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Reliable Sources
Holding Donald Trump Accountable; Are Third-Party Candidates Getting Short Shrift?; Interview with Green Party's Jill Stein; How Can Media Bridge the Gap to Millennials?; How Media Heads on How to Adapt to Technology; The Importance of Freedom of the Press. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired July 03, 2016 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:08] BRIAN STELTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning, and happy Independence Day weekend. I'm Brian Stelter. And this is RELIABLE SOURCES, our weekly look at the story behind the story of how news and pop culture get made.
Ahead this hour, interviewing Donald Trump. Do journalists need to change not just what questions they ask, but how they ask?
And his opponent, Hillary Clinton, she's the first female nominee of a major party. But she's not the only woman running for president. Green Party candidate Jill Stein is reaching out to Bernie Sanders supporters. But is the media paying attention? She'll join me for an exclusive Sunday morning interview.
Plus, speaking of Sanders, some millennials may still feel the Bern. But who's more likely to get their support in November? I've got a great political panel set up to weigh in.
But first, let's level with each other, do you feel like there election is never going to end? If so, I have some good news for you, we're actually past the halfway mark. We did the math. And it was 152 days ago when the first votes were cast in the Iowa caucuses.
This month, the parties will hold their nominating conventions. And voters will head to the polls in 127 days. Just 127 days.
So, we need to ask, which candidate is more difficult to cover?
I thought this week was revealing with Trump taking some steps to change his tone. He hired a top Ted Cruz aide as his communications director. And he's using a teleprompter more often and he's even posting some rather boring, kind of campaign style tweets. You can see in some ways, his organization is changing.
But Hillary Clinton still has hundreds of staffers versus his, dozens. Her press team was busy this week after the GOP released it's final constitutional report about Benghazi.
Meanwhile what an issue this was, Clinton campaigning with Senator Elizabeth Warren in Ohio, stirring VP speculation. So, let's ask this question, which candidate is harder for the press
to cover and why?
Now, let's go behind the scenes with two special guests, one of the top editors of the "New York Times," Carolyn Ryan, the paper's senior editor for politics, and the journalist/entrepreneur, Steve Brill, founder of the Yale Journalism Initiative and contributing editor to "The Atlantic".
Thank you both for being here today.
Carolyn, let me start with you here in New York. You oversee the newsrooms and political reporters in the "New York Times," which of the two candidates, Clinton or Trump, would you say is harder for your staff to cover?
CAROLYN RYAN, SENIOR EDITOR FOR POLITICS, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It's a very close call. Trump, as you know, is almost addicted to media coverage. I have about 20 reporters now covering the campaign, it's only a slight exaggeration to say when I walk by their desks, at least one of them will be talking to Donald Trump. He's hyper available, and, you know, he used to just have one secretary field all the calls. You could get him on the phone very easily.
STELTER: So, are you saying he is harder to cover than Clinton?
RYAN: I think Clinton is harder because she is so sealed off. There are so many layers in her campaign. It's very difficult, partly because people know her already, to get fresh stories on Hillary Clinton. But her kind of wariness about the press makes it very difficult to humanize her.
STELTER: So Trump at least is accessible.
Steve Brill, do you agree that Clinton is the harder candidate for the press to get its collective arms around and to cover?
STEVEN BRILL, FOUNDER, YALE JOURNALISM INITIATIVE: No, not at all. As you know, Brian, I'm a big believer in the idea that access is not necessary for good journalist and in fact access often impedes or distorts good journalism. And I think in the case of Trump, you have the best example.
The reason Trump is harder to cover is he is the first candidate in modern times who just is absolutely positively willing to make things up as he goes along and say the opposite of what is true, and reporters can take that down or we can listen to it if he calls into CNN in the morning. And then you have to double back, if you double back and find out that he's made this up or that he's just been lying.
So, the way you need to cover Trump is very different. You take that access, but you stop him mid sentence. Just to take an obvious example.
STELTER: Yes, tell me. BRILL: He always repeats the idea in interviews that he has lots of Muslim friends who agree with his idea to ban Muslims, why hasn't one reporter stopped him right there and said, well, can you name one of those friends? And he'd say, well, why should we believe you?
STELTER: Carolyn, let me ask you about that. Steve is saying that access kills good journalism. Is that your case with "The New York Times"? Do you worry about that in this particular election?
RYAN: I worry because he's seductive and intimidating and kind of a grandiose figure prone to very sweeping statements and you have to be aggressive and relentless on the fact-checking.
[11:05:05] And like I said, there's so much that he says that sort of collides with reality or constitutional authority.
I'll give you one example. Frequently when he talked about Trump University when the controversy began, he would say the reviews have been so positive, the students who went through our program were so universally positive about it. And we went back and found out the way they did those reviews were sort of coercive in terms of what the students had to write down and how their impressions of the class.
