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  N’DIGO STUDIO PODCAST FREEDOM OF THE PRESS — EDITED TRANSCRIPT Editorial note: Lightly edited for punctuation, readability, repeated words, and obvious speech-to-text errors. Inserted clips and advertising are retained. Clip speaker identities and factual claims have not been independently verified. THEME / ANNOUNCER N’DIGO Studio, N’DIGO Studio, we are in the living room, join me in the living room. N’DIGO Studio N’DIGO Studio Hi, HERMENE HARTMAN I'm Hermene Hartman and I want to welcome you to N’DIGO Studio. And today we are going to have a very serious discussion. With serious people. Freedom of the press, what it is and what it means. So on September 18th, 2026, President Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would be barred from the White House, saying that their reporting was false and negative. The White House argued that physical access is a privilege and is not a First Amendment right. And the outlets, of course, challenged the action in court and others also challenged. And the federal judge temporarily restored their credentials on September 24th to come back to the White House. Major television Network suspended pool video coverage in solidarity. Before coverage resumed. Now to the public, what does it mean? Our guests, well, they're experts. They're working political reporters. Charles Whitaker is a professor and dean at Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism and Media. He's also formerly a senior editor of Ebony Magazine. Tahman Bradley, he covers politics every single day at WGN-TV. And Brandon Pope, he's political editor at FOX 32. So, gentlemen, you all cover press every single day. What does it really mean to John Q. Public, to Jane Doe, when the president of the United States kicks media out of the White House simply because he does not like the coverage he's receiving? What's it really, really mean? BRANDON POPE Well, Hermine, it's a five-alarm fire for our democracy. You know, whether you're a supporter of President Donald Trump or not, this has wide-sweeping ramifications for any presidency, any administration, because if a person in power can handpick what facts you get, that doesn't help you in the long run, right? There's so much information that we need as people, and it doesn't always look good on the people in power, right? But that's the whole point of having a free and independent press, is to bring you real... Unfiltered information that impacts your life. And this is directly impeding upon them. HERMENE HARTMAN Tahman, freedom of the press is threatened in the United States of America. Is it our fault? TAHMAN BRADLEY A little bit, frankly. All of what Brandon said, I agree with and is true. But also, you get out of democracy what you put into it. And so we have to want journalists doing journalism, right? There has to be a market for it. And so... This should be so outrageous that it would have never happened or it would have been reversed immediately, that it didn't even need to go to court, because it is that outrageous, the idea that you would say, I don't like my coverage, and so therefore I'm going to bar these people from covering me. But there's a role for the public, there's a role for all of us to say, that's going too far, and that's not happening, because frankly, we haven't been all that great in journalism, honestly, on the whole, over time. Some of that is because of consolidation and the stress and new media and almost anyone can be a journalist these days or put a product out there. But the bottom line is this is a warning that we need to get serious about wanting journalism and that it matters and what it means. And so we're sorting that out. 20 years ago, this would have never happened. It wouldn't have been possible. HERMENE HARTMAN Now, Charles, you're teaching that next generation. Sure. The next generation is coming. What are you telling them about something called fake news? CHARLES WHITAKER Well, we're not telling them about fake news. What we're telling them is that they have an obligation to stand up for freedom of the press. But more importantly, echoing Tahman's point, we as media have to do a better job educating the public about what freedom of the press means. That's an abstract concept to John Q. Public. What does it mean? It means, as Brandon said, that we have an obligation to allow information, to gather information about the media and allow that information to be circulated to the public so that they can make informed decisions about their government. It means that we don't have a president or any government official who gets to shut down the voices that he or she doesn't like. HERMENE HARTMAN Let's look at what happened on that day. When the news media was banned from the White House. Let's take a look. NEWS CLIP — REPORTER Now, obviously, Laura, this comes amid President Trump's unprecedented and escalating attacks against the press. Last year, he moved to bar the Associated Press, you may remember, from covering certain events in the Oval and on Air Force One. What specifically the president took issue with now from those three major news organizations, he did not say, suggesting it was a combination of negative stories over the last few years. Possibly having to do with coverage of the economy and the Iran war, with many Americans