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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, and for our last few minutes today, we will use the decimation of the Washington Post newsroom as we continue to hook to the First Amendment and what's happening to the press, as Professor Bollinger was talking about, similar to what's happening to universities. Use the decimation of the Washington Post newsroom as a hook to open up the phones on this question. Where do you get your news? News, not opinion, and has that changed for you? This is the core question. Has that changed for you in the last year since President Trump took office for his second term? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call, or you can text.
Again, we'll use the decimation of the Washington Post newsroom as a hook to open up the phones on this question. Where do you get your news, news, not opinion, that may be any different for you than it was a year ago? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. You can call, or you can text. Now, obviously, for many of you, WNYC is one of those sources because you're listening right now, but we're not fishing for compliments. We want to know where else you're getting your news, news, not opinion, and if that has changed in the last year. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Call us or text us.
Many of you out there right now, I wonder, or I wonder if some of you out there right now should be, is a better way to put it, are among the thousands who have canceled Washington Post subscriptions in particular. The numbers are really large. I don't have it in front of me, but it's many, many thousands of people since they started changing their editorial policies a year ago under Amazon owner and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. Now they've laid off 300 people from the newsroom. In any of those waves, if you specifically have canceled the Washington Post subscription, what, if anything, did you add?
212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or more generally, have you been feeling like the universe of trustworthy mainstream news sources has shrunk? Obviously, part of the reason that we're asking this question right now is that the last year has been tumultuous for some of the big names in legacy media under this kind of pressure from the government. If you don't know this latest from the Washington Post, last week, under Bezos, they laid off a third of the reporting staff is the number that I've seen, eliminating 300 newsroom jobs. That drastically reduces the number of reporters in regions like Ukraine, China, and the Middle East.
For some examples of people who lost their jobs, they've also closed several foreign bureaus around the world, that in addition to eliminating their sports desk and book coverage. You know things have been controversial at CBS as well. At the same time, other legacy outlets, broadcast and print, have also gone through rounds of cuts and newsroom shakeups just from market forces. In fairness, that was one factor for the Washington Post, too, which has been losing a lot of money, reportedly, but they didn't have to respond in exactly the way they did. It's all reshaping, though, what traditional news looks like in legacy outlets like TV, radio, and newspapers.
This comes against the backdrop of a long-standing decline in local news. One stat since 2005, according to Northwestern University's Local News Initiative, nearly 40% of local US newspapers have disappeared. Our question, how have you adapted your news habits, and where do you actually get your news, not opinion, these days? Has that changed for you in the last year since President Trump took office for his second term? Call or text 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. We'll take your calls and texts right after this.
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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with the question how has where you get your news, news, not opinion, changed over the last year? We have a couple people actually canceled Washington Post subscriptions. Lucy in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lucy.
Automated: This message has been transcribed. One moment while I notify--
Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Lucy AI from Westchester County, Suzanne in Black Rock, Connecticut, you're on WNYC. Hello, Suzanne.
Suzanne: Good morning. I hope you are well. I continue to feel deprived of the news, but I stopped watching television over a year ago, and I canceled my Washington Post subscription a week ago. The places I get the news are from BBC, and I listen to NPR, which I obviously commute when there's anything that relates to Trump. I feel left out, and I feel very sad for the country because although some of these venues could be challenged to say they speak to the choir, but how do we recruit new people to even consider the choir if there's no reporting?
Brian Lehrer: Suzanne, thank you very much. There are a lot of new outlets, like on Substack, and I think Jay in Brooklyn wants to talk about some of them. Jay, you're on WNYC. Hi.
Jay: Hi, Brian. I read Heather Cox Richardson every day, and she's great. She's a historian. She was on your show last year in March. She really grounds us where we are relative to history, which I think is missing from the churn of daily news. It's just hard to follow where we are in a particular moment. There are other substacks, too, I believe G. Elliott Morris has stuff about polling and data, among others. There's another Substack. I cannot remember the name, but they have international news and stuff about the Epstein files, which you wouldn't read in the Times. I don't know if [crosstalk]
Brian Lehrer: Maybe it's Seteyo. Are you thinking of Seteyo?
Jay: [crosstalk unverified. No, I think it's an international focus. It'll come to me. There are a few of those where they can break stories faster. I guess maybe they don't have the same standards necessarily as the Times in terms of verifying things, so you have to take it with a grain of salt.
Brian Lehrer: Jay, I'm going to leave it there and get other people on. Thank you. I think we have the real human Lucy in Westchester now. Lucy, you're on WNYC again.
Lucy: I am there. Can you hear me?
Brian Lehrer: Yes.
Lucy: No, I echo the other callers. I have been a subscriber for decades. Last year, I was upset with the Washington Post, but I just hung in there, and then last week, I just said, "I've had enough." Jeff Bezos has ruined the paper. I'm sure that Katharine Graham is spinning in her grave. It's just appalling. You know what I wish? I wish. I wish Melinda Gates, MacKenzie Scott, and Kara Swisher would buy the paper.
Brian Lehrer: [laughs] What have you replaced it with so far, if anything?
Lucy: I haven't replaced it with anything. I still continue to get news, as others have said. I read Heather Cox Richardson almost daily. You know, I go to the Guardian, I go to the BBC, I go to the New York Times. I listen to MSNBC, but don't want to be categorized as "Oh, yes, she's far left centrist." I was explaining that to somebody else the other day. They said, "You're so far left." I said, "I'm not. I've always been the same person. I've always been a fiscal conservative and a social moderate." The Republican Party has moved so far right that when I take inventory of my values, I guess I'm a Democrat these days.
Brian Lehrer: Lucy, thank you very much. Let me get one more in here. Neil in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Neil. Did Neil hang up on us? Bye, Neil. Jackie in the East Village here on WNYC. Hi, Jackie.
Jackie: Hi, Brian. What I'm about to say is actually the reason why I listen to WNYC, because I was calling in to say that I have noticed over the last year, other than WNYC, I get my news from the Guardian and the Irish Star, because I've become audio and visual sensitive. I've been reduced to staying up on up with what's going on from the Samsung news feed on my phone. I can only read certain articles that are based on the headline because they've been tracking the relationship of the headline to the actual article. 10 out of 10, hands down, I know now what the article of Fox is going to be based on their headline, and what I can get from some American news sources.
The people who win that are aligned with WNYC is the Irish Star and the Guardian. Having listened to the segment is point two, this is the reason why I listened to WNYC, because, to the point of the last caller who's canceled the subscription, absolutely--
Brian Lehrer: We're out of time, Jackie. Thank you for your call. Thanks to all of you who called with your news sources.
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