So, you have to be relentless.
STELTER: Really?
RYAN: We have a fact checking machinery that kind of is always pointing out.
The other thing that we're doing, and you notice this in our stories, especially big stories on the front page is that you're fact checking in the text of the story. So, he makes a statement, you don't sort of wait to do a fact check or run it later, paragraph by paragraph, you have to do that and that's part of the relentless.
STELTER: Right, in line or real time fact-checking.
Steve, Carolyn mentioned the Trump University coverage.
You've been a leader on this, you were in on this very early on, you pointed to this topic, do you feel like Americans have been informed fully of Trump University and other controversies involving it?
BRILL: Well, it took a while, but yes, and in fact the times has done a terrific job with this. I'll just add by the way that his website has 10,000 rave reviews for paying customers from Trump University. The litigation documents say there was 7,500 customers in total.
The whole thing is a scam, the answer is a scam and the danger in covering Trump is, you have to be fast on your feet and as "The Times" is now doing and as CNN is now doing, you have to fact-check as you're doing the reporting, it doesn't do as much good to do it four or five days later.
STELTER: Carolyn, take me behind the scenes about what it's like in your newsroom. Do you talk about whether you have to cover Trump fundamentally differently?
You know, Jonathan Martin, one of your reporters, has said, Trump is not normal, we can't treat him like he's normal, he's outside the norms of presidential campaigns. Do you have to keep repeating that again and again in your coverage?
RYAN: Oh, absolutely. And I think there's a little bit of a tendency in the broader media that I worry about where they grade him on the curve.
STELTER: What do you mean?
RYAN: Meaning that he does something that's fairly outrageous, or would be outrageous for any other presidential candidate. But because it's Trump, it might be comical or entertaining, and so, he's sort of rated on the curve.
STELTER: Clinton campaign people must hate that. Do you hear a lot from the campaign officials on both sides?
RYAN: Absolutely. And the other thing they worry about a lot is, you know, both of them are pretty unpopular in the broader electorate and they hate when that is pointed out that they're both kind of broadly viewed negatively by a majority of the public.
STELTER: So you're from lights out when you all repeat that in fact in stories?
RYAN: Absolutely. There's a concern from the Clinton people that basically, they're running against someone who they see as sort of clownish and they don't even like them to be sort of in the same framing.
STELTER: And yet you find difficult to cover the campaign on a daily basis, they make it difficult these campaign aides are saying by having it in a bubble.
RYAN: Well, I think there's an interesting point here, because if you look at Clinton's problems with the American electorate are not related to confidence. They're related to trust and likability. And it feels like some of those stories they don't want to cooperate with, the more humanizing stories, and the stories that have more of a personal dimension would actually kind of connect with people I'm in a different way.
STELTER: And when you say cooperate, just tell the viewers at home, you mean make people available for interviews, right? Make family members available for interviews?
RYAN: Tell us the personal side, bring us behind the scenes, talk to the reporter who's doing some story about some dimension of your past. I mentioned one when she was a young lawyer. They didn't really want to be a part of it.
It ended up, I think readers viewed is it as a very positive story, but their wariness of the press is pretty sweeping so they don't want to take part in that kind of thing.
STELTER: Polar opposites when we're talking about Clinton versus Trump in their treatment of the press.
RYAN: Exactly.
STELTER: Carolyn, Steve, please stick around. We're going to take a quick break here.
When we come on the other side of the break, we're going to continue this and ask, are journalists asking Donald Trump the wrong kinds of questions?
And later this hour, five media visionaries: the CEOs of AOL, "The New York Times" and iHeart Media, plus the editor of "Cosmo", and the one, the only Ryan Seacrest. Big interviews right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:12:37] STELTER: A great interview can educate, it can minds, it can provoke reactions.
Let me show you an example of reactions. This is from NPR, and interviewer Steve Inskeep. He did his home work, finding a quote from 2008, and then asking a follow-up question of Barack Obama that resulted in this response from the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE INSKEEP, NPR HOST: We ran across a statement of yours from 2008 about changing the trajectory of the country. You said that Ronald Reagan had changed the trajectory of the country partly because the country was ready for it. It was his moment. That John F. Kennedy had done the same thing, because it was the right moment, the country was going in the certain direction. You wanted to see such a moment. You believe there was such as moment for you in 2008.
Is there a risk that Donald Trump could say the same thing in 2016, that he could be the man to change the trajectory of the country now?
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, if he won, he could say.
INSKEEP: I mean to say you think the country might be ready for that?
OBAMA: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: I thought that reaction said a lot. Obama doesn't think Trump will win, but let's be honest, this entire election is being viewed through the prism of Trump. He's everywhere.
