National News Forecast (The News Conference: Real & Powerful 2023)

FMC Fast Chat takes you inside the news so you can be in the know in 30 minutes. Hosted by Fair Media Council CEO and Executive Director Jaci Clement, Fast Chat features notables in news, media, and business.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm Jaci Clement, CEO and Executive Director of the Fair Media Council, and this is day 1 of our annual event, the news conference Real and Powerful. Today we focus on national news. Tomorrow we're focusing on New York regional news. And on Wednesday, we bring things home to my backyard, Long Island hyperlocal news. Joining me today, 3 esteemed gentlemen. They've been with us before. We're thrilled to have them back, especially— you're probably aware there's a little bit of news happening in the world, especially this past week. So let me begin just by saying good morning to Tom Bruen, who is the Washington bureau chief for Newsday.

Good morning.

Tom covers the White House, Congress, Supreme Court, and the federal government, and he's been doing it for decades. Robert A. George of Bloomberg. Robert is an opinion columnist, and he's a member of the editorial board covering government and public policy. And he's also served on the editorial boards of the New York Daily News and the New York Post. And then also, last but certainly not least, we've got Dave Leventhal. We had branded him as the deputy editor at Insider, and I'd be a liar if I introduce him as that right now, um, because he is now stepping into the role as editor-in-chief at Raw Story. So good morning, gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining us.

Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning.

So talk to me about, you know, can I place my faith in journalism? Put it that way. Who wants to start?

I guess as a Newsday reporter, I should start, right? And the reality is, is that we didn't do our due diligence and we should have. I mean, that's the bottom line right there. He ran twice in 2020 and in 2022.

Mm-hmm.

In 2020, he was such an unknown that— and he lost pretty big. And it was one of these things. I noticed from our own reporting now, in retrospect, we find, you know, the Republicans, you know, Republicans, you know, they have their side here, you know, and should they have vetted him more? Should they have known who he was or where he was coming from and what he was doing? Maybe, but you ask the chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party. And he said, well, he was the Queens candidate, you know, so he bumps it over to Queens, right? So there's that. And I mean, there was, you know, actually— Newsday's editorial page did raise questions about George Santos, particularly where did he live and where was he really coming from? So, I mean, they did some of that. Okay. And there was this, uh, uh, what was the small paper that, uh—

The North Shore Leader.

Yeah, Grant Lally runs that, right?

Yes.

Yeah, he was a former candidate for that office, and I suspect that he was more than happy to dig into this other guy who was running instead of him. Uh, but, uh, so there was that. And, you know, frankly, he was a candidate in Queens. Where was the New York Times? I mean, you know, we could— we can look at all these different angles, and I do think that journalism in this case did not do its job properly. But I also think the parties didn't do their job properly. You know, it would seem to me that the parties would want candidates that they had vetted and that they knew something about, and it seems like the oppo research should have found more of these things than it did. And So, you know, there are a lot of checks that did not happen along the way. Now, in terms of what does that mean about news, it is absolutely true that the shrinking of resources for especially newspapers has really hurt some of our coverage. When I came to Washington in 1999, we had 15 reporters the Washington bureau. We had a researcher, we had 2 editors, we had like 5 columnists, uh, we had a receptionist. That's how big the bureau was. It's 2 people right now, right?

Mm-hmm.

Look at the size of, of local news. Every newspaper has shrunk in size, right? There's just not as much space and there's not enough staff to do what we used to do back in our heydays, you know, when, when there was money everywhere back in the '80s and '90s. I mean, you know, those were the heydays. So I do think that's a real issue, and I wish we could do more. I am heartened by the fact that there are operations like these smaller news outlets, and a lot of them on the web now, and, and I see them like popping up everywhere. I mean, here in Washington, it seems like in the past year or two, So many things have popped up. You know, you have Punchbowl, which is this very insider-y kind of thing. You've got, you know, Politico. You've got Semaphore now.

Puck.

Puck is another one.

Yeah, yeah, Puck.

You—

I mean, so, so you have all these things coming up, and maybe that will fill the gap, and I'm very hopeful that it will.

