Meredith for Real: the curious introvert 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
Host:
https://www.meredithforreal.com/
https://www.instagram.com/meredithforreal/
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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