In this installment, Dan and Jordan review the deposition of Newsmax's corporate representative in the case involving the misidentification of the Allen mass shooter, where they see a stark contrast with how all of Infowars' corporate representatives have acted. (Note: This was recorded in late 2024, which is why there is a reference to Dan's vacation)
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, saying we are the bad guys. | |
| Knowledge fight. | ||
| Dan and George. | ||
| Knowledge fight. | ||
| I need money. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Stop it. | |
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| It's time to pray. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
| Thanks for holding us. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello, Alex. | |
| I love your room. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Knowledge fight. | |
| Knowledgefight.com. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I love you. | |
| Hey, everybody. | ||
| Welcome back to Knowledge Fight. | ||
| I'm Dan. | ||
| I'm Jordan. | ||
| We're a couple dudes like to sit around, worship at the altar of Selene, and talk a little bit about Alex Jones. | ||
| Oh, indeed we are, Dan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Dan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Quick question for you. | ||
| What's up? | ||
| What's your bright spot today, buddy? | ||
| Why don't you go first? | ||
| My bright spot is actually the Penguin. | ||
| Okay, yeah, I've heard it's good. | ||
| Just finished. | ||
| Fantastic. | ||
| Oh, the season's ready for me to binge? | ||
| Yep, yep. | ||
| You can nail it out. | ||
| That's a great airplane fucking, yeah, that's the way to do it. | ||
| Maybe. | ||
| So yeah, so it's great. | ||
| They did a Billy Bathgate, which is awesome. | ||
| I like the series. | ||
| That's the Clinton has a scandal about taking a tub. | ||
| A little something like that. | ||
| No, it's a novel by Dr. Rowe. | ||
| And it is one of my favorite. | ||
| He's also one of my favorite authors. | ||
| He's one of my favorite novels. | ||
| And he writes so good. | ||
| He's just a good, like, when you read his stuff, it feels like he's got both his knees on your chest. | ||
| And he's, like, telling, it's hot. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's sexy. | |
| I hate to, in this specific context, I hate to be an editor, but he writes well. | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| He writes good. | ||
| He writes good. | ||
| Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| No, but that's what I'm trying to express here, okay? | ||
| He's also part of a theory that I worked out whenever I first started reading him and realized that it was undeniably sexy to have an author have both knees on your chest while he's telling you a story. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| And then I realized that most people do not view it that way. | ||
| Not how they read books. | ||
| Do not have the synesthetic, like, is this actually about sex? | ||
| Kind of thing. | ||
| Yeah, no, that's... | ||
| It's not universal. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| But then if you view everything through that viewpoint, which is that all authors are repressed masturbators, then it all makes sense. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Then you can enjoy all literature for how it's actually about Bonin. | ||
| And that's the great... | ||
| You know, like, if you think about a Jane Austen novel, Many people have a lot of different kind of viewpoints, but if you just think about it as one giant striptease, and instead of clothes, it's like societal expectations that you're slowly taking off. | ||
| That's it! | ||
| It's actually about fucking! | ||
| They're all about fucking. | ||
| Are you telling me that Ahab wanted to fuck that whale? | ||
| Absolutely! | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| Oh, man, absolutely. | ||
| I'm going to have to rethink literature. | ||
| I genuinely think most people should. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| How is this actually about how smart people can't just say it's actually about fucking is a baseline literary critical theory that I think more people could apply? | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'll insert it. | ||
| It's the way to do it. | ||
| Wait, what did I say? | ||
| Exactly! | ||
| Shit! | ||
| What's your bright spot? | ||
| I was just thinking about... | ||
| We're recording this in advance because I'm going to be on vacation. | ||
| I was thinking about the... | ||
| Where in the world is... | ||
| And I just started to think about Rockapella. | ||
| I got excited for a second. | ||
| I don't know why. | ||
| It's just funny that they existed. | ||
| It really is. | ||
| They were huge. | ||
| What's funnier is to see the pentatonics now. | ||
| Actual, huge acapella groups and think, man, you guys would be nothing if it weren't for Rockapella. | ||
| Yeah, Rockapella walked so you could run. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| You're trash. | ||
| The issue, too, though, is that, like, I think now, I don't know, I don't... | ||
| Maybe this is another thing that needs to be reassessed. | ||
| But I feel like pentatonics and those kinds of modern groups have kind of a sensuality to them. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Right? | ||
| There's a boy band-ish kind of quality to it. | ||
| Yeah, there's gotta be. | ||
| You gotta give the people what they want. | ||
| That did not exist with Rockapella. | ||
| No. | ||
| They were not sexual icons. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sexless. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Absolute, non-threatening. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I realize there's a part of me that I have not dealt with or integrated into my full self as an adult that is, I think there was a small part of my life where I thought I might end up the bass guy in an acapella group. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I think there was a short period of time where that was like a viable outcome. | ||
| I like the idea of you in a barbershop quartet. | ||
| That sounds fun. | ||
| You'd look great in one of those hats. | ||
| Anyway, today we have an episode to go over, Jordan. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We're going to be doing another little depo episode. | ||
| We're talking about another deposition in the case of the misidentification of the Allen, Texas mass shooter. | ||
| Gotcha. | ||
| In this instance, we're talking about the corporate representative for Newsmax. | ||
| The channel Newsmax had a number of programs that aired the wrong mugshot. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so we get a corporate rep. | ||
| In there, but it's not an InfoWars corporate rep, so that's interesting. | ||
| No, I'm genuinely very excited to see what the idea... | ||
| Is it possible to have a competent corporate rep is a question that I haven't really asked myself. | ||
| Well, I'm not sure that we've had any non-InfoWars corporate reps. | ||
| That's what I'm saying. | ||
| Because there's like the Rob Do, there's the Daria, and the woman whose name is escaping me right now. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Brittany Paz. | |
| That's right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| And so I think those are the only examples we have. | ||
| And Paz was as close to like an actual corporate representative of the three of them. | ||
| Totally. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But even she was, you know, she was still a little InfoWars-y. | |
| Oh, boy. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| So we'll see how this is different and similar. | ||
| But first, let's take a little moment to say hello to some new wonks. | ||
| Oh, that's a great idea. | ||
| So first, Hannah, I'm sorry I like podcasts with loud men that shout a lot. | ||
| It's definitely Jordan. | ||
| You've got the sexiest brain. | ||
| Love, Joram. | ||
| Joram is pronounced Jor as in Jordan and um. | ||
| I nailed it. | ||
| In a sentence pause. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| You're now a policy wonk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Thank you very much! | ||
| I'm really excited that I got there. | ||
| I was pretty excited that you nailed it, too, because I was kind of expecting you to... | ||
| I was very close to Joram. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| I think there might be, like, some dust on my screen that looked like an accent mark. | ||
| That you almost got in the... | ||
| Oh, nice. | ||
| I think there's some dust on the screen that looked like an accent over the A. Saved by the dust. | ||
| Nice. | ||
| Next, friendly workplace middle finger for Jonathan. | ||
| Love, Kurt, in Alabama. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| You're now Palsywonk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And first off, you guys are amazing. | ||
| Thank you for the hours and hours of quality entertainment. | ||
| And also wanted to shout out my lovely girlfriend who converted me to the cult of Celine and the world of policy wonks. | ||
| Thank you for being my bright spot every day. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| You're now a policy wonk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| And we got a technocrat in the Mick Jordan. | ||
| So thank you so much to Hey Lydia. | ||
| Thank you for introducing me to Knowledge Fight. | ||
| I consider you the coolest of kids and I hope you have a great birthday. | ||
| Love Asia, a slightly less cool kid. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| You're now a technocrat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Four stars. | ||
| Go home to your mother and tell her you're brilliant. | ||
| Someone sodomite sent me a bucket of poop. | ||
| Daddy Shark. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp. | |
| Jar Jar Binks has a Caribbean black accent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's a loser little titty baby. | |
| I don't want to hate black people. | ||
| I renounce Jesus Christ. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| Thank you very much. | ||
| So we start off this... | ||
| Deposition, as we do, it just kind of has become a tradition, with the asking of what kind of preparation you've done for this deposition. | ||
| It's great. | ||
| Yeah, I feel like someone asking what have you done to prepare for our audience is kind of like the opening guitar lick from Welcome to the Jungle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| People are like, ah! | ||
| To hear Mark asks. | ||
| Everybody's lighters immediately pop up, yeah. | ||
| All right, sir. | ||
| Can you give us your name and your job title? | ||
| Yes, it's Andrew Allen Brown. | ||
| I'm the Chief Operating Officer of Newsmax Media. | ||
| All right, sir. | ||
| When were you first told that you would be given this deposition? | ||
| About three weeks ago. | ||
| About three weeks ago? | ||
| Three, four weeks ago. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Did you meet with your attorney about this deposition? | |
| Yes, I did. | ||
| How long did y'all meet? | ||
| Several meetings, we probably met a total of five to six hours. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Did you talk to anyone other than your attorney about the subject matter of your testimony? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| As part of my research for the questions at hand, I talked to several producers as well as managers who were involved in this subject. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Did you review documents in preparation for the deposition? | ||
| I did, yes. | ||
| I looked at emails on the topic. | ||
| I also looked at show rundowns as well as these two articles that showed the same photo and story that were prior to us publishing. | ||
| And do you feel like today you are prepared to talk about the four topics you've been asked to testify about? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| So right off the bat, you can tell the difference between this deposition and one featuring an InfoWars character. | ||
| For whatever you want to say about them being a horrible outlet full of the same kind of bullshit, Newsmax is an actual company. | ||
| They operate like an actual business, not a single talent sideshow act meant to create shell companies to sell supplements. | ||
| Their COO, Andy Brown, is obviously a shithead and a bad person because he continues to work in the job he does at the company he does, but he's also a business person. | ||
| When there's a need for someone to appear as a corporate representative, he understands what that means and has done way more preparation than we've ever seen an info person do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| He's representing that he's spoken to producers and looked into the matter in question in order to provide answers as the company, which is what your responsibility is in this case. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So that's refreshing. | ||
