host: -- >> washington journal continues. host: welcome back. we are joined by tim graham, the news busters executive director at the media research program. can you tell us about news busters? guest: news busters started in 2005 as a product of the media research center. the media research center was

founded in 1987. i've been there since 1989. we have been at this a while. we are not anti-news. we are news watchers. we are recording all of the news programming on broadcasting table. we are capturing streaming services to monitor news and the way the news comes out to people. what they are covering, what they are not covering and how they are covering it, all of those things. host: you say you watch out for media bias. how do you define that? guest: in the old days, there was this idea that media was supposed to be subjective with fair coverage of both sides. we have a list of things where we find media bias by how much time you give to something in the newspaper. where do you put the story? is it the front page or is it buried? conservatives are

ultraconservatives, liberals and democrats are called anything. these sorts of patterns. this this, what stories are they not telling you? here are stories that might appear in the new york post or they might appear on a website that the regular media are ignoring. there are biases like that and that's generally what we post on our website. host: where do you get your funding? guest: there's lots of citizens across the■ country, lots of conservative citizens who are concerned about this issue. we also have some foundation donors. i don't really read the annual report to know who they are at this moment. but we definitely have some passionate supporters that fund this. you mentioned you have broadcast and streaming. what about things like social media posts? guest: yes, if the social media

person is a journalist. yeah, we did create a free-speech america project to focus on social media in the sense of how the big tech platforms are being used or being suppressed and suppressing people. we remember in the 2020 campaign for the new york post toward her account got struck -- shut down for 17 days after they published hunter biden's story. that's the kind of story we would do in free-speech america to talk about big tech censoring conservative accounts of social media. host: i want to bring up polling from gallup about partisan trust in mass media, which is pretty low and has been falling. media confidence in the united states, matching 2016 record lows, according to gallup. the percentage of people with a great deal or fair amount of trust or confidence in mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly since

gallup started gathering this data in 1973, and if we go all the way up to 2023, it's down to 11% for republicans. 29% for independents. 58% for democrats. what do you think explains that low confidence in mass media? guest: when 58% of democrats like the media and 11% of republicans do, that often tell you who the democrats think the media is helping. i think the key part is fully accurately and fairly. the whole idea of fair and balanced coverage has gone out the window. the discussion you hear in journalism schools or newsrooms, public forums where journalists assemble is you can't normalize trump. you can't give him air time. the associated press ran a story

the other day about newsrooms having to debate whether to allow donald trump to speak live on their airways. that's where people are saying you say one side of the debate needs to be censored, curtailed and not allowed to speak because they cannot be fact checked at the same time. republicans would say joe biden lies and nobody covers his feet. -- feed. joe biden is starving them of access and they don't seem to care. host: you were mentioning cutting trump's speeches. fox news has a story about cnn and msnbc facing criticism for cutting out of trump's victory speech in new hampshire, which both of those -- with both of those networks refusing to air the victory speech in full. fox news has a larger audience

than cnn or msnbc or any of the other cable networks. and yet, the, you know, the mass media idea is not trusted by republicans. how do you reconcile those things? guest: fox, when fox came on the scene in 1996, they were apparent that they were going to try to offer fair and balanced. they figured what is working for us is our conservative opinion shows so we will give more of that. they both look like bubbles. there are more liberals on fox news then you will see conservatives on cnn. becae there republicans are generally seen as fake republicans. host: i don't understand that. guest: adam kinzinger was a republican but he hates all the republicans now. not just donald trump but anybody who has ever supported

donald trump. what that person is going to say when they come on the is going to basically line up with what all the democrats on the show are saying. are you getting fair and balanced? you are not getting a balance read you are getting a republican and a democrat who agree on everything. and that is one thing that people don't like. i guess you could say which republicans who want to hear donald trump speak are watching rachel maddow? cnn and msnbc want to cut that feed because their audience doesn't want to hear trump speak. that challenges the idea of a news channel who runs live news events. host: in the hill, they have a story about donald trump pledging to investigate msnbc's parent company for threatening treason. this was comcast who he is referencing.