But interviewing him is a difficult, delicate art. He's often accused, as we just talked about at the commercial break, of dodging questions from reporters. But is Trump being asked the right questions?
Let me show you something that inspired this next segment from "Poynter".
Steven Brill talked to "Poynter" about at least seven questions that the press needs to be asking Donald Trump, that they should be closed ended, with either a numerical, or a yes or no answer.
So, is that part of the answer to this Trump conundrum?
Let me bring back, Steve Brill. He's in Aspen with us this morning. And here in New York, Carolyn Ryan, a senior editor for politics at "The New York Times".
Steve, you think yes or no questions would make a big difference with Trump?
BRILL: Well, I think they would help. And I would just add a carload to something that Carolyn about Trump being graded on a curve compared to his most outrageous things, not compared to what a normal candidate does. Part of that phenomenon is that we have forgot on the really outrageous or incredible things or just lies that Trump has done a month ago or two months ago because he says something new now, so in effect he gets away with it.
The best example, by the way, is when was the last time a reporter asked Donald Trump if he still believes that Barack Obama was not born in the United States?
[11:15:02] RYAN: I mean, I guess without getting into of stories that we have coming, I wouldn't say in a very sweeping way that those questions haven't been asked.
STELTER: So, you're saying you're pursuing some of these specific things. But even there's something to be said about this yes or no idea, that the question needs to be so specific to not let them off the hook?
RYAN: Right. What you're talking about is specificity and what he likes to do is speak in very sweeping ways. I mean, I feel like one good example of this, I don't know if you saw the interview that David Sanger and Maggie Haberman did on foreign policy with Trump, they just specifically went region by region and we ran the whole transcript and they went back for a second interview, and really pressed him on his questions when he would say something vague or even incendiary, because I think you're right, getting at the specificity and getting beyond to his statements and his slogans is the changes for the press right now.
STELTER: Was there a tension here, Steve, between, you know, carrying about these interviews, getting specific answers, and yet, some people don't believe he's telling the truth when he's answering anyway. In the last block, you were saying he's making it up as he goes along. So, is there a tension between these two ideas?
BRILL: There is a tension if you try to hone in on his views on issues, because he doesn't have any views on issues, he doesn't care about issues, his view on issues is the equivalent of what he should put down in the syllabus for Trump University, whatever will get votes.
So, where he has to be pinned down is on his claim to being elected, which is that he is a successful businessman. Why not ask him, for example, to name -- give one example of a successful operating business he has ever run?
We know he makes money licensing his name to, you know, luxury apartment buildings on the west side or where licensing his name to hotels. Has he every run in his life a successful operating business, and when he says, yes, ask him for the example and ask him for a profit and loss statement from that business. That is his resume, that is his claim to run for president.
No reporter as best I can tell has asked him that specific question, show us where you ever ran one single successful business, ever.
STELTER: Do you find yourself, Carolyn, with sort of a long list of stories that you wish you all could be doing and only a limited amount of time to do them? In other words, too many stories and not enough time?
RYAN: There's a lot of stories, there's a lot of questions, but a lot of the things that Steve is getting at, you know, the particulars of his business interests, the particulars of success or failure, I wouldn't say that we're not doing, I think those are lines of inquiry that are very much under way.
STELTER: Earlier, we brought up Trump's comments about birtherism, about the suggestion that it's false that President Obama is not born in the United States. When I had Trump on the phone a few weeks ago, I brought this up. It's something that I've been interested in for a long time but how he's never really been addressed it recently.
RYAN: Yes.
STELTER: He always has the same answer, he says I don't talk about that anymore. I don't talk about that anymore. I pressed him a little bit, he said I love to talk about it. But then that's all I'll be able to talk about. So, he's trying to stay on message.
So, is the bottom line here that it's impossible to pin him down or very difficult to pin him down? Is that what you found with your reporters?
RYAN: It's not impossible, but you have to be relentless and you have to withstand his initial deflections and it takes a long time, and you have to keep him on the phone or in person keep pressing him. But it is really extremely challenging.
STELTER: I know viewers of this program, perhaps hardcore GOP believers or moderates who are interested in Trump, might say, you're just beating up on Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton is dishonest as well. Do you think here is a difference between them? RYAN: I think what you hit on is right. I think the emotional resonance that Trump has with his voters is something that is authentic. And I think the particulars, you know, his -- if you talk to voters who go to his rallies, they're not going to be pouring over fact checks, what they want is somebody stands up for them and they really feel like he does and he is acknowledging them and voicing their concerns in a way that hasn't been done in politics.
So, they're not going to be looking at the specifics of his policies, or even his business interests. They've kind of embraced the idea of him as a successful businessman and I'm not sure a lot of reporting is going to change those hardcore supporters' minds.
STELTER: Steve Brill, last word to you, as you think about advice for journalists in the months before the election.
