Second Helping with Grace & Katelyn - New Media and the Post-Truth Era

Grace: 00:00:00

Hi, it's Grace Cowan,

Katelyn: 00:00:01

And Mrs. Katelyn Brewer,

Grace: 00:00:03

And this is a second helping of Frogmore Stew. Hey, Katelyn. What's happening?

Katelyn: 00:00:08

Hey. How are you, Grace?

Grace: 00:00:10

We have so much to talk about today, Katelyn.

Katelyn: 00:00:13

I know.

Grace: 00:00:14

The primary, the Democrats primary. I mean, so much has happened even since then, but I want to quick recap it. And, You know, Dean Phillips. He did nothing. He got almost no votes. Marianne Williamson beat Dean Phillips.

Katelyn: 00:00:30

That doesn't surprise me. She, cause she ran before. So I figured her, her, just her name recognition alone, and I always remember her because she's into all that airy-fairy, astrology stuff. And I always giggle when I, Think about that. and I say that as a full blown astrology, wannabe, but I don't take her seriously as a politician, unfortunately.

Grace: 00:00:54

I know it's hard to, and, and I want to, I want to support women, but yeah, no can do.

And Dean Phillips, you know, he's exactly what so many people are saying they want, and yet he's a perfect example of why, when we're all faced with a different option, nobody takes it.

Katelyn: 00:01:15

No one. No one takes it. And I, but I'm not surprised in so much as, as we talked about, Biden was the presumptive winner weeks and months before the South Carolina primary even happened.

Grace: 00:01:28

Right. Well, and the numbers actually, I think you called this because if you remember last week, you were talking about the interview that you read with Jim Clyburn that basically like insinuated, you know, Biden's going to have this in the bag. There's no question he's going to win. And so thinking that it wasn't really imperative for all Democrats to go out and vote in the primary. The numbers really proved that, although it could be, there was this whole other campaign that we talked about last week, too, of Democrats voting in the Republican primary to make sure that Trump isn't on the ballot to try to empower Nikki Haley to stay in the race.

So I guess we have to wait to see how many voters actually vote in the Republican primary.

Katelyn: 00:02:20

I think it'll be interesting to see if there is an increase over the last Republican primary, for that exact reason, and whether or not the message about investing in the infrastructure of the Democratic Party for years to come resonated with people, or if there's just continued fear or support of Nikki Haley as the presidential candidate for the Republican Party.

Grace: 00:02:43

The last, Republican presidential primary that happened in South Carolina was in 2016. Cause if you recall in 2020, they didn't have one because Trump was the incumbent. And so in their last, Republican presidential primary, they had almost, they had over 745,000 people vote in that primary.

Katelyn: 00:03:07

Wow. So who's on that with Ted Cruz and who else was running?

Grace: 00:03:11

I, when I don't remember by the time they got to South Carolina, how many. People were still, there were several though, right? I mean, was Jeb Bush still on there? Was, who, who was still on there in 2016? and that year also the Democrats had a huge primary.

They had over 373, 000, people vote in the Democrat primaries. So those were huge years. And then twenty twenty. 540, 000 people voted in the Democratic primary as compared to this year, which isn't really an even Stephen because this year we have the incumbent. So typically when you have the incumbent, most parties don't even run a primary.

Katelyn: 00:03:56

Exactly.

Grace: 00:03:57

I hope that we can stay first in the nation because I really do think that as a state, for the Democrats, we represent the party, better than some of the others that have been going first in the past.

Katelyn: 00:04:12

Speaking of which, did you see Jamie Harrison on, I think it was Jimmy Fallon talking about First in the Nation, and how, you know, how history has now changed in so much as the black population here in South Carolina used to pick cotton and now they're picking the president, which I thought was really strong language.

Grace: 00:04:32

No, I did miss that. How did I don't stay awake? I can't be up for Jimmy Fallon, Katelyn.

Katelyn: 00:04:39

To be fair, I did watch the clip online the next morning, but -

Grace: 00:04:44

Got it. Okay. Yes, that makes more sense. Um, yeah, I did not catch that, but I, I do think that, 60 percent of our Democrat party in South Carolina are people of color.