former president trump pledged to investigate comcast nbc and msnbc. if he is elected in 2024, saying they will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things and events. i'm going to bring up this truth social post. it's quite long. they are almost all dishonest and corrupt. comcast with its one-sided and vicious coverage by nbc news and in particular, msnbc, often incorrect referred to as msdnc. it is one big campaign contribution to the radical left him a credit party. i say upfront, openly and proudly, when i win the presidency of the united states, they and others will be thoroughly scrutinizedorknowingt coverage of people, things and

events. why should nbc or any of the corruption dishonest media companies be entitled to use the u.s. airways. they are a threat to democracy. the fake news media should pay a price for what they have done to our once great country. you think it's appropriate for a president to investigate the news media for their coverage like this? guest: i'm all for scrutinizing the news media. it's what we do. i don't think the government -- he's not being specific about the federal communications commission. the fcc can't regulate cable. they are supposed to regular broadcast and they really don't do that. we do not support some sort of federal prosecution of msnbc for being pro-democrat. that's not what a democracy is. the irony of all of this is the people running around and saying trump is a threat to democracy and they don't practice

democracy in the way they report the news. they don't allow the republican point of view to surface. i think everybody who watches msnbc, i joke all the time if i watch morning joe, i'm getting pure, straight democrat talking points. but it's a free country. you can say that on the airwaves. you can have another channel with a different point of view. that's democracy. we are for democracy. there is a lot things he said about russian collusion. they turned that story around and it did not end up amounting to anything. it was a false story after two or three years of investigation. host: we want to get to your questions in just a bit. our numbers are for democrats, (202) 748-8000. for republicans, (202) 748-8001. for independents, (202) 748-8002 . before we get to callers, i want to bring up one more quote from

an article in fox. eric levitt had a piece about why biden may not be getting quite as much credit for the economy as some people think he should and for economic indicators. are plenty of unabash lessthere centered -- left centered media outlets. fox news is more consistently propaganda and boasts a 42% larger viewership. si broadcasting, one of largest owners of local tv news stations is an ardently conservative, family-owned firm that donates to the gop and disseminates right wing propaganda on its affiliate stations. gh audience for fox news and right wing talk radio consist largely of

republicans, viewers of local evening news broadcasts are ideologically diverse. trump has a much better apparatus for maintaining the approval and enthusiasm of his party's voters and receiving politically favored -- favorable narratives than biden does. what are your thoughts that the media might have an anti-biden bias? guest: this requires a multi-paragraph answer. fox has a larger audience than cnn or msnbc. but you compare it to the newscast of abc, that is greater than fox. when you add them together, it is greater than fox. you could argue that maybe sinclair's local tv. maybe they say you should say these words or do it this way. a lot of sinclair stations that

are abc affiliates or nbc affiliates or cbs affiliates, what they are doing in a lot of cases is putting out what you would call mainstream media news. we are always going to disagree with the idea that somehow the conservative media has greater influence than the liberal media or greater reach. i'm going to disagree with that. yes, we feel that the media is dominated by -- look at the white house briefing room. how many reporters in the white house briefing room voted for trump? maybe three. and there's 80 people in there. i think that is where we are coming from. most of what we call the legacy media, the established media and the big brands of media are liberals and democrats. >> when you try to discern balance and try to push back agai bias, do you think equal time and attention should be given to narratives that are

known to be false? guest: you've asked where the fight is. that has been the fight for the left comes in and says the right is wrong. area on the huffington said -- arianna huffington said the right is wrong and they don't deserv any attention. that rules today. because trump exaggerates a lot of stuff, he is a fact checkers nightmare. and they are like you can't let him speak life. anybody who supports trump and has ever voted for trump can't be trusted. you have these debates over what's true. on some level is the hard part. objectivity on some level says we are going to let the people decide. we are going to let this person say this. that person can say that. journalists should fact-check these things. part of the problem we have, we

have a problem calle■j■pd fact checking the fact checkers is fact checking is a liberal democrat media that checked the republicans way more often than the democrats. if you go to put a fact.com and politicians who are -- pollitt itifact.com and politicians who are fact checked -- were the fact-checks accurate? the first thing i will tell you is it suggests that they think the people who art republicans are a pile of liars. host: my question was if there are known facts, do you think that people who say things that are contrary to that should be given equal time for those argument? guest: it depends, if we are having a fight over something in particular and we wanted to say climate change is one of those

