On this edition of Parallax Views, Brian Karem, renowned journalist. National Press Club Freedom of the Press Award recipient, host of the “Just Ask the Question” podcast, and White House correspondent for Playboy (who made waves for questioning the Trump administration quite pointedly at White House pressers), joins Parallax Views to discuss his new book Free the Press: The Death of American Journalism and How to Revive It and his career as a journalist from questioning George H.W. Bush about the failure of the War on Drugs to working on America’s Most Wanted. We begin the conversation with Brian explaining how he got into reporting and being mentored legendary White House Correspondents as Sam Donaldson of ABC News and Helen Thomas (whose advice to Brian to “Just Ask the Question” has stuck with Brian over the years. From there we delve into the problems facing journalism today and its decline. Part of this decline, Brian argues is a lack of “diversity of ownership” in media. In other words, the corporate monopoly on news media today. Brian explains how government, especially since the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, has contributed to the decline of the press in the United States. This leads us to exploring a number of different issues related to the problems of the press today and their historical origins including the demise of the Fairness Doctrine, the impact of Fox News and its late Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, lack of experience amongst many young journalists just out of university, the tethering of news media outlets to capitalism and profit demands, “Combat TV” and infotainment, Ronald Reagan and his allies’ planting of fake journalists in the press in the 1980s, the fall of community news outlets with a local focus, access journalism, the early 20th century journalistic gadfly H.L. Mencken’s adage about how members of the press are easy to fool and the reason why journalists get dupped at times, and more. Additionally, Brian and I talk about some of his experiences as a journalist such as his infamous confrontations with the Trump administration (ie: being called “that Playboy reporter” by Kayla McEnany; Brian’s infamous run-in with Sebastian Gorka in which Gorka refered to Brian as a “punk” and “not a journalist), grilling George H.W. Bush over the failure of the War on Drugs (and a primer on the ways in which the Drug War has contributed to many social problems today, especially south of the U.S. border), his personal memories of Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, working with grieving families and taking an ethical approach to speaking with them during his time with America’s Most Wanted, and various other recollections form his storied career. The conversation even manages to get in some reference and/or remember such figures and events of years past to the noted antiwar “Maverick Marine” Gen. Smedley Butler and his seminal short book War is a Racket, the Iraq War and Judith Miller, the problems with the way some elements of the press covered the Steele Dossier (aka the “Trump pee-tape” story), the Capitol breach of January 6th, 2021 (Brian was in Washington, D.C. as it happened), covering an Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) scandal, the concept of the “Fourth Estate” and the need for it, and much, much more!