facing higher prices. But multiple high-level current and former White House officials say most of the president's aides did not know the president planned to take this step. As the news outlets say, they plan to fight for their First Amendment rights protected under the Constitution. HERMENE HARTMAN I'm glad the media did fight back. I was hoping that there would be a boycott, actually. But we've got a new element in media. That we all have to deal with and recognize. It's called social media, where everybody's a journalist, everybody's a photographer. How do we work in social media, which may not always tell the truth, which may not always use journalism standards? How do we work that into our formula of coverage? BRANDON POPE Well, I think you have to start with some of the reasons why we're in the predicament we're in. And if we're looking in the mirror as a journalist, as an industry, There is a general mistrust. Of journalism and journalists. HERMENE HARTMAN In the first place. BRANDON POPE In the first place, right? And there always has been, right? We've as an institution done a lot of harm to a lot of communities. Social media has just added gas to that fire, right? And so I think what we as journalists can do and what I see a lot of my colleagues doing is dropping the veil in a sense and showing you our process, showing you what goes into reporting, breaking down why these things matter to you and bringing them directly to your phone screen. I think if we can demystify the process, then we can help kind of bring down this veil of distrust and misinformation. And that can hopefully show the public why what we do matters. And that's more incumbent than ever, because as we see on our screens, on our phones, you get fed stuff all the time. It's fake and is meant to enrage you and incite you to do things. Whereas we as journalists, our job is to inform you. And to help edify you in the process. I think we can still do that. Social media can help us do that. And I think I'm seeing a lot of my colleagues do that, and I'm really proud to see it. TAHMAN BRADLEY That definitely carries some risk, though, too, because what separates us from just someone who's posting on social media is we have standards, the context we can provide. Like, we're not new to this. We understand the backstory. We're willing to do the homework and research. We have access to things the public doesn't have access to. And so as we try to... Connect. We need to be really careful that we don't lower ourselves. I mean, what we do is very serious work and it's serious business. I've always thought, you know, how lawyers take, you know, you're part of the bar and you have to be admitted to that. There should be some sort of professional standard for journalists where you carry a certain card where we, as a group of journalists, have said, we've blessed you as a working journalist because it would just separate. There's nothing wrong with freedom of speech and new outlets and partisan outlets. Partisan outlets, that's all great. But if we had a professional society that said this is Brandon certified because he follows these standards, I think that would help us. I don't know why we don't have that. COMMERCIAL — COMED The incredible things you do need energy and ComEd is proud to help make that energy happen for our community. So you can power up your grand opening, power up inspiration, power up a new routine. We work hard to keep your energy reliable, your bills as low as possible and create programs that help you manage it. Because the power is in you. We just help you turn it up. COMMERCIAL — COMMUNITY TESTIMONIAL Let's go back. Back before Central Austin had a grocery store of its own. Back when getting fresh food required a car or bus ride. With J.B. Pritzker's help, now families can buy groceries right here. Too often, people don't believe in business owners like me. But J.B. Was critical to getting us off the ground. And he's helping open grocery stores in so many neighborhoods. This is not easy work, especially these days. But J.B. Gets it. He's standing behind our business and our community. HERMENE HARTMAN We moved Charles to authoritarianism. We moved towards propaganda with social media. I mean, that's what we kind of lend our coverage to. And sometimes it's very difficult to determine what's real, what's not, what's true, what's not. How do we decipher? How does John Q. Public decipher? CHARLES WHITAKER Media literacy has to be a part of our education at a very early age. In school? In school. Absolutely in school. We also need to reach adults as well. But we've done a terrible job, to Brandon's point, of demystifying the process. People have no idea how we go about gathering information. They don't know about the verification process. And so they make no distinction between internet influencer and journalists, it's all content that is coming at them, and they're not very discerning about it. But if we start educating young people about what journalism is, how it's done, what the processes are, lower the veil so that people have a greater appreciation, they can be more discerning about the information. They can decipher more. Yeah, I would hope so. HERMENE HARTMAN So in some kind of way, the media has changed. Trump has changed the game of media from coverage to reporting to fake to negative, so on and so