- Sup you beautiful bastards.
Hope you're having a fantastic Thursday.
Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco show.
Buckle up, hit that like button,
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first serve, I also threw a few things on sale.
But yeah, with that said, let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today is
a story around news and, more importantly, how it's covered.
And specifically, I'm talking about this news coming out
of Northwestern that it's been really interesting
to watch everything develop.
So this all started last week,
when Jeff Sessions, Trump's former Attorney General,
spoke on their campus.
Right, that's something notable on campus,
so the school student paper, the Daily Northwestern,
sent reporters to cover his speech,
as well as students who were protesting it.
And according to reports, protestors were pushing through
the back of the building,
police tried to stop them from entering,
but ultimately failed.
And these series of events were documented
by one of the reporters, Colin Boyle,
who was a photographer for the Daily.
And following this,
some of the activists protesting disagreed
with the Daily's coverage of events,
some particularly upset about the photography.
Boyle tweeted some of the photos he captured
from the protest and some students found this
to be inappropriate, with one tweeting,
Colin please can we stop this trauma porn?
I was on the ground being shoved and pushed hard
by the police.
You don't have to intervene,
but you also didn't have to put a camera
in front of me top down.
As a fellow photographer, I know how this works,
and 20 other ways to document this.
Right, and so after facing this kind of backlash
from protesters, what we ended up seeing is that
on Sunday, the Daily posted an editorial apologizing
for their coverage, with some of that reading,
we recognize that we contributed
to the harm students experienced,
and we wanted to apologize for
and address the mistakes that we made that night,
along with how we plan to move forward.
One area of our reporting that harmed many students was
our photo coverage of the event.
Some protesters found photos posted
to reporters' Twitter accounts retraumatizing and invasive.
Those photos have since been taken down.
On one hand, as the paper of record for Northwestern,
we want to ensure students, administrators
and alumni understand the gravity of the events
that took place Tuesday night.
However, we decided to prioritize the trust
and safety of students who were photographed.
They also addressed concerns
about them using the student directory
to contact students who attended the protest,
saying that they know recognize it
as an invasion of privacy, and promise to find a new way
to reach sources, as well as their choice
to remove the name of a student initially quoted
in an article.
And there is part of the reason, they note,
that Northwestern does not give protesters amnesty,
so using that student's name might get them
in trouble down the road.
And adding, going forward, we are working
on setting guidelines for source outreach,
social media, and covering marginalized groups.
And so this editorial ends up getting a lot of attention,
not only from local, but also national news outlets.
And so as this gets bigger, there are more eyes on it,
we start to see a number of people saying
that the Daily should not have apologized
because essentially they're apologizing for doing their job,
which is reporting on and capturing the real events
that take place on their campus.
And so throughout the week, you know,
because this has sparked an online debate
of, you know, the role of a student journalist
or a journalist in general, we've seen organization
after organization deliver their take.
We saw the Chicago Sun-Times say the Daily is apologizing
for posting photographs of protesters
at a public demonstration.
In what world is that invasive?
The real concern, for anybody who cares about the state
of our free society, should be quite the opposite.
The real concern should be the frequent efforts
by the government to keep journalists
and protesters far apart to tamp down voices of dissent.
Also defending the student journalist
for using the directory as a means to contact sources,
by saying, requesting an interview,
via text or any other polite means,
is not an invasion of privacy.
Not even in the world of campus safe spaces.
It's a request for an interview,
to which anybody can say no.
We also saw Guy Benson, a Fox News contributor
who actually got his degree from Northwestern,
speaking on the matter.
- And it was sort of grovelingly apologetic
for doing the sin of journalism.
They committed journalism by asking questions
of students, contacting students for comment,
publishing on the record quotes from people,
and taking photographs of public protest
from a public event, and that is all just totally proper.
- We also saw a Huffington Post news editor say
I will say regarding Daily Northwestern drama,
the best way to learn is to make mistakes.
The best place to make these mistakes is arguably
in college.
Maybe the criticism from professional journalists will help
them realize that they shouldn't cower
when they are doing their jobs.
We also saw the Dean
of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism say,
among other things, that the coverage was
in no way beyond the bounds of fair, responsible journalism,
adding I am deeply trouble by the vicious bullying
and badgering that the students responsible
for that coverage have endured for the quote sin
of doing journalism.
It is naive, not to mention wrong-headed,
to declare, as many of our student activists have,
that the Daily staff and other student journalists had
somehow violated the personal space of the protesters
by reporting on the proceedings,
which were conducted in the open
and were designed, ostensibly, to garner attention.
And as for the Daily's editorial itself,
he called it heartfelt, though not well considered,
adding I understand why the the Daily editors felt the need
to issue their mea culpa.
They were beat into submission by the vitriol
and relentless public shaming they have been subjected to
since the Sessions story appeared.
