We'll Remember Who Stood Where

Journalism's Job Isn't To Pretend: Where's the Evidence of Election Rigging?

President Trump says the Los Angeles and California elections were rigged. Spencer Pratt lost. Therefore, according to Trump and many of his supporters, something must have gone wrong. There is just one problem. Nobody has produced any evidence. Journalists are often accused of bias when they point out that a claim is unsupported. But saying there is no evidence for a claim isn’t bias. It’s reporting. The media’s responsibility isn’t to act as a referee between two sides of an argument. The media’s responsibility is to determine what the facts are and report them accurately. You know the illustration: One guy says it’s raining outside, the other one says it’s not. The reporter’s job isn’t to say, “Well, different viewpoints, and we’ll have to leave it there.” It’s her job to look out the window and report if it’s raining or not. The standard doesn’t change because the person making the accusation happens to be the President of the United States. California election officials have publicly explained how the vote was conducted. Ballots were counted under established procedures. The results are certified through the same systems that have been used repeatedly in previous elections. Voting tabulations change as more votes are counted. In California, the mail-in ballots aren’t counted until after the same-day votes. That’s why there are delays in how the state reports vote totals. Naturally, same-day tallies would show Spencer Pratt with a healthy number, since Republicans, especially the MAGA variety, have been trained to never vote by mail-in ballot (even though Trump does). Whereas Democrats, especially in this very, very blue city, tend to vote by mail. Add to that that state law says people can mail in ballots up to election day, so long as they’re postmarked by then. That means late mail-ins can take up to a week to get to the vote counters. People are free to dislike our system. They’re free to argue that California’s election laws should be changed. Those are legitimate political debates. But what’s not legitimate is alleging criminal conduct without proof. Even some of the defenses being offered have become almost comical. House Speaker Mike Johnson recently suggested the alleged fraud is so sophisticated and “diabolical” that it cannot be proven. A claim that can’t be proven because the evidence supposedly can’t be found isn’t evidence. It’s the absence of evidence dressed up as an explanation. That certainly wouldn’t fly in any court in a free society. The argument would be laughed out of the room. Yet millions of Americans hear versions of these claims every day, and that creates another challenge for journalism. The audience no longer shares a common information system. Many Trump supporters consume media that reinforces election fraud narratives. More and more, Americans occupy separate realities constructed by different information sources. That doesn’t relieve journalists of their responsibility. In some ways, it makes that responsibility more important. The fact that a portion of the audience may never see accurate reporting isn’t an excuse to stop producing it. The role of journalism isn’t to tell people what they want to hear. It’s to establish what is known, what is unknown, and what can be proven. At the moment, the facts are straightforward. Trump claims the election was rigged. His supporters amplify the claim. No evidence has been presented. Those are the facts. The last time millions of Americans were told an election had been stolen without evidence, some of them eventually acted on that belief. January 6 happened because enough people became convinced that evidence was unnecessary. That may be the most dangerous lesson of all. When citizens are taught that belief matters more than proof, facts become optional. Once facts become optional, democracy becomes fragile. The idea that fair elections are only the ones where your side wins, and that losing somehow "proves" the election was stolen — that leads to what we saw that day. The media can’t force people to accept reality. But it can continue doing its job. It can continue demanding evidence. It can continue reporting what is true. Even if it means the president throws down his microphone, stomps on it, and walks out of the interview. And news media can continue refusing to pretend that unsupported allegations deserve the same weight as documented facts. That is journalism. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. If this article resonates with you, please share it with others. And if you’d like to support Archer’s Line, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Independent journalism only works when readers support it directly. Your subscription helps me continue doing this work without corporate interference, political pressure, or advertisers deciding which questions are safe to ask. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therobarcher.com/subscribe [https://www.therobarcher.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