where the media says that is happening. you are not allowed to say it's not happening. not only are you not allowed to say it's not happening, you can't really have a debate over if we establish that i'm a change is a problem, what solutions do we need to impose? -- climate change is a problem, what solutions do we need to impose? we want to make sure nobody has a gas stove in their home. you are not allowed to disagree with that. i think that is the problem. fmwhen liberals have this idea that their cause is the truth, you can't get a word in edge wise. host: ed is in atlanta, georgia on our independent line. go ahead. what's your question? caller: thank you for asking me to go ahead. i want to talk about the free press. i want to mention jamaal khashoggi, who was murdered so we could enjoy a free press in this country. kimberly, you do a good job of

inspiring the people to go ahead and say what they called to say, instead of having to start -- stop the whole world. host:ave a question for tim? caller: yeah, i have a question. freedom of the press needs to be more about saying good morning to each other. we need to talk about the issues. thank you very much. host: thank you, ed. guest: he mentioned jamaal khashoggi, the saudi journalist who was murdered in a savage way. that is a terrible thing. obviously, journalism can be a dangerous thing to practice. that is something we have to keep in mind. journalists risk a lot in

dangerous places to tell us what's going on and that's important. the saudi's hated his guts. he was taking a bunch of information. that doesn't justify what happened to him. but, it's important to be -- we are pro-journalism. pro-journalist does not mean you can't criticize a product. >> steve is in florida on our democratic. good morning, c. -- good morning, steve. caller: the reason i am calling is as i listen to news, we can argue all day on if the right or left has more bias media. but there is one constant. i'm listening to news. i would like the person who delivered that news to look at me as a moderately intelligent adult and speak to me in full

sentences and present an issue that can be debated using facts. what's happening now is so much of the news on both sides is subliminal. bullet phrases, conspiracy, misinformation is just aimed at our subconscious -- sub conscience. nowadays, when we walk into a workplace or the grocery store, we hear people just regurgitating. you can hear it on c-span. i was listening to it this morning. people regurgitate what they heard on their media. caller: it would be nice.

i grasped onto the part of can you give uthe news like we are moderately intelligent people? we are watching the evening news programs and we write down what the stories are and how much time they get and so many times, it's like well, the first four minutes of the newscast was it was snowing in nebraska. and you are like well, i guess they think this is what scores in the ratings. a lot of times, the campaign is often seven minutes or 10 minutes or 11 minutes into the news. i'm a snob, i'm like is in politics the most important news? obviously, there are some weather events that are so adverse that you could see why they would lead. so much of the news is narratives. for example, we will look at the republican presidential race right now. oh, it's over. is it? we have a primary and a caucus. i believe the delegate said

trump has 32 and nikki haley has 17 and the winner has to have 1215. and it's over. this reflects that the news media sees its role as reflecting conventional wisdom. is that the way it's going to turn out? quite possibly. but it's like calling the football game in the first quarter. host: clark is in south dakota on our republican line. go ahead, clark. caller: hello? host: yes, turn down the volume on your tv and go ahead with your question. caller: my question is i believe the fox television, my question is is cnn fake news? it seems like cnn is more fake than fox. caller: this is where -- guest: this is where you say

fake news -- i think when i watch a newscast, there is a lot of factual information in there. on the left, you would probably get more facts. when people use the phrase fake news, they are talking about things like did brett kavanaugh commit rape as a teenager? we asked that question for weeks. or, did that end up being fake? and so, russian collusion, did trump actually collude with the russian government to get elected in 2016? that turned out not to be true. you could say it's fake news. they could say we are merely reporting on what they are discussing in washington. the news media also framed and pushed what will be discussed in washington. on some level, the news media has to take responsibility for their role in making the national conversation what it is. i don't think you would look and -- at an entire newscast and