BRILL: Again, I think the focus ought to not be on the issues because it doesn't really matter. The focus ought to be on, do those people have a right and are they right to depend on him for speaking up for them. The people who enrolled in Trump University, which was the same kind of deal, found out that that wasn't the case.
So, the essence of the reporting has to be -- does he really speak for you? Can you count on him? When he says that this book that I'm publishing that all the proceeds have gone to charity, is he telling you the truth?
[11:20:02] If he's not, then why do you think he's telling you the truth about he's going to act for you once he gets to the White House?
STELTER: On at least one level, it is an outstanding time to be a political reporter, isn't it?
Carolyn Ryan, Steve Brill, thank you both for being here.
RYAN: Thank you.
STELTER: Up next here, is the media giving short shrift to third party candidates? We will hear from one of them, Green Party candidate Jill Stein joins me on the other side of this break.
Also still to come, why are millennials so distrustful of the media? We have a panel of 20-something journalists joining me with their thoughts, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STELTER: Hey, welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES. I'm Brian Stelter.
Do third party candidates stand a chance in this election? And regardless of the answer, should news outlets like CNN pay for attention to them?
We looked at the five of the most recent polls that included more than just Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for president. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson is getting between 7 percent to 10 percent support, only he's only hit the double digit mark about voters in one of the five.
Green Party candidate Jill Stein is getting 3 percent to 7 percent support in a hypothetical four-way contest.
But here's the more interesting finding. According to Quinnipiac's poll, Stein has only 2 percent favorability rating. Sounds tiny, right? But check this out, 88 percent of registered voters haven't heard enough about her to have an opinion.
[11:25:02] So that explains the low numbers.
So, what I want to ask is, what is a third party candidate to do to be taken seriously by both voters and the media.
Dr. Jill Stein joins me right now, a Green Party candidate for president.
Dr. Stein, you're on track to be the party's nominee like you were in 2012, back then you had less than 1 percent of the popular vote. What is different about 2016?
DR JILL STEIN, GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT: I think we were ahead of the curve in 2012, and in 2016, the issues we were talking about in 2012, are the issues of the campaign now, that is the need for jobs, the need to get students out of debt. We're the only campaign calling for canceling student debt, like we did for the crooks on Wall Street who crashed the economy.
We're calling for free public higher education. We were back there in 2012, now virtually all the candidates are recognizing that is a crisis.
We have been ahead of the curve on the climate, the need to create a green New Deal that addresses both our jobs --
STELTER: You know, you sound to me a lot like Bernie Sanders.
STEIN: Or maybe vice versa, because we were here four years ago saying these things.
And I think, you know, what we have in common with Sanders is that neither of us take money from the lobbyists, from the big super PACs and the PACs. And I think that's very much what the American people are clamoring for.
STELTER: What are you doing today to court Sanders' supporters, to bring them over to the Green Party?
STEIN: You know, mainly what we're doing is getting the word out in every way that we can.
STELTER: Are you finding that to be difficult? You know, I noticed that you were on CNN's "NEW DAY" recently. CNN had a libertarian town hall.
Are you finding that the media is taking third and fourth parties more seriously this year?
STEIN: Absolutely, and we're waiting for that town hall as well, because we have gone from 2 percent to 7 percent in the polls, with virtually no coverage at all on mainstream media. There's been a virtual blackout on our campaign, unlike the Johnson campaign.
STELTER: When you say blackout, do you think it's intentional, this relative lack of coverage? I think one factor, for example, is that right now you're on the ballot in all 50 states. The Libertarian Party has made a lot more progress toward getting on the ballot in various states.
Do you think the blackout is intentional?
STEIN: Actually, the realty is we're almost down as many states as the libertarians, they're just using this as a promotion campaign, to say that they're going to be on the ballot in all states. Well, we are also working to get on the ballot in all states.
There's no doubt we're going to be on the ballot for just about every voter, we're already on for a majority of voters all across the country, voters have not only a right to vote, but they have a right to know who they can vote for.
So, we're fighting for coverage, I encourage people to go to my website, Jill2016.com, and join the team to actually open up the election, because this is what voters are actually clamoring for in this race. We have the highest disapproval, the highest un-trust ever for the mainstream candidates, for Clinton and for Trump.
STELTER: Right.
STEIN: People are clamoring for something else. Let's give them what they are demanding.
STELTER: Let me ask you about how it's going to work in the fall, though, because the commission on presidential debates requires 15 percent support from an average of five national polls in order to get on the debate stage. Right now, Johnson is closer than you are, but both of you are quite below the 15 percent threshold.
A, do you think that the commission has to change that threshold? And, B, do you think it's possible you could get to 15 percent by the fall?
STEIN: So, first, we have tripled our numbers in one month without any mainstream coverage. So, if we could begin more of what you're doing today, we could very well see those numbers begin to rise. We could get to 15 percent.