I think it is a testament to their sensitivity
and sense of community responsibility
that they convinced themselves
that an apology would affect a measure of community healing.
Now, with all of that said,
I should note that not everyone thought
that the apology was out of line.
Something that the Daily needed to address happened
with one student saying,
as a journalist, your job is to protect people
and always have your audiences' safety
and best interest at the forefront.
Journalists often show their true colors, like today,
they don't care about people,
they care about stories and headlines.
We also saw reporter Karen Kho, saying that, you know,
that we've seen so many journalists speaking
about this story, and it kinda speaks
to a problem in journalism,
saying these journalist are mad in a way
I've never really seen, with several other issues,
such as the lack of diversity in their newsrooms,
declines in public trust, or how reporting can further hurt
underrepresented communities.
Others also pointing out the school's history
when it comes to protests,
saying the university has a history
of punishing student protesters by finding them
through photos that have been taken,
and to publish these photos
without reaching out and asking,
especially considering this history, was irresponsible.
Following all of this, we've seen some
of the student journalists involved in this speaking out.
This, including Troy Closson, the paper's editor-in-chief,
who was among the eight editors who signed the editorial,
and he published his Twitter thread, you know,
kind of partially justifying the editorial,
but also acknowledging over-correction,
noting that with him being the third black editor-in-chief
in the Daily's more than 135 years of publication,
and that balancing this role with the knowledge
that the paper has historically not treated
students of color well has been a challenge.
Colin Boyle, the student photographer that took the photos,
was interviewed by The Washington Post,
and he kinda walked through what he was thinking
while he was covering the protest,
saying these are my peers, these are people
that I might have class with.
If something happened, god forbid,
I was the only camera that was non-police-owned
in that area, to my knowledge,
and adding on Twitter, this last week has led
to a lot of reflection of what out impact is
as journalists, and the privileges we as reporters take
for granted.
This should be a conversation that we all continue to have,
not just when we make mistakes.
It is up to us to start this conversation and to listen.
And that is essentially the story as it is now.
And as far as my reaction to this story,
I think in no world should they have apologized,
because I really do see this as them apologizing
for practicing journalism.
Now understand, I am saying this
while not at the same time saying fuck those kids.
Right, I'm not going to attack those young journalists.
I agree with the quote from earlier,
if there is a time to make mistakes at something like this,
it's in college, they're young, they're new.
And to the big mainstream journalists
that have been incredibly condescending or personal
with their attacks, you know, have you made a mistake
in the past two years?
Did you make a mistake back in college?
And I say this because I think it's important in general,
I also say it because I know a ton of people
that have watched the show have gone on
to become journalists, you're probably far more qualified
to do this job.
I also know there are number
of younger people watching right now
that want to go on to be journalist,
which I think is incredibly admirable right now,
since it's so toxic and dangerous out there.
You know, at times, when you're covering something
there may be a wave of backlash that's so harsh
you even question yourself,
not only the quality of the coverage,
but you're like were there,
did I have bad intentions?
And you know I say this as someone
who has received criticism,
you know I look back to some of my older content,
and I'm like oh man, I definitely am guilty
of having made some false equivalences.
And it's good to have moments of reflection,
you wouldn't be good at what you do
if you went no, everyone else is wrong,
I am always right.
That doesn't just mean you cower to the mob,
then you become part of the problem.
But unfortunately, based off of a piece that came out
in The Washington Post today,
written by Zach Kessel who is a freshman
at Northwestern University, where it says he writes
as an opinion columnist for the Daily Northwestern,
he described the situation where staffers talked
about how the old media is dead,
and that because most of the notable critics
of the statement write for legacy print publications,
the Daily must be doing something right.
But with that said, if there is a way
for me to end this story, it's actually something
that Zach himself wrote.
Finding out the truth intrinsically involves conflict.
If readers, writers, and editors can't tolerate
that conflict, we're in trouble.
But yeah, that's the story, some of my takeaway,
and now of course, I pass the question off to you.
What're your thoughts on this?
Whether you agree or disagree with me,
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And the first bit of awesome today is
if you're lookin' for more news after today's show,
we put out an extra bonus news deep dive today.
It's on an advertiser-unfriendly topic,
but it's also an important one,
so, if you're lookin' for more, definitely check it out.
Then, in more traditional awesome,
we had Kristen Stewart on Hot Ones,
then we had Poppy Delevingne's guide to a fresh-faced glow,
which I definitely need right now,
Wired gave us how this guy became a world-champion whistler,
which apparently I just learned is a thing.
We had Architectural Digest giving us an inside look
at Hopper's custom renovated New York loft.
We had John Cena and Keegan Michael Key exploring
their impact on the internet,
which random side note, over the past two weeks,
I've been going back through Key and Peele,
and god I miss that show.