| It makes sense. | ||
| I was thinking about this and I realized that, like, for me personally... | ||
| It makes more sense to not know anything because then I will not be asked to do it again. | ||
| They'll have to get somebody else. | ||
| This guy seems like a guy who should be giving one of these depositions. | ||
| He's a COO. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| In general, he feels like he's on top of things. | ||
| That makes sense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And in the context of being there as a corporate representative, again, if you're there as a person, it makes sense to hide behind I don't know. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But that's unacceptable as an answer as a corporate representative. | ||
| Because it's factual that we have information for. | ||
| And I think he gets that. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| And it comes out in just kind of like... | ||
| I don't even... | ||
| We can't argue over side issues. | ||
| I like that. | ||
| Which leads to a fair amount of admission. | ||
| This is fascinating. | ||
| You understand that on May 6, 2023, a neo-Nazi mass shooter killed people at the Allen outlet malls? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You understand that on May 8, 2023, Newsmax covered that shooting? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And you understand that on May 8th, 2023, Newsmax repeatedly used the image of the plaintiff Mauricio Garcia to depict the shooter? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's almost shocking that we're hearing a person who isn't trying to debate whether or not the Allen shooter was a neo-Nazi. | |
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He isn't in this deposition room to fight or waste time. | |
| He's actually answering questions, which doesn't happen with Alex's crew. | ||
| In giving direct answers, Andy has indicated that there's no substantive disagreement that this shooting happened. | ||
| It was carried out by a Nazi dude. | ||
| And the two days after the shooting, Newsmax reported on the wrong. | ||
| This saves so much time because... | ||
| These are just demonstrably true things, and him answering this way means they don't have to treat him like a baby who doesn't want to eat their vegetables, which is what we're so used to. | ||
| Yeah, you know, and the other thing I was immediately thinking while he was responding to this is, oh, if you do it this way, they can only get you for what they think you did, not what you actually did. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Like with Owen, with the last one that we listened to, there's a certain amount of like... | ||
| I didn't even know that we were going to talk about that today. | ||
| You are the one who introduced this whole proceeding. | ||
| You are being so petulant and silly that I'm required to demonstrate in your face that this is a pattern of behavior that you have. | ||
| And you're an insincere fuck. | ||
| You could have just been like, no. | ||
| Perfect. | ||
| I think that this guy, Andy, still sucks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Of course. | |
| And I think there's obviously some... | ||
| Pretty interesting stuff that ends up going down throughout this deposition. | ||
| But from a base level, there is a recognition that they fucked up. | ||
| And he's not trying to dispute that. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And there's no, like, isn't it our First Amendment right to be able to say whatever we want? | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| No, he's a businessman. | ||
| What's our number? | ||
| What's the number we're going to get to? | ||
| There's no theatrics or any of that, which is... | ||
| I find it to be more productive. | ||
| It's a very strange thing that we're like, this is refreshing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| So they discuss how there are editorial policies at Newsmax. | ||
| I first want to start with Newsmax policies. | ||
| And it is my understanding that the company does not have written editorial standards regarding the verification of images it publishes. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| That's correct, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| In general, does the company have editorial standards? | ||
| Yes, we do. | ||
| Does the company believe that its editorial requirements meet or exceed the prevailing standards in the commercial journalism industry? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, section one. | |
| Yes, we do. | ||
| Is it the usual practice of your company? | ||
| To take steps to verify the accuracy of images it publishes? | ||
| Yes, it is our usual practice. | ||
| What steps does the company expect its employees to take before broadcasting a photo portraying someone as a mass murder? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection form. | |
| Any photo that we publish in connection with any story should be verified that the photo is accurate before it runs. | ||
| We have a central news desk that we use for verifying photos. | ||
| All right. | ||
| That process, did that happen here in this case? | ||
| No, it didn't. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's pretty blunt. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right! | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Hey, we fucked up. | ||
| Let's move on. | ||
| We've got these standards that are in place. | ||
| There aren't written rules necessarily about how we confirm photos. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| The central news desk. | ||
| We'll verify these things. | ||
| Those steps weren't taken in this case. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| And you just never get this kind of, like, frankness from Alex. | ||
| No, and what's fun is I could feel his, like, the moment he was asked about whether or not there were written guidelines, and he said no, I could feel his, like... | ||
| Within those six hours of meetings with my lawyers, they were very unhappy about that. | ||
| As we talked about that, they were like, you really should have had these written down. | ||
| And I was like, fuck, that's not good. | ||
| And if you were an Infowars employee, there would have been a whole thing about how, actually, it's the lawyer's fucking fault for not forcing me to have these employee guidelines written down. | ||
| What's a guideline? | ||
| Exactly! | ||
| Why would I write it down? | ||
| You can't prove that's me in that video of me. | ||
| Absolutely! | ||
| What? | ||
| Yeah, and instead this guy's like, yeah, they were real pissed about it. | ||
| Yeah, it's almost like this is a person who's being asked questions and answering them, whereas Alex's depositions turn into this exercise in epistemology. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| What is real? | ||
| Let's get to the real nitty-gritty. | ||
| How can we know anything ever happened? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can we? | |
| We can't. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| My cells are not the same as they were five years ago. | ||
| Did you know every seven years? | ||
| Fuck off, man. | ||
| Not to be too kind to Andy, but that is a totally different vibe. | ||
| But he does still have kind of some stuff that he won't accept admitting. | ||
| And we see some of that in this next clip, where they're talking about how Mark is asking about whether or not you should have more care. | ||
| When you're reporting on a story where you might accidentally accuse somebody of being a murderer. | ||
| Possible. | ||
| And Andy's angle on it is, we should always take care. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Which is nice. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| But then it leads, that conversation leads into a position he is not willing to accept. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| The company should take special care with news that might cause grief or damage people's reputations. | ||
| Would you agree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, she's one. | |
| The company should always take care of any news regardless of what that news is. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Would the company agree that its journalists would not fulfill their responsibilities in verifying the photo of a suspected mass murderer by assuming other news media have verified the image? | ||
|
unidentified
|
objection point objection point Can you rephrase that question? | |
| Sure. | ||
| The question I'm asking is if the company agrees that a journalist for the company would not fulfill their responsibilities in verifying the photo of a suspected mass murderer by assuming other news media have verified the image. | ||
|
unidentified
|
um hey i I would say our journalists should always verify the sources that we use on air or on our website. | |
| Those sources can be multiple places. | ||
| The best is someone involved in the investigation, which didn't happen. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would the company agree? | |
| That when publishing the image of a purported mass murderer, the company must use some combination of investigative principles to arrive at a reasonable assurance that the image is accurate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is that consistent with the company's policies? | |
| Again, it's not limited to just mass murderers. | ||
| Anything that we publish, we should verify that it's accurate And you would agree with me that in this particular situation, the company published an image without a reasonable assurance that the image was accurate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection form. | |
| We published an image that we had not verified with The investigators in charge of the shooting. | ||
| And would you agree with me that in doing that, the company did not have any sort of reasonable assurance that the image was accurate? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| At the time we published the image, we thought it was accurate. | ||
| I understand that somebody thought it was accurate, but when they arrived at that conclusion, they did not have a reasonable assurance that it was accurate, correct? | ||
| They wouldn't have published it if they didn't have a reasonable assurance that they thought it was accurate. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So here is this sticking point that he's coming to, which is, obviously, I can't say that they... | ||
| I can say they made a mistake, but I can't say that they had no reason or acted responsibly and still made a mistake. | ||
| I can't just be like... | ||
| Of course, they had no reason to do this. | ||
| I feel like what Mark is actually trying to ask is if your policy is you can publish any old thing as long as you see a bunch of assholes publishing it. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Then, in this case, do you feel like just seeing a bunch of assholes publishing this photo is justification enough for you to say, we have done our full duty in verifying it? | ||
| Or do you think, maybe you should fucking make a phone call? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, it's too... | ||
| There is no dispute. | ||
| That they made a mistake. | ||
| Right. | ||
| That they broadcast and reported on this, not fake picture, but, like, incorrect picture. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So there isn't really a dispute there. | ||
| No. | ||
| But it's still damaging for the Newsmax side of things. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Totally. | |
| You have to accept we don't really ever have a reason for what we do. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Like, there's not, like... | ||
| They thought they were doing the right thing at the time is the safe harbor that he has for the good intent. | ||
| We're usually right. | ||
| By saying you should always do this thing, you're saying that you mean to always do this thing. | ||
| But if what we're actually seeing is you'll just post any old bullshit... | ||
| Then, obviously, you think it's okay to do this. | ||
| Well, the issue, too, even with what you're saying, is that it's not any old bullshit. | ||
| It's a certain type of bullshit. | ||
| And this is where this deposition, I think, really gets interesting, is the selective way that critical thinking is used. | ||
| And not used. | ||
| And that leads us into bringing up an email from Chris Wallace, the head of the news department at Newsmax. | ||
| He has some very interesting things to say in the aftermath of the Allen shooting. | ||
| I'm listening. | ||
| I want to talk about the circumstances surrounding the company's acquisition of the photo and its decision to publish the photo. | ||
| Primarily, I want to talk about how it ended up on Greg Kelly's show at 9 p.m. on May 8th. | ||
| So, I want to go back to that date, May 8th, 2023. | ||
| And first, I want to show you an email that was sent that morning. | ||
