00:05 Paul Brandus: In the first season of this podcast, we explored the rapid disappearance of America's newspapers. The fading of this medium, which dates back to the earliest days of American history, when founding fathers like Benjamin Franklin were proud publishers of newspapers, can be considered more than an issue of technology and changing times, rendering one industry obsolete. There is more to it than that. When a newspaper dies, issues that are vital to a community can go uncovered. How will you know what the mayor and city council are up to, the school board and PTA, and much more? As information dries up, something called a news desert emerges. And, as we explained two years ago, news deserts can be correlated to some degree with the rise in false information. There's another word for this, of course, disinformation. I'm Paul Brandus, and that's the name of this podcast series, Disinformation, a co-production of Evergreen Podcasting and Emergent Risk International, or ERI, a global risk advisory firm. I wanted to update this very important topic, and for that, I'd like to bring in our guest. I'll have her introduce herself.

01:30 Margot Susca: So my name is Margot Susca. I am an assistant professor of journalism, accountability, and democracy at American University.

01:40 Paul Brandus: She is also the author of a new book, Hedged, which explores how hedge funds and private equity firms have taken over newspapers and what happens when they do. This is a business and economic story, but as we'll see, it is also a story of how citizens in certain communities can wind up with less information about topics and issues of importance to their community which in turn can lead to false narratives, again, disinformation.

02:11 Margot Susca: So when I became interested in making hedge funds and private equity the focus of my book, I had to really learn about hedge funds and private equity as an industry, not just in the journalism sector, but as a segment of the American financial market. So I did what a lot of scholars and journalists do, and I started reading. And one of the books that I picked up had chapters with titles like Looking for Prey and Learning to Scavenge. So I think that gives you a flavor of the type of sector and the type of folks who are drawn to the sector of hedge funds and private equity. Now, not all hedge funds and not all private equity are drawn to newspapers, but there are a core group that were drawn in the late 2000s and in the early 2010s to the newspaper marketplace. And so when they were sitting around the proverbial, I use this metaphor, this proverbial table and chose the newspaper market, I don't think that they were thinking about covering the school board meeting better. I don't think that they were thinking about covering the sheriff's race better or making sure that people in small towns in Illinois or in Connecticut where I grew up or Florida where I worked for several years I don't think that they were thinking about creating better journalism. They were looking at balance sheets, and they were looking at properties, assets. They were looking at the advertising revenue that was left, and they were looking at it as what they could scavenge, and they were looking at what they could extract and liquidate from the market. And that's what I've seen. And I spent a lot of time looking at hedge funds as an industry and then looking at hedge funds and private equity as a sector in the journalism market. And I can give you lots of examples and specifics from the documents in the journalism industry specifically.

04:30 Paul Brandus: Yeah. So it's the same philosophy that would be involved if, say, a group of private equity guys bought a steel mill or something and decided to squeeze every last dollar out of that that they could. But in my view and yours, a newspaper philosophically is very different in that it has an inherent public trust to serve a community, very different than a steel mill, say. And yet, they didn't really make any distinction when they were looking at the targets. They were only looking at, again, how much money can we get out of this?

05:18 Margot Susca: Absolutely. I mean, but even that steel mill or nursing homes, which have become a target, hospitals have become a target. You know, they're going to look at, they're going to roll back safety. You know, they're going to cut back on personnel, you know. And so I think that, you know, we look at it from a very specific point of view, which is, you know, journalism is the only profession that is protected by the First Amendment. And I think that that has a very important role. But private equity and hedge funds have been involved with disastrous consequences in journalism, but also in many other industries. And there have been other authors that have covered that. And I think the fact that they arrived in journalism is probably no shock. And the fact that they did such tremendous damage is probably also, is no shock either.

06:14 Paul Brandus: Now, this podcast deals with the subject of false narratives, in other words, disinformation, which is quite different from misinformation, incidentally. So as we discuss that, just keep keeping that in mind. And I think you might have answered this question. You've mentioned that private firms have profited from bankruptcies or debt financing. But beyond these sort of a one-off tactics, do any of them have any serious long-term strategy to provide serious responsible journalism? And do any of them care? Or it's just, again, how much money can we get out of this?