forth. How has it changed and how has it changed you in your coverage? TAHMAN BRADLEY Well, I'll tell you how it should change us. First of all, we need to rethink the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I thought this years ago as being a working journalist in Washington. There's something just not right about. Washington, official Washington gets gathered and it's cozy and it's sort of mocking itself in the institutions. You know, I remember attending that dinner, you know, where we had troops in Iraq. Right. Like so that was so awkward and inappropriate. Access journalism must end this idea. You know, you do a favorable story. You know, we'll make sure we give you a little. No, I mean, shame on us if we don't use. President Trump as a call to action that there should be, as you said, like a boycott. No, all right, you won't allow our colleagues in, then we won't be here at all. You've got your partisan media to transmit your... Because the reality is he does care about how he's perceived. He does care about his poll numbers. He reads the New York Times and what they're writing about him. He cares deeply. And so we have to push back hard and say, we won't stand for this. HERMENE HARTMAN Johnson, President Johnson called Mrs. Graham one of his best friends. And he made a call to her one day to say, you all are killing me and I'm your best friend. She says, oh, that's journalism, not friendship. That's the journalism part of it. So we see the change coming. We're living the change. We're actually living through the change. Suppose, what if? The governor, what if the mayor told you, WGN told you, Fox News, you cannot cover me today because I don't like your reporting. You're giving fake news. You're doing negative news. How would you react to that? BRANDON POPE We'd have a problem. Look, I think our press corps locally is strong enough and unified enough to If something like that were to happen on a local level, have a unified response and push back. HERMENE HARTMAN We're a little different than Washington, I think. BRANDON POPE We are a little different. A little more aggressive? A little more aggressive. But ultimately, look, government officials disliking reporting, media organizations, all that, that's not new, right? I think that if this were to happen, the first thing I would try to do personally is like, okay, my goal is to always be fair and give you an opportunity to respond and discuss the issues. And if you are refusing that opportunity, then in a sense, like, that's your choice, right? Then you can't be mad at what results from that. And so if a government entity is choosing to remove themselves from the conversation and remove themselves from answering questions on the record, then they can't really be upset with the resulting product. I'm going to be fair and ethical. I'm going to talk to other sources to get my information, but they now don't have any right to be a part of what that looks like, right? And that's on them. So I think those powers that be have to recognize, and most of them do, that it is incumbent upon them and helps them to be a part of the conversation and talk with us. It only hurts them if they don't. TAHMAN BRADLEY The problem with President Trump is he thinks he's entitled to positive press. Exactly. Work harder. Work a little bit harder. Do better. Do better. But a part of that question that I think we have to analyze as well is CHARLES WHITAKER Brandon and Tahman can only do what their bosses allow them to do. So they don't have complete control over what they can cover. So remember the capitulation to Trump. Did not happen at the reporter level. It happened at the owner level. ABC are the ones who decided to settle what was a very easy lawsuit, right? 60 Minutes, CBS. So it was the business level. It's the business level. It's not a reporter's level at all. At the reporter level. So we have to make sure that we hold those business interests to account. I trust the reporters. I know that the reporters are fair and are going to do their jobs. We have to make sure that their bosses also remember that it's not just a business, that journalism is a business. We understand that you have to make money, but you also have responsibility to the public. COMMERCIAL — COMED Power up away mode. Power up high usage alerts. Power up energy savings. You've got the power to save on energy. And ComEd has the tools, alerts, and programs to help you turn it up. Visit ComEd.com/powerup for ways to help you save. POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT — SPEAKER 1 Listen, for years, politicians have promised and never delivered. They would say they're going to rebuild, they're going to put something new here. But there came a man by the name of J.B. Pritzker, and he is changing. POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT — SPEAKER 2 things. Long vacant land on the far south side is about to be transformed. POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT — SPEAKER 3 Big boost for those who live and work in the area. POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT — SPEAKER 1 He came here, he visited, he rolled up his sleeves and it's real. JB is bringing thousands of jobs right here. It's a reality. POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT — SPEAKER 3 And this is just the