first, news overload. do you feel it? i know you do, i hear it every day. we're inundated with information, saturated by stories and not just any stories but the craziest kind. we're overwhelmed by statements, submerged by sensationalism, buried by bad news. so we're left wondering where to go be what to believe and who to trust. thinking about this in the long view of history, this is a very, very new experience. for our grandparents, news was scarce. information was tightly controlled, really restrictive. in just a short period of time, the sources available to kings and presidents are now available to all of us any time, anywhere, in the palms of our hands. so if you ever find yourself feeling like it's hard to keep up, that's because it is hard. our brains, just like our bellies, were wired for scarcity and now we're surrounded by overabundance. i think that explains this fascinating finding from google at the end of this year. this insight is from google's top searches of 2021. the company said the world searched for answers about how to maintain mental health more than ever before this year. and the word doom skrecrolling searched more than ever before. these two things are related, doom controlling is the pandemic era phenomenon of skrooling and scrolling through negative news even though the stuff is up why setting and depressing. i know i have done it. you probably have to. one solution to the other hot search result about maintaining mental health is to change the way you scroll. contemplate the way you get and consume information. make sure you're in control, and that the news is not in control of you. make sure you're in control and not the app that's lighting up your screen. there's a farmer in california who's been on my mind lastly. he inspired me to talk about this. his name is david moss mass matto. his family grows nectarines, grapes, peaches. they're really big into peaches. a few months ago he wrote this, he said "bad has taken over my life. every day i hear bad news. these stories describe bad actions, bad people, bad outcomes. they dominate the news cycle. they overwhelm my senses." the president said, the modern world news is full of badness and it increases with the media and technology. phones buzz and beep with the latest bad news. he wrote, the truth can be lost in this print. facts are twisted by the world in pace of the race. judgmentists struggle in a world that doesn't seem to want voracity, verification and evidence. he's right. and this problem is not unique to journalists. everyone else struggles with it too. what's the antidote, what's the cure for news overload? a big part of the answer is old-fashioned editors, curators, new fangled newsletter writers, producers, managers, people who are skilled at separating news from noise. we need them more than ever before. now with pe here in new york are two of those leaders who do it every day, alessandra galloni is the editor and chief of and julia pace is editor and chief of associated press. these are two of the biggest newspapers in the world and both rivals. thank you for coming together for your first joint interview. >> you just called us saviors! >> it's good. >> we're good rivals. >> i want to start with news overload. both of you were promoted to these new jobs this year. how do you personally keep up with the torrent of news? julie, you first, how do you keep up with the flood? >> i think it is a flood. we're living in an unprecedented moment not just in terms of technology but in terms of the scale of the news stories in front the of us, pandemic certainly. so i do think it's important for us in these leadership positions to think about our mission add broad and deep. we want to make sure we're covering stories from around the world and varied in our content and we want to make sure we're identifying the story that are the most important stories to a global audience and going really deep on them. that's threats to democracy, climate change, certainly the pandemic. both the virus and how we live coming out of the pandemic. >> right. >> and signaling to the audience this is a topic that is global, that links people around the world and we're going to be multilayered in our approach to that coverage. >> the pandemic is a great example. alessandra, i feel like every day i read ten stories about covid and five contradict the other five. we get so many different signals every day about the pandemic. how do you try to separate news from noise? >> we always try to cover what matters and what is consequential just because something is out there does not mean it's newsworthy. it does not mean it adds to what we already know. >> right. >> and we believe that news done well, that trusted news, helps people make decisions, helps people lead their lives better but to do that, you need to give them information that is important to them. this is true at sort of a cosmic level, a national level, but it's true at an individual level. so wearing a mask, not wearing a mask, getting vaccinated or not, these are individual decisions that trusted information can help you make. >> beyond the pandemic, if that's possible, what were the other biggest stories of your year, julie? >> it's kind of remarkable to think about it, but the january 6th insurrection was this year, and i think it also symbolized about threats to democracy and that is happening in the united states, but it's also happening around the world. i think as the story line for 2021 and also as we push into 2022 and beyond, i think that's something you're going to see us focus on. we want to be really clear with people about the threats that we are seeing in the two democratic institutions. we want to try to amplify who is behind them, expose the money and the powerful forces that are behind these efforts because i think this is one of the great challenges of our time right now. >> can you be full throated about the reality? can you call out