The last bit of awesome is this video
from Legal Eagle called The Case of the Shotgun Booby Trap.
And if you wanna see the full versions
of everything I just shared,
the secret link of the day, really anything at all,
links, as always, are in the description down below.
And then, let's talk about this dust up,
that seems to be based off of a very silly thing.
Now if you're not familiar, since 1985,
every year, People magazine names a sexiest man alive.
And this is a very important topic,
because as we all remember that famous quote,
if it's not in People, it's not real.
I think it was Malala that said that,
but main point, it's a thing that happens,
and inevitably we kind of see the same thing.
A bunch of people respond yes,
and then a bunch of other people respond
are you blind?
Idris Elba is still a person that is alive,
or whoever you think, for my wife,
it would be Jason Statham,
since apparently she's attracted
to literally the opposite to me in every way.
And this year, they announced
that the sexiest man alive was John Legend,
an announcement that resulted
in a lot of the expected reactions.
And on the inside of the magazine,
they also had other winners,
sexiest insert smaller category,
and that's because, and hopefully you're cynical enough
to realize this, this is really just the merging
of how can we clickbait people that are really popular
so they promote to our article
and publicists doing their job.
That said, the reason this story actually stuck out
to me is the legal situation around it.
So in addition to this being an annual cover
for the magazine, they actually have
the registered trademark for it.
Right, so this is not some kinda just random silly thing
to them, and in fact a report came out alleging
that after Us Weekly decided to launch
the real sexiest man alive, allowing readers to vote
on who they thought was the sexiest.
Reportedly, a source at Us Weekly's publishers,
American Media Inc., confirmed the lawyers had been
in touch, and told Page Six they hope
to have everything sorted out amicably soon.
And it seems potentially legitimate,
because when you go to the polling page,
and when you go to where they announced the winners,
both of those pages are down now,
which is why, today, we will not have
the first annual sexiest man alive award on this show.
I'm not lookin' to be sued.
And instead, today, I will be awarding
the first annual coolest bro ever award to David Dobrik.
And I mean there were a lot of contenders this year,
but you look at David Dobrik, and you're like,
look at the size of his subscriber base.
The inspiring way his face fits in the thumbnail,
and the charming nature of all the views it might bring me.
So yeah, congratulations, and better luck next year
to all the other bros.
And then, let's talk about this situation
that has just blown up over the past 24 hours.
Right, and all the outrage
with this situation involves an incident
that happened on Wednesday at Bark n' Bitches dog boutique,
a business that describes on it's website
as LA's first humane pet shop.
A Twitch user by the name of Rip Royce,
real name Royce Thomas, happened to be livestreaming
at the shop, and she caught a disturbing incident on camera.
In a clip from the stream which has just shocked
to so many people, we see one dog begin to bite
at a smaller puppy, and then we see this happen.
- Stop.
(dog yelps)
- Oh my god.
- Right, so we see the employee in question separating them
by aggressively grabbing the back of the dog's neck,
then throwing it.
We don't see how the dog landed,
but you know you hear that hard thud, people gasping.
And afterwards, you see the dog visibly shaken by the throw,
hiding under a nearby bench.
And when witnesses go over to console the animal,
they can be heard saying that it landed on it's head.
Now following this, Thomas told ABC7
that she never saw the employee again
after the incident, also adding that another employee came
to hold the dog and try to calm down customers.
And according to Thomas, some of the people in the store
and some of her followers have contacted the police
about the incident.
Now of course, with more people seeing the clip,
it has sparked a lot of outrage,
people calling for the employee to be fired or charged.
Following that, we saw the pet shop post
a public apology later that night,
with it's owner writing,
my deepest apologies for this incident.
The dog was playing and acting normal
after this horrific incident.
She was taken to the vet and was cleared 100%.
We are grateful, and then including the hashtag inexcusable,
and also adding we will not tolerate this
or any actions that put our rescues in harms way.
The appropriate actions are being taken.
This is not what we stand for.
And a few hours later, the owner followed up with a video,
where she said
- I do want you to know that the employee is
no longer with us.
And that the dog is actually doing fine
and did go to the vet.
- Right, and so some people were happy to see that,
although a number of the top comments
on that video were people angry at her.
You had people questioning their hiring
and training practices,
which I would say, sure hiring practices, training?
I mean I think it's pretty common sense
you don't throw a dog.
Like I don't have a training employee for my employees
where I'm like don't set your coworkers on fire.
Right, it feels like that's just a thing
that should be understood.
Right, but that said, I really do hope
that the police involved, they find the person
who just decided to abuse an animal like this.
Yeah, that was a thing, and let that be, I guess,
your kind of, one of many, daily reminders
that sometimes people are just horrible garbage people.
And then, let's talk about Venice, Italy,
because right now, the city is experiencing
their second worst flood since they started recording floods
almost 150 years ago.
