Media Analyst Kevin Tober of NewsBusters

Jerry speaks with Kevin Tober, media analyst with NewsBusters.Show more

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Jerry Ewalt: Welcome to the First Right  podcast, a weekly conservative news show brought to you by Restoration of America. I'm Jerry Ewalt, chief marketing officer of Restoration of America. Today, we are blessed to have Kevin Tober, one of the more prominent media analysts in America. Kevin works for Newsbusters, which is a go-to website that deconstructs liberal media bias as it happens. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Kevin Tober: Thanks for having me.

Jerry Ewalt: Yeah, no,it's, it's an honor for us and Kevin, before we get into the meat of the interview, I want to know about you. Tell us about who you are, where you come came from and how you got to Newsbusters.

Kevin Tober: Oh yeah. Well again, thanks for having me. I've always been a big fan of conservative talk radio and uh Fox news. So when I was in the, when I was a teenager and I was in college listening to like the greats, like rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, mark Levin, you know, learning from them and looking up to them and, you know, they kind of inspired me to want to work in conservative media. So I've, they've kind of always preached about how important it is or, you know, how important is for conservatives to go into conservative media or into any media and try to take over these institutions, you know, they preached about how important that is. And so, yeah, that kind of inspired me to want to pursue a career in media as being a, being a big consumer of, of the outlets. So during college, I wrote for a couple of local conservative blogs.
One of them's a saved Jersey blog and out of my home state in New Jersey. So it kind of experienced doing it that, and then that kind of, and then that kind of steamrolled into freelancing for the daily caller, which I kind of do still time to time when I'm not busy with my, obviously my full-time job at news busters after college. And then I am and, and landed an internship at news busters where I eventually got a full-time job there as where I am today as the, the I'm the sole evening news analyst for new semester. So I kind of, what I do day to day is, you know, I get in, I kind of look at what, you know, what's kind of going on throughout the day, where are the important stories, what should be covered, how it should be covered. And I kind of I'll look at I'll watch ABC news world, ABC world news tonight, CBS evening news, NBC nightly news.
So I'll usually write up a story about that, how they cover it, if they don't cover it, you know, kind of biased by omission or commission as we used to, we usually say at news busters and MRC, so I'll have that up by nine, then I'll go over and look at any of the, the craziness that's kind of festering over at CNN and MSNBC, which it's always, always a lot. They're worse. It's kind of the kind of job is what kind of finding what isn't bias is really over on that side. So yeah, so that's, you know, again, I it's, it's a lot of fun. I love my job, but sometimes I think I just hazard pay for working, having to watch all that stuff every day.

Jerry Ewalt: Yeah, I was, I was just going to say like, you, you definitely have some job security. There's no lack of things for you to be doing right now with what's going on in the media today, so,

Kevin Tober: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Jerry Ewalt: So let's, let's jump into news busters a little bit, right? So I've been around, I believe since 2005, you, you guys were the lonely voice there out in the wilderness beating the drum of the liberal news media bias, if you will. So tell us a little bit of how that started and where it, where it's at today.

Kevin Tober: Yeah, well, yeah. So as you said, Newsbusters, it started in August of 2005, but the MRC, which is our parent company predates Newsbusters. So news busters, as, as I said, 2005 MRC started in October 1st, 1987. So prior to the internet era, we, you know, MRC was kind of doing that kind of day to day stuff. So they would back before the internet, they would kind of watch all these shows on the TV, within an VCR tape. It, so we have from one of the things that people don't know is from August for I'm sorry, October 1st, 1987 to the present. We have almost every single minute of every single show of all the networks and cable news. So we have all that archive. We have one of the largest archives in the world, so yeah, we have that. And then, you know, back then we used to go and send out like a monthly newsletter of the bias because you know, this is before the internet. So it wasn't until 2005 when we kind of started our own blog. And this was really the first of its time, a blog that's kind of dedicated to exposing and combating liberal media bias 24 7. So that was a pretty groundbreaking.

Jerry Ewalt: Yeah, no, we're, we're grateful for organizations like yours that are, those are true watchdogs out there. I mean, we need somebody looking after what the media is doing and can't let them run wild and say whatever they want. So we are grateful for MRC in, in what you guys are doing. So how so help me understand how, how has that evolved since you got to news busters? How has that evolved over time? Is that, is it gotten worse? Has it gotten better in terms of bias, but what are your thoughts?