gop extremism for what it is? >> i think we have been extremely clear when we talk about, for example, the realities of the 2020 election. that was a free and fair election. there was ample evidence to back that up and we are consistent in making that clear. every time we wrote a story, we put that evidence forward. i think it is to your point, there's so much information out there for people to consume, that we have to recognize they're not reading everything they're putting out. so it does make putting the facts forward very important so to engage on one story for this topic, they will get facts. >> alessandra, do you have a democracy beat? you have news reporters but we need democracy reporters? >> we cover democracy and less democracies in many countries around the world and what we do is try to discover it in the same way. we are trying to not have our own -- any political bent or our own views but this holds for all of the countries that we report on. you mentioned what other issues are really important, the global economy as we come out pivoting from the pandemic, the global economy as we come out of the emergency cache that was pushed into the global economy, how countries are going to wiped that down without having a slowdown of global economic growth, and then inflation, of course. there are many countries with young people who are now voting for the first time who have never seen the levels of inflation we have now. i think germany, for example. how that played out. by the way, aggravated by the supply chain bottlenecks we've seen as a result of the pandemic and not only, this is going to be a huge team for everybody, which, again, is a very international issue but hits people on the ground in many countries where we are. >> and all roads lead back to covid still. >> they do. i think the covid story evolves next year as we look ahead. there's still the question of the virus itself, variants we see, ways in which countries deal with the spikes in cases. but there's an impact on how we live and that's an economic story because the pandemic is linked to the economy. it's return to offices. how does that actually look in practice es. what happens with the way we're interacting with each other. there's a cultural element to it as well. it is global and i think that's a real opportunity of global news organizations to think about how we're connecting policy to people. and explaining, you know, what people are seeing in front of them. >> are your staff back in the office? >> we're trying. >> same here. >> we're trying. the thing is it's different because we have to abide by the local regulations of the countries we operate in. that's first and foremost, local laws. we're trying to roll back. we said we're going back in a hybrid fashion for the foreseeable future but, obviously, with omicron and new variants, that's proving hard to do. i don't know if you will keep on covid but it's interesting because i think covid really showed us the importance of what you started with, which is in this deluge of news, trusted information when it is a matter of life-and-death decisions and sometimes it is life-and-death decisions, where the difference between the partition between what is trusted and what is not trusted. >> vaccine disinformation is actively prolonging the pandemic. this has been a problem all year long. it's harder to get back to offices, harder to get back to normal with all of this disinformation. how do you approach that in the newsroom? >> we've been very clear in our coverage that vaccines are safe and we try to make sure that we are providing that scientific evidence repeatedly in different forms, narrative stories, in explainers, in q&as. we try to make sure we're giving people that information. now, look, we're not going to make -- we're not going to take a stand on mandates, for example. we're not going to take a stand on decisions that politicians want to take to try to deal with vaccines and the cases but we're going to give people information to make their own decisions. i think that's very important. >> on screen right now, this is on screen, your not news feature. you all pushlly go through and say you're the stories who are not use and are distractions of misinformation. >> i will tell you, we have no shortage of items to pick from to fill that feature and it's been one of our most popular. people are craving this clarity. they're in kind of a wind tunnel of information. it's coming at them from all sides. it's hard to separate what is real and what is not. when we talk about just ways we can deal with it, this was a real simple one. this is not news. here why. >> the idea about trust, can you trust accurate, reliable information, do you end up following for fake news? how do we bridge the trust gap? we know every leader knows the problem. what are the active steps users can take? >> there are a number of ways can you do it internally or externally. internally news organizations such as ours, we go to great lengths to fact check our own information. by the way, that is true about the reporting we do ourselves and increasingly it is true from information, user-generated content we get from elsewhere. we put it through the same verification as we do from our own stories. that is a big part of it. we use numbers, data. the data is out there. that was very important during covid, especially sort of in the first year when governments were not coming clean around the world as to what the real numbers were of infection rates, of death rates. so that's what we can do. another thing we internally can do, and this is very important for trusted information, when you make a mistake, correct it. and all of the studies have journalism show that those news organizations that are fast at correcting when they realize they made a mistake have higher trust from the public at large. there are many things we can do. one last thing that was added is education, right, because