Leaving CBS, Independent Media & The Crisis in Journalism | Scott Macfarlane opens up

0:00 Scott, let's talk about you a little bit. I know you're a humble news man, so you don't like to do that, but you were at CBS News and you decided to go independent. I don't know, I don't want to push you as to how much you want to talk about this or whatever, but tell us, you know, what's what's been your thinking taking this plunge into independent media because I mean, people are really excited about what you've been doing. I >> I was just looking at the basic data. I'm not a data analyst. I'm not a data nerd, but I was looking at the basic data. And when I would put a cell phone in front of my face and tell people what was going on in the other room, I'd have a couple million people watch it on a good day. I'm not sure that's the audience for a lot of linear television anymore. So, first of all, let's just do the thing where the people are and start there. Second of all, what is what is so

0:46 frustrating? You remember this from when you were doing standups for the CBS Evening News. You got to wait till 6:30 >> to tell your story. >> That is so against muscle memory for journalists. And what's more, sometimes at 629 they say you're not tell the story anymore. We found other news that was more important. >> That's just not a good delivery system for enterprise reporters. And there's nothing wrong with the concept. It's just I didn't think it was the best place to break news continuously. Independent is clearly a good lane to be in. And I say this not to be self- serving. You blazed the trail and showed people how to do it. And we're just going to follow your paradigm on that this thing works. >> I think it does. And honestly, I think that's what people want. And they see what's taking place in legacy corporate media right now. They're disappointed. They see a lot of bending the knee going

1:31 on. And they see what's happening at CBS. And I, you know, I've been very outspoken. I've been very concerned about what I've seen at my old stomping grounds there. I don't think you should you should have an anchor saying things like Marco Rubio, we salute you or or both sides in January 6 and so on. And I don't want to get you sucked into all of that, but you left recently and you decided to go to the Midas Touch where and those are terrific guys and now you're going to be showcasing your enterprise reporting there and you've already started to do it. >> Yeah. The the premise here that the Midas touch team laid out for me is enterprise reporting to help launch the broader conversation. I mean, people are going to have opinions. You can either reinforce their opinions with reporting on what's actually happening or you can

2:17 disabuse them of their opinions. But we're not going to whitewash January 6th. We're not going to say that it was somebody else's fault besides the insurrectionists who were incited to attack the capital, beaten ma police officers, threaten democracy, and nearly overturn the fabric of our country. We're not going to try to claim it's anything but an American horror that is too often overlooked. And I think the best example of that, Jim, is what's happening as you and I speak right now at this moment. >> They're having a little service around the January 6 plaque at the Capitol, which was just recently hung three years freaking late. And the January 6 select committee members are going to have a little moment outside the plaque today to pay it some honor. You got to keep in mind that group of people, those January 6 select committee members, they've been threatened doxed harassed menaced

3:04 and they've been whitewashed for what they did investigating the attack. correct? >> Their lives were turned upside down for a while, if not still. And I I it's hard to process that we live at this moment where we have abided by the whitewashing of January 6. It's a cancer in our politics and it's going to stay a cancer till there's some accountability until that whitewashing ends. >> I agree with you a thousand%. And you know, because you know, you have been and I and I like this the hard charging journalist yourself. Call them like you see them. you know, don't don't pull back. Don't wear kid gloves with the people in power. We're not supposed to do that. The White House got really mad at you and they started to call you names. They did this to me. They call us names and they think it's going to hurt our feelings. And then you did a video

3:51 and I think we have this clip. If we have this clip, we should play it. You you responded to this. Let's play this and then talk. >> There is a lot of chatter about the chatter. You know, people are giving their opinions of what they think of this new enterprise that might touch. The point of this is to be a reporter and not give opinions. So, it is noteworthy that there are people throwing opinions at us. It was the White House press secretary. It was the FCC chair. Let me read to you what they said. I do have it on my phone. The White House press secretary had an opinion. And the opinion starts with veteran CBS reporter joins far-left media company Midas Touch as anchor. Says they share the same North Star. The FCC chair said, "Same job, new duty station." I actually like that. It is

4:36 the same job. And it is a new duty station at the capital in both cases, but reporting for you from a different organization. As for the press secretary saying that I'm a veteran CBS reporter, not a veteran CBS reporter. I a former CBS reporter, but I am a veteran reporter and here to make news and break news. And I'll say this about the White House. I did send an inquiry to them about Iran last night and they did respond with some background information. They are treating us what as what we are and there it is. I I love the fact that you just you know call them like you see them and you know you have to fact check them a little bit. They get very sensitive to that sometimes being fact checked over there and and I I know you don't want to opine too much but I opine