Kevin Tober: I would say it's gotten worse. Certainly the Trump era, the Trump administration, you know, because the media is decided that they think, you know, they have to become even more openly hostile to conservatives because they think, I think they believe that they were really caught off guard and, and just crossed by the Trump election. And you know, like a lot of people, they thought that, you know, Hillary had it, had it in the bag and there was no way Trump was ever gonna win. Right. And, and after that, which obviously, you know, a lot of us knew better, but yeah, they really thought that you, I think they think they didn't do their job and not, they didn't do their job. As you know, I think I saw a quote the other day is that modern journalism is deciding what facts the public shouldn't know about.
Unfortunately. And unfortunately that's the case with police with, with the liberal media. So, yeah. Well, I mean, while Trump isn't an office anymore, the drumbeat hasn't stopped and whether it's against the former president, Trump or Ron, the Santas, they think their job is to know the next president. And I think the biggest, the biggest change to, to kind of answer your question directly, the biggest change, isn't so much bias. It's, it's always been bad. It's obviously gotten worse during the Trump years. The biggest changes I think were, is what's happening at CNN with the new president Chrysalis they've got, since I've gotten new semesters, they've gotten rid of Chris Cuomo and Brian Stelter who are two of the biggest partisans on CNN. And then obviously Jeff Toobin has left on his own, which he claims to write a book or wherever he's claims he's doing next. So, yeah, I think, I think that was the biggest change. If, if I had to really put a fine point on it,

Jerry Ewalt: I mean, it sounds positive what's happening at CNN. I mean, I'm, I'm skeptical and I'm sure you are especially, but that sounds positive.

Kevin Tober: Well, I, I was skeptical until they, they got rid of Brian Stelter because you could argue that they got, had to get rid of Chris Cuomo because all the scandals with his brother and all this other things he has go, he had going on. But with Brian Stelter, I mean, he was the most loyal person at CNN. Like, and what show would you at? What network would you ever be allowed after your fire to do one more show, worth? Nothing to lose. He just went on there and they just let him have the microphone one. Oh, and the television camera one last time. I mean, I can imagine maybe if I was ever fired from new special, I'll be like leather, right? One more blog or article or if I had a television show. Yeah. I've had Sean hannity. He got fired by Fox news. I can't imagine they'd let him do another show because then you have nothing to lose. You can just go on and say whatever you want about the network. So I think that, I think, I think, sorry.

Jerry Ewalt: No, please go ahead.

Kevin Tober: No, I just, I think that up until stelter there, I really believe that they weren't really going to change because even after Chris got into office, you know, took over the CNN and when they were still doing the same liberal partisan commentary and whatnot, and then last Sunday, when they got rid of Stelter during his last show, I'm like, okay, well maybe this is really going to happen, but we'll see what happened. I'm still skeptical, but I'm hopelessly optimistic.

Jerry Ewalt: W we've been trained on that. We have to, we have to stay skeptical with it. But you know, one of the things that really drives me crazy right, is, is the, when, when someone believes that the ends justify the means and, and we just, we can't do that. We have to present the facts and let the American people decide. And, and that's what really gets me upset with what we're seeing so much today. So, and again, I appreciate the work that you guys are doing because you guys are calling that out. So why do you, why do you think that typical let's call it the mainstream media news outlets? Why are they so liberally biased? Right. So, you know, obviously everyone has some bias here and there, but what do you see such a strong push in that direction? Is it, is it, we can't find conservative news journalists or what's the deal there?

Kevin Tober: I would say. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of something that I've been kind of kicking around. I think the issue is conservatives tend to be, not tend to not drift towards meet media outlets or even we can also argue with the issues with what's going on in academia as well. But yeah, the media, I think conservatives tend to go into more business-related fields or medicine or more even you could argue. Hmm. So, yeah, I think, I think liberals tend to drift towards more journalism, academia and so forth. So yeah, it's kind of the one thing that we've had issues with. And I think the issue, what we need to do, and I think news busters at MRC have had a really good track record with this is they have, they through our internship program has done a lot to place, train and place conservatives and media outlets.
As, as, as of right now, former Newsbusters and MRC interns are in numerous outlets are in daily daily caller. There was a former us news bus, MRC staff member. Who's now daily wire, let's see town hall. We have two there, we have one in Washington examiner. So we have done a good job trying to get more conservatives into the organization. And also young America's foundations, national journalism centers has done a great work with that as well. So yeah, I mean, and also keep in mind, I think normally people know that is, I would say about 80% of news busters staff are former interns where they kept on calling myself.