And we are a very important state in the history of the evolution of the black community. And I think that giving voice. to our state over, a predominantly white state like New Hampshire, Iowa is, is really, really important. I mean, I think it's important everywhere, but I, I especially think given our history that this state has a lot of meaning.

Katelyn: 00:05:22

Without a doubt.

Grace: 00:05:23

Okay, so speaking of, different voices, I interviewed Will Folks this week. Are you familiar with Will Folks?

Katelyn: 00:05:32

I am. I am. And it was, I have to say, it was a pretty interesting interview.

Grace: 00:05:38

Right? I really like talking to him because he answers questions with sources and information that some of it I had never even heard that perspective.

And I, I was kind of shocked by that because I make a point to read a variety of news sources and stories and opinion pieces and, some of it. And I vehemently disagree with and I didn't really do a deep dive with him on a lot of it because it was our first time talking and, you know, I wanted to really, understand where he was coming from.

And I think he's very good at explaining why he thinks the way he does. That's part of the reason that I started this is because we all. Get our news from such a bubble and we just get reinforced with stuff. Even when you go out of your way to try to hear other perspectives, you don't really get the sentiment or as we were talking about last week, the emotional side of, of the news all the time.

Katelyn: 00:06:48

Yeah, I think one of the things that I was struck by is he is not as salacious as his FITSnews is, and I was expecting him to be way more dramatic than he actually was. And I was, maybe mildly disappointed, I do not. tend to agree with everything that he has to say, but I really appreciated listening to the interview and, and hearing his perspective.

I also think given what you and I are going to talk about today, he and FITSnews is sort of the epitome of new media, and new media's role in how we absorb information, especially as it relates to politics.

Grace: 00:07:26

That's right. again, I did sort of a very top line interview with him But I think in the future he and I talked afterward that it would be great to have him on Like we talked about how the judiciary system works in our state.

Katelyn: 00:07:40

That was fascinating, by the way.

Grace: 00:07:42

Yeah, he's super knowledgeable about it and he definitely comes from a perspective that's different than mine, and I think that that's productive conversation. And to your point, you know, in an interview like that, he's, he's not, The salacious headliner that he is when he's writing for his paper. However, I think there's a place for that too. I mean, that's how we got the Murdoch story, you know, like he's our New York post.

We do kind of crave that.

Katelyn: 00:08:10

And I think, it's to the point where there's no going back. I mean, for those who sort of pine away for the years of the Dan Rathers and the Tom Brokaws, that's over. And I think what we need to think about now is how do we deal with the juxtaposition of legacy media, new media, and how that influences our perception of politics and the world around us.

Grace: 00:08:34

As I was prepping for our talk today on just that, reading a bunch of different articles about, you know, media exhaustion and, communication dysfunction.

And I found, there is a literal web MD page on toxic people. So web MD has identified toxic people as a, a type of mental health, um, I don't know, dysfunction and basically goes through a whole way of how to cure yourself from toxic people. So that's how far we've come with our toxic media and communication is that WebMD has identified it.

Katelyn: 00:09:26

You've rendered me speechless. I, first of all, I have so many people I want to share this information with.

I just, I can't believe that WebMD -

Grace: 00:09:33

My job is done. Yeah.

Katelyn: 00:09:36

I have so many questions. Um, I'm going to spend my afternoon looking up WebMD's toxic people.

Grace: 00:09:42

Yeah. And so again, as I was going through and researching this, one of the things that kept coming up was nuance, You use that word last week. It was your friend's, newsletter. And as I got deeper and deeper into, trying to understand the psyche and the nuances of the country, one thing really stuck out and it was.

This evolution of the blue collar and middle class white family. And this is I think where our communication became toxic. if you think about it. Prior to the nineteen seventies, the blue collar, the middle class white family were revered and that message was evident in the TV shows, the music, and basically the general identity of the country.

ee around us and prior to the: 1970

Think about like all in the family. How it showed Archie Bunker as like a racist and a sexist and this ignorant man. And his protagonist was, his college educated son in law who used big words and kind of talked down to him. then came like Married with Children and Homer Simpson and Roseanne Barr.