you want to raise a new generation of consumers, of viewers, of usesors of news to be discerning to understand themselves to go look for the facts and to go look for the data. >> and i think this is important we would love to see us as news organizations pull back the curtain a little bit more. i think when people get a glimpse how seriously we take the facts, how seriously we take getting it right and how much effort goes into what you end up seeing on screen, whether it's on your phone or on television, we want to get it right. and when we get it wrong -- that hits hard when you get it wrong. >> right. >> i think people would -- i would hope what if they saw more of the process that goes into this, they would be more confident this is not the personal opinion of journalists or pushing an agenda. these are journalists who care deeply about accurate information and making sure they're informing the public. i would like to see us do a little more about explaining what happens behind the scenes. i think that would help build trust. >> there's a lot more to talk about. let's fit in a quick break. we will talk about a monumental shift in america's newsrooms, really global newsrooms, that happened in 2021. also, the community to protect journalists, but what's going on from hong kong to 34e678 cocity? 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[echoing] get a quote today. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ ray loves vacations. but his diabetes never seemed to take one. everything felt like a 'no'. everything. but then ray went from no to know. with freestyle libre 2, now he knows his glucose levels when he needs to. and... when he wants to. so ray... can be ray. take the mystery out of your glucose levels, and lower your a1c. now you know. try it for free. visit freestylelibre.us a long overdue change is under way in many newsrooms in the united states and around the world, newsrooms that have been long dominated by men, mostly white men, are finally seeing more and more diversity and more women in leadership positions. let me show you ten examples from 2021, women taking charge of newsrooms like vox and huff post and reuters and the ap and others. back with me, two of those editors, julie pace of the associated press and alessandra galloni of reuters. you're both now the top editors of two of the biggest, most important outlets in the world. alessandra, you're the first woman to hold that title. what was that like for you and reuters? >> utterly cool. no, i mean, look, it's a huge honor for me, especially as i started as a baby, as a cub reporter at reuters, and then left and then came back. so it was a huge honor. but it's also a responsibility, right, because i think that no news organization is really credible anymore unless we inside look like our -- the world that we cover and our viewers and our readers and our consumers. and so it's a huge responsibility for me to say, our newsroom now has to change and has to follow that, has to be like the world that is outside. and i feel it more because i am the first woman. so a huge honor and a huge responsibility. >> and it's been many newsroom, first african-american leading abc news, many examples. julie, at the ap, you followed in the steps of kathleen care rolle and sally busby. the ap was ahead of this curve. what has it been like for you? >> i'm really proud to have been the 24ird straight woman to hold this position and the ap has been ahead of the curve when it comes to promoting women. i'm very proud of the steps we made through diversity whiek acknowledging we, as every organization, has a lot of room to grow in this regard. i think it's really important we think about that in every hire that we make, in every story or conversation. do we have the right voices at the table? it's one thing to have your staff on diversity and it's another thing to make sure you're actually putting the right voices in the room when you're having those story discussions, when you're having discussions about growth opportunity in the newsroom. we're hiring at ap a director of talent to help us do that. for our external recruitment and staff internally, we're constantly thinking about growth, we're talking about thinking about inclusion and belonging. that's important. to alessandra's point, those of us in the leadership roles and i love the photo of the ten women, that we're thinking about who we're bringing up behind us too. it's great we had this progress over the last year. it's more important to make sure that progress is maintained. >> that's certainly a priority in 2022. what are your other priorities for the coming year? >> we have a few priorities when it comes to our coverage. one, climate change. i think this is one of the existential crises facing the planet now. we're facing more resources and hiring reporters around the globe to make sure we devote the proper attention to this coverage area. i think democracy continues to be one of our major coverage areas and then just the question where the world goes coming out of the pandemic. i think we need to be open-minded about what the world looks like and really responsive to the questions our audiences are going to have about this very uncertain future. >> without giving too much away to the ap, what about reuters? >> state secrets. look, i would add esg related to climate issues to a certain extent but investing is going through major overhauls. companies, governments are being really careful to how investors, industries, you know, spend their money. central bankers are pushing for sustainable investment instead of carrot-and-stick approach. i would add that. and then add around the world there are still hot spots that often go uncovered. ethiopia this year has been a big story and it continues to be one and it's important that the world look at it. we've devoted a lot of time in ethiopia this past year. and we need to be there because if we're