beginning. POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT — SPEAKER 1 Just the beginning. HERMENE HARTMAN Trump has also done something else that has never ever been done in history and that is a commercial. A commercial on the President of the United States. Where's the separation between the President and the government? Let's look at the commercial. INSERTED CLIP — SPEAKER This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces. He reminded the world, INSERTED CLIP — VOICE (SPEAKER ATTRIBUTION UNVERIFIED) as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable. If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation. We will kill you. INSERTED CLIP — INTERVIEWER The U.S. Is spending millions of dollars on new ads about you. And your critics say those ads might violate federal propaganda laws. Why should U.S. Taxpayers pay for that? We look at them. INSERTED CLIP — INTERVIEWEE No, well, I'm not running for office, first of all. INSERTED CLIP — COMMENTATOR Let's be clear what they are doing now using taxpayer money to make him into some kind of hero online in 35 days before an election, that is not just unethical, it is against the rules of the federal government. HERMENE HARTMAN Propaganda, new media, advertising. What is it? What is a commercial, President of the United States, $20 million budget, taxpayer dollars. What the hell is it? What is it? BRANDON POPE It's a blatant misuse of taxpayer dollars. It's unethical. HERMENE HARTMAN So now he says he will pay it back out of private funding. TAHMAN BRADLEY A lot of this is. HERMENE HARTMAN Because he's been called on. Look, TAHMAN BRADLEY we do have, you know, we're a country of law. This stuff is against the law. I mean, I think of on the White House lawn when Elon Musk was feeling heat for the Doge program, the president with a red Tesla saying, hey, go buy Tesla. We have laws against this, right? Like there are no kings in America. So who's the boss of the president would be the people. There's also, in theory, checks and balances. Congress has sort of been missing in action for most. On the other side of all of this, I hope we revisit our ethics rules. And I mean, it's extraordinary what's happening. I think we will. We were not prepared for someone who would just say, you know what, I'm not going to. I will try to I'll do the car sales job on the White House. I'll redo the White House grounds. HERMENE HARTMAN We will tear down the swing. TAHMAN BRADLEY We were not prepared for President Trump. BRANDON POPE I think even more so. We weren't prepared for Congress to just look the other way completely. I mean, we've had presidents who crossed the line. Right. But in the past, we've had bipartisan coming together saying, hey, that's enough already. Out. This Trump doesn't have that he's able to get away with things because his allies in Congress and Senate say, hey, I didn't see anything. HERMENE HARTMAN So we have legitimacy, we have a president kind of stating what the news is and what the news isn't. Great point about saying those are business decisions, those are not reporter decisions, that's not newsroom decision. Do we see this carrying over into print press? Now you all are journalists from television, but Charles you come from print. Do we see this carrying over into print? Sure. CHARLES WHITAKER We look at what Jeff Bezos did to the Washington Post, actually decimating its very independent opinion pages, saying that they will no longer cover politics. They will only promote business interests and talk about the value of rugged individualism. Now, the Post news pages are still very robust and are still doing wonderful work. But we see when we have, you know, we thought that the oligarchs and the billionaire owners would save a flagging print business, that they would save legacy media. But we see that when push comes to shove, they too will operate in their own best business interests. And so, sure, now we have a lot of new and burgeoning independent nonprofit news outlets that are popping up to take the place of the flagging and diminishing legacy newspapers. Hopefully, those will continue to move forward and to do this really important work. We have independent investigative outlets like ProPublica and the Marshall Project that are doing fantastic work holding this administration to account. They are our hope for the future. HERMENE HARTMAN How has the coverage... TAHMAN BRADLEY from the white house carried over into electoral politics candidates running and we're seeing we're seeing some crazy stuff going on with these candidates name calling you could say anything and there is this assumption if there's a fact check well that's just the media being unfair to me or beating uh yeah no there's no question that there's fallout from uh what President Trump has done and how that affects what we do at the local level no question about it. HERMENE HARTMAN And what about the money? What about the millions and millions and millions of dollars spent? Do you know we have advertising agencies now that do nothing but political media? What's the average spend for a campaign? I'm talking an average campaign not a presidential campaign, but just an average campaign. Is it about five, ten million dollars that you that you need to spend? TAHMAN BRADLEY There's too much money in politics, right? HERMENE HARTMAN Does the money influence