And all of those shows reflected Not only a different perception of who we looked at ourselves as being in the past, a very white, middle class country. but everyone started speaking differently to each other too. Right? So, Homer Simpson used language that, maybe reflected. how people talked, but also sort of drove how people talk.

And Roseanne, and Married with Children. And so then that created this huge shift of how the country viewed this entire group of working people. And at the same time, black and brown people, LGBTQ community, and all of the other marginalized groups started to see movement and attention. And that too was reflected in television.

And all of that created this like, Class anger and resentment and the language that was okay to use that was reflected in television became how we communicate.

Katelyn: 00:12:16

I think the transition also started to change in terms of, I keep saying this word, these words new media, um, versus legacy media in the eighties as well.

When you start to have you talk radio and the onset of, um, well, I mean, talk shows at night came on, you know, before that, but the way talk shows were used by politicians started to change in the eighties. what I mean basically by, you know, legacy versus new media is new media. It developed during the internet age.

So we're talking blogs, clips, websites, digital apps, and it can relay information directly to individuals sort of without the intervention of what legacy media has, which is that editorial or an institutional gatekeeper, right? They are intrinsic to legacy forms. And so when you're talking about what you were sort of referencing the gatekeepers were typically white men and maybe middle class men. And so the stories you're receiving on television, the newspaper articles you're reading, uh, are centered around the white male middle class experience. So of course they're going to write about the realities of what the middle class experience was, with the dawn of new media, some of the benefits that we've seen is that the public is now providing information, and, we're seeing things faster than we can analyze. Right? So people are posting on these sites or talking about, what's happened within hours of something actually happening, you're having an emotional reaction,

You are experiencing trauma and you're experiencing emotion and we have pushed ourselves into a place where. We're, we're forced to comment on it immediately and we haven't processed out of the emotion and into the analytical phase and interpretation of what's happening.

Grace: 00:14:23

All of those, things that were created of what I just said, like in the seventies of these really new ways of being acceptable to speak to each other, and who we revere versus who we used to revere, those new media outlets have given platforms for that language to be Pushed out everywhere and without a face to it too. because no one knows who you are. You can have a fake name, you can put it out without ever having, um, it being checked or qualified, which is what old media also used to have to do.

Katelyn: 00:15:04

Well, yeah, I mean, legacy media traditionally served many purposes in a democratic society, first and foremost, as we all know, they're there to inform the public and provide information that allows you to make informed decisions. They are supposed to act as watchdogs, for checking the government's actions. That's why we are so critical about state run media and other countries. they are there to help set the agenda for public discussion, and provide a forum for political expression. and finally, you know, and I, I'm not necessarily sure that the media In my opinion, has ever really lived up to the standard, but really to facilitate community, by finding common causes, identifying civic groups, and potentially leading to the proliferation of research which helps solve societal problems, that information is supposed to keep citizens of a democracy informed in order to be able to make decisions with and for legislation and electing officials.

Grace: 00:16:10

And I, I wonder when We absorb information sort of back to what you were saying.

Are we actually absorbing it or are we just reacting to it? And because there is so much thrown at us right now, it's like constant, trauma state of, I mean, even my husband this morning was like, I don't know if I can keep reading the news. And, and I was so surprised because he usually, He doesn't ever comment on the news and so that was a really unusual thing for him to say and I read the news every day and I didn't actually see anything today that was any different than any other day this week, but for some reason, something he read this morning really got to him it's overwhelming. but I also think that one of the things that has created this really unstable feeling of communication right now is how People are trying to change the meaning of words.

And so it's really, um, It's really difficult. It's almost like, and I hate to use this word because it's so overused, but it's like a constant gaslighting over and over and over. Um, you can go back to this new form of originalism that came out of judicial theory, which is we've been interpreting the constitution wrong this whole time. Now we need to just interpret it. And it's original intent, right? That's one form of it. another example of misusing language was Clinton was when he was being interviewed and he was in his deposition and he was like, what does the word is mean?