not, then these -- the world doesn't know and policymakers can't act. >> is it getting harder and harder to be in this repressive parts of the world? >> yes, it's hard and the threats are different. there's the physical threats, obviously, on the ground in particular in conflict zones. there's also the threat, the online threat, increasingly, especially, against women. this is something we fpay particular attention to now. the trolling that happens when you're in a place covering a story is pretty horrific. >> one thing that's important to note in a place like ethiopia, the government has taken steps to restrict independent news coverage. it's not stopping the reporting, it's making it harder but it's important to know it's not stopping the reporter. journalists do incredible work, get incredibly creative and sources risk their lives to continue to provide information. what we continue to see governments try to restrict the access of free and independent journalists, that does not stop us from doing our important work. >> it's interesting, bringing you back to the very beginning when you talked about the deluge of information, we get a deluge of information but there are many countries that do not get the deluge of information. for example, in myanmar we had two of our reporters now quite a few years ago spent a long time in jail -- >> and one of ours earlier this year. >> yes. when you hear them talk now alone, one of the reporters i spoke to recently, he was spoking to some students, and he said, i wanted to do this work, to tell what was happening against the ha ringia minority because we did not have this information. and i became a journalist because i felt my government was not allowing us to disseminate information. while we're inundated and other places there's a drip-drip. and that makes our job really important. >> julie and alessandra, thank you both for the preview of the coming year. >> thank you. coming up here when it comes to press freedom, 2021 was a record-breaking year in the worst possible way. we will have details right after this. this is how it feels to know you have a wealth plan that covers everything that's important to you. this is what it's like to have a dedicated fidelity advisor looking at your full financial picture. making sure you have the right balance of risk and reward. and helping you plan for future generations. this is "the planning effect" from fidelity. go long! oh god, they'll never let us back in here. i'm james corden and i'm here to tell people that ww is getting even more personal. ahh! the new ww personalpoints program is particular to you. you can eat pizza. you can even eat this, if you want to. and these... in the same... i mean, not at the same time, i wouldn't do them at the same time. no two plans are the same. when can i start? join today for 50% off at ww.com. hurry, offer ends december 27th. with directv stream i can get live tv and on demand anywhere. look, serena williams... matrix... serena... matrix... serena... matrix... ♪ ♪ ♪ get your tv together with the best of live and on demand. introducing directv stream. if you wanna look fresh, fresh. you gotta eat fresh. eat fresh. that's why subway bought time in my shampoo ad. to talk about the new baja chicken & bacon. body, bounce, and baja. bounce. eat fresh. xfinity rewards are our way of thanking you just for being with us. enjoy rewards like sing family fun nights! rent sing for $1 then belt out all your favorite tunes from the movie with sing karaoke. plus, see sing 2 in theaters with buy-one-get-one free fandango tickets. join over a million members by signing up for free on the xfinity app. our thanks. your rewards. we must hold the line. that's what maria nessa said as she accepted the nobel peace prize earlier this month. she said she accepted this for every journalist around the world forced to sack ra feese to bring the truth. ressa is holding the line along with so many others. the committee to protect journalists is always keeping track of press to threats of freedom. there's quite a disturbing finding from some of the most dangerous countries from the media. the report shows the number of journalists behind bars hit an awful new record high nearing 300 from china to belarus. all around the world, the state of press freedom is perilous. one person who's been at the helm of this mission since 2006, executive director joel signham, he's stepping down at the end of the week but first he's joining me here for a report card, of sorts. >> thank you for having me on. >> i hate to be the bearer of bad news but what is changing? why is the landscape getting darker? >> the bad news is unavoidable. there's a argument over who controls the battle and wages this all around the world. we see record numbers of journalists be around the world and set records year after year and every year we see a new record. every year we see violence against journalists with impunity. the landscape in which journalists operate around the world have never been more perilous or dangerous. we're on a crossroads. >> on the subject of jurntists behind bars, let's look at five of the worst jailers of journalists. what's the number one country on top of that bad list? >> china is the number one jailist of journalists. but what's alarming, so many crackdowns, new countries like myanmar, a place where we saw progress, and it's become now one of the most repressive -- among the leading jailers of journalists. >> because of the military coup. >> because of the military coup. >> belarus. >> belarus, the ongoing crackdown on independence, media, civil society as luke schenckia clings to power, judgists being caught up in sweeping crackdowns, ethiopia, governments are deploying the full power of the state against independent journalist and that's why we are seeing record numbers year after year. >> typical violence that i mentioned mexico city earlier, mexico we are continuing to see awful numbers