say everything is fake. that's not true. what we complain about is so much of the news seems to be a set of narratives. if it matches our narrative, we like it. if it doesn't match our narrative, it doesn't make the news. it feels more plastic and manufactured. >> and is in philadelphia, pennsylvania on our independent -- ed is in philadelphia, pennsylvania on our independent line. caller: i want to thank you for being here today and mentioned that journalism can be dangerous and making that sound like a threat. this guy is dealing in the most absurd level of doublespeak. we just heard a series of collars whose primary issue is immigration. a caller said washington is a state that allows immigration, i guess. you are right, tim, that

journalism and tv shows like the ones you appear on have a responsibility for shaping what is discussed about people and what's discussed in washington and where our priorities are. host: you said tim engaged in doublespeak. what do you think was doublespeak? caller: there is an overwhelming convenience in referring to this monolithic idea that the legacy media or the mainstream media. when he himself admits that fox is a larger -- has a larger market share than any of its competitors. i'm sure he has appeared on talk radio. host: what's allowed him to respond to your criticism. guest: i will start right there. you know what the largest talk radio network in america is? national public radio. they have talkshows. and they have new shows.

and they have impressive reach. they have impressive reached because the federal government has put them there so that there is 300 npr stations across the country. whenever somebody tries to say the right wing dominates the radio sphere, i don't think that's true. it's a place where conservatives feel they get to speak to each other. and they get to say things about the democrats that the democrats don't want you to say on their legacy media. and that's a problem. we are talking about immigration this morning. the washington post story you read a little while ago, you

however, say this is the way from wins. -- this is the way trump wins. in today's day and age, the more negative coverage you get from the media, that tends to help you. it might seem very odd to

liberal people. i just wanted to respond to one other thing, and that is this idea that conservatives are sowing fear and conservatives are dividing people, and this is where we all turn around and say, what is your reporting on the climate if not driving fear? what is your reporting on hate speech or any of these stories if you are not sowing fear, if you are not sowing division, if you are not suggesting conservatives in general are hateful people? that is a divisive thing to say. we should just acknowledge. let's be objective about this. fear is something all the politicians use. you appeal to all the emotions. that is just the way it is. something -- hate is something you can argue either side is engaging in and saying mean-spirited things. those are universal. i don't think you can say, they do all the fear and division, only the conservatives. that is a divisive statement right there. host: tom is in bethlehem,

pennsylvania, on our republican line. what is your question, tom? caller: good morning. i would like to make sure that the house of representatives does not take the deal at the southern border, and i would like to tell you why. host: did you have a question for tim on the media? caller: well, yeah. it is the media who happens to be pushing the fact that we have a deal of the southern border, and the republicans don't seem to want to honor that deal. let me tell you something. president biden through executive orders killed the border situation his first day in office. host: let's keep it a little more focused on the media. but the immigration story and the border story has been a huge topic. guest: the dominant story is the senate democrats and senate republicans trying to make a deal. they set the outline for the deal.

said he didn't like it. the house republicans don't like it. the house republicans want to get something closer to hr2, which was their version of border control legislation. to me, out of all of this that is trying to say that biden does not own this problem. and he is out there tweeting, if you want it to be series of the border, you would agree with me. no, you have not been series about the border since 2021. the story came out yesterday that the last month, december was the worst month in years in terms of how many people are pouring across the border. republicans are disagreeing on this right now. hugh hewitt is on the radio saying the senate should not accept a deal. but we don't even know what is in the deal. that is the weirdest part. we are all sitting here having a debate over something that we

don't even know whether this. host: next up is michael on huntington -- in huntington, indiana. caller: i agree. i don't blame the media for bias because they are both biased, and the republicans -- host: how do you define bias in the media? caller: bias is when one person thinks they know it all. guest: that is not bad. caller: and it is not that way. i don't blame trump or biden for having, you know, material from the archives because that stupid. -- that is stupid. they've got people out there, they send it out, and you put it in a skiff.