And then move on to Kellyanne Conway and her alternative facts. Like it's this constant like pretzel logic of politicians and pundits trying to not say what everyone knows. They want to say. And so it's like they're trying to convince us, but they're not really all that convincing.

Katelyn: 00:18:19

I completely agree. And I think what you were just describing goes back to where you know, we were talking about the salaciousness of, uh, FITSnews and how that feeds something in us. And really what the dawn of new media has done is put infotainment in front of us every single day. And so if it doesn't feel exciting or titillating or whatever words you want to use, we don't tend to pay attention to it because we are so overwhelmed by how much information we're given every day.

It's impossible. And, people are sort of all like, Oh, well I do my own research and this and that. There is absolutely no possible way that you can research. And verify every single fact you hear every day. It's not possible. And so your discernment over time as to what ends up being fake news or real news or a combination of the two.

I mean, we're exhausted. Like your husband, you know, you Your husband said he's exhausted. He just can't do it anymore. And I get it. I, there have been many days where I relate to that.

Grace: 00:19:27

And that's what turns people off to politics. It's what makes people skeptical. because we all know now that you can go find any type of statistic that will support what you are trying to prove.

And you can create doubt. by just asking a question. Tucker Carlson is a perfect example of that by, you know, oh, I'm just asking questions. And ironically enough, Tucker Carlson, who loves to claim that he's a journalist, fought in court and won by saying he's actually not a journalist. He's an entertainment show.

And so he shouldn't be held to the standards. of journalism. And so that's where I think this has all taken a really bad left turn is legacy media trying to compete with new media by having, pundits on all the time and people like Tucker Carlson or, you know, really any of them where it's just, they're just trying to, to make a buck by selling commercials.

And the way that they have to do that is to create doubt. And that goes back to your quote of doubt is dangerous for democracy.

Katelyn: 00:20:33

Doubt is incredibly dangerous. And I think what sort of exacerbates this is social media. So you take a Tucker Carlson clip , which is supposed to be infotainment, and you translate it to social media into an echo chamber where it's constantly shared among individuals via an algorithm, and people see it over and over and over again.

And you only have to see it so many times before you start to actually believe it. And, you know, 62 percent of adult Americans are getting their news from social media, which, again, I am raising my hand. I get some of my news from social media. Do I have time every day to go and read about everything I see on social media?

Of course I don't. And so this is, this is where we're at. We are in a post truth era.

Grace: 00:21:31

Yeah. Well, and either AI can help fix it or AI is going to make it way, way worse.

Katelyn: 00:21:39

Oh my gosh. I don't even, well, AI is learning from what's on the internet, right?

Grace: 00:21:43

That's right. the irony is not lost on me that, we are here talking about, infotainment slash using statistics to prove your point. And yet, here we are in infotainment podcast using statistics to prove our points. Um, yes, totally. Well, I hope anyway that what we can do is Inform without using statistics to prove, one direction or the other is to use, a broad range of real information, to let everyone decide what they feel on those topics.

Katelyn: 00:22:21

I will say if you're interested in learning a lot more about this From people who have done much more research than myself a lot of what I'm talking about today is covered in an article from a book called the age of perplexity rethinking the world we knew and specifically from this chapter the new media's role in politics.

It's, it's super informative, but I think, basically what this article talks about is things started in the 80s really got more and more intense as the years have gone on. And now 40 years later, The gap between Democrats and Republicans on core political values, and that could be anything from safety nets to national security taxes, whatever is has grown to epic proportions in that two thirds of the of Americans fall solidly into a liberal or conservative camp.

So we used to be a country think I think full of moderates, at least we thought we were, and because of everything that's happened online, we are now not. And so I think part of the reason you and I are inspired to have these conversations is, how do we get back to that place where the majority of Americans are moderates and I think that comes back to humanity and our values as humans.

