william arkin in his resignation e-mail to his employer on the perils of trump derangement syndrome the impulse to oppose any and all of the president's policies regardless of their merit. of course he is an ignorant and incompetent and pasta and yet alarmed at how quick n.b.c. is to mechanically argue the contrary to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war really we shouldn't get out of syria and by the way we're knocking the hell out of isis will become another syria like very soon so to recap for everybody pentagon not happy. we should go for the bold move of denuclearizing the korean peninsula why did that happen what was that for no us president has ever agreed to meet with a north korean dictator before and even russia who really yearn for the cold war in almost everything we see here touch and feel and smell it's russia and don't even get me started with the f.b.i. what we now lionized this historically destructive institution. everything just so there's no conversation about whether or not these are actually positions that have merit there is no conver

amy: william arkin, you also write "don't get me started with the fbi.t we now lionized historically destructive institution." >> there's a crazy collateral damage of donald trump. and that is that there are a lot of liberals in america who believe the cia and the fbi is going to somehow save the country from donald trump. i'm sorry, i'm not a particular fan of either the cia or the fbi. the fbi in particular has a deplorable record in american society from martin luther king in the peace movements of the 1960's all the way up through win others have been persecuted by the fbi. there is no real evidence the fbi is that competent of an institution to begin with in terms of even pursuing the prosecutions that it is pursuing. them.t we lionize we hold them up on a pedestal that somehow they are the truth tellers, there are the ones who are getting to the bottom of things when there's just no evidence that that i is the cas. amy: what t you mean by the creeping fascism of homeland security? creation ofinst the the homeland security department in 2003 to begi

love a good goodbye note and and as william arkin pointed out in an interview on c.n.n. the us media somehow managed to accommodate all those pro-war voices without even know. where some of the conflicts are taking place. when i think about how we cover the news i think about are we at war or are we not at war and even if we're in this so-called perpetual war or the long war as the pentagon calls it i want to know that it's being covered with the aggressiveness that's necessary right now brian we are bombing nine countries around the world and i defy you to even name what they are that's how can i add to our coverage of warfare is beyond us of the i cannot if there is and he's not a military expert he's a news media critic but i wanted to make the point and in fact it's been interesting even my colleagues have said one of those nine countries is again show me any mainstream media outlet that is anti war and what it would be this out of here without pre-war either total b.s. the corporate media is massively pro-war so when you combine those two forces being against pro-wa

william arkin in his resignation e-mail to his employer on the perils of trump. the impulse to oppose any and all of the president's policies regardless of their merit. of course he is an ignorant and incompetent and pasta and yet alarmed at how quick and b.c. is to mechanically argue the contrary to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war really we shouldn't get out of syria and by the way we're knocking the hell out of isis will become another syria like very soon so to recap for everybody panag on not happening. we shouldn't go for the bold move of denuclearizing the korean peninsula why did that happen what was that for no us president has ever agreed to meet with a north korean dictator before and even russia who really yearn for the cold war in almost everything we see here touch and feel and smell it's russia and don't even get me started with the f.b.i. what we now lionized this historically destructive institution. everything just so there's no conversation about whether or not these are actually positions that have merit there

william arkin in his resignation e-mail to his employer on the perils of trump derangement syndrome the impulse to oppose any and all of the president's policies regardless of their merit. of course he is an ignorant and incompetent and pasta and yet alarmed at how quick n.b.c. is to mechanically argue the contrary to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war really we shouldn't get out of syria and by the way we're knocking the hell out of isis will become another syria like very soon so to recap for everybody pentagon not happy. happy we should go for the bold move of denuclearizing the korean peninsula why did that happen what was that for no us president has ever agreed to meet with a north korean dictator before and even russia who really yearn for the cold war in almost everything we see here touch and feel and smell it's russia and don't even get me started with the f.b.i. what we now lionized this historically destructive institution. everything is just so there's no conversation about whether or not these are actually positions that have merit there is

a 2,200-word memo from veteran military analyst william arkin. he sent it to his colleagues at nbc a few weeks ago, complaining why friday was his last day at the network. arkin's worked with nbc on and off for three decades but described in his memo a national news media held hostage by trump, obsessed with the trump circus and failing to cover the perpetual wars that america is engaged in. but he wasn't just criticizing nbc. far from it. his critique really applied to the mainstream media in america as a whole. so, arkin is here now for his first interview since departing nbc. bill, thanks for joining me. >> thanks, brian, for having me on. >> i don't want to summarize the memo anymore because i want to hear from you directly. i think what you're bringing up that's most important is the way the american news media does or does not cover the forever wars that we are engaged in. what do we need to do differently? >> well, we need to have trump-free days. we need to have actual investigative correspondents working on actual investigations. we need

here is the close relationship between the intelligence agencies and the press and b c editor william arkin recently resigned in protest of the fact that the way he sees it american media is essentially just being used by intelligence agencies the generals in the national security leadership that runs the country and now also is the commentators in the analysts who populate the news media really are not people who we can look to is saying while they won a war they they avoided a war they achieve some magnificent objective in fact they are the custodians and the architects of perpetual warfare it's much more open and that's very chilling actually journalists are sucked into want to be close to those in power and it's become really taking dictation in many ways of whatever government tells them the vetting process the challenge in particular on national security interest issues and foreign policy now they can go right on the opens and there's no filter there's no skepticism about this as we have in the past and so you've got journalists openly siding with the intelligence agencies as if they