But we have challenged the 15 percent rule, because you know the League of Women Voters said when they quit the commission on presidential debates about 20 years ago, they quit saying that this was a fraud being perpetrated on the American voter because of the way the dialogue is basically limited to silence opposition, to silence political opposition, and that's not what a democracy is, we think that if a candidate is on the ballot for the majority of voters and could actually win the election, voters have a right to know who in candidate is.
STELTER: Let me ask you before I have to go.
I think some liberals would be worried about you taking votes away from Clinton in the fall, while you're on the ballots in various states. What do you say when you're worried you might help Trump get elected?
STEIN: I think what we need to do is flip the vote. We have a majority of voters who are clamoring for something else, even the majority of Trump supporters don't support Trump, they simply oppose Hillary Clinton. And the majority of Clinton supporters don't actually support her, they actually oppose Donald Trump.
[11:30:01] And the majority of people are calling something else, something with integrity, something that is not bought and paid for by the big players, by the big banks, and the war profiteers.
We need an honest broker. I am a physician, not a politician. I don't take money from the usual sources. What you see is what you get from the Green Party. We are of, by and for the people. So we can stand up for what it is that people are actually clamoring for right now.
STELTER: Dr. Stein, thank you for being here the morning. Great talking with you.
STEIN: Great talking with you, Brian.
Coming up here on RELIABLE SOURCES, another underrepresented voice in the media, millennials; 20-somethings aren't always taken seriously by campaigns or reporters, so we have assembled a panel of millennials you have to hear from.
And later, someone just a little bit older, Ryan Seacrest, hear what he says about changing attention spans, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STELTER: Watch out, baby boomers, you have some serious competition from the millennials.
According to Pew Research data, millennials -- and we're talking about adults 18 to 35 here -- they number an estimated 69.2 million just of voting age U.S. citizens. That is vs. 69.7 million for baby boomers.
That's a lot of potential voting power among young people in this year's presidential election. But is the press paying enough attention to this voting bloc and how powerful will it really be? And here's a related question.
[11:35:05]
How much do millennials trust or distrust the media, even as they try to learn about the election? This number really tells the tale. Only 27 percent of millennials think that the news media has a positive impact on the way things are going in this country. Yikes.
How can the media bridge this gap with what is increasingly going to be an important voting bloc, whether they turn out this election or not, definitely death down the road?
Let me ask three of them right now, Jake Horowitz, the founder of Mic, it's a digital news company for millennials. Also, Elizabeth Plank, the senior correspondent and producer at Vox, and Jamie Weinstein, senior writer with The Daily Caller.
I thank you all for being here.
JAMIE WEINSTEIN, THE DAILY CALLER: Thank you for having us.
ELIZABETH PLANK, VOX: Thanks, Brian.
JACOB HOROWITZ, FOUNDER, MIC: Thank you.
STELTER: Liz, has this election been a giant disappointment for young people, the tone of it and what's being debated?
PLANK: I think a lot of people, not just millennials, have found that this election has been a tough one to watch and a tough one to follow.
But, look, millennials, like a lo of people, are angry. They're upset. They're probably one of the first generations to be worse off than their parents; 2008 was a big year for the millennial vote. They turned out and voted. A lot of them voted for Obama. They're really looking for that change candidate.
What has been really interesting is to see sort of Trump become or try and change his messaging to potentially be that change candidate. In his economic policy speech this week, we saw him say, I'm change, I'm not Obama change, but I'm change.
It will be interesting to see if he can deliver on that change, but in a way it almost felt almost like a Bernie Sanders speech, like that someone had put a Bernie Sanders speech in his teleprompter. He was talking about the system is rigged, we got to get those elites out and basically, yes, appealing to millennials, who don't necessarily like politicians and who are disgruntled.
STELTER: Jamie, Liz is further on the left of the spectrum. You're further on the right at The Daily Caller. But do you agree with what she's saying?
JAMIE WEINSTEIN, THE DAILY CALLER: I do to some extent.
I think, in some aspects, Trump is appealing to -- we're using millennial almost as a euphemism for Bernie Sanders supporter, because that's what millennials typically were this election. That's where the greatest energy was on the Bernie Sanders side.
But I think, you know, I agree. I think this might be the lowest turnout of election for millennials in some time, because I think a lot of millennials...
STELTER: That's saying something.
WEINSTEIN: It is. It is saying quite a bit, I think, because what they're seeing is that millennials certainly don't like Donald Trump, but they don't like Hillary Clinton either.
So when you have a choice, what I call a choice between political malaria and political Ebola, some will choose the lesser of those evils. But some people won't just come out and vote at all. And I think that's what you're going to see, more millennials than ever, as you said, and that's saying something, stay home.