Grace: 00:23:43

Well, I also think. That this election might be the impetus to push that. You know what I mean? this election might be the one that people are like, I just, I'm just exhausted from this. And I am not this one thing or the other. I'm not a far right Republican.

I'm not a far left. I'm, I'm in the middle and you know, I have my views, but they don't all fit just perfectly into one side or the other. I just went to vote on policy, not on party. And hopefully, this is the peak of all of this political nonsense where people are so dug into their sides, or at least their, what they think is their identity with the sides, that they're now realizing that this particular party does not represent all of who I am.

Katelyn: 00:24:36

Yeah. I think fundamentally I agree with you and that's certainly where I stand. And then I think about what causes people to sit on these extreme sides, right? And I think really it comes down to fear and thus individual safety. And I don't think that we're in a time that is any different than any other in terms of people wanting to feel safe.

I mean, I think even as recently as the civil rights movement, there were many people who didn't feel safe and they fought very, courageously for the rights that they have today. And I don't think that's any different now. What I think is different is the way that, fear can be used and the intensity of a viral tweet, can put people in danger.

And I think, for instance, one of my personal experiences is I ran a child sexual abuse prevention nonprofit for seven years, um, and I've mentioned before, I am in fact a gay woman. And during my tenure, it became very. common for, the Republican Party to associate gay people with pedophilia. and, you know, as the leader of a prevention organization, first of all, it couldn't be farther from the truth that all gay people are pedophiles, but secondly it actually puts children who are being sexually abused at a higher rate of risk because you're scapegoating one portion of the population and the actual, group of individuals who is most often hurting children gets away scot-free in the public narrative.

Right. And so gay people are now at a higher risk because people are angry at them for abusing children. They're not abusing the individuals who are hurting children are not going, you know, the, the public narrative is wrong. And so when children come out and disclose, people don't necessarily believe them, which continues the hurt and you have people winning political campaigns on false information because they're promising that they're going to save children from gay people. And that's an emotional reaction. It has real world consequences.

Grace: 00:26:54

To your point, the reactionary policy that then takes us a step backward from solving the problem happens. every single day. For example, I just read, Governor Ron DeSantis, spoke yesterday in Miami beach. He backed legislation to battle homelessness by banning camping on city streets and parks. Okay. So if you want. I don't want homelessness to go away. Does that sound that great? That sounds like a great idea.

I don't, I don't want homeless people camping in streets and parks. Of course no one does, but by banning it, all that he's doing, and I don't know if you listened to the episode with Stacey Deneau of 180 Place, but she specifically addressed this. So by banning, camping, on streets and parks, all that you're doing is then making it illegal for someone who is already in a situation that they likely can't get out of to then be opened up to getting arrested.

Then they go through the courts. so that actually costs taxpayers more money than, than saves money. And it doesn't solve the problem. So to your point, he's using that bill to communicate that he's going to clean up our streets, but in fact, he's just costing more money and not using that money effectively to actually solve the problem. And I think that that's part of why there are some things that we can do, as contributing citizens to a functional society. When we hear policies like that, or hear people use extreme language, to actually settle our brain and get us through it.

And one of them is to listen with purpose, right? Like, what are you hearing that person actually say and dissect what they're saying? And is there anything worthwhile in what they're saying that I can take away? Or am I hearing something that Is just reactionary.

Katelyn: 00:29:03

I couldn't agree more.

I think if you are going to listen with purpose that also means you need to break up with your obsession with instant information. It is okay if you aren't the first to know something. Uh, and it is, you know, it's impossible this day and age. Um, to expect that a breaking story is the full story.

Most likely a breaking story is full of opinion because they're trying to fill seconds on television.

Grace: 00:29:34

Opinion and prediction, right? Like they're predicting what's, what the story will be. There's another thing that I think is really important for all of us to do, and that's understanding where our own biases are, and where our limitations of experience are, and then trying to expand, our understanding outside of what our life's limitations have been.

Katelyn: 00:30:01

And so if your bias sits in one side or another. How do you look internally as hard as it might be? How do you look internally and say, where can I find common ground? So how do we come to a place where we can question our own biases and not sort of stand on a moral high ground that prevents us from getting to the middle?