they are responsible for it, not biden or trump. host: you are talking about ossified documents, michael, right? caller: yeah. host: did you have a question for tim about the media? caller: yeah. i think they are all liars, but i am a 78-year-old person and i just don't -- global warming highlights it. host: let's get your response. let's get to that trust in media question that we started off with. guest: this is where you like to think, imagine what it would be like if we were trying to really present here is what happened day. the president said this. the congressional leaders responded with this. and they explain how the house

republicans want this stricter language. that would be pretty straightforward and factual, and it is really not the product that we get when you're watching these things. we have this news nation channel that is trying to say, let's present both sides. for example, they would have dean phillips on, the congressman from minnesota who is running against joe biden in the primaries. you want to see someone they are trying very hard not to talk about on the news media, it is dean phillips. he got 19.6% of the vote in the new hampshire primary, which maybe isn't great if you think he is going to win the whole thing. but he got there with almost zero news coverage. and they are discussing, well, the general election is on. they are sort of pretending there is no such thing as a democrat primary, and that is where you sort of say, who decides that that is non-news?

and that is where people question the integrity of journalism. host: melvin is in fort lauderdale, florida, and our democratic line. melvin, good morning. caller: good morning. this gentleman here is really overplayed. one thing with respect media and fox. fox, number one, does have more spread across the country. a lot of the northern states, they do not have anything other than fox where you can go in and listen to them news other than regular news. host: are you talking about fox the cable network or the local fox affiliate's? caller: both of them. i am talking about the cable networks. they don't have those cable channels in those red states and northern states, ohio and pennsylvania. they don't have it. but fox is on all of them. he is talking about trump.

name one thing trump that he has not been involved in and talked about himself. and it is going back to the russia investigation. yes, he was found to be colluding. several russians were brought up and charged with collusion. the fact is that muller didn't want to go into it because it was part of his deal. host: i will stop you there because those charges were not directly related to former president trump himself. but i want to let you respond. guest: let's start with the notion that fox, fox television affiliate stations or fox broadcasting, is now disney. [laughter] murdoch sold that, those channels. but fox news is on most cable systems. so is cnn and so is msnbc. the more you get down, as news

nation on every cable system? no. i would like to have them all on my cable. i don't have newsmax on my xfinity. is that a comcast experience -- conspiracy? i just don't have it in my house. i think it is important the them all. -- i think it is important to see them all. you don't want to watch the liberal media, you just get the low lights. if you want to know what is going on, i always say this at the end of the podcast, if you want to know what is going on, you come to news busters. you might say, that is not representative of what you saw. yes, because a lot of it we leave on the cutting room floor because it is ok. host: next up, steve in san jose, california, on our republican line. go ahead, steve. caller: thank you for taking my call. tim, i want to get your opinion on an episode that happened this

last year regarding bridgeport, connecticut, with a classic example of election corruption, and it was involving two democratic candidates running for mayor, one incumbent and one challenger, to where a judge throughout the election and made them -- threwout the election -- threw out and made them redo it because of video evidence that there was ballot stuffing going on. host: hold on one moment. you are nodding like you're familiar with the story. guest: i am familiar with the story, but mostnot a national story. this is a democrat on democrat sort of situation, and i am not pronouncing that ballot stuffing

happens. i am just saying that is the story the local media was doing. they did make them redo the election over. it is a subject they don't want to discuss. host: generally that is because of the partisan issue or because it was a local issue rather than a national one? guest: this is the fascinating part. local issues become national issues sometimes, and that is always part of the news judgment, which is, what local story are you going to choose to do? for example, we had this massive story about a woman in texas who was denied an abortion because her health was threatened. it is a massive story. it is a local story. there's lots of federal cases. your choosing one. you choose the stories you want to choose from local. with abortion, we could talk about a doctor in philadelphia who was found guilty of

neglectful killing a woman in an abortion clinic in philadelphia. the networks were like, we don't want to do that story. i am simply saying one of the things they don't want to do is ackning or any of these kinds of hijinks exist anywhere, when you ought to say sometimes it does. but it feels to them like, that feels like a trump topic and we don't want to do it. host: next up is dennis in fontana, california, on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. great show. i love c-span. i think what is missing is they repealed the fairness doctrine. now there is nothing more than a sitcom. under the reagan administration, they repealed what was called the fairness doctrine, and that was an fcc rule that all broadcasters had to hold