| Can we bring up tab one? | ||
| All right, and we're going to be marking that as exhibit one. | ||
| Now, I'm showing you exhibit one as an email. | ||
| Sent from the news desk address to producers and reporters. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| I do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's a little small, but I'm familiar with the email. | |
| Mark, please zoom in a little bit. | ||
| Let's talk to me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And, Aja, actually, if you can scroll up just a little bit to the header of the document. | ||
| We see here that this email was sent at 1130 a.m. on the 8th. | ||
| Right. | ||
| This would have been Chris Wallace writing this email. | ||
| Yes, I would assume it's Chris Wallace since it came from the Newsmax desk. | ||
| Chris has several people who work for him. | ||
| Now, Chris Wallace is the Newsmax news director? | ||
| That's correct, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The subject is guidance on Brownsville and Allen, Texas? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And you are familiar that in the previous days to this email that there were homicides both in Brownsville and Allen, Texas? | ||
| All right. | ||
| In the first paragraph, Wallace says, do you see in the second sentence, we as a network need to be very careful about parroting any reports about subjects in these incidents. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| I do. | ||
| Does the company agree with that statement? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| He then says that these reports are more often than not I think that's what he means by that, yes. | ||
| You see the third paragraph is about the Allen shooting at Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Mr. Wallace mentions tattoos and patches on social media. | ||
| This refers to the tattoos and the right-wing Def Squad patch that was found on a social media profile alleged to belong to the shooter. | ||
| Is that a question, or are you making a statement? | ||
| Yes, I was saying, were you familiar with that, that these references to tattoos? | ||
| I'm familiar with the references, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| In the fourth paragraph, Wallace says, we reduce ourselves to MSM status by repeating unverified and likely patently false statements and creating a distorted picture of what happened. | ||
|
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|
Do you see that? | |
| Wow. | ||
| Fascinating. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| MSM, that's an abbreviation that y 'all would use for mainstream media? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| In the last paragraph, Wallace says, treat everything we've been hearing about both of these cases with caution, please. | ||
|
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|
Does the company agree with that statement? | |
| Yeah. | ||
| This email from Chris Wallace is really interesting because at first it looks like he's cautioned against doing the exact things that ended up getting Newsmax sued, but in reality it's not. | ||
| This is Wallace telling the staff not to report on these kinds of immediate, unverified news items that always end up getting disproven in time, but specifically he's telling them not to report on the Nazi tattoos and the right-wing Death Squad patch. | ||
| Everyone operating in this media environment Knows that a Nazi mass shooting is bad for their bottom line So the first mission is going to be Deny that he was a Nazi Nazi mass shooter. | ||
| That's why they were so desperate to find a bogus mugshot to push the narrative that the Nazi mass shooter thing was a media hoax, and that same editorial policy is guiding what Wallace is telling his reporters in that email. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
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|
He's assuring them that eventually it'll come out that these Nazi tattoos were a hoax. | |
| So don't cover that angle of the story. | ||
| Ignore that. | ||
| Yeah, your instinct is going to be to go with the verifiable mainstream media that's reporting on all of this stuff. | ||
| But what you need to do is look between the lines for a not-Nazi... | ||
| Well, but that's kind of where there's a little bit of conflict at this exact moment, because there wasn't really solid, verifiable information about a lot of the Nazi tattoos and the right-wing death squad patch. | ||
| Some of that had sort of a dubious origin on social media, and so not fully trusting that makes sense. | ||
| But... | ||
| That instinct and that behavior, if you're a news organization, should be applied across the board as opposed to just what's convenient. | ||
| Yeah, it's interesting that this is similar to the Watson email insofar as it's like, hey, maybe don't do this whole Sandy Hook thing. | ||
| But at the same time, it's from a warped Black Mirror-esque point of view of like, don't be like the people who don't do this. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Don't cover these spurious accusations that he's a Nazi. | ||
| Cover the spurious accusations that say that he's not a Nazi. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Don't do what you wouldn't normally not do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's wild. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| Fascinating. | ||
| So, in the moment when you're getting this story about the mugshot that is inaccurate... | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| One of the things you probably should do if you're in a reporting capacity is ask some questions about could this possibly be correct? | ||
| Sure, absolutely. | ||
| There were some things that everyone did know after the shooting. | ||
| The shooter was dead. | ||
| The shooter had no criminal history. | ||
| We knew these things from the official sources. | ||
| And so because of that... | ||
| They should have known that it's impossible that this mugshot would have been of him. | ||
| It is impossible. | ||
| And unfortunately, Andy can't even just deny that. | ||
| He just can't deny it. | ||
| Well, fuck it. | ||
| As you see, Exhibit 2 is a Newsmax article. | ||
| Do you see that it says that it was published at 11.56 a.m. on May 8th? | ||
| Let me scroll down below the picture so we can see that. | ||
|
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Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| The headline that says the shooter had a city of Dallas tattoo. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Were you familiar that the shooter had a Dallas logo tattoo on his hand? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I saw the emails from our news desk about that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And so we know that at this point, at 11.56 a.m., Newsmax knew there was a city of Dallas tattoo that the gunman had. | ||
|
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|
Objection form. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Can you go to page two for me? | ||
| And scroll down to the highlighted portion. | ||
| You see there's a highlighted portion there that says that Garcia reportedly had no criminal history, right? | ||
| I see the highlighted, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And Newsmax also knew That the shooter wasn't booked for the shooting itself, right? | ||
|
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|
Objection form. | |
| That was limp. | ||
|
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|
You mean a shooter who died? | |
| Right. | ||
| He wasn't arrested. | ||
| He was dead. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| So the company knew as of 1156 that Garcia had no criminal history and that he wasn't arrested for the shooting. | ||
| Right? | ||
|
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|
Injection form. | |
| At the time of the article, we knew that the shooter was dead, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And so Newsmax should have known that a booking photograph could not depict the shooter, right? | ||
|
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|
Injection form. | |
| If you put it all together, then yes. | ||
| Wah! | ||
| The people on TV are not directly getting stories from the people who run our website. | ||
|
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|
So they may not have seen this. | |
| I'm sorry. | ||
| Please continue. | ||
| No, that's all I have to say. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| It's sort of the job of a journalist and a commercial journalism enterprise to put it all together, as you said, right? | ||
| Wow! | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| I mean, when you put it like that, it makes us look bad. | ||
| I mean, it is tough to be like, alright, so we have this piece, this piece. | ||
| If you look at those pieces together, you obviously have it wrong, right? | ||
| Yeah, I guess so. | ||
| I guess if you look at it, we should... | ||
| When you put it like this and lay it all out, someone has absolutely no leg to stand on of like... | ||
| Yeah, we either are dumb or we meant to fuck this up. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, absolutely. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Well, when you put it all together, are you in an industry that essentially prizes itself on putting things all together? | ||
| Are you? | ||
| If you are, let's figure out where we want to be when your answer to that question is we didn't put it all together. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So you would have every reason in the moment to see this mugshot and be like, can that be the same person? | ||
| He has no criminal history. | ||
| But those questions don't come up because you want this to be true. | ||
| And so you run with it. | ||
| You know they did not book a corpse for this, correct? | ||
| Right. | ||
| They didn't weekend at Bernie's. | ||
| There were not two cops holding him up by his arms as though he was... | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So on the 8th, after the shooting, someone emailed... | ||
| Chris Wallace, a Twitter thread about the Nazi social media account of the shooter. | ||
| Alright, I want to show you this email from May 3rd. | ||
| I mean, excuse me. | ||
| I want to show you this email from May 8th. | ||
| We're going to be marking this as Exhibit 3. At the bottom, you see an email from Joseph. | ||
| And can you help me with his last name? | ||
| I actually don't know how to pronounce his last name. | ||
| I honestly do not know how to pronounce Joseph. | ||
| I think it might be Marisculio, which is... | ||
| I hope I'm not butchering that. | ||
| I'm going to try to use that term. | ||
| At the bottom of the email is an email from Joseph Marisculio. | ||
| He works for the Newsmax Newsdesk? | ||
|
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|
Correct. | |
| Okay. | ||
| At 3:33 p.m., he sent Wallace, Chris Wallace, the news director, a link to a Twitter thread and said, "Reportedly, this is a social media profile discovered of the guy." Is that right? | ||
|
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|
Correct. | |
| Okay. | ||
| And you know that that Twitter thread is by Art Toler, a researcher from Bellingcat? | ||
| I'm not sure who the originator of the Twitter is. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| Are you familiar that, without knowing who the person was, that somebody discovered a social media profile that they alleged belonged to the shooter? | ||
| Yes, I'm aware of that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Would you agree that multiple people in Newsmax reviewed this Twitter thread about the social media profile? | ||
| Yes, but I also know that they don't use information strictly from social media. | ||
| It wasn't until the photo was being used by a number of other major websites that the photo was used by our staff. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| I wanted to remember that to come back and talk about these major websites. | ||
| So we'll talk about that in a bit. | ||
| That is kind of okay in almost any other context. | ||
|
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|
Sure. | |
| Like, well, we're seeing this stuff from social media. | ||
| We're not going to jump on this. | ||
|
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|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| But, like, it's so interesting. | ||
| Like, okay, you all knew this in the background. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that night, you had a guy on TV who was reporting on something else spurious. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, you have these instincts when you need them. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And then when you don't want to have them, you don't use these instincts at all. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| If you're capable of this level of cunning, why are you incapable of this? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, it is fascinating. | ||