of journalists killed in mexico. >> yes. mexico has the highest death toll of any country in the hemisphere. it's another country which year after year the forces of violence, drug traffickers largely in collusion and protected by government that are responsible for this violence and this is true around the world, brian, corruption. that is the most dangerous story, and not just corrupt individuals but next works of government that protect organized crime and corruption in so many countries around the world, that's becoming incredibly important and incredibly dangerous story to cover. >> i have to ask, does this mean the committee is failing, it's getting worse out there? >> i think, brian, it would be so much worse without our efforts. we have made a huge impact every year. dozens of journalists are freed from prison as a result of our efforts. every year we fight for justice and we've seen more convictions in the killers of journalists. i think what we have to recognize, and this is something i have perspective on because i have been doing this for a long time, we're up against tremendously powerful forces. this is the information age, and we are in a kind of millennial battle over who controls information. >> yes. >> who controls it? that's the power struggle. and so governments recognize, repressive governments but even democratic governments, that this is an essential tool they need to maintain power and journalists are their adversaries. so it's not a failure of cpj and our colleagues in the press community, i could not be more proud of the work we've done, but i recognize that we are in a battle for the soul of democracy, a battle for over who controls information and it will go on for a long time. >> look in the u.s. the number of reporters awq rested eachqq year, intolerable numbers of reporters that get swepted up during protests and other events and end up behind bars, even in the united states. we asked you, joel, what were your top accomplishments you were most proud of. let's put it on the screen. you said creating the cpj emergency response team. what does that team do? >> that team makes sure journalists around the world are able to work safely. we provide life-saving safety information and we respond when journalists face direct threats, we evacuate them from countries around the world, we help support families in jail, we have worked in afghanistan and syria. this is life-saving work. i couldn't be more proud of our team. >> you were busy in afghanistan this fall getting folks out. is this still going on, members of the media and news outlets stuck in afghanistan? >> there are. the situation for them is grim. the taliban recently announced they're not letting anyone leave without a visa for another country. those are virtually impossible to get. some journalists are able to smuggle themselves across the border into pakistan but the situation on the ground is bleak and there are very few prospects for the journalists left behind. >> very worrisome year. >> terrible, terrible situation. >> you're leaving your post after so many years. do you have a view of what you want to do next? yeah, i want to stay in this fight, brian. it's been so important to me and so essential. and i have a new role -- but i see myself in a rnew role and that's more as a researcher and writer, and i will be at the tao center of columbia school and knight senter at colombia and doing research on long-term threats of press freedom. the cpj role is an emergency role. every day. every day we have to respond to these crises. i think we need to step back and i we need to take a look at what are the structural challenges. i'm looking to create a new academic center focused on these issues and bring the academic resources to the struggle. that's how i think i can contribute. >> joel, thank you very much for your service. >> thank you, brian. always a pleasure to be with you. after the break, a related story about one member of the media's escape from afghanistan earlier this year. he's starting a new life now in the u.s. and he joins me next. it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. his name is mohammad and for his family's safety, we're not going to be using his last name. working as a translator for the u.s. army in afghanistan made mohammad a marked man, target of taliban threat. he said he was always in danger, just walking down the street or going to the market. as the united states was pulling out of afghanistan earlier this year, mohammad started working as a trains nslator with cnn. wet help of the network, he was able to leave kabul, and is now resettled in atlanta where he's working at the newsdesk as a researcher. and he's here with me now. i have so many questions. first, i'm glad to see you here. tell me what the last couple of months have been like in the u.s. >> i'm glad too, thank you. i really appreciate it. i'm quite excited for my life. it's just a brand-new life and i just want to say i'm humbly grateful god kept me alive. and it's a second life we started. i'm so excited. >> going back in time for working with the u.s. army and working with cnn. why did you want to work with cnn in afghanistan this year? >> obviously, i would say i love to work with the media. everyone would love to work with the media, especially a traditional media. the media always had an effect on our lives and we say keep us wise against the threats and difficulties. that's why absolutely, cnn, when i started working with cnn, it was wonderful and hi no way to get out from qatar to germany and germany to washington state and washington state to wisconsin and finally touch down in atlanta. so i'm quite lucky. >> what would have happened if you had not been evacuated, if you had not been able to be on that plane and you were still in afghanistan today? >> this is the only thing that some time even at midnight wakes me up and i can't imagine where i would be, would i be alive or