5:23 from time to time and Donald Trump lies a lot and so if he's going to lie a lot we have to fact check a lot and sometimes they don't like that but you had to fact check them even their attacks on you. You would think they they would get the facts straight. >> Let me unleash one opinion I'm so confident in. I'm happy to say it juxtaposed next to my promise not to give opinions. Yeah. >> Wouldn't it be better if everybody in the public dialogue summoned their better angels and we didn't have so much name calling and nonsensory nonsensical oratory in how we interact with each other. I think independent audiences crave a little bit of decorum, conversationalism honesty authenticity, but maybe we don't have to try to dunk on people. And I think any success I've had >> covering politics and covering the Justice Department was because my sources on both sides of the aisle and

6:09 people who may be watching knew I was going to at least be respectful. Be honest, but you don't have to be a name caller. I'd love for that contagion to wash itself out of our bloodstream. And I I it's really been on steroids over the last year. And it's clearly clearly starting at the White House with some of this name calling. It doesn't have to be the case. Not everybody there is culpable for that. But it would be best to model behavior for others who are in lower levels of office, for for the for your citizens across the country, for your children. Let's model some better dialogue terms for each other. We can do that. I think independent audiences want to get rid of that nonsense. >> I agree with you and I, you know, I strive every day. I get, you know, I get a little fired up sometimes and I drop some fbombs and and then I see the comments and there's some very nice

6:55 subscribers who ask me very politely not to engage in that kind of language and I try my best, but Scott, I am not I I I wish I were a better person and I could avoid doing that from time to time, but I think >> I'm all I'm all for vulgarity. I mean, tr trust me, there's a lot around the bar. I think the name calling and the and the the the dissing on people for their appearances. uh call me a beta a lot, which I actually I I take that as a compliment. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but we don't have to have that kind of dialogue at this moment in time. >> Yeah. Usually it's the it's the betas who accuse the other people of of being betas. It's a lot of projection in in many cases, but I have to ask you about because you had spent some time on the Justice Department beat. I mean, this is sort of what we're up against. When

7:41 Donald Trump is hanging banners or the I shouldn't say he's not personally hanging them up, but when the administration is hanging banners of Donald Trump at the Department of Justice, it does tell you we're in a very different place. >> Oh, yeah. >> And it makes me think that, you know, and I used to say this during the first term, a different kind of president requires a different kind of playbook. And so you do have to be a little bit more pugnacious, I think, than you would typically have to be in other administrations, Republican or Democrat. Mitt Romney had become president, I probably wouldn't be as pugnacious as I became covering Donald Trump. But I felt like you you kind of had to go in there with your dukes up a little bit >> because you're in a battle over the facts and over what the truth is, or what the news is, and they're slinging a lot of mud in your direction.

8:27 >> See, you you have mentored more people than you know. We all watched you during the first Trump term. You go trying to keep control of the microphone was such a metaphor for the broader battle we all need to fight now. So watching you do that did model behavior for lots of us. I appreciate that. It was that had outsized impact. That banner >> I didn't think I was always perfect by the way. I always >> second guess it. >> We try the best we can but that was that was instructive to us. And whether you whether you recognize that or not the banner itself is a mess. There's a banner on the US Department of Justice with the president's face. That's a problem politically for the party. It's a problem for Republicans. I can say that from my reporting that the party is trying to get past or manage the controversy around the Epstein files, which has been

9:14 >> doggedly menacing Republicans this entire Congress and through this first year of the second term. putting the banner on the Department of Justice does not help them disassociate themselves with this theory they're covering something up. Putting the banner on the Department of Justice does not make outsiders think the Department of Justice is doing right fully and transparently on the Epstein file. So, just from a political standpoint, my reporting says that's a problem. Others have an opinion that that looks bad and I certainly will platform that opinion when I hear it. I can just tell you it's a distraction and they don't just have the banner, Jim. have one of these big spotlights beneath it shining a big light on it every day and they really want to make it prominent. I I I don't see how that makes problems go away.

