Ep. 309: How Did the Media Become Such a Biased, Stress-Inducing Circus?

Forget good news. How about just honest news? How did we get here? Guest Ken LaCorte unpacks the history of news production, behind the scenes of how it’s made, information vs entertainment & how human psychology ironically drives the train we’re all so desperate to get off.

 

Ken LaCorte left main stream media in 2016 after nearly 20 years of serving in senior management at Fox News. Today he writes about censorship & media misconduct, but you might recognize from his YouTube channel called Elephants in Rooms, where he explores Uncomfortable truths & Awkward questions without sensationalism.

 

If you like this episode, you’ll also like episode 235: EPISTOCRACY: SHOULD WE BE PROTECTED FROM UNINFORMED VOTERS?

 

Guest: 

https://www.youtube.com/@ElephantsInRooms

https://substack.com/@kenlacorte 

https://x.com/KenLaCorte

https://x.com/Elephants_Rooms

 

Host:  

https://www.meredithforreal.com/  

https://www.instagram.com/meredithforreal/ 

meredith@meredithforreal.com

https://www.youtube.com/meredithforreal 

 https://www.facebook.com/meredithforrealthecuriousintrovert 

 

Sponsors: 

https://www.jordanharbinger.com/starterpacks/ 

https://www.historicpensacola.org/about-us/ 

 

00:00 – Why the news feels like a Jerry Springer rerun

01:15 – Ken’s shift from Fox News to YouTube truth-telling

02:20 – The lost art of nuance in media

03:10 – Was news ever really better “back then”?

05:00 – Media bias from the 1700s to now

07:15 – Internet clicks, candy headlines, and our appetite for outrage

09:20 – Idiocracy and “we get what we deserve”

10:30 – Are we living in the ugliest but most informed media age?

12:00 – If it bleeds, it leads: truth or myth?

14:00 – Long-form content as an antidote to manipulation

16:00 – Why short clips often equal fake news

19:20 – Lies told through technically true facts

22:40 – Ken’s personal run-in with The New York Times

24:30 – Is more information always the best cure?

25:00 – Fairness Doctrine: would bringing it back fix anything?

29:00 – How cable news killed equal-time rules

31:00 – The rise of censorship—and why it made things worse

33:00 – Teaching kids to spot spin (and why old folks may struggle more)

35:20 – Why Ken trusts Joe Rogan over CNN

37:00 – Media bias, advertisers, and following the money

40:00 – The unspoken pressures inside big media companies

42:00 – Why a thousand media voices beat just four

43:00 – Ken’s go-to news sources worth checking out

44:00 – Ground News, curiosity, and the hunt for nuance

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