dead? in total, i just say i can't imagine if i didn't make it to the u.s., i can't imagine what would happen to me, to my life. you can see the situation in afghanistan, it's just not only for the security reason. there's a lot of people who are dyeing from hunger. there's a lot of people and parents selling their kids. there's a lot -- i mean, the situation is totally disaster, horrible, and i can't imagine what would happen to me if i didn't make it to the u.s. >> and now you're working with cnn and this is an example of what can be possible, that you're able to now start a new life. i wish you all of the best. look, we're all here to help now that we're colleagues. >> yeah, i just really want to appreciate the way cnn helped me and i just want to thank you. thank you, i really appreciate it. it is my honor to be here and working with cnn. it's not easy. it's always tough, and it's always hard but it's all for you guys and i want to appreciate your help and support and thank you for that. >> thank you, mohammad. great talking with you. coming up on "reliable sources," from global to local news, what you need to know about how newsrooms really work. and what happens when a humor website spoof hits really close to home, like the president's home, to be specific? the editor and chief of "the onion" will tell us. 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"the onion" fears no one, president biden, donald trump, democrats, republicans, cnn, all have been subject of the satirical website's snarky takes. the outlet relies on a certain amount of media late rasy, because to understand what's funny about the news, you must also understand the news. the jokes land because they contain germs of truth. take this onion parody from october alluding to the vice president being sidelined being strained by president biden's team. white house urges vice president kamala harris to sit at the computer all day it case it becomes true. it was taken so that some of her defenders and allies passed around the article. it's been in business 25 years now and celebrating the anniversary by getting serious for a minute -- well, maybe. chad nackers has been editor and chief of "the onion" since 2017 and he's joining me now. chad, thank you for coming on. >> thank you for having me. pleasure to be here. >> what was it like when you read one of your articles about the vice president was being passed arrange by aides, not really taking seriously but echoing how they feel and what's actually going on? >> it's great to know people in the white house are actually reading, you know, decent journalism for a change. i think that's something to feel good about. >> i figured you might say that. so you take the position that "the onion" is the only source of real news? >> yeah, we are, in this time of misinformation and people spreading lies, "the onion" is one of the few publications that's shining a light on the real truth. >> you probably never expected a trump presidency, so how did you all approach the trump years? >> you know, we just kind of had to go with the flow with that because he's so unpredictable, and you try to cover it the best you can but, you know, it's -- it was pretty insane for the most part. >> one of the recurring stories "the onion" publishes again and again is the headline, i will put it on the screen, it says "no way to prevent this, says the only nation where this regularly happens." and this is something you publish after mass shootings. i wonder how this started, because it's now become a phenomenon where folks look for this and they know to expect it and it's a very sharp criticism of america's gun problem. but did it start? >> it originally started as one article, and then we had a meeting and decided that this is like kind of the comment that works and repeating it very effective when you change the slight details and it keeps running. i mean, at one point i think we had to run it twice in a day which is incredibly sad. and part of it is too that that aspect, no one really loved having to come up with new takes on mass shootings like every single week. it's incredibly depressing. >> right. so rerunning it is both a solution and also a statement about america's crisis. >> yes, yes. and it's very effective especially in the old cms of our website, it would of on come up back to back so you can scroll and see multiple articles and you can just see how many times this is happening and just to show that nothing is being done. >> right. i have to wonder how often do you get messages from people who believe your articles are real, take them seriously? >> it's been going on -- i have been at "the onion" since 1997 and there's always somebody who believes our articles. >> are people getting more gullible over time? . >> i would say this is the fault of social media, is that people are seeing things out of context. that's like a huge reason fake news spreads. you're not getting full context, if something is a joke or made up, it's hard to know what's going on. >> what the "the onion" be covering next year? >> i'm hoping we're covering that the pandemic is winding its way down for good. you know, i would like to see a return to normalcy. that's where we function the best, is when you have a baseline of things are normal and you can work off of that. >> right. i think we'd all like that. then you can make even more jokes. chad, thanks so much. >> thank you. all right. now back to real news. you have questions about the media, and we have answers. we're going to dig into our inbox and answer media misconceptions in a moment. fine, no one leaves the table until your finished. fine, we'll sleep here. ♪ it's the easiest because it's the cheesiest. kraft. for the win win. with directv stream i can get live tv and on demand anywhere. look, serena williams... matrix... serena... matrix... serena... matrix... ♪ ♪ ♪ get your tv together with the best of live and on demand. introducing