Okay. Uh, yeah, I, I would, I would agree with that. The, the cautionary tale there is that, um, These new media organizations that have come up are in a sense almost more— they each seem to become more and more insider-y. And we need to— and almost all of them are subscription-based. And the question is, are we going to be able to find a model where media entities are actually going to get in front of the eyes of the public and the voters. Because, yeah, the 3 of us— excuse me, the 4 of us may be reading Punchbowl and Puck and Semaphore and so forth, just as we read Politico and the Times and the Washington Post and the New York Post and so on and so forth. But the average voter is— they may be reading the Times, they may be reading the Post or the Daily News, but they're not seeing these other entities around. What really needs to be— there need to be more resources to get news gathering and reporting back down to You know, back down to the local to the local level, and and I I'm just going to put this out there. If you go back to the the founding of the country, news entities, organizations, and so forth were actually connected to the parties of the time. They were they were they were Federalist paper. They they were they were literally. Federalist newspapers and anti-Federalist newspapers and so forth. And it's like the political will of the time thought it was important to educate their supporters and, you know, dig up dirt on the other side but also promote some of their ideas. And ironically, maybe we should think about going back, you know, going back to the future and saying, Maybe the, you know, the local Republican Party and the local Democratic Party and the local Green Party and the Working Families Party, maybe they should start, you know, publishing their own, you know, their own newsletters and start trying to, you know, push that out, you know, push that out into the broader landscape and see if that starts informing the public.

I'm not happy about that idea.

I know it's risky. I know it's out there, but—

Well, they already do it.

And it is happening.

Look at your email box. Look at your email box. You get their newsletter just about every day. Hey, this is—

Most of the stuff that they're pushing out there right now, um, are— it's all about fundraising, and it's like terrifying people saying, you know, send me more, send me more money so, so-and-so doesn't get into— but I'm actually talking about like actual, um, you know, information. Information gathering. And even if it's, you know, even if it's a, you know, if it's a conservative newsletter that doesn't like what the mainstream Republican newsletter is putting out and is digging up dirt on them, you know, so much the better. I mean, we sometimes, we see that on national issues, you know, National Review will put out a story that will, that will take apart, you know, take apart some Republican candidate in terms of a scandal or so forth. Maybe that's what we need more of at the local level too.

And I—

Go ahead.

I would just sound a cautionary note to say that both on the left and the right, there has been a proliferation of sites that masquerade as news sites, oftentimes have names that, you know, the, you know, Anchorage Advocate or whatever.

Yes.

And they're basically derided, you know, by a lot of us in media circles as pink slime news sites that are, you know, presenting themselves as news when in fact they are really just partisan house organs or, you know, mouthpieces or whatever the case may be. So there's probably a way to do it. And then there's the way that it's being done. the way it's being done can be a little bit scary at times or very misleading, especially to news consumers who are not necessarily aware of the underpinnings of what they are. But if you'll indulge me for just a quick moment, I know we're relatively short on time, but I just want to offer up a kind of a tale from the trail of a man who could have been George Santos but wasn't. And but for the work of news reporters doing shoe leather reporting, we could be talking about him right now in the same context of a George Soros. And the man I'm referring to is J.R. Majewski. And J.R. Majewski was a Republican candidate running for the U.S. House in Ohio. It was an incredibly tight race. He was running against Marcy Kaptur, who ultimately won, and she's one of the longest-serving representatives in the U.S. House, kind of a middle-of-the-road Democrat. Who, by redistricting, she was thrown into a new district with him. To toot Insider's horn, we came out with a story in August that demonstrated, as part of our ongoing series about stocks and the personal finances of lawmakers, that Jared Majewski had failed to basically reveal anything about his personal finances as he was required to do by federal law. We called him on it. We asked him, you know, 1,000 questions under the sun. We got non-answers, conflicting answers. And it really just, you know, led us to discover him as somebody who just seemed to be a little bit off. And then that led to a whole variety of other things that ultimately sunk his campaign, including some incredible reporting by the AP about misrepresentations he had made about his military service.

Mm-hmm.

Despite the fact that he was running as a veteran and, somebody who cared about the troops, but yet was effectively lying about it. So, you know, the Toledo Blade locally did some good work, and there were a whole variety of news organizations that ended up like picking apart this tale that he had weaved for himself, this mystique around who he was, and it all just ultimately fell apart. And Marcy Kaptur won, and she won pretty handily too in the end.

And the national—

In a race that he could have won.

And the important point there is, The National Party basically got so embarrassed that they abandoned him.

Cut him off.

And that's kind of the important— that still shows the importance of the press to actually shine a light on some of these things.

And the moral of the story is that if you are a local reporter, then basic blocking and tackling for candidates who you don't know, doing backgrounding on them, asking questions, Doing that shoe leather reporting. And if you're a news consumer, since we're speaking to news consumers right now, you know, ask these questions of the journalists that you know and you work with and in your local news organization. Write in. I mean, this is not just even a 2-way street, but, you know, multi, multi-street intersections and how, you know, news can get— tips can go to reporters, reporters can communicate back to readers. This is a a contact sport here and play it as such if you want to get good results from your news organization.