Right now, as of recording this video,
85% of the city is underwater.
We saw water levels peaking at just over six feet,
just a few inches shy of the record.
Which, it is important to note that floods,
in general, are not rare.
In fact, floods tend to happen this time every year
in Venice.
And part of that is because, if you know anything
about Venice, you know it's full of canals and waterways.
It's actually built in a lagoon
that borders the Adriatic Sea.
And at the same time, Venice is a very low-lying city,
it only sits about three feet above sea level.
And on top of that, Venice is sinking at a rate
of about a fifth of an inch every year.
And in fact, you have climate scientists predicting
that the entire city will be underwater
by the end of this century.
And as far as why they have these yearly floods,
which they call the acqua alta, generally speaking,
they happen in winter, as strong winds push water
from the Adriatic Sea into the city.
And while Venice does have sea walls
to help reduce the flooding,
there's actually been a lot of controversy
around the city's floodgates.
Since 2003, the city has been trying to complete
a more than $6 billion project
to build 78 underwater floodgates.
And the goal of that project
and these floodgates would be to temporarily isolate
the lagoon from the sea during flooding season.
But, unfortunately, that project has been largely delayed
because it has been plagued by cost burdens
and corruption scandals.
And right, so as far as this flood,
Tuesday night it hits.
With high winds and tides shoving boats onto the streets,
gondolas on top of bike racks,
here, a ferry was stranded between two streets.
And because you had boats getting slammed
against the street, we also saw images like this,
as well as stores and hotels flooded,
water just spewing out of toilets
as pipes got backed up.
Reports of power outages across the city,
also reportedly one 78-year-old man died
after being electrocuted by a short circuit in his home.
But, yesterday some good news,
we did see water levels go down some.
However, this situation isn't done, right?
We're still seeing people using makeshift planks
just to get around town to certain parts of the city
that are under four feet of water.
You also have the floodwater damaging major landmarks
in the city, many people describing St. Mark's Square
as a lake.
The flooding also hit St. Mark's Basilica which,
along with Venice, is part of a World Heritage Site.
You had the archbishop of Venice saying
that St. Marks is now suffering structural damage,
and that the water is causing irreparable harm.
And with this happening, we've seen the mayor of Venice
kind of talking local and worldwide.
At a press conference yesterday, he's saying
Venice is an emblem of the whole country.
We are no longer talking about a local problem,
but a worldwide one, and adding there were people
who were crying today because they've lost everything,
and we're not talking about the poor.
The point is that there is no longer certainty.
You no longer know how to live,
and if we want to repopulate, we have to give certainty.
It's the life of the city itself, the future of the city.
We also had him on Twitter, calling for the project
to build 78 underwater floodgates to be finished,
and adding that these floods are a result of climate change.
And actually, on that note of climate change,
he is not wrong.
Like the fires in Australia that we talked
about earlier this week,
climate scientists have backed up his claim.
This, because as polar ice caps melt,
we're seeing ocean and sea levels rise.
Venice alone, city officials said
that the sea level is four inches higher
than it was 50 years ago.
You also have scientists saying we're seeing
more extreme weather events which can make
those winter winds blow into Venice even stronger.
And all of those factors then produce higher tides
that can hit a city that, like we said, is already sinking.
And you know, since that record-breaking and making flood
all the way back in 1966,
Venice has almost seen 20 floods peaking
at over four and a half feet.
And on that note, you had the former head
of Venice's tide monitoring and forecast center saying
the increased flooding is a trend that jibes
with the extremization of climate.
If we look at the course of history,
we have documents dating back to 1872,
and we can see that these phenomena didn't used to exist.
But ultimately, I mean as far as what happens next,
when we look to Venice we see
that schools were canceled yesterday and today.
You have the mayor of Venice calling for Italy
to declare a state of emergency, which on that note,
the Italian government did issue that declaration today.
Also today, Italy's Prime Minister said
that the commitment to Venice is total,
regarding the project, which regarding that project,
it is expected to be completed by 2022,
with the Prime Minister saying that he hopes
that it could at least partially be in use by then.
But ultimately, that is where the story ends today,
unfortunately, stories like this are not going to end.
It really does feel, and once again,
I've been doing this for over a decade now,
these stories are getting more and more extreme.
Just more and more undeniably in our faces.
And that's where I'm going to end today's show.
And hey, if you like this video,
share it with a friend or some family,
sometimes it's just worth the reaction.
Also, if you're new here, and you wanna fill your weekdays
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definitely tap that bell, turn on notifications.
Also, if you're lookin' for more to watch after this video,
we have that brand new Rogue Rocket deep dive,
or maybe you didn't catch the podcast I did
with Eugene Lee Yang.
You can click or tap to watch either of those right now,
but with that said, of course, as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in.
I love yo' faces, and I'll see you next time.