Can Journalism Survive the Collapse of Trust?

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14Ryan Holiday: Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. It is clear to me that one of the problems of this moment in time is we are living through a collapse of ethics. Not the law, although the law is certainly struggling, but we are realizing just how much society depends not so much on what someone is legally required to do or not do, but the standards that they hold themselves to, right? Our system of government obviously is laws and policies, but there was a number of unwritten norms and rules, things that men and women of honor would do and would never do. And our whole society depends on this idea of ethics.

0:57Ryan Holiday: What are the responsibilities of a given profession? This is something I wrestled with when I was writing Right Thing Right Now. And I talk about this in the Do Your Job chapter. Let me read this little section to you. It says something about the world today that the phrase, I was just doing my job, is more likely to be an excuse for disturbing behavior than to be the explanation of heroic behavior. It's a way of letting yourself off the hook when really what a job, what a duty is, is all about what it demands of you, from you. The writer Yuval Levin, despairing at the decline in so many of our precious institutions, spoke of the need for each of us to force ourselves in little moments of decision to ask the great unasked question of our time.

1:37Ryan Holiday: Given my role here, how should I behave? He says, that's what people who take an institution they're involved with seriously would ask. As a president or a member of Congress, a teacher or a scientist, a lawyer or a doctor, a pastor or a member, a parent or a neighbor, what should I do here? Like what he's talking about here is duty, not what's convenient, not what's easy, not what everyone else is doing, but what we are obligated to do as a result of our potential and talents, as well as the professional roles we have selected for ourselves in the world. In business, they talk of the duty of a fiduciary, meaning that once one has taken the role of responsibility to a company, to investors, or to the customer, they can't simply do whatever is best for themselves.

2:19Ryan Holiday: In a famous case in New York in 1928, Chief Judge Benjamin Cardoza ruled against a partner who had attempted to enrich themselves at the expense of another partner. A trustee, he said, is held to something stricter than the morals of the marketplace. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive is then the standard of behavior. The level of conduct for fiduciaries has been kept at a higher level than that trodden by the crowd. And again, look, some of these duties, like that of a fiduciary, are codified by the law. Some are defined and enforced by a strict professional code like that in journalism.

2:56Ryan Holiday: Others, like the role of a soldier, are a combination of both. Unfortunately, most jobs and professions are not so clear. Or worse, the professions have abandoned their duty. Well, that's what I want to talk about in today's episode. I was talking to my friend, the journalist Rick Jervis. He's a correspondent for USA Today. He was the USA Today's Baghdad bureau chief from 2005 to 2007, covered the trial of Saddam Hussein. He participated in almost two dozen military embeds. So for years, he's been researching and investigating and reporting on some highly sensitive and politically divisive topics.

3:33Ryan Holiday: And he came by the painted porch. I wanted to talk about what he thought of ethics in journalism. And look, journalism is filled with human beings who make mistakes all the time. I wrote a whole book critical of journalism. So I'm not sort of acting like these people are saints or that they always live up to their standards. But there are standards. And the point even that we are disappointed in the journalism profession has a lot to do with our understanding of what those standards are and how high they are. So I talked to Rick about this. We had a larger discussion about immigration, which I'll link to in the show notes because that was another episode.

4:08Ryan Holiday: Obviously, I talk about this more at length in Right Thing Right Now. I have a whole chapter on being your own referee, which is related to this. But when the Stoics talk about justice, this is what they mean. Who are you? What standards do you hold yourself to? How do you fight to be the person, as Mark's really said, that philosophy wants you to be? But also, how do you fight to be the person that your profession wants you to be? Doctor, lawyer, scientist, teacher, politician, neighbor, citizen, mother, father, whatever it is. If you've never heard of Rick's work, he has an amazing book of narrative nonfiction called The Devil Behind the Badge, which is this great book about a serial murderer in Laredo.

4:44Ryan Holiday: Turns out to be a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Carry it at the Painted Porch. You can follow him on Instagram, rjervis5905. And I do hope this episode inspires you to take a look at some of the rules you're living by. If we want to stay true to our virtues, we got to back them up with action. We got to do our job. Talk soon. We just got back from an amazing vacation in Italy. I'll bring you some clips from it over the next couple weeks. I recorded a bunch of stuff while we were there. Although it was as hot as it has literally ever been, it's one of the best family trips we've ever had. And we stayed in this amazing palazzo that we booked on Airbnb.