STELTER: We just had Jill Stein on the program. There's also libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Do you think either of them are better than malaria or Ebola?
WEINSTEIN: I think a third-party candidate could do very well maybe even with millennials, but I'm not sure that either Gary Johnson or Jill Stein would be that person to excite someone.
There's still those efforts, as you know, the never Trump efforts to find a third-party candidate to jump in. Perhaps they will in and perhaps they will get a bigger share of the millennial vote, give someone that penicillin.
(CROSSTALK)
STELTER: You still hoping onto hope for the never Trump movement, Jamie?
WEINSTEIN: I know it's still out there. It's still fighting. And I think still think there's a potential.
You have two catastrophically unpopular candidates, historically unpopular candidates. It's amazing to me that no one tries to jump in that void and see what they can do jumping in the race.
STELTER: So we're talking about the disappointment with the election cycle. Jake, you're the founder of Mic. It's one of these millennial news sites. There's a whole crop of these sites trying to engage young people. Do you feel like with your coverage, with election coverage, you try to explain to, say, a 25-year-old why they do need to vote and pay attention this year?
HOROWITZ: Well, definitely.
I think, as you rightly point out, this is the most important and largest voting bloc in re United States, 69 million strong. One of the things that we have actually seen in this election is that it's actually been very issue-focused. Bernie Sanders...
STELTER: You think so? Issue-focused? I would say insult-focused.
HOROWITZ: Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere talking about income inequality and college debt. STELTER: True. True.
HOROWITZ: He attracted this generation in enormous numbers, sometimes even greater than President Obama did back in 2008 and 2012.
STELTER: The banner on the bottom of the screen says, why do so many millennials distrust the media?
Why do you think that is? Why is there a market for a Web site like Mic that just exists to attract young people?
HOROWITZ: Well, frankly, I think the political coverage has been dominated by sort of the he said/she said, who's up in the polls, taking every little sound bite, everything that Trump says as fact, rather than really trying to take on some of those core issues that this generation cares about and ask the deep question, the second question, the third question, really challenge the premise that a lot of these candidates have put out there on a lot of the core issues.
I think what we have seen also is that this generation consumes media wildly differently.
STELTER: Yes. That's important as a point here I think to get to.
Let me ask you about that. You are an avid Snapchatter. You're out there at the Aspen Ideas Festival live Snapchatting it. What is it about these new formats? How does it make consumption of news different?
[11:40:00]
PLANK: It changes everything.
Obviously, a lot of millennials watch your show. And a lot of millennials watch CNN.
STELTER: A few. A few, Liz.
(CROSSTALK)
PLANK: A few. But some of them don't watch TV. Some of them are cord-cutters, as we like to call them.
So, they're getting their news in other ways. They're getting it from Snapchat. They're getting it from Facebook. They're getting it from texting with their friends. My parents used to go and get their newspaper right at the door every morning, and I turn on my phone. And I look at all of these different platforms to really get my information.
The way the candidates are communicating with millennials is going to be extremely important. We have seen Donald Trump actually really take advantage of social media in a very powerful way, not rely on the mainstream cable news media to get coverage.
There are a lot of millennials who, yes, don't have a TV, but have been seeing Donald Trump in their news feed every single day. We saw Hillary Clinton make probably one of the best tweets in presidential election history with her delete your account tweet that she did.
It's great to creating a feedback loop, where voters and young people can feel like they're having an actual relationship with the politicians.
HOROWITZ: Well, Brian, can I say something about that?
STELTER: Go ahead.
HOROWITZ: She's assembled a massive content operation.
STELTER: Clinton.
HOROWITZ: She's almost built a media company over in Brooklyn, where...
STELTER: That's a really good point. She's got hundreds of staffers, and some of them are making media every day.
HOROWITZ: Hundreds of staffers, a lot of the same Obama digital folks.
The thinking early on was that they were going to take a lot of risks across social, really engage in Twitter town halls and Q&As and Reddit and Facebook and Snapchat and all these things.
I think what has been interesting is there's been surprisingly few risks. As Liz rightly points out, you have Trump, who's a natural, he's on Twitter all the time. Just by the nature of what he says and how he understands media, he's able to attract attention.
It will be interesting to see if, now that we're in the general election campaign, she's able to actually leverage these platforms to reach millennials where they are, which is on these platforms. Millennials do trust Facebook. And so to reach them, you have to be there.
STELTER: It's helpful to think about the Hillary campaign as a media company and Trump's to some degree as well.
Jamie, let me go to you as well. I think amount of the -- there's this perception that most voters that are young are liberal. Do you find that there's a big appetite at The Daily Caller for conservative news particularly among young people? And if so, what is different? What do they want differently than older readers of The Daily Caller?
WEINSTEIN: I don't know if they want anything particularly differently.