| And how do you expect me not to think, like, it was a choice instead of a mistake? | ||
| Yeah, it is very weird in these scenarios because it is like, I live in topsy-turvy world where I was when this occurred. | ||
| Everything made perfect sense. | ||
| But now that I'm in this room with you and you're asking me these questions, maybe it did not make perfect sense at the time. | ||
| And in fact, you're making me feel like maybe we made a lot of bad choices. | ||
| But, you know, all you can do really is pretend to be the company and say yes or no. | ||
| I mean, right? | ||
| It's so weird. | ||
| It's so weird. | ||
| Yeah, so Chris Wallace got this email that had the Twitter thread on it, and he had a response to that. | ||
| In this email, hold on, let's go back up to that exhibit, AJ. | ||
| And in the top email, Chris Wallace, he instructs that this Twitter thread should not be disseminated, correct? | ||
| Oh, that's not good. | ||
| And I would assume that's because nobody's been able to verify it yet. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| So this is a key moment, because what you have here is a clear illustration of intent. | ||
| There are two pieces of presumably unsubstantiated information that Newsmax can report on, or they could report on neither. | ||
| One of them is a Twitter thread alleging to be of the mass shooter, which shows him to be a Nazi and share a media diet with a large number of Newsmax viewers. | ||
| The other is a mugshot someone claims is the shooter, which would show that he's not a Nazi. | ||
| They have no reason to trust that either is confirmed. | ||
| The Twitter thread would turn out to be accurate, but they would be well within their rights to hold off on reporting it based on the level of confirmation that they had at this time. | ||
| If this was about confirmation and standards, then they should have published neither. | ||
| directly say not to spread the Twitter thread and then report on the incorrect mugshot, despite the very obvious questions they should have about its authenticity. | ||
| They made this choice because their coverage is strategic, not informational. | ||
| A right-wing Nazi lunatic killed a bunch of people, so this media space's number one priority is making sure they have a story to tell that includes it totally wasn't a right-wing Nazi who did it, they're just saying it was a right-wing Nazi because they want to make you Trump fans feel bad. | ||
| One of these pieces of unverified information serves that purpose, and one does not. | ||
| So the one that serves the purpose gets covered, and the one that doesn't is pushed aside. | ||
| When called to answer for why Newsmax wouldn't cover the Twitter thread, they can very proudly say that it didn't meet their standards for being verified. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| However, because of their real-world actions around this case and the mugshot, it's clear that those standards aren't real. | ||
| And appealing to them is an attempt to obscure their real function as a media outlet. | ||
| Almost like they should have written them down. | ||
| You can see it in that case, right? | ||
| I mean, like, you can just see this is... | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You have a good defense for not covering the Nazi pictures. | ||
|
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|
Yep. | |
| They are not confirmed, and you have standards that you have to uphold. | ||
|
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|
Yep. | |
| But when in the exact same case, on the same day, you're betraying those standards in service of pushing a counter-narrative, it's clear what you're doing. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, there's a certain part of me that, like, Sometimes you can see the kind of person who plays golf with three mulligans. | ||
| Because it is like he's hearing this question asked, and he does get exactly what's going on. | ||
| And there's a part of him that feels like, maybe I can just be like, nah, push. | ||
| Next. | ||
| There's no way for me to answer this question that isn't incriminating. | ||
| Well, in this case, at least, it's like, okay, so Chris Wallace said not to publish this thread. | ||
| Saying that if you're being asked, is this because it was not confirmed? | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yes is the right answer. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| It just will end up implicating the actions of the company around the others. | ||
| It's still not in your interest to say no. | ||
| That's not why. | ||
| No, of course. | ||
| It is fascinating because he is hiding the truth around a false truth. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| But that's like our fundamental existence now is defined by the accurate falsehood, wherein people tell you something that is defensible but is also absolutely not true at all. | ||
| And it's also hiding the sort of cancer of what this company does in the thin candy shell of... | ||
| That is the right thing to do in this instance. | ||
| You did make the correct call, perhaps, with not rushing and jumping on this Nazi story, waiting until there was more confirmation. | ||
| That is virtue in a media outlet, and you're wearing that as a mask to cover the insidiousness and awfulness of what you are. | ||
| Right. | ||
| We understand that we are tolerated because we exist in a... | ||
| Barest minimum of appearing like a journalistic outlet. | ||
| And we didn't even accomplish that this time. | ||
| Nah. | ||
| So I think that moments like that are really what makes these depositions so interesting. | ||
| Having to answer a question and the implications of it are shocking sometimes. | ||
| It's like a pin in chess where it's like, you're going to have to choose. | ||
| Is it your bishop or your rook? | ||
| You choose. | ||
| So, the conversation goes on to talking about the very clear Nazi evidence that was presented from this Twitter thread. | ||
| And this is the Threadreader webpage linked to in that previous email at threadreader.com. | ||
|
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|
Okay? | |
| And so I want to take a look at this. | ||
| Is this something you've ever reviewed? | ||
| No, it's not. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| We see on the thread here where... | ||
| This person, Arik Toler, has disclosed a link to the social media profile on OK.ru. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| I do, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And can you go to page three for me? | ||
| All right. | ||
| And here we see the right-wing Def Squad vest that authorities said the shooter was wearing. | ||
| I see it, yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And then can we go to page five? | ||
| And these are the tattoos that were on social media that we were talking about earlier? | ||
|
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|
The action form. | |
| I see them, yes. | ||
| Okay, and this is very clearly Nazi tattoos, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay, and Newsmax employees would be familiar with what a Schwarzkopf looks like, and they would be familiar with what SS lightning bolts look like. | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| Can we go to page nine? | ||
| All right, here we see that the profile posted about the Allen outlets a few weeks before the shooting. | ||
| Did you know that? | ||
| I did not know. | ||
| Do you know if anybody at the company knew that? | ||
| I don't know if anybody at the company knew that at the time that the story was published. | ||
| Can we go to page ten? | ||
|
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|
Oh! | |
| Not what I wanted to hear. | ||
| And here we have a picture posted by that account of the Allen outlet malls a few weeks before. | ||
| Do you know if anybody in the company had looked at this? | ||
| I don't know if anybody had looked at this at the time that the story was published. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And then go to page 11 for me. | ||
| Drop the hammer. | ||
| Here we see a receipt that the account posted for weapons under the name Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| Do you know if anybody at the company saw this? | ||
| I don't know if anybody at the company saw this at the time of the story published. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| All right, we can take that one down. | ||
| Now, instead of photos from that profile, Newsmax began using a photo of the plaintiff who had nothing to do with the shooting, correct? | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| So you have essentially, like obviously this is not proof that it's this person's account. | ||
| Right. | ||
| If you are a person who's capable of thought at all, the fact that this account had posted pictures of the location of the shooting, receipts for weapons and stuff like that, even if you're not going to report on it, this should give you some kind of a, like, uh, this looks more convincing that it is the person who did this than a random mugshot. | ||
| I am not going to blame a rhesus monkey for throwing something, but you're a thinking ape. | ||
| You made a choice. | ||
| Here's the evidence you made a choice. | ||
| But here's all the stuff that you decided not to make a choice about. | ||
| You decided to ignore all this shit. | ||
| You cannot say that you did not deliberately do something. | ||
| You were not reacting to a bunch of starbeams hitting you. | ||
| You were like, one of these is good for me. | ||
| One of these is bad for me. | ||
| Now we understand. | ||
| And so we get to the slight rationale for this mugshot. | ||
| They found it on some sites. | ||
| Good enough for me. | ||
| You've seen this photo, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| One of Greg Kelly's producers found this picture on a local news website in Wichita, Kansas. | ||
| Yes, Megan. | ||
| She told me in my investigation that the photo was in our NAS system that normally only has photos that have been approved by the news desk. | ||
| And she went out to verify the photo and saw it on an ABC affiliate in Wichita. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And she actually found this specific image, correct? | ||
| That's correct, yes. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| Also found the image on something called Today News Africa, correct? | ||
| Yeah, Chris Tomas. | ||
| He is the journalist who first brought the photo into our system. | ||
| When the story broke, he went to search about the shooter, and he said that he saw the photo and story on Yahoo. | ||
| on the Yahoo News aggregate and he also saw the link to the Africa website on MSN and so both of those major news aggregates had this photo and the story and links to local news websites. | ||
| Did the company know when this photo was taken? | ||
| No. | ||
| That's not good. | ||
| That's not good. | ||
| Yeah, so they found a couple things that were on weird, obscure sites that had been aggregated by somewhat legitimate-sounding things like Yahoo and MSN. | ||
| What you gonna do? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So goes Wichita, so goes the news. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Everybody has always said that. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Mostly the people in Manhattan, Kansas. | ||
| Truly, truly. | ||
| I'm trying to think of another city in Kansas. | ||
|
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|
Lawrence. | |
| That's the problem. | ||
| That's the problem. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, the blackest thing Wichita has ever done is be included in that sentence with a website from Africa. | ||
|
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|
Yeah. | |
| So they get this picture that they see from, you know, hey, there's some other people who have posted it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But there's a watermark on it. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Of where this mugshot is from. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so you could just go check that if you want. | ||
|
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|
By me. | |
| You could get into that. | ||
| Or you could actively try to hide. | ||
| Ow! | ||
| When you put it that way. | ||
| And it's unfortunate because one of the producers literally is doing that in an email. | ||
| Newsmax used the plaintiff's image to create this graphic, correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| This is a graphic that aired on Greg Kelly's show that night. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's bring up tab 8. Okay, we can zoom in a little bit on that top email. | ||
| That's the only one we're going to be looking at right now. | ||
| I am showing you what is, we're going to mark as Exhibit 8, and you'll see that this is an email from producer Sophie Robinson at May 8th at 7.50, I mean, I'm sorry, at 11.58, right? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Now, if it's 11.58 on May 8th, that definitely would be too late for it to be an email relating to the show, correct? | ||