Grace: 00:30:26

Right. the last point that I would make on Good communication is flexibility is, is being able to listen to someone without immediately going back at them when you disagree with that first conversation with Will Folks, I think it's respectful to listen to someone like talk out exactly what they want to tell you and you don't always have to blow your opinion back at them.

You can just let their answer sit for itself. And on a platform like this, I think that's important because everyone can then take away their. thoughts from that. that's important without always hearing like, I need to hear both sides of the issue.

Yes, you do need to hear both sides of the issue. sometimes you just need to hear, an explanation of where someone is coming from. the point I'm trying to make is that I don't always appreciate that when one person says their opinion, another person has to immediately come back with their opposing side of the opinion. Sometimes it's better to just sit on it. Listen to it, um, apply it to your current beliefs and, and move on.

Katelyn: 00:31:46

I mean, listen. I moved down to the South seven years ago, and I think the journey for me here in the South has provided an opportunity for me to be a better American. I listen a lot more .

I, I am open to differing opinions. And, even though sometimes their opinions, borderline on, them not believing in who I am as a person, I still believe that I can find a commonality with somebody like that.

And just as much as I'm learning about their way of life, they're learning about me. the version of me that I want them to know is a version that allows them to process and walk through a journey. And that, there's a burden. There is an emotional burden associated with that. Um, from marginalized populations, I don't ignore that fact, but again, we're not going to come to center if we are not willing to have those conversations.

Grace: 00:32:49

Yeah. Okay. I mean, holy heavy day today, Katelyn, great God was not expecting us to go so deep in the heaviness. But man, I feel like I’ve just released a lot of my frustrations from the week, just to lighten it up. The other thing that I thought was really funny this week was, there's, there's a little bit of a hubbub about Nikki Haley's commercial where she's, basically typecasting older voters, right? And so there was a big, because she's saying the next person to win this election is the one who retires the 80 year old candidate.

It's been on repeat on my television over and over, even like 60 minutes, Sunday morning at Nikki Haley's commercial running. And there was a clip that I, I don't remember if it was on Fox news or on CNN, but that older voters in South Carolina are really offended by her.

Typecasting them and using the ages of the two candidates, as something like a negative. And then in the next breath, they start screaming about illegals, Come on. That's, they're, they're mad that they're being typecast, but then they refer to an entire group of people as illegals.

So again, it's back to communication. We need to start using words that aren't so, um, reactionary.

Katelyn: 00:34:12

Reactionary and offensive.

Grace: 00:34:13

Um, what do you have on your mind this week?

Katelyn: 00:34:19

So my whole nother thing, uh, is, I don't know if you watch the Grammys on Sunday, but I did.

Grace: 00:34:26

Of course I did. Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs. Oh my God.

Katelyn: 00:34:30

100%. That is what's on my mind and it's on my mind because of what you and I have been talking about so much.

There was an authenticity in the reverence in Luke Combs eyes for Tracy Chapman that did not go unnoticed.

Grace: 00:34:49

Coupled with her 100%

It just, that was the, the Grammy moment that our country needed. I think like it was literally, the moment of a white country man with an older black woman sharing a moment that wasn't. Um.

Katelyn: 00:35:15

An older queer Black woman.

Grace: 00:35:17

Older queer Black woman, I thought, Oh yes,

But yes, that was a moment as a person that worked in the music business, you literally can't create that on purpose. Like, I think. That, that was a hundred percent authentic and it showed so, so much and it also exposed like why the music business is a disaster because all of the other stuff felt so contrived and that was just such a genuine, um, moment of a total praise for this woman who didn't demand any of it.

Katelyn: 00:35:54

Exactly. I mean, I couldn't have said it better myself. Yeah.

Grace: 00:35:57

Well, I think we end on that note. Tracy Chapman. I mean, who knew after all these years? I love her. All right. So until next week, my friend, Katelyn, we will have plenty more to talk about.

That's all the stew for today.