Unmasking corporate power: The fight for fair journalism

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:05]I got to tell you, one of the great joys of doing this job is I get to be introduced to really interesting people who do really interesting things. And uh I get to have these conversations uh with you here on the show. And so let's let's introduce you uh to one of those interesting people right now, the founder and editor-inchief of The Lever, which is a readerupported investigative news outlet. and they are focused on exposing the negative influence of corporate corruption on American society. Please welcome to the show David Seroda. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:34]>> Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:36]>> Uh so, okay. So, how do you go from being a speech writer and a senior adviser to Bernie Sanders just a few short years ago uh to building out this uh this investigative journalism site?

[00:00:46]>> I've dabbled in politics and I've been in journalism. Um and some people have asked um isn't there a conflict there?

[00:00:54]And I actually in in my own life in um I I found it to be sort of an alignment of interests. Like if the goal is to reduce uh the power of oligarchy, the power of corporate power in our politics, then sometimes you can work in politics and sometimes you can work in journalism if that's the if that's the central goal.

[00:01:13]And I think working for Bernie Sanders, I mean, obvious I I and and by the way, I worked for him uh at this point 28 years ago when he was in the US House.

[00:01:20]Uh and I then came to work back to work for his presidential campaign. So I got my start, my real political education uh with Bernie Sanders working in the late 1990s in the US House. Uh I I I sort of saw the the political world through his eyes at that time to really understand, oh, >> we should be watching where the money is going. like it's less important to watch what politicians are saying and it's more important to watch uh where the money is going because usually what they're saying and ultimately what they're doing is a reflection of who is paying.

[00:01:54]>> You know, it's it's interesting that that you bring up. It feels like America and Canada have um have have completely different problems as it relates to media. Uh but they they lead to the same place. And on on one hand in the United States, you've got this uh the concentration of the power of the media in these very big corporate hands. And in in Canada, it's almost like the opposite. We've got direct subsidies by the government uh to uh to to to newsrooms. But the end result seems to be the same, which is either a real or perceived uh bias in the media and a a distrust of that media. um how how do you push back on that and how do you do things differently so that you can avoid um any accusation of of bias or I mean if if we is it because we know where you're coming from that therefore the bias is clear.

[00:02:43]>> It's such a great question uh and I put it this way. I don't think there is objectivity. I think there's fairness and I think there's accuracy but I don't think that objectivity exists in our world in this way. The minute you say this is a story and this isn't the story.

[00:03:01]>> Yeah.

[00:03:01]>> Yeah.

[00:03:02]>> In other words, what you decide is news and what you decide is not news, you have made a subjective decision. Uh and you've made a subjective decision frankly based on a set of values and viewpoints and ideologies. Uh and so I think when publications go out and news outlets go out and say we're objective, we we have we're voice of God here because what we're telling you is the news. And that's just an empirical uh ana unimpeachable analysis. That's false. Uh that's actually dishonest. And so what I say is like look, you basically know where I'm coming down. I I'm I'm I'm an open book when it comes to what my overall viewpoint and ideology is, what my view of what the what the big set of problems is in in American politics and politics generally. Uh, and what my commitment to you as a journalist is is that what I report is going to be fair and accurate and verifiable when it comes to documents and true. Now, it doesn't mean it's the only viewpoint. It just means I'm being honest with you. And so I what I've said to people is like look if you have a problem with like what stories we're selecting what we think is news and what you think is news that is ultimately at any publication a product of of viewpoints ideology or so-called bias. That is a biased decision. What what I worry more about is if you tell me, "Hey, you got this thing wrong."

[00:04:23]Yeah. Or, "Hey, you missed this this fact or right." I mean, so so what I think it's a much healthier media environment when people are when outlets are more open about their overall viewpoints and we can as as news consumers uh understand where they're coming from, but at least expect that what they're providing to us is factually accurate and fair. David Serot, you know that that you you're there exposing the negative influence of corporate corruption on American society. So the but the question is I mean are there corporations out there are there are there positive influences of of of well there can't be positive influence of corporate corruption but are there positive examples of corporate influence that are benefiting American society?

[00:05:10]Look, I certainly think that um industries uh various industries we as the public can can have an alignment of interests with. I mean, I would say if we scientifically understand that the climate crisis is happening uh and we understand that there should be laws put in place uh to uh acknowledge that and deal with that and try to reduce the emissions from that. we're when we put those laws in place, there are going to be industries that prop that pop up to uh offer the products and services that that help us, you know, reduce carbon emissions. I'm just using this as one example. Yeah. Right. I I I think like >> those industries using their um influence um using their uh uh uh community ties uh their ability to get a message out, helping uh create those policies is not a bad thing. I think it would be a bad thing if like those industries are like having, you know, cash stuffed envelopes to buy lawmakers to get their way. Like that's not so good. Uh but but I guess my point is it's not like all business is bad.

[00:06:17]>> Yeah.

[00:06:17]>> What we're talking about here is is the in in the United States, I've always seen it as um there are counterveiling powers. The the best economic times, I think you can say in our country, the sort of New Deal uh uh uh uh prosperity of the of the mid 20th century. I mean it's not a perfect time but what I would say is there was counterveiling power.