| That's right, yes. | ||
| And if we look down from the email from Brian, his was sent at 755, right? | ||
| Correct, yeah. | ||
| Probably a reasonable inference that Ms. Robinson's email was sent at 758. | ||
| I would assume, but I have no way of verifying that. | ||
| Real quick, there is a bit of stuff that runs throughout this deposition that is these timestamps seem to be a little bit off. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But it probably is like a time zone issue or something. | ||
| It is what it is, yeah. | ||
| But it comes up a number of times. | ||
| Certainly it was set before 9 p.m. | ||
| Again, I have no way of verifying that. | ||
| You know, given the showtimes, then that would make sense. | ||
| I have no way of verifying the times on the timestamp. | ||
|
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|
Right. | |
| I just mean from the fact that she is writing about edits and changes being made to the May 8th show would suggest to us it's a reasonable inference that this email would have occurred before the May 8th show. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Again, it's a reasonable inference, but I have no way of verifying the time. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| She asks, Is there any way you can move the words of the title down even more ever so slightly so that we can see a little more of his neck as low as you can without showing that credit? | ||
| You see that? | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| And Ms. Robinson doesn't want the URL for the Mugshots website to be visible in the graphic, correct? | ||
|
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|
Injection form. | |
| Based on the email that she sent, yes, I would assume that's correct. | ||
| But, Ms. Robinson, she was obviously aware of that credit and where the image originated, correct? | ||
| You'd have to be. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| You'd agree with me from the internet browser history that's been produced in this case. | ||
| Nobody at Newsmax visited the mugshots.zone website. | ||
| Is that correct? | ||
| To the people that I talked to who were involved in this case, nobody visited the Mokeshot website, no. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So the source of the image, where they knew it came from, nobody actually went and visited that source? | ||
| That's my understanding, yes. | ||
|
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|
Okay. | |
| That seems strange. | ||
| That seems strange to not check the source of the thing, the direct thing, and instead actually make steps to obscure the source of the thing that you haven't checked. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's messy. | ||
| That's not good. | ||
| No. | ||
| It looks bad. | ||
| You know what I was thinking while I was listening to that? | ||
| I was thinking about how, like... | ||
| My evidence... | ||
| Okay, so whenever I first started out doing hearing aids, way back when I was a little baby, I was working in an office and there was a finance guy in the office as well who worked for one of those finance companies. | ||
| You know, the big ones with all the money. | ||
| And it just now occurred to me that you can tell that they are a fundamentally criminal organization. | ||
| That is successful, like all good banks, because that guy never answered a question in an email. | ||
| Never. | ||
| I would guarantee that if you looked at his inbox, there would be millions of questions, or like, should I, or like, is this, or any number of questions, and all of his responses are, Give me a call. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| This is a man who is trained from the jump to not respond to anything in writing. | ||
| It is all audio. | ||
| And if you record the conversation, this is a two-way state. | ||
| You know, that kind of thing. | ||
| Of like, you know this man knows what evidence is going to be. | ||
| Yeah, but in this case, it just kind of gives the impression of not caring. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| These people are not a great criminal organization. | ||
| That's why they'll never be famous like other banks, like Wells Fargo. | ||
|
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|
Well, this, you know, it's not a bank. | |
| Sure, sure, sure. | ||
| It's a bullshit bank. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
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|
And I just, I think that this is so sloppy. | |
| It's like indicative of, like you're expressing the intent to obscure the source of the thing. | ||
| Totally. | ||
|
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|
And one part of that is aesthetic, obviously, because you don't want to look like you're just taking a... | |
| Random mugshot off a website. | ||
| Of course. | ||
| But then the other part of it is making it harder for anyone to verify or fact check your claims. | ||
| Obviously. | ||
| And that's intentional. | ||
| But then the other... | ||
| The other part of it is so clear is show us a little more of his neck. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| And that's because he has a neck tattoo. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| It's to demonize this person in the mugshot and make him look scarier to our audience. | ||
| 100%! | ||
| I mean, imagine, though, imagine that instead of that email, you just saw... | ||
| Give me a call. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Like, that's how you do crime good. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But there's just a feeling of, like, we are never... | ||
| Nope. | ||
| No one's ever gonna care. | ||
| No one's ever gonna look. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We get away with this kind of bullshit on a pretty regular basis. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| And it's, as Alex would say, hubris. | ||
| It is. | ||
| It is absolutely, like, this is just our regular operating procedure, and only now are you paying attention. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| And when called to account for it... | ||
| You just have no excuse. | ||
| Now, were you aware that on the mugshots.zone website, it shows that this booking photo was for a booking for evading arrest in 2022 for an individual that was 35 years old? | ||
| Have you seen that before? | ||
| No, I was not aware of that. | ||
| If that information was out there, that's information that would have been beneficial for Newsmax to have, wouldn't it? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection point. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| But even if they didn't have that information, Newsmax producers should have known that someone with a booking photo was not the shooter, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection point. | |
| At the time the photo was ran, that we used the photo, they assumed that it was the correct photo. | ||
| Well, my question is, I understand what they thought, right, when they didn't verify the photo. | ||
| But they should have known, if they had done a job up to Newsmax's expectations, they should have known that a booking photo did not depict the shooter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection point. | |
| Yes, they should have known. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, well they should have known. | ||
| There you go. | ||
| What's interesting about this is that he's not, he's trying to evade a little bit, but not that much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| You know, and that there's a demonstration of like, even within your pretend rules at Newsmax, you fucked up. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| You fucked up even in your false reality. | ||
| By your own fake bullshit, you are worse than fake bullshit. | ||
| And he can't really... | ||
| We didn't argue with that. | ||
| No, we didn't. | ||
| Oh, these very basic facts that we could have checked that would have made it so we never would have reported this. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| We didn't even look into any of that, and we really should have known better. | ||
| Yeah, I guess that's... | ||
| I guess... | ||
| I mean, I'm listening to this thinking, like, I don't believe... | ||
| One, I don't believe any confession to the cops. | ||
| Any one of them, any interrogation, I don't believe any of it. | ||
| Because as I'm listening to this, my thought is like... | ||
| I will say whatever it is I need to say to get you to stop asking me questions. | ||
| You're putting yourself in the position of Andy. | ||
| Whatever it is we need to do to make this end, I will say, because this is awful. | ||
| Well... | ||
| I don't know if this is not so much a confession as a recognition. | ||
| Right. | ||
| No, that's what I'm saying. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Listen, man. | |
| Y 'all fucked up, right? | ||
| What do you want from me? | ||
| We know where this goes. | ||
| I know you know. | ||
| I actually did six hours of preparation for this. | ||
| None of my lawyers was like, you were going to get off on this one. | ||
| No, I'm fucked. | ||
| What do you want? | ||
| So the issue that I have is that when you're in a situation like this and you're being questioned, it's impossible for Mark to ever really be like, You guys just didn't want the people to talk about neo-Nazis being an issue, and the right wing has a problem with people who are down this road. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| So your editorial actions are in service of denying the reality of neo-Nazi domestic terrorist violence. | ||
| Right. | ||
| You can't ever really ask that. | ||
| So the best you can really do in a deposition setting is the, like, within your false reality, you fucked up, right? | ||
| Right, right, right, right. | ||
| And that's a little frustrating. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, there is an element of, like, we have to dance around the truth because if we don't, that objection form is going to start to hold water. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And you won't be able to demonstrate your intentions fully that are obvious to anyone who's looking on. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Speaking of which, I think, so, in tennis, before they had super good... | ||
| Technology and stuff. | ||
| You would have challenges, where if the line judge called a ball out, but you think it was actually in, you'd be like, challenge! | ||
| And then they'd go to the tape, that kind of thing. | ||
| But you only got three, unless it goes to a tie break, once you get some more. | ||
| I feel that way about objection forms. | ||
| There should be a challenge limit, and it should be immediate. | ||
| If you win a challenge, then you get to keep it. | ||
| But if you lose that objection form, you've only got three. | ||
| Well, one day we'll have an objection bot. | ||
| And then it can automatically determine whether or not the objection is valid or not and then kick you out if you've got three. | ||
| One day Elon Musk will create objection bots. | ||
| I like objection bots because I'm sick of objection form. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So I think that at this point Mark thinks that it's a good idea to hear some of the offending content from this guy Greg Kelly's show. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Because it kind of illustrates... | ||
| Exactly what I'm talking about, this intention of why you chose to cover this mugshot instead of the Nazi stuff. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| Because this is what was going on. | ||
| You guys and Nazis are the same team. | ||
| I think it might be useful to show you an excerpt from that clip that I want to talk to you about. | ||
| So let's bring up tab 9, which is an excerpt from the Greg Kelly video. | ||
| We'll be marking this as exhibit 9. I'd like you to watch this brief clip from the show. | ||
| AJ, I think you're going to have to set up to share sound because I'm not getting any sound on that. | ||
| When you share your window, there should be a little box for share sound. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Whatsoever. | |
| Until they told us this guy did it, Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| And oh yes, a white supremacist with neo-Nazi ties. | ||
| Now, look, this is not a white supremacist. | ||
| And oh, by the way, we abhor white supremacy. | ||
| But you know what the left does, right? | ||
| They think anything MAGA must be white supremacist. | ||
| That is appalling. | ||
| This is just pathetic, all right? | ||
| Now, there's a tattoo, many tattoos, and someone at one point tried to say that's the city of Dallas tattoo. | ||
| No, it looks like it's the Puro Tango Blast Prison Gang tattoo, all right? | ||
| This is... | ||
| This is not a white supremacist. | ||