And I think sometimes we over-segment people. You mentioned earlier that the millennials don't trust the media. Well, guess what? Americans don't trust the media. It gets some of the biggest applause lines certainly on the Republican side, but also not so much on the Democrat side as well. I don't see Hillary Clinton praising the media to cheers. I think in some ways millennials are different than news consumers as a whole, but they're not all that different in some aspects. So, I'm not sure just tailoring things to them is going to change the game.
And I would one thing about Hillary Clinton trying to use Snapchat, trying to use all these things, I remember certain things she did in the beginning of the Democratic primary. It looked totally inauthentic. It didn't resonate well.
I think the smart move for anybody, be it Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, is be authentic. Don't use things that are young just to reach young people, because they're going to sense a phony, if you're trying to do these kind of cool trick things on Instagram and Snapchat that don't seem authentic.
So, you have to be authentic. Otherwise, I think millennials or anybody will spot it as just trying to pander.
STELTER: As a millennial myself, I felt uncomfortable with Snapchat, and I finally got on board recently.
To the other viewers at home who have no idea what we're talking about, it's not too late to try out this new technology.
Jake, Liz, Jamie, thank you all for your insight.
(CROSSTALK)
STELTER: And coming up here, speaking of new technology, come with me to the South of France, for the Cannes Lions ad festival. I sat down with some of the top players in media, asked them about the past and the future. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:47:08]
STELTER: Every form of media ever invented now fits inside the four borders of this smartphone screen.
As viewers, this is changing the way that you and I interact with the news, and it's also changing the way producers and advertisers do what they do.
I could sense it last week at the Cannes Lions Festival. It's basically the biggest advertising festival in the world. And there was this mix of fear and anxiety about the future, but also thrill about the opportunities.
So while I was in Cannes, I sat down with five of the head honchos of media to talk about how newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV networks and Web sites are all trying to adapt.
Up first was Mark Thompson, the CEO of "The New York Times." And he was clear "The Times" needs to double the amount of money it makes from the Web, from digital, between now and 2020. But, surprisingly, he also said don't count print out, yes, the printed page. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK THOMPSON, CEO, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": What we think about print is, because it's so valuable, our consumers, we want to try and deliver a great print product for the foreseeable future. I think there's at least a decade, maybe more, of profitable activity making "The New York Times" and delivering it and delighting readers.
STELTER: I think that's kind of a relief to hear, more than a decade, because some people would say, wow, in 2026, there's no way there will be print newspapers anymore.
THOMPSON: I want to be clear that "The Times" has got natural strengths and advantages that very few other newspapers in the world have, the scale of the domestic market, the fact that the U.S. rather oddly has very few national newspapers, "The Times," "Journal," "USA Today."
It's actually not been very competitive in terms of national advertising and so fourth. But our biggest advantage is that brand, the incredible journalism in the newsroom, and the fact that we tens of millions of people around the world already who also love "The New York Times." And one of our big tasks in terms of doubling our digital revenue is to get really serious about reaching and engaging readers all over the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: So Web subscriptions are the future of "The Time," but print is also a part of the future too.
Now to magazines, because "Cosmopolitan" editor Joanna Coles there and she told me something similar to what Thompson said. Nicole sits on the board of Snapchat now, one of the fastest growing tech companies on the planet. We were just talking about it. But sometimes, she says, people just want to be unplugged.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOANNA COLES, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "COSMOPOLITAN": Really, "Cosmo" now has so many brand extensions. The magazine is the sort of monthly hub, if you like.
But we think of readers waking up and checking it on Snapchat. And we have a phrase at "Cosmo" that we use informally, which is unplugged in.
There are moments of the day when you have...
STELTER: Unplugged in.
COLES: Unplugged in.
[11:50:00]
So, it's a sense of there are moments of the day when you feel so jazzed, you have so much social media, you have spent so much time on your phone, your computer, whatever, that you need a little downtime. And that's where the magazine comes in.
I think of this -- I really do think of this -- actually, I call it 560, not even 360. Now it's like a circle-and-a-half or it's continuing to go round, because there is so much "Cosmo."
STELTER: You think people still need print, in other words. They need that break.
COLES: Of course.
(CROSSTALK)
COLES: But, yes, of course you need to put your phone down. And we all know when you have spent too much time on your phone.
You can see it in kids. You can see it with adults. There is something nice about sitting down. There's a prestige to print and you take in information. All the studies show you take in information very differently when you have a tactile relationship with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: Now from print to audio -- radio, actually.
What is the future of a radio company like iHeartRadio, which owns radio stations all across the country?
I spoke with CEO Bob Pittman and one of his company's biggest stars, Ryan Seacrest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: Ryan, what do you find about how consumer behaviors are changing year by year? What is different than it was?
