, I think the But
I think the main thing that AI shows us is
that you know, the future is going to be weird,
It's going to be different, and the kind of effects
that can.
Speaker 2: Have are super wide ranging and all over the map.
Speaker 3: But the one thing that AI can't do can't yet do,
and if it could to it, you know, it sort
of might have a bit of a you know.
Speaker 2: Skynet quality to it.
Speaker 3: But I would say that, you know, you still need
to get new information and new stories from human beings,
and reporters are going to be the ones who are
going to do it. So I think if you were
a news aggregator who doesn't do any original reporting work,
your job is going to go away. And if you're
relying on Google search traffic for your revenue, your revenue
is going to go down because AI is changing all
those things. But if you're someone who's doing the shoe
leather reporting and talking to people and has sources and
is breaking new news, then I think you'll.
Speaker 2: Always have a job.
Speaker 3: So for the journalism industry, I think it will turn
out okay, but I think, you know, for society at large,
it'll be interesting to see what it does to sort
of our idea of media and how it changes our consumption.
Speaker 1: News outlets will certainly be reporting on AI for the
foreseeable future, but you're absolutely right. It's an imperfect technology,
certainly at this point, and I don't know if it'll
ever be perfect. But yeah, For instance, the other day,
I was looking up some information on Eric Swollwell and
I saw the AI photo that it brought had with
two faces, and that's well, wait a minute, that is correct.
He does have two faces. That's right, he's a two
face politician. But that's neither here nor there. Let me
close with this question for you, because your the core
of your mission is the old Whitney Houston remake song.
I believe the children are the future. That's what you guys,
as that's what you do every day. Our JA schools
are any JAY schools getting the message that we don't
need activist journalism anymore, We don't need one sided journalism
anymore unless that is your operation and you're clear about it.
Because I don't find that to be a problem. It's
when you have news organizations that claim to be down
the middle, reporting only the facts, but turn out to
be active as journalists. What are we seeing in terms
of j schools today?
Speaker 2: Journalism schools are pretty bad. They're sort of the worst,
uh you know, in in that they.
Speaker 3: Combined all the things you don't like about academia with
all the things you don't like about the media.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, we.
Speaker 3: Tend to not work very much for journalism schools because
there is this challenge of uh, you know, kind of
understanding the biases in media that they don't seem to
be really interested in. But also, I would just say this,
going to journalism school is not a great idea.
Speaker 2: I don't really recommend it to people. Like you were
saying the.
Speaker 1: Bestlujah by the way, hallelujah you are you are, you
are singing, you are preaching to.
Speaker 3: The choir because doing the job is the best way
to learn right. And you know, I think a sort
of higher education has created this model where everyone needs
to go to college and get a master's degree and
whatever they want to work in. Journalism is an old
trade and really the apprenticeship model is still works really
well in that and so I think, you know, actually
going and doing the job, you know, and we encourage that.
Students writing for the campus publications, We support interning with us,
doing fellowships with us.
Speaker 2: Actually graduate, that's the best way to learn.
Speaker 3: And so we often don't work with a lot of
actual journalism majors, which is another positive thing because you know,
they're studying philosophy, they're studying politics, economics, whatever it may be,
and are learning real things in their classes, and then
then they can take that knowledge and do more with
it as they write, as opposed to just learning about
the craft of journalism and which you know, there are
some things to learn there, but it's not going to
teach you as much as reading the great books and
having a basic understanding of economics, right, I mean, that's
way more I think essential to being a good writer
and being a good journalist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I only wish our members of Congress had the
same concept of basic economics that would be very helpful
to the average American. Well, and that's why I appreciate
I really do what you folks have done and continue
to do at the Fund for American Studies in the
Center for Excellence in Journalism. Final point. You know, we
talked about the new Journalism Excellence follow Fellowship, but that's
just one of many programs that you're running to bring
in the next generation of journalists.
Speaker 2: That's right, Yes, So we do a lot.
Speaker 3: You know, we start on college campuses, so college students come,
they write, or we have thirty campus publications that we sponsor,
or they can be individual student members, and we get
them plugged in with other opportunities to freelance, and they
come inter and with us in the summer. After that,
when they graduate, we have our reg O Fellowship at
the Wall Street Journal, which these new fellowships are modeled after.
So those are for you know, young journalists the last
five years of experience to get sort of a job
in the major leagues for nine months, and then from there,
we have a program called the Media Accelerator Fellowship that's
for young reporters in d C really helping them find
their beat, learn more sort of on the ideas side
about liberty and responsibility and journalism and just.
Speaker 2: Improve at their craft. And then we have the Robert Novak.
Speaker 3: Fellowship, which is for more mid career journalists and we
support sort of long term investigative reporting projects through that program. So,
you know, starting from freshman year on campus to you know,
seven years into someone's professional career, we're there to help
them be successful.
Speaker 1: You want to fix the fourth estate, That's how you
do it. That's a big part of how you do it.
Exactly what is being done and has been done for
some time at the Fund for American Studies Center for
Excellence in Journalism. I want to thank our guests today
for joining us. Ryan Wolf, director of the Fund for
American Studies Center for Excellence in Journalism. You've been listening
to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm at Kittle,
Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back more.
We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers
of freedom and anxious for the Fray