| Yes, if you stand on your head and cross your eyes and take a drag on a cigarette, one of those etchings might look like a swastika. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, this is what they do now. | ||
| This is what it's all about. | ||
| Trying to tarnish or somehow diminish the other side by any means possible. | ||
| This, again, totally pathetic. | ||
| Now, in the hours after... | ||
| Okay, I have a couple questions about this. | ||
| First, Greg Kelly told his audience that the shooter was not a neo-Nazi. | ||
| That's right? | ||
| Yes, based on the photo that he was given. | ||
| Okay, that wasn't true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right? | |
| I'm... | ||
| I know that you've shown photos that the shooter who died at the scene had neo-Nazi tattoos, so I assume that he was a neo-Nazi and therefore Greg was wrong, yes. | ||
| Mr. Kelly denied that the shooter had neo-Nazi tattoos, correct? | ||
| Based on the photo that he was given at the time of that report, yes. | ||
| Well, he was talking about mini tattoos. | ||
| You remember him talking about the various tattoos? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Alright, so he wasn't just talking about that one image, right? | ||
| Because that one image just has one tattoo on the neck of my client's girlfriend's name. | ||
| So he was clearly talking about the tattoos that were being discussed that day, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| I was saying that, but in my conversation with Greg, he based that segment off of the photo that he was given. | ||
| So you have this... | ||
| Greg Kelly, he's doing his show, and he's talking about these tattoos, but those are not the tattoos that are shown in the incorrect mugshot that they're covering. | ||
| He has to be talking about the conversation that is going on about the neo-Nazi tattoos and all this. | ||
| His intention is defensive. | ||
| The act of pulling out this... | ||
| Thin, unverified, incorrect mugshot. | ||
| The act of doing that is in service of playing defense about the fact that this guy's a neo-Nazi. | ||
| Totally, totally. | ||
| And that is what runs underneath this. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that is frustrating. | ||
| Yeah, I feel like I want to be, like, because of these. | ||
| And I think this has something to do with human beings being super weird. | ||
| There's now a part of me that wants to do a simulation deposition, because I feel like I could crush it. | ||
| I feel like I've got a lot of practice learning what is wrong and what you should do, because ultimately what we're dealing with is actually, in real terms, just a series of true-false questions. | ||
| T-F-T-F. | ||
| You can solve it. | ||
| I feel like I could finish this deposition. | ||
| I could speedrun the deposition in about 15 minutes. | ||
| Just like, bang, true. | ||
| Bang, false. | ||
| Bang, true. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, as long as the speedrun and sort of virtual deposition doesn't have consequences. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Well, that's what I'm saying. | ||
| That's why I would need it to be a virtual deposition. | ||
| Just because there's that moment where he's in his own head going like... | ||
| Technically, because he saw the thing and the thing was not true, then technically, yes, it was not true. | ||
| Where it's like, buddy, just true. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Like, shorten it down. | ||
|
unidentified
|
T. Yeah, yeah. | |
| I think that some of that might also be a dynamic of the answering as the company. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| So, like, some of it might be him... | ||
| Like casing the answers in. | ||
| No, it makes perfect sense. | ||
| I am Newsmax. | ||
| Yeah, it makes perfect sense. | ||
| Just we Newsmax. | ||
| That's why I'm saying I just think I could do it better. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So maybe one day you'll have the chance. | ||
| I think I will. | ||
| So there is this notion of the Puro Tango Blast prison tattoos. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| That come up. | ||
| Which sounds like a fantastic form of Kool-Aid. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And also total nonsense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so this comes up, and it is revealed that Prison Gang Association is not true of the actual shooter, nor the falsely accused. | ||
| This whole bit about the Puro Tango Blast Gang, that's not true. | ||
| Neither the shooter or the plaintiff, whose picture Newsmax used, have anything to do with the prison gang. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| Our reporters who were in the field were passing back information that they were getting from investigators, and the Puro Tango tattoos was part of that information that was being passed back from our investigators. | ||
| Right, but my question is, that's not true, right? | ||
| None of that was true. | ||
|
unidentified
|
objection form. | |
| Do you mean that was not true for your client or for the shooter? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Both. | |
| Nobody had any involvement. | ||
| Again, I understand that your client wasn't involved. | ||
| I just know that at the time that the stories ran, our investigators who were in the field were getting information back that possibly the shooter was involved in that game. | ||
| Subsequently, if that information wasn't correct, it wasn't passed on to our investigators. | ||
| So the prison gang tattoo stuff is not true. | ||
| It wasn't true, but it was useful. | ||
| And this is where this is all just so... | ||
| You can admit to a mistake, but you can't ever recognize... | ||
| We meant to make that mistake. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's where his line is. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| As a person who's being deposed, is like, we have to always have a plausible enough reason that this is a mistake that people could make. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, there is an element of the most frustrating aspect of this is that this is not an arena that is capable of dealing with the actual problem that we are in this arena. | ||
|
unidentified
|
About. | |
| So, what are we all doing here? | ||
| But it can be a piece of it. | ||
| Sure! | ||
| Because we are able to have this conversation about the intent that's being masked by the, you know, the way that he's answering these questions. | ||
| Sure! | ||
| And we would not have this insight without that legal process. | ||
| True. | ||
| And Mr. Garcia wouldn't have a path to, you know, stand up for himself, were it not for, you know, the legal process. | ||
| I think it all works together. | ||
| We play our roles. | ||
| But the thing I find super incredibly frustrating is one person making this mistake kind of is like, well, alright. | ||
| But it turns out they aired this on six different shows. | ||
| According to Newsmax itself. | ||
| Jacobson says that six different Newsmax shows All broadcast the wrong photo, is that correct? | ||
| That's correct, yeah. | ||
| Based on the list you have there, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Each one of those shows has its own producer? | ||
| That's correct, yes. | ||
| Now, are there multiple producers for each one of these shows? | ||
| That's correct, yeah. | ||
| All producers have either an executive producer or a senior producer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| And then the show will have... | ||
| A few bearings based on the show. | ||
| We'll have several other producers who work on individual packages for the show. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And then I imagine those shows also have writers. | ||
| Is that right? | ||
| Producers are the same thing as writers. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Other than the producers, is there anybody involved in these shows who staffed these shows who would have been involved? | ||
| In the acquisition, selection, and decision-making about whether to use this photo we're talking about? | ||
| No, the shows pretty much work independently from each other. | ||
| They all make their own, their producers make their own news adjustments and in concert with the news desk. | ||
| Okay, so if we have a producer and an associate producer. | ||
| Or an executive producer. | ||
| You'd agree with me, we basically, if we have six shows, we're talking about at least 12 producers, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| At least, yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So this photo passed through the hands of at least 12 producers and was aired based on their judgment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That doesn't sound good. | ||
| I mean, you know, all the Marvel movies have different directors, but we know it's Kevin Feig behind them all. | ||
| What are you going to say? | ||
| Yeah, so the explanation for this, as it gets down to it, is that someone put it in the cache of verifiable, usable photos. | ||
| So this is the one mistake point that everyone just assumed after that. | ||
| That's how you have 12 people who can make the mistake. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's the explanation that's given, but it still is not useful. | ||
| Based on the information that you see, 12 people all independently didn't say, hold on, this person's the wrong age. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Hold on, why is there a mugshot of a person who has no... | ||
| dead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Like all 12 of those people had to not engage that part of their brain that is useful for journalism and for. | ||
| information relaying. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Because that's not part of their business. | ||
| Well, our business is we put a bunch of shit in the bullshit cauldron and whatever pops out is what's on the goddamn news. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then we'll defend it as an honest mistake Absolutely. | |
| Cool. | ||
| What more do you want from us? | ||
| So after Newsmax made all this error, they got some pushback. | ||
| And it turned out that they were like, oh no. | ||
| So internally they did a review and investigation of how this... | ||
| Did they? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| There's a report that Mark brings up about where this image came from. | ||
| In this report, the first thing he says in red print is it would seem to have begun with a tweet from a, quote, ultra mega business owner, unquote, who goes by the name, goes by the handle, quote, blue star. | ||
| You see that? | ||
| I see that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Just in a general political sense. | |
| Don't make me. | ||
| Just a high-end, a very... | ||
| To my knowledge, it's somebody who's a very big Trump supporter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| And then we have a handle, Blue Star, but we have no idea who that person really is, right? | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| He says, you'll see here in the paragraph that's offset below the link, he says, a quick look at the replies to her tweet show the fever swamps. | ||
| Some proposing the liberals set up the shooting to discredit whites. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Fever swamp. | ||
| That's not a positive description. | ||
| Would you agree? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| What does the company take that to mean? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, she's born. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| Based on the formatting, I would assume, without having looked at that Twitter, that that is a quote from the Twitter site, or the Twitter post. | ||
| You think the term fever swamps was used in the Twitter post? | ||
| I would assume so, based on the formatting. | ||
| If you look at the paragraph after that, it says, after that tweet, some websites took the picture and posted it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| My assumption, based on the report, is that Oh, I see. | ||
| You don't think that Mr. McGrory took a quick look at the replies and made a subjective judgment about what he was seeing? | ||
| Not the way I read it, but that's not the way I took that paragraph, no. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So Mark is very clearly correct about the context, but this guy is also not wrong about the formatting. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So that is a little bit annoying. | ||
| What are you going to do? | ||
| But yeah, so this report, they did internally, found that it was an Ultra MAGA account had posted this, and that if you looked at their replies, it was a fever swamp of people saying that liberals did this to make whites look bad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| And so, like, even internally, they are like... | ||
| Understanding, oh, this is the intention, this is what motivated the need to point the finger at somebody else in order to play defense about this stuff. | ||