opposing views. if you had a democrat that was supporting a bill or a piece of legislation, you would have a republican. and in those days, each person would sit and they would talk about it and share their views. it was called opposing views. under the reagan administration, they repealed it, and they decided that media was nothing but a giant on the corporate bottom line. so they got rid of all the investigative journalists and they made media just -- host: let's pause one moment and let tim respond. guest: there was something called the fairness doctrine, and it was repealed during the reagan administration. that came long before fox news, msnbc in 1996. i am old enough to remember this. it is not like there were a lot of fairness doctrine cases. in donald trump stream, there is not msnbc getting dragged before

the fcc in a fairness doctrine case. there wasn't a lot, but they did have that idea that a broadcaster as part of its public response ability should provide equal time, and that is clearly not the way we are today. host: last color we can get to is manuel in denver, colorado. caller: hello. i would like to ask this gentleman. he made a statement that the stations msnbc and cnn have less conservatives than fox has liberals. joe scarborough was a congressman. host: that is not actually what tim said. he said it is the republicans that appear on those channels tend to not be as conservatives as those who are on conservative networks. caller: he said the amount.

one station is across the nation but all the other stations, 90% of them, are a.m. hate radio, and have been since rush limbaugh. this guy is just talking through his head. host: would you like to respond to that? guest: i think what needs to be said is the five on fox generally has a democrat every day. you can watch that and say, that is a box democrat. this is where we would say, they have a cnn republican. you wonder on cable channels whether you get vigorous debate. you want them all to be civil to each other. if you have someone who comes on fox on a daily orem all to get along. but it is easy for you to say i didn't really care my viewpoint represented in this republican or this democrat, and that really is a test.

i do think fox does more to incorporate a democrat point of view. people consider it week. -- consider it weak. but joe scarborough is nobody's idea of a republican. he is out there saying james comer is worse. that is a comedy program. host: we are going to have to leave it there. tim graham who is the executive editor of news busters at the media research center, also the co-author of "collusion: how the media stole the 2016 election and how to prevent it from happening again." thank you so much for joining us. we want to start off with another story we are watching this morning, which is the verdict in the defamation trial against former president donald trump. here is the headline from the new york times in the trump-caroll defamation trial. trump is ordered to pay $83.3 million for defamation. the jury found donald j. trump had acted maliciously in persistently attacking carol.

he wasst year for sexually abusing her. more from that article. her lawyers had argued that a large award was necessary to stop mr. trump from continuing to attack her. after less than three hours of deliberation, the jury responded by awarding ms. carol 65 million dollars in punitive damages, finding that mr. trump had acted with malice. on one recent day, he made more than 40 derisive posts about ms. carol on his truth social website. speaking of truth social, former president trump went to that website to make his response to that, saying, absolutely ridiculous. i fully disagree with both verdicts and will be appealing this biden directed which hunt focused on me and the republican party. our legal system is out of control and is being used as a political weapon. they have taken away all first amendment rights. this is not america.

and it just to let you know, we will be covering former president trump's comments at a campaign event later on today. that will be on c-span.org at 4:00 p.m. eastern. now, back to your calls and your statements on what the top issue is for your state right now. our numbers again, for the eastern and central time zone, 202-748-8000. for the mountain and pacific time zone,■o 202-748-8001. and our text line is 202-748-8 003. as i mentioned earlier, c-span has been covering the state of the state addresses for many governors across the country, including arizona governor katie hobbs, a democrat who spoke about efforts to secure the border while delivering her state of the state address. here are some of those comments. governor hobbs: day in and day out, i hear from leaders on the border who need support because they are stepping up where the

federal government can't or won't. this year, they asked for boots on the ground, improved communication systems, resources to combat human trafficking, and the latest technologies to keep communities on both sides of the border safe. and i delivered. by refusing to waste money on cheap political stunts, we awarded over $84 million to help border communities manage the massive influx in migrants. [applause] governor hobbs: but we must do more. that is why i launched operation secure, creating a border coordination office within the arizona department of homeland security. this session, i am seeking ongoing funding to better coordinate our border response and continue fighting this humanitarian, economic, and enforcement crisis. this new funding will