5:22Ryan Holiday: It was like 500 years old. It had all these Roman funerary headstones in it, which is this crazy Lemento Mori thing. It was like staying in a museum. The hosts were incredible. They lovingly restored this place. They took amazing care of it. And by listing their place on Airbnb, they get to share this amazing experience with people from all over the world and get funds to put towards upkeeping and restoring their place. If you're planning a trip this summer, it's worth considering listing your place on Airbnb. It can be a great way to help offset the cost of your vacation and earn a little extra money to put towards your next adventure.

5:55Ryan Holiday: Your place might be worth more than you think. And all you got to do is go to Airbnb.com slash host to find out more. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard of today's sponsor. You've almost certainly heard me talk about going to therapy. and you've probably heard about it on this podcast because I've been going to therapy longer than I've been doing Daily Stoic and BetterHelp has been a sponsor of the Daily Stoic podcast basically since we started. More than 6 million people have used BetterHelp globally and you can check out the reviews for yourself at betterhelp.com slash reviews to see how amazing their customer reviews are.

6:36Ryan Holiday: People are getting better with BetterHelp. BetterHelp has an average live therapy session rating of 4.9 out of 5 on over 1.7 million client session reviews. This is feedback from people who have actually used the service. And if you're ready to give therapy a try for yourself, BetterHelp makes it easy to get started. You ask a couple questions, they match you with a therapist based on your needs, and you can switch at any time if it's not the right fit. Just visit BetterHelp.com slash Daily Stoic Pod. Better H-E-L-P dot com slash Daily Stoic Pod. Given everything that's happening in the world, how do you see your role as a reporter?

7:17Ryan Holiday: Like, what do you see your job is? You know, trying to shed light on as much of this stuff as possible. Trying to do it as dispassionately as possible. Trying to retain readers' trust and sort of credibility. trying to show all sides to it, but really also putting faces on some of these issues. You know, we wrote a story recently where we went down to Laredo to interview some of the families who were previously detained, who had been released, and try to get their stories about what's it like being a sort of detained family and all of this. I think all we can do is just keep putting faces to these stories and try to tell the stories of people who have been victimized in all of this.

8:03Ryan Holiday: yeah it's like when you're sort of depressed about what's happening in the world or if you're powerless about what's happening in the world i do think there's something both consoling and then also kind of like powerful about like doing your job whatever that job is like how do i how do i go do my little piece of this to the best of my ability uh you can't control everything but i I can't control whether I'm sort of using my skills for good. And it feels overwhelming at times, to be honest. You know, there's so much out there, so much going on. It changes week to week. You know, like we think we got to beat on what's happening this week and next week something brand new pops up.

8:49But I think that's what we try to do is just focus on our jobs and just try to focus on telling these stories as kind of plainly as we can.

8:59Ryan Holiday: I think some people want to see journalism be more sort of not engaged, but want to see it take more of an advocacy role. And there's something there's something interesting there, because it's like if one side or one group of powers, one group of people is acting with impunity or sort of breaking the rules or violating the norms, there is this temptation to like, well, I got to fight back that way. Do you find either with the reporters you work with or even in your own, you got to go, no, no, no. What are the basic principles of my profession? What are the sort of my standards and ethics? And in a way, those become even more important because the general lawlessness elsewhere, you kind of got to go, I can't get sucked into that.

9:46I think there's a place for advocacy journalism. Sure. You know, I love the sort of opinion pages of like different newspapers and I love reading columnists and their takes on things. I think it's important. I think that they fill this sort of contextual gap that sometimes needs to be filled. But me, like sort of myself and other reporters that I know, I think we basically tend to fall back on trying to stay as objective as possible. I think it's important. I think the number one reason is because you have to retain reader confidence. And if a reader, even a reader who may actually agree with your stance, like if they start reading you, like interjecting some of your own opinion into some of your coverage, they might not follow you as much and they might not have as much confidence in what you write.

10:38But I also think it just makes a better story. I think it's a better story, like, if you show these different competing sides. I think it's a better story, like, if you find somebody that doesn't fit the mold of what you think he or she is. I just think it's better storytelling, like, if you could sit back and take yourself out of it and just show who these people are and what's actually happening.