The Cost of Losing the People Who Know Things

Institutions die long before they collapse. This may be happening to journalism right now. The first symptom is the departure of the people who know things. The veteran reporter who can spot a fabricated source in five minutes. The military officer who understands logistics because he’s spent twenty years moving troops and supplies. The career civil servant who remembers why a rule exists because she was there when the last disaster happened. These people rarely become famous. They’re often expensive, sometimes stubborn, and frequently irritating to management. They ask difficult questions. They challenge assumptions. They remember mistakes everyone else would rather forget. They are also the reason institutions work. When organizations begin valuing loyalty more than expertise, these are usually the first people to go. Archer's 🏹 Line is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, become a subscriber. History is littered with examples. In the late 1930s, Stalin purged the Soviet military because he feared they could be a threat to his power. Thousands of officers were arrested, imprisoned, or executed. Experienced commanders disappeared. Political reliability became more important than military competence. Then Hitler invaded. The German army crossed the Soviet border in June 1941 and delivered one of the most devastating military defeats in history. Entire Soviet armies were surrounded and destroyed. Millions of soldiers were killed or captured. The laws of war proved indifferent to political loyalty. Stalin eventually learned that lesson the hard way. The Soviet Union survived because experienced military leaders were promoted, restored, or empowered. Talent became difficult to ignore when survival depended on it. The same principle applies far beyond the battlefield. Every profession develops expertise through accumulated experience. A good reporter learns how people lie. They learn it after thousands of interviews. They learn which sources consistently exaggerate. Which politicians evade questions. Which public records offices hide information. Which statistics deserve another look. They learn what doesn’t smell right. When a veteran reporter says something feels wrong, the explanation is often invisible. They may not immediately know why. The only answer may sound like something from an old movie: “I’ve got a gut feeling.” Years of experience are processing information beneath the surface. Call it intuition. Call it instinct. It’s really experience. The same is true in government. A career employee at a public agency may know where previous administrations failed. They may remember which policies produced unintended consequences. They may recognize a problem that appears new only because everyone who encountered it before has retired. Their value becomes obvious after they’re gone. The modern economy has spent decades treating expertise as a cost center. Lay off senior employees. Replace them with cheaper workers. Offer buyouts. And the spreadsheets do improve. For a while. But then a crisis arrives. A pandemic. A war. A natural disaster. A financial meltdown. Suddenly everyone starts looking for the people who used to know how to handle those situations. News organizations are experiencing this problem in real time. Across television, radio, newspapers, and digital media, veteran journalists have been shown the door. Some were pushed out by shrinking budgets. Others by corporate mergers. Others because executives decided experience costs too much. Some were fired because they stood up for their principles. The danger for journalism is that audiences often can’t see the difference until it’s too late. The invisible assets are often the difference between journalism and content. Every institution eventually encounters reality. And reality doesn’t care about political loyalty. It doesn’t care about corporate talking points. It doesn’t care about management theories. It cares whether the people making decisions know what they are doing. The kind of knowledge that comes from experience. Cut off experience, cut off knowledge, and you're left with a newsroom that can't find the truth, a government that can't manage a crisis, and an army that can't win a war. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therobarcher.com/subscribe [https://www.therobarcher.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

We'll Remember Who Stood Where

The audience remembers. That’s the problem facing CBS News, Paramount, and a growing list of media companies, universities, law firms, and corporations that spent the Trump years discovering new ways to surrender. One day, Donald Trump will leave the stage. I do not think MAGA survives it, given how strongly it revolves around a single personality. Sooner or later, every political movement dies. History is littered with movements that once seemed permanent. The harder question is what comes afterward. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therobarcher.com/subscribe [https://www.therobarcher.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

UPDATE: The Fight for 60 Minutes: They're Staying

The rebellion inside 60 Minutes isn’t over. Three of the program’s remaining correspondents — Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker, and Jon Wertheim — have announced they’re staying. But before anyone at CBS News mistakes that for a vote of confidence, they should keep reading. The trio issued a statement Friday explaining their decision. They described themselves as grieving. They said the program has been wounded and damaged. They condemned the treatment of colleagues who were pushed out. And they made clear that remaining at 60 Minutes should not be interpreted as support for the people now running it. Instead, they say they’re staying for one reason. To fight. “We don’t want to see 60 Minutes die,” they wrote. “We want to stay and fight.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therobarcher.com/subscribe [https://www.therobarcher.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]

Scott Pelley Was Fired by Email

UPDATE: Scott Pelley responded to his firing. His statement to the staff at 60 Minutes is below. New statement sent to CBS News staff from Scott Pelley: There has never been anything in America like 60 Minutes. The Sunday tradition is the most successful program of any kind in history. For more than a decade, its innovative growth on every major online platform has extended its reach to countless millions around the world. This spring, at the end of our 58th season, 60 Minutes grew rapidly with an unheard-of 9% jump in viewers on CBS. “60” has been the number-one program in America for decades because our beloved audience finds integrity, quality, and humanity in our stories. When stewardship of the program passed to my colleagues and me, our responsibility was to expand energetically into a new age of media technology while preserving the values our audience expects. Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking. Last month, 60 Minutes lost its DNA when our entire senior leadership and two of our best on-air correspondents were cruelly fired without cause. Good people were silenced because they stood up for our audience. They stood for fairness against the forces of political bias; they stood for professionalism against chaos. For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done. Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all. At 60 Minutes, we have fought harder than anyone knows to save the program that became an American icon. We owed that to our millions of viewers. I am deeply moved by the thousands of wishes we have received to “keep up the good fight.” Most of the men and women of CBS News are still in that fight. But now the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well. I depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return. Scott Pelley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.therobarcher.com/subscribe [https://www.therobarcher.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]