And one other quick thing, speaking specifically like of Santos, you know, we, at a national level, the media has become kind of so focused on ideology and quote issues that they don't do the necessary, like, just basic background analysis or vetting of the candidates. You know, it's not just whether they're— it's not just what their issue is on, you know, on abortion or taxes or what have you. You know, is what they say they are actually what is in reality? And that kind of stuff is important as well.

Now, that may explain why— how convoluted George Santos' background was. And to that, when I look back, when I look at it now, I say, okay, what journalist is going to sit down and try to dissect this? Because it was kind of a moving target for a long time, too. He kept adding and embellishing. So I can understand how it kept kind of moving the needle between who was responsible for really checking out different aspects of what was going on in his background. But now we are running close to time, and I want to wrap up with asking you not only give me a couple of key people we should be keeping an eye on for this next year, but also if you had unlimited resources back like it was in the old days, what story would you do that you've been wanting to do? So who wants to start with that?

Well, I will. On the first question, person to keep an eye on is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, particularly over the— I think the Florida legislature meets, I think, for 2 or 3 months. It'll be interesting to see what kind of measures that he signs into law, what kind of things that he sees as potential red meat to send a signal to the Republican Party and shows that he is somebody who is active and working on things and getting things done as opposed to the former president who is, you know, off to the, off to the side. So I think there's going to be a lot of, there'll be a lot of focus on, on seeing, seeing the governor right there. And as for unlimited, unlimited resources, I think I'm going to punt on that one for right now. Come back to me if there's still time.

Alrighty.

Well, I will, I will start and say I'm not going to give Dave Leventhal my idea. So I will take a pass on that part too, but I will say that I think that we're going to be very focused on what's going on in Congress because I think that's going to have a big impact, very possibly, on Americans' lives over the next year. There are some very crucial votes coming up, and we don't know how they're going to go. There's a potential for a government partial government shutdown sometime this summer over the debt limit. There is serious discussion by the Republicans of doing a— putting on severe brakes on federal spending, starting with removing, you know, the money that was passed to increase the number of IRS agents. There was about $46 billion that Congress approved for that. That's one of their first items on their agenda is to remove that money. Now, what's the problem with that? It's like starving the government of money as a way of shrinking government. And that goes way back to the Reagan era, right? And that's what they're going to be doing. So, I mean, there's going to be things that will have big impacts on people. And a notion of shifting from federal to local kind of spending.

Okay, Dave.

Well, I'll be an open book at my own risk. I would say the person who is worth keeping an eye on is Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for 2 reasons. Number one, governmentally, he's going to be really the, the, the lead official in terms of implementing what has been a massive, massive, massive amount of infrastructure development that we're going to have in this country. So he's gonna be playing a very pivotal role in making sure that that money is put to use as intended and that the projects ultimately get done that have been funded by Congress and signed into law by Joe Biden. On a political front, Joe Biden has a big decision that he's gonna be making pretty soon, whether to run for president or not run for president. If he decides not to run for president, and I think if you're a betting person, put your money on him running for a second term. But if he doesn't run, or if something were to happen where along the line and months down the road he, he had to withdraw, then there will definitely be a massive question as to whether Kamala Harris will just simply be coronated the Democratic nominee, or if she will have a fight. On her hands, and Pete Buttigieg might be the person who could give her some political trouble. So a lot of ifs, ands, and buts there. But you know, somebody who is not going to go away anytime soon and could very well be running for president of the United States in you know 2052 or 2060, and that would not be crazy given the fact that presidents of the United States are running in their 70s and 80s now. A story that Quickly would have been written years ago that was written today. I mean, that's a hard one. I mean, I might have to go to something that we actually worked on a few months ago, which was the age of Congress and the age of government, the gerontocracy, if you will. And I think we saw a major development when Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn, they all of 3, the top 3 leaders of the Democratic Party in the House, They stepped back from their positions and basically said, we need to usher in a new generation. There is definitely a kind of a pivot point that we're having right now in a discussion around age and experience in government, for better or for worse, that is very compelling. And you have somebody like Maxwell Frost from Florida, a Democratic representative who just came in. He's 25 years old. I think he's gonna Just about turned 26 now. He's the first Gen Z member of Congress. So we definitely have a new generation and new generations coming up where the Silent Generation and even the baby boomers, their time is limited in power right now.

You know, just for the record, I just want to say Joe Biden said he is running. The big question is, will he withdraw that? That's okay.

And Dave's generational point, you know, also, you know, impacts, comes into play in the DeSantis issue as well. I mean, he's in his mid-40s, and obviously Donald Trump and Joe Biden are not.

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