| I pray to God I am never in a situation where I have to defend slang terms in a deposition. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Would you say that you feel good about describing this as... | ||
| On fleet. | ||
| Oh, God, don't make me do it, man. | ||
| The replies to this tweet were a flu oasis. | ||
| God damn it. | ||
| A flu oasis? | ||
| Sure, fine. | ||
| Whatever you wanted to believe. | ||
| Fine. | ||
| So, this obviously is tough. | ||
| When your own internal research people, in a matter of hours, manage to figure this all out. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And everybody else... | ||
| Made a mistake and did the bad reporting. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| We ate a bunch of garbage and then we spit it out. | ||
| Sorry, guys. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So Andy has to kind of be like, well, you know, we saw it on an ABC site. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| And then Mark has a, as the kids say, and you will have to explain under oath, there's a clapback. | ||
| Oh, goddammit. | ||
| They also, one of the Greg Kelly producers also went out and... | ||
| That's where she found, as you showed us the email earlier, and I talked to her about this, she found the ABC website in Wichita that also was using the photo with the story. | ||
| So she saw the photo on our news desk, verified that another ABC, which is also a very large major media company, was using the same photo with the story. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wait, hold on. | |
| I want to make sure I understand you here. | ||
| When we talk about ABC being a very large media company, we're talking about an ABC local affiliate. | ||
| Just some reporters in Wichita, Kansas, working on a local news website. | ||
| We're not talking about ABC National News Desk, are we? | ||
| We're talking about an ABC affiliate, but still, the ABC affiliates, my understanding, and I may be wrong, is ABC affiliates have to follow the same journalistic standard that... | ||
| The main ABC has to call. | ||
| But didn't we see in emails earlier that Newsmax should not lower itself to the MSM status of the folks who will just put out anything? | ||
| Don't y 'all hold yourself to a higher standard than the MSM? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| Yes. | ||
| So it's not really proper to just see something on a local website in Wichita, Kansas and assume that that's good and that they must have done their job, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| Yes, it was a mistake on our producer's part. | ||
| Yeah, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough. | ||
| All right, I brought up ABC, and I was trying to say that they do their due diligence, and we feel like we can rely on their reporting, but I also shit on the mainstream media all the time. | ||
| Ah, shit. | ||
| All right, yep, I realize contradiction, my bad. | ||
| Yeah, it just feels like this isn't, that's the ultimate frustration of this arena, is it can't just be like... | ||
| Listen, I caught you in a lie. | ||
| And they go, you caught us in a lie. | ||
| And then we go forward. | ||
| You know, there's gotta be this whole fucking bullshit dance between two bullshitters about bullshit for bullshit reasons whenever we all know you're fucking lying! | ||
| But it illustrates the bullshit. | ||
| It's bullshit. | ||
| So, uh, Wallace, Chris Wallace, after this report had been compiled and such, he emails his bosses. | ||
| To give an explanation. | ||
| And it doesn't sound good. | ||
| Oh, it doesn't? | ||
| Surprise! | ||
| Alright, and again here, Mr. Wallace is emailing three Newsmax executives along with a researcher, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct. | |
| Give me a call. | ||
| These people who are Newsmax executives here, Mr. Jacobson, Mr. Knowles, Mr. Kanofsky, those are Mr. Wallace's, they have authority over him, they're his bosses. | ||
| Correct? | ||
| Technically, the only person who has authority over Chris Wallace is Elliot Jacobson. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| So it's best to say that he is sending an email here to his boss and some other individuals at Newsmax, including executives. | ||
| That's correct, yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Now, early that afternoon, he says that Valenti and Julia... | ||
| Came to me yesterday and asked me about it, and I told them not to run it. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| I do, yes. | ||
| Valenti and Julia are producers, correct? | ||
| Yes, they're producers on other shows that did not run the photo. | ||
| Okay, what shows are those? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I believe Valenti is on the American Agenda show, which is one of our afternoon shows. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I'm not sure which show Julia is on, but I would assume that Julia is also on the American Agenda show as well. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Mr. Wallace says, I honestly just figured folks wouldn't fall for this. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And by fall for this, he means use the photo, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
That's my assumption, yes. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Do you see in the second paragraph, Mr. Wallace says, this was a pretty obvious unforced error. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The company agrees with that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Doing a little bit of damage control with the boss, the higher-ups, doing a little cover your ass. | ||
| Can't believe people fell for this. | ||
| Wild. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| Doing the sort of thing that we are accustomed to doing and generally do. | ||
| Oh boy. | ||
| Yeah, that's an interesting glimpse, though. | ||
| You know, that Chris Wallace didn't think anyone would fall for it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Do you watch your show, like, the network? | ||
| I mean, that is... | ||
| Sometimes a white glove slapped across a man's face is the only response to a... | ||
| Absolute fucking travesty of an answer. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | ||
| So Wallace and one of these producers were emailing about whether or not the picture, the mugshot, was accurate in the earlier time. | ||
| And I think that this provides a very strange image of Chris Wallace. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And you'll see here that Mr. Wallace has forwarded an email conversation he had with Mr. Valenti, correct? | ||
| Correct, yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| And he says, essentially, Mr. Valenti asks Mr. Wallace if the photo that they have is accurate, that if that is the Texas shooter. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| Yes, I do. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And he asks him if it's the mug of the Texas shooter, right? | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| And so I take it the two sort of meanings that come out of this, either he means that's his mugshot, or he could be using the colloquial use of the word mug to mean face, right? | ||
| One of those two things. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We're talking about a face shot of the shooter. | |
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Let's scroll up to the next email. | ||
| And then Mr. Wallace says, The photo is circulating on social and nowhere else to my knowledge, so no, I can't confirm it's him. | ||
| Have you seen it on any news sites? | ||
| I only find it on social and blogs and no sourcing. | ||
| You see that? | ||
| And then Mr. Valenti says he'll hold off, correct? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| When Mr. Wallace says he hasn't seen any sourcing, can you tell us... | ||
| From the company's perspective, why is sourcing important? | ||
| Ah, come on, man! | ||
| Well, to validate information. | ||
| So, we have a policy that we won't use social media or blogs as a source, as a primary source for information. | ||
| But we will use other major media that is running information. | ||
| Or our own investigation. | ||
| So sourcing for us is something that's very important to make sure that we have the information for us. | ||
| So that response that you had, that come on man, is like, you have some instincts. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because if you heard that question being asked. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's what I'm saying! | ||
| This is a trap. | ||
| I'm telling you, I'd be great at deposition. | ||
| This is such a trap. | ||
| I'm fascinated by this type of person who has this low-key element of answering questions as opposed to being like... | ||
| Because the moment you ask me that question, my instant response is like, that's mean. | ||
| That's a mean question. | ||
| You ask that in a mean spirit, and I don't think I have to answer it because you're a mean person. | ||
| I know in some way you're going to use my answer against me, or this is a setup for something. | ||
| You're a meanie. | ||
| That would be my answer to your question. | ||
| You're a big mean face who's got a mean face. | ||
| How about that? | ||
| When you're asking a question that is so obvious, alarm bells should be going off. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| But here was my experience of listening to that. | ||
| I had the same feeling of like, come on. | ||
| I would be worried if I were in Andy's shoes. | ||
| But I didn't know exactly why. | ||
| You know, like there's something here that is, there's danger. | ||
| But my spidey sense is not acute enough to be like, here's exactly what it is. | ||
| And so here's what it is. | ||
| And so what I have here... | ||
| And I'm going to try to bring them up to the same. | ||
| On the left-hand side, I have the copy of the email we were just looking at. | ||
| This is what Mr. Wallace forwarded to his boss and other executives. | ||
| And then on the right-hand side, I have what we're going to mark as Exhibit 14. And this is the original email that Wallace sent to Valenti, the original copy. | ||
| And I want to look at them side by side. | ||
| And do you notice in the email that Wallace sent to Valenti at 3.39pm in the middle of the page, do you see that in the copy that he sent to his boss and the executives, it says, I only find it on social and blogs and no sourcing. | ||
| But do you see how in Exhibit 14, on the other side, the words and no sourcing were not in that original email? | ||
| Oh, come on, man! | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, Mr. Wallace added those words into that email when forwarding it to his bosses, even though they weren't in the original email. | ||
| Do you see that? | ||
| Yes, I see that. | ||
| That's sort of a dishonest thing to do, wouldn't you agree? | ||
| I agree with that objection. | ||
| Not necessarily if he's trying to explain to the executives his stance on the matter. | ||
| Well, I mean, he's trying to make it look to his boss that he told Valenti and no sourcing. | ||
| But he didn't tell Valenti and no sourcing. | ||
| You wouldn't agree that's kind of dishonest? | ||
|
unidentified
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No, because he's explaining to his executives on the left hand. | |
| On the right hand, he said social and blogs. | ||
| Valenti obviously understood that and said, same for me, I guess I'll hold off for now. | ||
|
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So Valenti understood the implication. | |
| What I'm talking about is what his boss, what Mr. Jacobson was being told. | ||
| And what I'm trying to get at is Mr. Wallace was trying to make it look like to Mr. Jacobson that he said something to Valenti that he did not in fact say. | ||
| Do you see how that comes across? | ||
| I see it in the email, and I understand your point, but I don't agree with you. | ||
| Okay, and if you look at the original email to Valenti, that email could be read as suggesting that sourcing wasn't really necessary as long as you've seen it on a news site. | ||
| Wouldn't you agree with that? | ||
|
unidentified
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objection form no Okay. | |
| So on one level, you can kind of look at this as Mark kind of being a dick about this. | ||
| Because it does not necessarily implicate the central question of the misidentification of the shooter and the broadcasting of this incorrect information. | ||
| But I think it does, kind of. | ||
| Because what you have is Chris Wallace trying to present a different front of his own editorial actions to the bosses to insulate the ability to make mistakes like this, make strategic mistakes like this in the future. | ||
| So the head bosses wouldn't get worried about the potential exposure of the business. | ||
| So adding something in to the foreword is... | ||
| It shows intent in a way that is shocking. | ||
| And it is in sort of conversation with the email from the producer who wanted to hide the watermark on the photo so people wouldn't know where the source was from. | ||