06:55 Margot Susca: I mean, I can give you an example. In Idaho, the McClatchy chain owns the Idaho Statesman. It is owned by the hedge fund called Chatham Asset Management. Last time I checked, they had about $10 billion in assets under management. It's pretty successful for a hedge fund. And the Idaho statesman, former editor of the Idaho statesman, wanted to buy their investigative reporter, Microsoft Excel. There are various packages you could buy. It'll run you about $100 if you want to buy it, $150. To have Microsoft Excel as an investigative reporter is basically like having a hammer, to be a carpenter and to have a hammer. And it was refused. Her request was refused. So when we think about the long-term impacts of an investigative reporter that was in an election year, that was in a census year, an investigative reporter not getting access to Microsoft Excel when it's owned by a hedge fund that has so much money It really speaks to me, and it's an anecdote that says this is not a company that cares about the long term. the long term success of its news reporters. It doesn't care about the community that was in Idaho, which was the second fastest growing state in America at that time in the decade prior. And I think that this is something that we've seen over and over again from hedge fund owned newsrooms and not just hedge fund owned newsrooms, but also newsrooms that are in debt to other types of private investment funds. That includes Gannett, America's largest chain. And they were formerly the Gatehouse Chain, which was for a time owned by Fortress Investment Group, which is a New York City-based private equity firm. And once the chain went public, Fortress remained owned somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% of its shares. In 2013, the gatehouse chain declared bankruptcy and Fortress took $149 million dividend payment. So again, and this is in years that they're laying off reporters, they're laying off photojournalists, they're laying off editors, but not before they're giving themselves huge payouts. And is it legal? Yes, it's legal. Nothing that they're doing here is illegal. But I think it speaks to your point about, do these companies care about the long-term sustainability of journalism in a community? And the answer is no. But I also think that what my research has shown is that, and I meet a lot of people still today at conferences and different events that I go to, and they'll say to me, The business model of journalism changed. Margott, the business model of journalism changed. And what they're neglecting is any reality that as the business model of journalism was changing, a lot of hedge funds and private equity were taking a lot of money on the way out the door. And I think that's what's frustrating is that you know, this segment of the industry has all been forgotten. And I think that they should get more credit for the part, you know, the part that they played in the destruction of the industry, because it was sizable.

10:38 Paul Brandus: Now, when newspapers disappear, What is the electoral impact? Is there any kind of correlation between the rise of news deserts and things like voter turnout, susceptibility to disinformation? In other words, what do all these hedge funds and private equity guys, connect the dots here in terms of that and disinformation?

11:04 Margot Susca: Yeah, well, it's almost like there's a benefit of having an electorate that's less informed and less engaged when you consider that some of these firms have their hands in so many other industries. But I think to your point, there is a growing amount of research that when newspapers die and disappear in communities, that voters are more apathetic, that they are more willing to vote for one political party down the, you know, more willing to vote for only one party. When newspapers disappear, voter apathy increases, political polarization increases, political corruption increases. There is well-documented research And what we're also seeing is the increase of the more positive impacts of having a strong local newspaper. And I think that this is something that I'm encouraged by. In places where there may still be a family-owned newspaper, what you're seeing is that it can increase voter participation in local elections, including in local court races.

12:24 Paul Brandus: Last year, researchers at the University of San Diego released a study showing that when a non-profit newsroom fills the void left by the disappearance of a newspaper, it has the impact of combating political corruption.

12:40 Margot Susca: So what that means is that having a watchdog from a newspaper or from a nonprofit news outlet, and the better funded the nonprofit news outlet, the more they're able to fight political corruption, the better off that community is. So we see that there are researchers who have shown that there are detrimental effects of not having a newspaper. And we also have seen that there are researchers who are showing the positive effects of having a more robust news system in place.

13:16 Paul Brandus: But sometimes, depending on the market and certain economic factors, those voids can also be filled by what's called pink slime journalism. We did a whole episode on this two years ago as well. Pink Slime journalism is content that appears real and is meant to convey authenticity and trust, but it's not. The man who first coined the term is journalist Ryan Zickgraf.