9:59 >> Yeah. And it's not who we are as a country. I mean, the Justice Department traditionally is supposed to be a place where they're they're going to call balls and strikes where it's like Joe Friday, just the facts, ma'am. And how can you have confidence that that is the way they're going to go about doing things at the Justice Department if you have Donald Trump's friaking banner hanging over there? It just it's like, are we going to put it up on the FBI? Are we going to put it up at the CIA? I mean, it at some point it be it does become like North Korea. And I think you have to be very forwardleaning in in calling that out in in in my personal opinion. And Scott, I another subject that I think really strikes a cord, we kind of touched on earlier, is where we are going in this country with the media. I'm very concerned about, and you again, you don't have to weigh in specifically. You can talk in general

10:46 terms. I'm very concerned about when you see Paramount trying to go after WBD and CNN and this this this march towards and that Trump has been proddding it consolidation of media and then putting them under the corporate umbrella of some very Trumpy MAGA people. I don't I I personally don't think that's good for this country. I think it and I and I think one of the things I do ask Republicans from time to time is what you would do if the shoe was on the other foot. If George Soros was buying up all these media companies, you would go nuts. So, how is it right when the other side does it? But your thoughts on just the overall picture and where we're heading. Do your thoughts on that? I mean, I think it's why it's a good thing you're going to a place like Midas and why we have independent media growing up in this country.

11:31 >> Let me be emphatic. This is a freaking crisis. >> The merger of major media companies has all kinds of pitfalls. If you look back, let me ask you this. If you've got a kid who's a teenager, a tween, do they even know what that radio is in your car? Because they don't listen to the radio anymore. Those companies all merged in the '9s, in the early 2000s, economies of scale, and that industry partially collapsed. And we just saw the announcement of the closure of CBS radio to further decimate that once proud historic, perhaps the most historic American medium. If you start concentrating all these companies in television and in broadcast, you're going to starve those companies potentially. I have grave concerns about the third and fourth TV stations in places from Toledo to Tulsa to Tacoma. I got problems with outlining a future for

12:20 all these local news organizations when all the companies merge and clearly are going to downsize but also just diminish the number of voices. I'm not that concerned about Washington news coverage or the network news. There's more than enough reporters here to cover Donald Trump and to cover the speaker of the house. But Jim, you lose your enterprise reporters, you lose your investigative reporters when you consolidate. So we have less of a watchdog. I know it seems like a secondary or a tertiary problem. I'm telling you, this is the problem >> and it's going to exacerbate any problems and flaws in our democracy and our politics. Now, >> I totally agree with you and and you know, and people will throw, you know, zingers at me from time to time and say, you know, this is why the public doesn't trust the media anymore. Why is it that the approval rating isn't so great for

13:05 the media anymore? Well, when you have a big chunk of the country watching propaganda and and by the way, on places like Fox, they go off on legacy media all the time. And they and they're starting to go after independent media, too. Get used to this, Scott. They're going to start coming after you, too, if they haven't already. >> They're very threatened by non-F Fox, nonpropaganda media. Of course, there's going to be a a feeling among a decent segment of the American people where they're like, "Oh, we're just not going to get a fair shake from those guys in the press." And it's like, well, you're being told this every day. You have the president of the United States telling you this kind of stuff every day. Of course, there are going to be those kinds of attitudes. And if you have, you know, companies that are controlled by supporters of the president gobbling up a larger and larger share of the media

13:53 offerings that we have in this country, then yes, it stands to reason that people are not going to have healthy attitudes when it comes to the press. I think that that is taking us in a very bad direction. And when you concentrate all, when you limit the number of voices, when you merge everything together, you leave yourself vulnerable for all kinds of political interference. There was a really telling moment. I wish you were there, Jim. It was Monday night in Washington at the Toner Journalism Awards where they were honoring the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and ProPublica for incredible work. Cara Swisser was the keynote speaker >> and she said it is so pernitious the the how major media companies are trying to coddle up next cidle up next to politicians that if it was Democrats who won in 2024 if it was President Kla

14:40 Harris she said Mark Zuckerberg would call himself they them as a pronoun and I think that speaks to a vulnerability moving forward because you and me are not pom pom waivers we don't root for a side and I'm telling When the sides flip, these powerful companies and media owners will flip too in a in a in a reflectively symmetrically bad way. >> Yeah. No, I agree with you. I mean, to me, if I have a side, it's it's for democracy. I just want to thank everybody once again for tuning in. Supporting independent media matters. This is the kind of reporting that you really can't find anywhere else. Really important sources of information that we're able to bring you on this program. We can't do it without viewer support. And so when you subscribe, when you like, when you share, all of that matters and it helps support the work

15:26 that we do. >> Breaking through the noise and spin around truth to power standing ground. This is a day from the briefing room to you.