RYAN SEACREST, RADIO/TV HOST: I think you have to make a first impression in three seconds. You have really got to impress somebody quickly these days.
Attention spans are far less than they ever were, which is fine. I mean, it actually pushes us. It challenges us to do more, do better and be more creative.
I think you also see that that loyalty, that frequency is very valuable. When we talk with our partners, our brand partners, having the ability to know your audience, to communicate with them on a regular basis at scale, we're talking about 20-million-plus a week for my radio audience. It's hard to find that in any other medium.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: It's interesting to hear Seacrest use words like loyalty. He is really talking about relationships, in this case the relationship between the listener and the host.
And that's also what Pittman, the CEO, said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOB PITTMAN, CEO, IHEARTRADIO: We don't think of radio as AM-FM. We think of radio, as Ryan says, as that relationship.
We're your best friend. We are with you in the empty seat in the car. We are with you while you are shaving. We are with you you're making breakfast. We are the ones that you develop that relationship with. We want to get to you every way we can.
So, we use AM-From. We now use iHeartRadio as the digital platform. You get it on your phone. You get it on your video game machine. You can reach us on Facebook. We are on Snapchat. We're on the Discovery Channels. So, we're just going everywhere we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: There is that Snapchat mention again.
And while I had the two of them there, I had to ask Seacrest about the TV show that made him such a huge star. That's "American Idol," of course, and the series finale was three months ago.
So, I asked him, will it ever come back?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: Ryan, it has been a couple of years since "American Idol" went off the air.
SEACREST: Is it over?
STELTER: I miss it as a fan.
SEACREST: No. Thank you. Thank you, Brian.
STELTER: Well, are you looking for a new "Idol?" Do you need a new television show like that? Or do you want a new television show like that?
SEACREST: I don't know that you could ever recreate what "American Idol" did, but I do love the platform that it was.
And I'm always open to any sort of platform where we can share great content, so...
STELTER: Do you think it will be back?
SEACREST: I don't know. I don't know. STELTER: I sort of assumed it will come back in three to five years.
SEACREST: If it were to come back, I would be very interested in who the host was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: I bet it will come back, not just as a TV show, but also as a live stream on the Web.
All of these media leaders here are figuring out how to take what they do best and do it digitally.
So, we talked about newspapers, magazines, radio, TV. What's next? Probably V.R., virtual reality. It was one of the hottest topics in Cannes. AOL, for example, just bought a virtual reality studio to help them make more V.R. content.
So, I asked AOL CEO Tim Armstrong why he thinks this technology, putting on the headset going into virtual space, is such a game changer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM ARMSTRONG, CHAIRMAN & CEO, AOL: I think V.R., it's projected by 2025 that there will be 500 million people connected with V.R. overall.
So, it's a big growth market. I think -- my guess is, if the content is really good, it's going to go even faster than that. I think the things that could hold it back are connectivity speeds and the devices overall.
I think from a user experience standpoint, if they're very fast and the devices work very well, you will have an unbelievable growth market. You look at the important news events that are happening in the world today, wouldn't you rather be in the event and feel like one of the participants in the event and what they felt?
And whether that's a positive event or something that was really negative, you want the human condition experience of what was it like inside of that news event.
And my guess is, if you look forward at CNN, or you look forward at AOL brands over time, you are going to have of an more experience than they are just a straight content interaction. And I think that's here V.R. is going to play a really pivotal role. It will actually change the way people think about news and events and the future of content. And there will be some bumpy periods to start off with V.R., but long term, people want deep experiences with content.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: You can see more of those interviews on CNNMoney.com.
And when we come back here, taking a turn to press independence on this Independence Day weekend, a sad reality when it comes to justice for murdered journalists.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:58:38]
STELTER: Welcome back to RELIABLE SOURCES.
Before we go today, before celebrate the Fourth of July holiday weekend, it's important to reflect on threats to a different type of independence, that of the press.
Going out into the field, gathering the news remains dangerous in many corners of the world. Just one month ago, NPR photographer David Gilkey and his Afghan interpreter were killed on assignment in Southern Afghanistan. While tragic, this case is not unusual.
"The New York Times" recently highlighted this data, and not including combat-related deaths, at least 1,195 journalists have been killed on the job since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In 787 of these cases, murder cases, only 13 percent have resulted in prosecutions.
Why such a low number? Well, there are not any firm answers, but the Committee to Protect Journalists cites, for many nations, journalists' deaths are either a low priority or politically challenging to prosecute.
Tomorrow, we remember America's original fight for liberty, but every day, we also honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom and of a free press.
That's all for this televised edition of RELIABLE SOURCES. But our media coverage keeps going all the time online. Make sure you sign up for our nightly newsletter at CNNMoney.com/media.
And let us know what you thought of today's show. E-mail reliablesources@CNN.com.
