>> The Wall Street Journal editorial board
has been whining about what they're referring
to as progressive cancel culture after staff
members from the Wall Street Journal which
of course, includes reporters. Just asked
for them to do some fact checking before publishing
op-eds. Now, I don't think that's cancel culture.
But if the Wall Street Journal editorial board
thinks that fact checking is closely aligned
to progressivism, I agree with them on that.
I definitely agree with them on that. So let
me give you the details on what happened and
how the Wall Street Journal editorial board
reacted to it.
So this week over 280 journalists, editors
and other employees at the Journal wrote a
letter to their publisher expressing concern
over misinformation published in the opinion
section. In a response, the board dismissed
those concerns as cancel culture. Now, to
be clear, no one's asking for anyone to be
canceled.
They're just asking for fact checking to ensure
that misinformation isn't published on the
editorial page. But the Wall Street Journal
editorial staff is not receptive to that.
The editorial board responded by saying, our
opinion pages offer an alternative to the
uniform progressive views that dominate nearly
all of today's media.
The opinion pages will continue to publish
contributors who speak their minds within
the tradition of vigorous, reasoned discourse.
Now, what does that vigorous, reasoned discourse
entail? What if they published and why are
these 280 journalists, editors and other employees
at the Wall Street Journal upset about? How
they've been conducting business over at the
editorial page, well, such panic is overblown.
This is something that Mike Pence published
during the pandemic. Such panic is overblown,
thanks to the leadership of President Trump
and the courage and compassion of the American
people. Our public health system is far stronger
than it was four months ago and we are winning
the fight against the invisible enemy.
We've slowed the spread, we've cared for the
most vulnerable, we've saved lives and we've
created a solid foundation for whatever challenge
we may face in the future. And in that op
ed Mike Pence argued that there would not
be a second wave of coronavirus. Now of course,
anyone who knows even a little bit of what's
been going on during this pandemic knows that
there's been an absolute lack of leadership
from the Trump administration.
There's been nothing, but utter incompetence.
I mean, you have Trump's suggesting that people
inject themselves with disinfectant. So I
mean, fact checking wouldn't be that difficult
in this case. But editorial boards like to
serve as stenographers for the powerful. And
that's exactly what they did in the case of
this particular op-ed.
No one saying that Pence shouldn't ever be
able to publish an op-ed. But the question
is, do you just allow him to publish any lie
in these editorial pages and the editorial
board for the Wall Street Journal says, yes.
>> Yeah, look, I'm a little bit more mixed
on this, so let me explain why.
First, and by mixed, I don't mean I agree
with the editorial board, I mean mixed. So
first of all, they had to issue a correction
on facts, in the Pence editorial, even the
opinions section did. So obviously, there
was not enough fact checking there by definition,
so you can't complain about that and called
a cancel culture.
Now, you got the facts wrong there, now, by
the way, just the fact of life about power
and media. So I've had a couple of op-eds
published in The Wall Street Journal. And
by the way, they're ironically more open to
progressive beds in The New York Times is,
but they meticulously fact check mine.
My guess is they were not quite as meticulous
with Vice President Pence and the reality
is, it should be the opposite. I should be
even more careful with the powerful and people
who are in charge of the government. So on
that, I agree with the letter writers completely.
On the issue of, they say, well, he said the
virus is gonna get better and that's as Biden
would put obvious malarkey, right? I agree
that it's obvious malarkey. I don't know why
I'm using that word all of a sudden, but that's
his opinion, man. And they say, we handle
this virus great, no, you didn't, you were
an absolute disaster.
But it's not the job of the editorial board
to say I disagree with your opinion that you
handled it. Well, that's the point of an opinion
page, he has to write his opinion. Now, the
letter also criticized them for running an
op-ed called the myth of systemic police racism.
Now, that's an op-ed that I disagree with
a 100%, but the writers, a letter said the
writer of that op-ed, he cherry picking on
the facts. Yes, that's true, and that's why
I disagree with her, but that's what op-ed
writers do a lot of times. They don't present
all the facts, they present the facts that
are more amenable to their own case.
On that logic we cancel all op-eds. I mean,
did the progressives who write op-ed write
every single fact about every single issue?
No, you're very limited in space, the service
get to make their opinions heard and we get
to make our opinions heard. Now, I'm gonna
go back and disagree with editorial board.
They seem kind of hurt by this and they're
playing the victim role here. Wait a minute,
your reporters are calling out things that
you got wrong on the opinion page. That's
their job and that's more speech, not less
speech, that's not cancel culture. That's
just called dialogue discourse and what we're
supposed to have in this country and what
we're supposed to have in the papers, free
speech.
>> Yeah, look, I think your assessment is
mostly right. I think that there is a double
standard when it comes to people in positions
of power. I would argue that a major newspaper
should actually be a little more vigorous
with fact-checking when it comes to people
in positions of power.
Because clearly, they have an incentive and
a reason for what they're publishing. Oftentimes,
it's nothing more than a PR move. So does
the editorial board feel comfortable serving
as nothing more than stenographers for the
powerful? I know that I would feel icky doing
that and also this notion that the media is
overwhelmingly progressive.
Are you kidding me? Have you seen the treatment
of progressive candidates by mainstream media
outlets? You think they've been friendly,
you think the media is progressive? I mean,
it's just nonsense, so everyone's operating
in their own fantasy world, right? And it
just blows my mind that the editorial board
for the Wall Street Journal can say that with
a straight face.
This is not a story about cancel culture,
this is a story about doing better. And holding
your colleagues at a higher standard. I have
no doubt in my mind that if TYT put out a
video that was full of all sorts of misinformation,
I would definitely speak out.
But I wouldn't speak out, because I want one
of my colleagues to get cancelled. I would
want them to make the correction and that's
exactly what's being asked of the editorial
board here. But the editorial board can't
handle, it seems like they need a little bit
of a safe space, cuz they don't want to admit
that they would publish nonsense.
>> As I explained just a minute ago, I largely
agree. But I do wanna point out one portion
of the letter that I don't agree with and
this, I don't know if people find it controversial.
I'm sure that'd be the first time in the Young
Turks. But so the journalist wrote to the
op-ed page, employees of color publicly spoke
out about the pain this opinion piece caused
them during company held discussions surrounding
diversity initiatives.
If the company is serious about better supporting
its employees of color at a bare minimum,
it should raise opinion standards, so that
misinformation about racism isn't published.
Look, I think that op-ed they published was
trash. And I don't agree with any of it, but
I get that they're allowed to publish it.
And so people saying my feelings are heard
about it, and so you shouldn't have published
it, I don't agree with that. Look, my, I come
from a Muslim background, you have how many
op-eds and books, and reports have been written
about how Muslims are irredeemable. And all
they understand is violence and we have to
attack one Muslim country after another after
another.
I could cancel almost all of media on that
alone, okay? But no, Dick Cheney gets to make
an argument about attacking Iraq and we get
to make the opposite argument. The problem
wasn't that, the problem was that nobody made
the opposite argument. And a lot of the media
went along with what the demagoguery of Dick
Cheney, etc., there.
I only wish we had a situation where both
sides could have spoken out against the bigotry
of Muslims in this country and I think now,
we're close to that position. But I don't
want the pendulum to swing so much that you
say no, you're not allowed to write articles
about Muslims, if it's gonna offend me.
You're not allowed to write articles about
atheists, if it's gonna offend me. No, you
write an article correcting their facts. And
putting them in the proper context, and then
demand that they run an op-ed that is progressive,
that challenges that op-ed. And so more speech,
not less speech.