Jerry Ewalt: Yeah, no, I, we, we see that changing, right. It was, it's interesting. We had Dwight Chaping, a long time aide to Richard Nixon on our program recently. And he talked about the changes in media. And if Nixon would have been around today, he believes strongly that he wouldn't have a Nixon wouldn't have been driven from office based on all the alternatives. Right. You talked about the advent of the internet and how that's changing things. So with that, we do see some changes. And so he also mentioned that he believes this is a net positive for conservatives and for Americans out there that there's more voices out there. Do you, do you agree with that?

Kevin Tober: Oh, absolutely. Certainly. I mean, Fox news has been rewarded for their, their conservative bent or, and their opinion and news programming. I mean, you know, and Fox news gets a bad rap. It's not all conservative opinion programming. I mean, Brett biaer, I think is one of the best journalists, DD journalists in the country if I, in my opinion. But yeah, I, I would say I, I think it, I think it's kind of one thing that I've been actually thinking about as well over the years is wouldn't nixon have been driven from office if with, with the internet and conservative media as of this today. And I would say, you know, there are arguments that you can kind of think of one way or another. You could argue that, you know, if there was conservative media nowadays on the internet and you know, there would be outlets for conservatives to watch and kind of rally around the president with, but then you also, you there's really no way to know how those outlets really would have treated the president, the former president.
I mean, you could argue that, you know, there have been no other presidents have done worse things than what Nixon did. I'm not doctor excuse him, but, you know, but yeah, I mean, I, I definitely think the competition and everything has been really positive. I mean, it's always good to have where people have more choices and more outlets. You know, the fact that Fox news has only been around since 1996 is, you know, that's, you know, we've gone so many years without a conservative outlet. I mean, concerns had nothing up until the eighties when we had a rush Limbaugh on the radio. And then prior to that national review magazine, that was pretty much it for us. But, you know, Fox news was definitely been a successful, you know, because they've been on, you know, entertaining shows and they do real journalism and whatnot. I saw the other day yesterday, I believe that Fox news had was 18 of the top 20 shows in the, in the, was it the 25 to 54 demographic, which is the key demographic for advertisers. So they they're doing really well. It's not, it's not just, you know, the stereotype is old, you know, baby boomers watching Fox news. That's not true. I mean, we, 18 of the top 20 shows on all cable have all been Fox news as of Monday, that's most recent ratings that came out. That's, that's huge. So, you know, you respect your audience and be entertaining and informative and you know, people will watch.
Yeah. And that, and that's encouraging, right. Not to say that Fox news is perfect. No one's saying that, but at the end of the day, we, we do need another voice we need, we always want to hold our leaders accountable for what they're doing, but we also want to give the facts right. Allow the American people to paint that picture. And it's good to see conservative media, whether it's Fox news or, you know, all these alternative medias that are popping up that at least gives us the other side of the story so that we understand and make our own decision.
Yeah, absolutely.

Jerry Ewalt: So with that said, right. So how based on all your experience, how could the average American citizen really look into news and, and, and get it in a way that is unbiased, whether it's conservative, literal, how do, how is the what's the best way that they can do to get to the facts so they can make up their own mind?