[00:06:41]Business had power, unions had counterveiling power. Uh and there was kind of an equilibrium where the political system was represented in sort of in the middle of that and sort of arbitrating some of that and and dealing with that and that created a kind of equilibrium that I think benefited the country when it came to policy. The problem now is that the power balance is completely out of whack. the there's a handful of oligarchs and corporations that have most of the power and there's very little organized counterveiling power. Uh and so the government >> are we talking about the Amazon of the you are we talking about the tech bros of the world?

[00:07:17]>> Yeah, exactly. I mean whether it's the tech whether it's the tech guys uh whether it's Wall Street uh you know on the fossil fuel situation, right? Okay, money is organized and and people comparatively speaking when it comes to politics are not. And so the government is often uh reflecting that in its policies which are out of step from where the public opinion is but in step with where the organized and and resourced political forces are. Now, you you you use the expression oligarch, and a lot of people uh when they hear that, they immediately think of sort of the the Russian u the the the r the buildup of of of Russian wealth in the hands of very powerful people. In your mind, are the two systems more similar than we might think?

[00:08:05]Uh I I I do think that we are moving into in the United States certainly um in the last 1015 years into more of a kleptocracy uh sort of authoritarian kleptocracy where I think I I still think that the United States uh its small D democratic institutions are stronger than a place like uh Russia as an example. But in terms of where wealth and power is concentrated, like just the sort of architecture of the economy and political power, I certainly think we're moving we've moved into an era um and not to like use a historical metaphor instead of a foreign metaphor that is much more reminiscent of the guilded age in the United States where so much power is in the hands of so few people. Uh and and I I think it's time for a rebalancing. I've thought that for a long time and I and I think I think it's now obvious to everybody like I think Donald Trump in a sense like I'm obviously against almost everything that Donald Trump is doing. I do think he's doing us a favor in one way which is he's so explicit and blatant and brazen about how he's behaving uh that um that I think you can't ignore it.

[00:09:19]>> Yeah. David, uh, we have a lot of people who've been writing and wondering what your take is on the rise of the quote unquote independent journalist and and and and the the biggest one that pe that comes to people's mind is is Nick Shirley, uh, who, like I was saying before, depending on whether you uh, fall on his side of the fence or not, he he either is a rabble rouser, uh, he's pedalling a misinformation, possibly uh, race baiting, or he exposed some real uh, some real graft that needed uh, to see the lead a day.

[00:09:49]My take on on independent journalism is is that we need more journalism. And I want to underscore the word journalism because there's a difference between journalism and media. Journalism is a subset of media. Journalism is is reporting facts that people don't want to be reported. Everything else, as this old saying goes, is public relations.

[00:10:12]Um, journalism is a is a is a skill. It is a profession. It is a it is it is not something just you know sort of hottaking uh on with an opinion of the day. It is surfacing information. And I think the problem with with a sort of corporate media dominating journalism is as we discussed before you're always getting a perspective even if the publication isn't saying it's giving you a perspective even if the publication says it's objective. And I think if you have a corporate dominated journalism, you're only going to get a sort of corporate perspective in terms of what is delineated as news and what isn't. So I guess that's a long way of saying I'm glad there's seems to be more opening uh for independent journalism right now.

[00:10:59]But I would also say this, it's going to be messy, right? It's going to be like democracy is messy. Um a a vibrant free press is going to be messy. And what we rely on is is that when misinformation or disinformation or factually inaccurate information is put out there, the the media ecosystem, the journalism ecosystem strikes it down. Not not censors it, but counters it, right? Like that's a healthy media ecosystem. And so I think but it's it's not going to be, you know, quote unquote clean. It's going to it's going to be messy. It's going to be loud.

[00:11:31]>> And last only about a minute left. I wish we hadn't had those technical issues because I want to ask you about uh about your your film and if you're ever going to work on something else like that. But I I'll I'll end on this.

[00:11:42]What is the biggest story that you think we should be paying attention to today?

[00:11:46]What are you paying attention to? What's the next investigation that you're going to be going into?

[00:11:50]>> Well, I I'm obviously still looking at any climate story. That's that was what our movie was a sort of a metaphor for.

[00:11:57]Our movie Don't Look Up about a you know, asteroid headed towards Earth and nobody seems to care. But I think it also could be an AI movie. I mean, honestly, I I think people can watch that movie now and say, you know, is the asteroid AI? And I I I'm deeply focused on AI and the power of the tech industry. Uh and I'm wondering what is going to happen uh from uh AI when it comes to job displacement, but also where where does the wealth of the AI the AI creation go? And very quickly, one one last thing I'll also say on the other side of AI is if AI doesn't pan out. Yeah. So much investment has been made in AI is that investment let's say AI doesn't deliver what it's promising.

[00:12:36]Is that going to crater our economy in a different way? Not displacing jobs because AI replaces them, but displacing jobs because so much investment overinvestment has been made in AI that it collapses the economy big short style. That's what I'm I'm looking at.

[00:12:50]>> David Ceroda, I really hope we get to do this again sometime soon. a really fascinating conversation. Thank you so much.

[00:12:55]>> Thank you. Thanks so much.

[00:12:56]>> Thanks so much for watching the show.

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