directv stream. where's mom? she said she would be home in time for the show. don't worry, sweetie. she promised she'd be here for it. ooh! nice shot! thanks! glad we have xfinity, with wifi speed faster than a gig! me too! woah, look! mom is on tv! she's amazing! (cheers) xfinity brought us together, after all! power your whole home this holiday with wifi speeds faster than a gig. click, call, or visit a store today. sing 2 media mail bag time. every week i hear from viewers who want to know more about how the media really works. why are some stories covered so much more than others? why are there so many screw-ups and slipups? with me now, journalist mara schiavocampo host of "run, don't tell this." you know how the sausage is made. what questions do you get from your audience. what do you think are the most common media misconceptions? >> the single most one is we are lying. there's a lot of media mistrust. here is what i would love to correct. we are human. we make mistakes. when what they're pointing to is a mistake, not an intentional lie. we don't have malicious intent. most journalists by and large take great pride in getting things right. it's tremendously shameful to make a mistake, and they own up to it very quickly. if you see a mistake, it's generally the result of human error. you're moving too fast, bad sources. too many cooks in the kitchen. >> what do you mean? >> if you're working with multiple producers at different places in the field, especially with breaking news. someone is calling this government official, someone is doing this. then you get into a game of telephone and gathering information. you're working against deadlines. mistakes can be made. we're all human. our intention is to get it right and get it first. >> it's almost always innocent, right? especially these days with the pandemic and people working in different places, you might have four editors in four different places and a typo ends up in a story just because of the crazy work flow. >> people will tweet you what an idiot you are. a little kindness can go a long way. we don't mean to make those kind of mistakes. >> why isn't the media covering this story? there's breaking news. it happened a half hour ago. i see it all over twitter. >> i find it very often the answer is we're trying, we're getting ready. it takes time to get crews to the scene, to get live shots established. it takes time to verify the information and find out if the story is actually a big deal. that's something viewers should want. it can be confusing when you're on social media and it looks like something crazy is happening and we haven't confirmed it yet. >> that's the key, verification times time. if you see it on x outlet, you can take it to the bank because they always get it right. that's what every news outlet wants to be known for. it takes time to varp phi facts and information before you go public. that's often what the delay is about. >> what's the next question you get most often? >> another one is political bias. people will say this group is too liberal, too right wing. here is the beauty of the space we're in. we know the political biases of most of the outlets we're looking at and we know the ones straight down the middle. for instance, joanne reid at msnbc is a plowed progressive. they know outlets that consider themselves to be in the middle. what ironic is journalists are aware of our own political biases. we're not robots. often we'll overcompensate where we have a little skin in the game, emotional attachment, we'll overcompensate to make sure the other side gets a fair amount of coverage and gets explained properly. in my view, when we do have a political bias, it's the other view that actually benefits from that because we're trying to counter our own human impulses. >> i get questions about bias, fox news, why isn't the government intervening, why isn't the fcc taking action? >> the answer is the fcc has no oversight of cable at all. there's no action that can be taken. given the proud history of a free press in the united states, the less government involvement the better i think is safe to say. >> i would agree with that 100%. people have to keep in mind, the founders of this country put freedom of the press in the first amendment, not the second, not the tenth, the first. that's how important it is to democracy. >> holding back the real story, do you find that's true? >> this is what i get when i'm out. at a cocktail party or with my family and they'll say, hey, what's the real story behind x? the truth is we want to include as much detail as possible. we don't withhold anything that is verified and reportable. if we're not reporting something, it's because it's unreliable. >> i think increasingly we need to be honest about what we don't know, especially in breaking news situations. here is what we know, but here is what we don't know. the pandemic has been full of unknowns. we have to be honest about the unknowns. >> we're really in the age of transparency, thanks in large to social media. the public expects the same thing from the mainstream press. we actually can do a how much better job at that, in opening up that lens a little bit because that's what people expect. they expect to peek behind the curtain, not have the powers that be only show what they want to see. >> mara, thanks for being here. >> thank you. happy new year. >> speaking of transparency, look me up on facebook, twitter, email me, bsltelter. we'll see you next year. happy new year. toxic culture, as we approach the anniversary of january 6th, the atmosphere on capitol hill has gone from hostile to a breaking point. >> i've never seen anything like this before. >> two friends and colleagues trying to change things, democrat debbie dingell and republican fred upton are here. and betrayal. she stood by her man time and time again. now she opens up about what changed and the surprising response from so many who empathized.