the coverage? TAHMAN BRADLEY Yeah, but the candidate with the most money doesn't always win. Look, it goes back to Joe Citizen. We've got to figure this out. The information is now out there. You know what's happening. You've got to want us. You've got to want what we do. And we need to be good. My sort of North Stars make interesting what's important. We need to be better. It needs to be interesting how we're presenting the information so that it engages and connects. But also, we get the democracy that... We want. If you just are on your social media algorithm and that's the only place you get information, you're going to get bad information. You've got to check out a traditional legacy. CHARLES WHITAKER That's why we need people to sort of understand why they need to hear different voices, why they need to go to credible news sources that are not just going to comfort them with the news that they think they want, but with news that will actually help them make informed decisions. HERMENE HARTMAN And now we even have another dimension of late. That's becoming very influential, and that's the podcast. BRANDON POPE Yeah, podcasting. The new radio. Yeah. HERMENE HARTMAN What about the podcast? Well, BRANDON POPE kind of along the same things with social media, what Tahman was talking about, we need more ethics. Because anybody, these podcast mics are too cheap. HERMENE HARTMAN Say anything. BRANDON POPE Anybody can grab one and say anything. HERMENE HARTMAN No regulation, no rules. BRANDON POPE Yeah, but the challenge inherently is that. These podcasts have a lot of reach. That's my point. And usually it is like, it's an advertisement. We saw in the presidential election in 2024, it became a battle of who could get on Joe Rogan's podcast, who could get on, what's it called, Call Her Daddy podcast. These names are wild. INSERTED CLIP — SPEAKER The names are wild. HERMENE HARTMAN The names don't make sense. BRANDON POPE But that's just representative of the new terrain we are in. And you're seeing it happen locally as well. You're seeing different campaigns for mayor. Look to podcasters now who more so align with their own beliefs and are going to give them more friendly interviews. My fear... HERMENE HARTMAN Or more challenging interviews. Works both ways. BRANDON POPE It's rare that they go to a challenging one. And my fear is that they're going to swerve traditional media who is going to challenge them and inform the public and only go to these podcasters, digital media outlets who are friendly and going to give them pre-selected questions and... They can laugh and have a good time. TAHMAN BRADLEY And that's where we have to up our game, right? Like, it's like, okay, you get what you get at Call Her Daddy, but if you come talk to Brandon or come on, that was legit. Oh, I got to see that because, ooh, I know that was a legit interview. We have to be, that's the only response, is that education for us to improve. HERMENE HARTMAN So do we follow the new media or does the new media follow us? BRANDON POPE I think we fuse both. I think both can work together. I don't want to. I don't want to demonize content creators and podcasters because there are some responsible ones out there. I think we can learn some things from them as journalists that can help make our work better. They can learn a lot from us, too, because credibility still matters. And I do think we were talking backstage about this new generation. I do believe we're seeing a little bit of a turning of the dial back to wanting more credibility on social media from these people talking to their phones. People are sick of explainer videos from people that don't know what they're talking about. People can read through that now. And I think that's where we have a lane to step in and say, hey, we're the ones with credibility. We've been covering these things for years. We are experts on new topics overnight every single day. That's where we can really shine. We just have to go to where the people are and not cede that ground. CHARLES WHITAKER Right. We have to meet people where they are. We can't click our tongues and look down our noses at the content creators. We... We understand that they have platforms, that they have audiences. So we have to, in some ways, at least mimic the distribution mechanisms, if not the approach. HERMENE HARTMAN We are watching change in the media, and you all are very much a part of the change, both ways in maintaining credibility and truth and honesty and integrity to it. But we have, when you have the leader of the country, you have the president of the United States. Kind of influencing the change. It's kind of hard. It's just kind of hard to do it. I thank you very much for being with us today and for having a meaningful conversation on media, not on who gets coverage, but how we cover the news. Mr. Pope, I thank you. Mr. Bradley, I thank you. And Mr. Whitaker, I thank you. I miss you. I miss your writing. I think we should be writing. But I thank you very much, and just keep the faith, and we get as much democracy as we vote for, don't we? Thank you. I'm Hermene Hartman with N’DIGO Studio. I want to thank you for being with us. See you next time. THEME / ANNOUNCER N’DIGO Studio N’DIGO Studio, we are in the living room, join me in the living room. N’DIGO Studio, N’DIGO Studio, we are in the living room.