11:02Ryan Holiday: I gave this talk this weekend in San Diego and I was quoting this passage from James Stockdale and he's talking about how, you know, integrity can seem hard, integrity can seem expensive, it can seem sort of inadequate. but he was like, it's actually there for you. Like a sense of right and wrong, or these are the rules of my profession, or this is how we do things is actually really important when you're drowning, not literally, but when everything is kind of spinning really fast and a lot's happening and people are doing awful things, it's actually then that you need those rules because you get yourself into trouble if anything goes, right?

11:45Ryan Holiday: Because now you're tempted to maybe cut this corner or do this. Like expediency is bad for you and them. That's interesting. And that like it's kind of in these moments that like, hey, like, you know, doctors have these basic things, right? Or lawyers, these are their basic thing. Like because let's say you go to the lawyer, it's like everyone's entitled to an attorney, right? That's really helpful because like you might have this visceral reaction of like I don't want to work for that person. But, you know, the basic of my the basis of my profession is this. That kind of helps you settle down and follow something other than your immediate emotions in the moment.

12:26Ryan Holiday: I just wonder if you relate to that. There is something comforting to fall back on what I know on these kind of predetermined, you know, rules and steps that I take in trying to report out a story. Yeah. And sticking to that, there is something. with all the chaos happening around you, like there's chaos swirling everywhere. And I feel like I could just step back and be like, okay, I know what to do here. I want to interview this person. I want to get all sides to like the story and try to find like the ICE agent that may be out there, you know, struggling with sort of some of this stuff or, you know.

13:06Ryan Holiday: This is what they told me. Now I got to go check that fact. Even if I want it to be true, I have to go see if it's true. Correct. And there's something comforting about that. Like it's kind of like stability within all of this chaos is knowing that, you know, I've been in the business 25 years now. So I kind of had these set rules and things that I do that I know how to do. And there's something comforting about just going after it and trying to do it, you know, as dispassionately and best as I can. Passionate is a word, I think, in a society that is built around passion. Dispassionate feels like a bad thing, but you almost need the dispassion if you're really passionate about what you do.

13:49Ryan Holiday: That's right. That's absolutely right. You know, and it's not always easy. You know, like reporters have opinions. They have, they basically see things and they have feelings and thoughts and like emotions, just like anybody else. But I think it's really important. I think it's increasingly important to have that. I worked in Baghdad for over two years. I was like the Baghdad bureau chief for like USA Today. And one of the stories that I did when I was out there is that I interviewed a like insurgent, a Sunni insurgent, and I got him through a translator that I knew, and we set up this meeting with us.

14:23And this is a guy who was placing roadside bombs on the side of the highway, blowing up U.S. troops. It's somebody that I'm very much against, ideologically, on every level. I was totally against him, but I was fascinated by what made him tick. And that's the part that really drove me. I'm like, yes, of course, I'm 110 % against everything this guy does. but I really want to learn why he does it, right? Right. And so that's the same thing that I bring here, right? And so, like, I'm passionate about learning all sides of this story. And if I could overlook, like, my own prejudices for interviewing a Sunni insurgeon in Baghdad, I think I could overlook everything which is happening here.

15:06Ryan Holiday: I mean, you were talking about chaos. One of the sort of chaos or stressors that would be operating on you right now is that, like, your profession is under attack, right? They're attacked in the sense the public trusts it increasingly less. But also, I mean, reporters are getting arrested. There's that Washington Post reporter whose house was searched. There's that increasing like just sort of open antagonism, like whether we're talking press briefings or, you know, tweets from administration officials. That is new. It's like they're sort of saying the quiet part out loud in a way that they weren't.

15:41Ryan Holiday: Yeah, for sure. How do you feel about that? I mean, it doesn't feel great. You know, you definitely feel like you're under attack kind of constantly. I've gotten really snippy emails from sort of White House officials who don't agree with things that I've written. But I've also gotten a lot of feedback from people who read my stories who thank me for it. People that I meet later who said that it was really insightful and brought a lot of insight and knowledge to them. So I think this is a crazy time and crazy things are happening. But I think, you know, really good journalism now is needed more like today than it has been in like a long time.

16:23So sure.