| Or trying to present more of his neck. | ||
| There is an editorial and behind-the-scenes game that's being shown here. | ||
| And I think that that is worth interrogation, even if it does kind of come off a little dickish. | ||
| Okay, so how about this? | ||
| We remove the rest of the law. | ||
| I don't like it. | ||
| It's a waste of everybody's time. | ||
| We replace it with these depositions, but you keep score by putting a piece of American cheese on your face every time you get hit by what is metaphorically a piece of American cheese on your face, right? | ||
| Once your face is fully covered... | ||
| You lose. | ||
| Now, if you get a point back on Mark, he's got to put government cheese on his face. | ||
| If his face is covered, you win. | ||
| Can I ask you a very important question? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Were you a producer for Nickelodeon in the late 90s? | ||
| No, but God, if I wouldn't have dreamt of it. | ||
| Because you would have made a million dollars with that show. | ||
| I had so many good ideas as a nine-year-old. | ||
| Put cheese on people's faces. | ||
| I'm telling you. | ||
| Let's do it. | ||
| I do think that it wouldn't solve a lot of problems, but I'll tell you something. | ||
| Cheese solves a lot of problems. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Everybody knows that. | ||
| Well, I mean, we saw the effect that gummy worms had in the initial deposition that Owen did. | ||
| Replace the whole law with it! | ||
| So, the presentation that I believe that Newsmax wants to have is that they made a sincere mistake. | ||
| They didn't follow their own standards. | ||
| They didn't live up to their own standards. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| But they realized their mistake and, oh well. | ||
| We're contrite. | ||
| We're happy. | ||
| We're going to do the thing. | ||
| But then here's an email from a week later. | ||
| Now I'm showing you now an email that was sent about a week later. | ||
| About a week after all this happened. | ||
| And that was on 5-17-2023. | ||
| This email was sent by Amalia Sella. | ||
| Is that how you say her name? | ||
| Amalia Sella. | ||
| Amalia Sella. | ||
| Okay, she's an executive producer, right? | ||
| Yeah, for Chris Salcedo's show. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That was one of the shows that published the wrong picture, right? | ||
| On the 8th, correct. | ||
| So now this producer a week later is asking, did we ever get an official photo of this prolific poster and notorious white supremacist? | ||
| Can you see that? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Ms. Sella's still mocking the idea that this shooter is a white supremacist. | ||
| Correct? | ||
| I am not going to venture to guess what's inside Amalia's head. | ||
| That's fair enough. | ||
| But you have someone who made this quote-unquote error. | ||
| They were a producer on a show that misidentified the shooter. | ||
| They have every reason to know that they entirely fucked up and put out the wrong information. | ||
| By a week later, the information that they didn't cover is only more credible and standing up to scrutiny. | ||
| And there is no lesson learned. | ||
| There is no recognition that they did wrong because they didn't do wrong. | ||
| The goal is not to provide accurate information. | ||
| It's to play the strategic role in media that they play. | ||
| So for her, there is no need for analysis and there's no need for, well, we fucked that up. | ||
| Let's see what we can improve. | ||
| There's nothing to improve other than let's get away with it. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, the only problem with that is, like, eventually, if you follow that line of questioning, then the real conversation you're having is... | ||
| You guys are part of a massive global media operation worth billions upon billions upon billions, if not trillions of dollars. | ||
| You play a small part in doing this entire thing, all of which all of you are, relatively speaking, in concert about. | ||
| So what we're doing is touching a tiny little drop in the bucket of bullshit that we exist in. | ||
| Yeah, and one of the things that I find most interesting about, like, if you just zoom out and look at this deposition in and of itself, You have Chris Wallace, who's reporting to his supervisors, and the addition of this line in his email to them, it almost indicates a fear that if the bosses knew, they wouldn't allow this. | ||
| Yeah, absolutely! | ||
| And that makes me more scared than the sort of way that you'd look at it without that insight. | ||
| Right. | ||
| That everyone is just bad and fucked up. | ||
| The idea that maybe there's just somewhere in the middle, there's someone who's diverting this stream and good intentions. | ||
| Yeah, I think my defense to all of this would be... | ||
| I am a mote of dust in the universe, and my meaninglessness is far greater than whatever meaning you are ascribing to me right now. | ||
| That's what you would say in the deposition? | ||
| I think in the cosmic sense, I would have to say that I am nothing. | ||
| Speaking as the company. | ||
| I am empty. | ||
| I am water. | ||
| I am nothing here. | ||
| On behalf of Newsmax, let me read you a zen poem. | ||
| There's a certain aspect of like, hey, let's face it. | ||
| None of us are anything, are we? | ||
| As Newsmax, I'd like to announce that I have reached enlightenment. | ||
| I mean, I think there are worse defenses, and he's providing one of them. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So we have one last clip here, and it's just kind of the closing out of this, and I think that one of the big differences between this and any of the Infowars depositions is that he can't really deny wrongdoing. | ||
| No. | ||
| And he's not even really trying. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| We fucked up. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| In deciding to use plaintiff's photo, Newsmax producers did not act as carefully as they should have. | ||
|
unidentified
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Correct? | |
| You would agree that Newsmax producers failed to investigate the truth or falsity of the photo before publication? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| You do not dispute that information was available on May 8th that would have created serious doubts about the accuracy of the photo Newsmax was using. | ||
|
unidentified
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I do not dispute that, yes. | |
| Newsmax doesn't dispute they did a terrible wrong to our client, Mauricio Garcia, who had nothing to do with the shooting. | ||
|
unidentified
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Objection form. | |
| Objection form. | ||
| Can you ask that in a different way? | ||
| I mean, I'd like the way that I'd asked, which is that Newsmax agreed it did a terrible wrong to our client. | ||
| Can I get the language of origin? | ||
| If by wrong you may mistakenly use this photo incorrectly, then yes. | ||
| I mean, in doing that, in using that wrong photo, the mistake Newsmax made was not living up to the standard of what a reasonable journalist should do, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
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direction form. | |
| By making that mistake, our producers did not follow our procedures yet. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
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And your procedures are there to ensure that they act as reasonable journalists, right? | |
| That's correct. | ||
| And that did not happen in this case. | ||
|
unidentified
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That's correct. | |
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
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Well, that's right. | |
| That about says it. | ||
| I think that that last clip is great because there is no ability to deny that we made a mistake and we fucked up. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| But an absolute unwillingness to accept adjectives. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The horrible wrong or whatever is really, I think, what set him off. | ||
| Like, if you just said you wronged the plaintiff in this case by making that mistake, I imagine he'd just be like, yes. | ||
| But the horrible wrong, I think, is what he can't answer. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yes? | |
| A horrible wrong? | ||
| I get that. | ||
| I get that. | ||
| I feel like part of this is actually the thing that bothers me the most. | ||
| Because if I was him... | ||
| I would be stoked to admit to this crime because this is the crime that is far less objectionable than the one that I commit on the regular. | ||
| Which is? | ||
| Like, just being at Newsmax. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Like, there is an element of, like, oh, hell yeah, I'll plead down to manslaughter. | ||
| I'll plead down to manslaughter all day, because I murder one left and right. | ||
| I think what you're describing is, like, this is a discreet event that you can admit wrongdoing in, as opposed to the function and structure of what you do is this. | ||
| This is your raison d 'etre is simply this. | ||
| What you are doing now, that you are now saying was a mistake. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The process by which you made this mistake is what you do. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And being penitent about the individual incident is so much easier than recognizing the fraudulent hole of what you do. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If you plead manslaughter and you get five to seven, even though you committed murder one, then you're not learning your lesson. | ||
| You're like... | ||
| I saved myself 17 years of life by pulling one over on you. | ||
| You're negotiating out of this type spot. | ||
| Yes, that's what it is. | ||
| It is not accountability. | ||
| It's a negotiation. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I think that in the process, you end up seeing these really interesting glimpses that you wouldn't get otherwise. | ||
| And there's some things that are shocking, like... | ||
| You know, Wallace changing this email or him having this insight of don't report on the Nazi stuff. | ||
| Yeah, that one's crazy. | ||
| And, you know, I think that that is such an important window because it helps characterize and understand what this media system and these businesses are. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But, yeah, ultimately, does it lead to a hammer dropping? | ||
| Maybe not. | ||
| I bet, you know, like I haven't really thought about it this way, but I would now like a meta-analysis of how... | ||
| Often convictions happened before email and after email. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Or how often confessions happened. | ||
|
unidentified
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Totally. | |
| Because people just knew. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| I wrote this down accidentally. | ||
| Yeah, oh, fuck, I fucked up. | ||
| I would like a numerical, like, oh, shit, the worst thing that ever happened for crime was the invention of email. | ||
| That would be a fun lesson. | ||
| I assume that if that doesn't exist already, someone could probably get a... | ||
| Totally. | ||
| I bet there is a PhD out there for you. | ||
| So take that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Enjoy. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| Someone go get your law degree based on that. | ||
| Yeah, you won. | ||
| So yeah, that brings us to the end of this. | ||
| Obviously there's the compare and contrast aspect with this and Infowars depositions. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| But I still think there's a lot of value to it, even though it's not one of our main characters. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| I think this still has a lot of... | ||
| A lot of resonance. | ||
| No, I really enjoyed it. | ||
| I really enjoyed it. | ||
| Again, this improves my depositions for later. | ||
| I'm going to be a master. | ||
| Your danger room. | ||
| Oh, man. | ||
| I have no fear of a deposition anymore. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Well, on that note, we'll be back. | ||
| But until then, we have a website. | ||
| Indeed we do. | ||
| It's knowledgefight.com. | ||
| Yep, we'll be back. | ||
| But until then, I'm Neo. | ||
| I'm Neo. | ||
| I'm DZX Clark. | ||
| I am the Mysterious Professor. | ||
| Woo! | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah! | |
| Woo! | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| Woo! | ||
| And now... | ||
| Here comes the sex robots. | ||
| Andy in Kansas, you're on the air. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thanks for holding. | |
| Hello, Alex. | ||
| I'm a first time caller. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm a huge fan. | |
| I love your work. |