Kevin Tober: I would say is the watch both tides. So if you want to watch Fox news, you know, maybe watch an hour of MSNBC, if you can stomach it or CNN, or, you know, if you read the, you know, the wall street journal, you know, or if you read the Washington times, read the Washington post, kind of both sides, you know, because Washington post is liberal and Washington times is, is more conservative leaning. You kinda, you know, you kind of get, because, you know, no matter how it's kind of human nature sometimes, you know, no, one's perfect. You know, if, you know, even, even, you know, conservative reporters and, you know, the New York at the Washington times, you know, they, there may be some things that they, you know, we valor don't get to, or, you know, you only have so much space to write article. Yeah. You know, read the wall, read an article about, say, you know, the inflation numbers on the Washington times and then read it on the Washington post and kind of get a bigger picture kind of both sides if you will. But I think, I think if you find out really good reputable sources, you are not sick both. So take the time to look at the story from multiple angles. Right. It makes a lot of sense. It takes a lot of time to do that. So people are so busy, what can, yeah. What can they do to really kind of maybe get to the point, is that, is that something news busters can help with when you're in a, in a, in a short period of time? Or what, what can you do? Cause I agree. You want to mix that up. No doubt, but sometimes you need to get right to it. And how do you, how do you get the truth quickly?
Well, yeah, I would say you got a new semester is definitely, I mean, you know, if you're watching an outlet and use, you think your coverage is good, I mean, check out news buses, you know, cause we're the ones that are watching this 24 7 as our job. And, you know, w we, we will call out if they don't, you know, for instance, yesterday I wrote a piece on ABC and CBS finally reporting on Paul Pelosi's DUI charges. Yeah. He was arrested. I believe it was May 28th. If I'm yeah. 28th, he was, he was, he was arrested for DUI and the ABC and CBS, at least on the evening prime time, there two shows in the evening, they have not covered it up until, up until last night. And NBC news and evening has not still, not yet as of yesterday. So if you're watching those networks, I mean, you really you're you're if you watch ABC and CBS as your only news, you are just informed of Paul Pelosi's arrest yesterday when it happened in may. I mean, this is so, yeah. I mean, I think, I think they're, and they're also really good news aggregators out there that you can websites. There's a bunch of junior report that kind of looks at like all different outlets, Drudge report. I mean, they've, they've gone really less now. It looks like, but you know, between those two, I think, you know, you just, I'm on those all day, every day. There's also another called it's another outlet. That's another different, different kinds of news news aggregators that you can just take a look at. I think that that would be the best way to kind of get all the different sources because they just, they throw everything together for you, regardless of, you know, if it's a conservative papers, liberal paper, I mean everything together.

Jerry Ewalt: Yeah. No, I think those are all great sources and you know, we at Restoration of America, we try to do this as well with First Right, right. So you can subscribe to First Right. And you'll get the aggregation every day in your, in your inbox. So I agree. I mean, it, it, it helps us kind of sort through what's going on. Cause I do like to look at both sides. It is important that we do that. I just know, realistically, not everyone has the time to do it all the time. I mean, that's your job, 24 hours a day, pretty much. And I get it and we appreciate you doing that for us. So it's really a mix, a combination if you will.

Kevin Tober: Yeah. So absolutely. So

Jerry Ewalt: Kevin, any, anything else you want to share with our audience?

Kevin Tober: Yeah, I would say, you know, check out news busters, you know, as we we've been going strong since the sentences and five, we have stuff up every night, every day, all day long, you know, it's really important, you know, cause unfortunately the media, you know, if you're an average person you're only watching good morning America for half an hour in the morning and you know, that's, that's all you get and you know, maybe a half hour world news tonight and evening, you know, you're not getting the full story and it's, you know, important to, you know, know what they're not covering. Cause if that's all you watch, you don't know what's, they're not covering. I think that's one of the things that we do that me, especially as was what I, what annoys me the most is the bias by omission. Because if they're, if they're outright bias and just like, you know, attacking the president former president or, you know, going after Republicans on, you know, abortion or whatever, since it's, it seems the biggest, biggest topic for us lately. You know, it's kind of obvious when they're being biased outright, but if you don't know what they're not reporting, if you don't follow this stuff 24 7, and that's the biggest thing that you have to really look out for, like what aren't they telling you? So that's what I would say.And just see, and not even just news busters, just follow the news, like be really, you know, it's important as a good citizen to be informed.
Well you know what Kevin, we're really grateful for the work that you're doing at news busters. And I really appreciate you coming on the show today and helping us out.
Absolutely. Anytime. Thanks for having me.

Jerry Ewalt: All right. That's our show for today. Thank you so much for tuning in and supporting conservative media. Don't ever forget that by working together and staying diligent, we conservatives can bring our country back to true greatness until next week. Let's all keep praying that God will continue to bless America

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