16:24Ryan Holiday: Do you feel like that is the role of journalism, which is to put a face to what's happening or to shine a light on what's happening in a way that like that wouldn't happen otherwise? Is that the idea for you? Like, is that what you feel like? Yeah, basically. Yeah. You want to shine a light on what's happening and let, you know, readers, politicians, leaders figure out what to do with that information and like how to use that information. But really just putting it out there because people need to know, you know, people need to know that they're going in without warrants and busting into people's houses.

16:58They need to know that they're shipping immigrants two or three states away. Two or three countries away. Sometimes, you know, to sort of avoid court orders that are basically telling them to sort of release these immigrants. I think if you don't write about that, people don't know. So you have to shine a light and let other people figure out what to do with that information.

17:18Ryan Holiday: One of the things about like doing your job, I don't mean your job, I just mean where you go like, hey, look, this is my role in this larger ecosystem. system is that you have to have a certain amount of humility in the sense that like, it would be wonderful if we lived in a world where like you write a story about a detention center that's overcrowded and there's abuses and then like the public just rises up in outrage and it immediately goes away. But that's not the world we live in. How do you deal with the acceptance that like you can only carry the ball so far? Yeah, that's a tough part of the job.

17:53You know, That's a tough part. You know, sometimes—and I had these conversations with other journalists, with other writers, that you could write, like, the most damning story about something that's happening and doesn't seem to move the actual needle much at all. And that's a frustrating part. Like, you would love to see it lead to mass demonstrations and changes in policy. But sometimes it does. Yeah. You know, sometimes it does.

18:17Ryan Holiday: Or it could play a small part in—I think we all want the movie version of whatever. Like, it's like, you're the lawyer who takes the case, which, you know, breaks up the trust. Or, you know, you write the expose, which leads to the politician resigning. Or you have the invention, which cures cancer. And it's like, actually, no, you're probably going to be an academic who toils away for their entire career making a tiny contribution, which is picked up by someone else who makes a tiny contribution, who 100 years from now, we finally make a 20 % difference in cancer mortality. You're not the decisive blow.

18:56Ryan Holiday: Almost certainly you are not the decisive blow. And like you have to go into it, not expecting that. Like you have to go into it. I'm sure there's like a Marcus Aurelius quote on this. But you have to go into it not expecting or not wanting it to spark massive change. Or it'll break your heart, right? Because it won't happen. Right. You have to go into it, just the sort of story is the sort of end to itself. And you just have to write the story, focus on that, make it as good as possible, and then see what happens. Yeah. No, I mean, the Stoics talk about that a lot, is the idea is like, and I think this is true even, it's like you write a great book.

19:34Ryan Holiday: It's like lots of people could read it. Very few people could read it. Like you don't control so much of it. So you have to take the majority of the satisfaction and the pride and have to understand your contribution was to do this part that was up to you and not have the expectation or be sitting around in anticipation of a certain outcome because it might or might not happen. And honestly, a better way to measure a life and a career is over, hey, you know, you covered this issue for 20 years and that moved the freighter a tiny bit, Not this person broke the Watergate story and American history was never the same or whatever.

20:14I'm somewhat comforted that 50, 100 years from now, when people might go back to this era and like study it, that I had left this kind of paper trail. Yeah. That people could actually read, oh, this is what was happening now. This is what was happening. I think it's important. At least it's comforting to know that you're a part of the historic record on all of this stuff happening.

20:35Ryan Holiday: an interesting thing to think about is like is anyone who's gone back and done research you go to the library and you look at the microfilm or you know you you can you can look at old articles it's like this was somebody's life like they thought this was a super important story and like you're the only one that's looked at in 40 years or 100 years but like no this person was like sorry i can't come to dinner tonight i'm working on this big story and it's like it was like totally forgotten but actually it's not totally forgotten because here you all are all these years later and it might make up one sentence in a book but like that's there's probably a metaphor there for just like a human life like we're just all these like little building blocks in this larger thing that we call humanity or society and you want to be in there because you wrote a good story not you're in there because you did something bad and someone's writing about you right like are you a positive contribution in that way or a negative contribution in that way.

21:31Ryan Holiday: That's all the individual can do. Yeah, it's comforting. It's comforting and humbling at the same time, I think. That's the tension of it.

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