presidents two american journalists and b c news veteran william arkin.new york times said to ted jill abramson have come forward with the kinds that the media is biased against donald trump in her upcoming book abramson says her employer is unmistakeably trump well ken resigned from n.b.c. describing the media as a trump rather than real journalism. before most of completely out of sync with the network being neither a day to day reports of new i'm interested in the trump. given its mostly liberal audience there was an implicit financial reward for the times and running lots of trump stories almost all of the negative they drove big traffic numbers the press has been has been riding the side of this anti trump line from the moment he won the election in two thousand and sixteen and essentially they've taken off the gloves and they have had a trump with everything they've they've got and world doing anything to attack trump and all the old rules have been cast by the wayside. objectivity neutrality etc are all rejected now and it's a all out assault on tr

here is the close relationship between the intelligence agencies and the press and b c editor william arkin recently resigned in protest of the fact that the way he sees it american media is essentially just being used by intelligence agencies the generals in the national security leadership that runs the country and now also has the commentators in the analysts who populate the news media really are not people who we can look to as saying while they won a war they they avoided a war they achieve some magnificent. jack to in fact they are the custodians and the architects of perpetual warfare it's much more open and that's very chilling actually journalists are sucked into want to be close to those in power and it's become really taking dictation in many ways of whatever government tells them the vetting process the challenger in particular on national security and issues and foreign policy now they can go right out in the open and there's no filter there's no skepticism about this as we have in the past and so you've got journalists openly siding with the intelligence agencies as if they h

n m s n b c journalist william arkin quit his job saying mainstream media has become captive and subservient to the national security state reflexive way pro-war in the name of stopping donald trump and now the prime propaganda instrument of the war machine promotion of militarism and imperialism but. sometimes the media manufactured consent of the war by simply not telling people it's happening you know they don't have to burn the books they just remove them i believe that was said by the wise indian guru raj against the machine. the raj was a wise man. anyway here's one of the recent headlines the media quietly ignored us sends troops for possible violent congo vote protests good idea because you know what usually brings peace and quiet to a region u.s. troops. wherever our military roam is it is quieter than a cotton ball rubbing against a mouse's ask. my goodness we are the world's police we have to do this you you remember that viral video of that cop body slamming a girl in her high school classroom we are that come up. right and right now we're preparing to replace that girl with the

propelled candidate donald trump to the presidency they left beale on television for the ratings today william arkin concludes his three decades with n.b.c. news where he has worked as a military analyst reporter and consultant he covered the cold war and nine eleven and lots in between and his two thousand plus word public farewell has the news industry buzzing and taking a tough look in the mirror he finds the world and the state of journalism in tandem crisis and he feels that his expertise though seeming to be all the more central to the challenges and dangers we face also seems to be less valued at the moment he says i find myself completely out of sync with the network being neither a day to day reporter nor interested in the trump circus. by taking the bait of daily distractions served up on twitter has the mainstream media failed its mission let's ask chris chambers media studies professor at georgetown university welcome back thank you good to be back as the government shutdown dragged on and do a second week of arm wrestling over the border while president trump put out a looming movie typ

nightly nightly news his name is william arkin and he resigned. basically saying that the network is is all pro-war including m s n b c m that he's sick of this. doing this doc connecting and pushing for war is everywhere so they don't cover that but we will cover it here you know it was an attempt to create a conspiracy theory to the point where it toppled the president it was a soft coup put together by n.b.c. and their parent company comcast and it failed now responsible journalists are saying i've had enough i'm leaving the other resigning on air basically and you know rachel maddow will have to work in musical theater over the show be like starring in the rachel maddow show the musical on broadway and a year from now and it's also going all dancing and it's all very beautiful now here's another headline that was in the first week of twenty nineteen that again i just love these headlines because we talk about this sort of stuff it's a wall street journal headline and now that we speak about it then the d.n.i. the. defense national intelligence

really speak out and break down what the issues were that had happened you know that he if you know william arkin is best known for a three part washington post piece that he didn't two thousand and ten and what it was called top secret america and pretty much every day they see just showed all of these sort of secret they can on an. unaccountable way that the u.s. national security state became and the years following nine eleven not really broke down how you know the safety the safety was taken off yes and you know here's the trouble is like. i'm not criticizing that you can't have former generals or you know former pentagon officials or former agency people were f.b.i. people with you know i mean going to those people and but you also have to hold them accountable you can't just kind of let them come on. you know rattle off a bunch of things and never hold their feet to the fire and never ask them a hard question just kind of let them just because whether they agree with your politics or not and this is it but this is one of the biggest things is that what you have is a. i don't think a lot of

first people to really speak out and break down what the issues were that it happened if you know william arkin best known for a three part washington post piece said he didn't twenty two and what it was called top secret america pretty much just showed all of the sort of secret. unaccountable way that the u.s. national security state. and the nine eleven really broke down how the safety safety was taken off and you know here's the trouble is. i'm not criticizing that you can't have former generals or former pentagon officials or former agency people or f.b.i. people yeah i mean you have to be blunt but you also have to hold them accountable you can't just kind of let them come on and rattle off a bunch of things and never hold their feet to the fire never ask them a hard question just kind of let them just because whether they agree with your politics or not and this is what this one of the biggest things is what you have. i don't think a lot of the people we've got on our are being paid by military contractors there are so many and we've heard this from a lot of people going greenwald has bro