13:45 Ryan Zickgraf: One trick that these pink slime sites, which, you know, there are now thousands and thousands. And at one point in the last couple of years, one of the CEOs of one of these companies say that they are now the number one producer of local news in the United States. One thing they do is they, again, they try to resemble things that people trust. People trust inherently local newspapers, local news sites more than they do a lot of the national media, a lot of broadcast media. And so they they disguise their information to look like, you know, most newspapers that you would pick up off the street in your hometown isn't necessarily have a partisan slant. You know, they might have like an opinion column, but otherwise they try to, you know, cover both sides of the story. But the thing that pink slime sites do is that they take one side and don't disclose it. And so you get a lot of bad information produced by these sites, a lot of partisan information, and people just don't know where it's from because, you know, the barrier of entry to web publishing is so low these days.

15:02 Paul Brandus: As Ryan said, pink slime journalism is endemic. Professor Susca found this out when she was researching her book.

15:09 Margot Susca: The first time that I heard about Pink Slime, I was doing research for the book, and it was the summer of 2020, and I was interviewing folks in Alabama. And I interviewed a nurse from Birmingham, and she was in her late 50s, and she mentioned something called Yellow Hammer News. And I remember writing it down. I'd never heard of Yellow Hammer News before. And then I did another interview with a different person from Alabama, and that person mentioned Yellow Hammer News. And I thought, wow, what is this? Not long after is when Columbia Journalism Review had come out with its piece about pink slime and Yellowhammer News was the feature. It was kind of the lead of their piece on pink slime. And I thought, wow, this is really, really interesting and really frightening.

15:59 Paul Brandus: Frightening in the sense that where real journalism was once produced, where residents of a town or a community had access to real, authentic information about local issues, new platforms were springing up that were not locally produced, did not necessarily cover local issues, and to those discerning enough to understand what they were being offered, ultimately could not trust. Perhaps, therefore, only the first part of the phrase, pink slime journalism, is accurate. The disinformation that can ensue can be a particularly insidious problem in lower income communities and or communities of color. Susca explains why.

16:45 Margot Susca: Marginalized and minoritized communities have been left out of the mainstream news conversation for as long as we've had mainstream news, basically. And we need nonprofit news or small independent outlets that can reach them because misinformation is reaching them. And they're going to be a key voting block in the 2024 election. There's no question about that.

17:10 Paul Brandus: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the minority issue, which is very overlooked. I'm glad and delighted that you and other people are thinking about it.

17:24 Paul Brandus: One, tell me how bad that is.

17:28 Paul Brandus: And again, in terms of disinformation, Tell me about that. I mean, connect the dots there if you could, please.

17:35 Margot Susca: Well, I mean, in terms of the disinformation, I think that what we're seeing in places like Miami and in places, you know, in swing states is I think that we are seeing political actors openly trying to inflame immigrant voters and voters of color to try to tell false information to them that says that the election of 2020 was stolen. They are driven away from mainstream media, either because that media never told their story, Or because in the case of the Miami Herald and the El Nuevo Herald, it has been cut so much by its hedge fund owner that there's nothing left for them to subscribe to. I was interviewing someone from Miami recently who said lots of people in Miami from the Hispanic community are turning away and now going to AM radio. Advocates in Florida are saying that the conspiracy theories on AM radio are as bad, if not worse, than they are on social media. So I think that these, you know, everyone is talking about WhatsApp or Facebook, but really AM radio is another site where misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories are rampant, and they are reaching immigrant communities. And that's not to say that immigrant communities and people of color are the only people who are susceptible to those narratives. Clearly, that's not at all what I'm saying. But when you are not reached by any other media because they have left you out of the conversation for generations, and someone pays attention to you, even when they're paying attention to you with total BS, all of a sudden it feels like, hey, pretty good. And that disinformation may get through. And even if it gets through to a half a percent or 1%, that is, you know, that's… In a swing state, that's a big deal. Exactly.

19:58 Paul Brandus: Let's take a short break here. When we come back, the world's largest democracy, India, is holding elections. We'll soon know whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will win a historic third term.

20:16 ad read: This series on disinformation is a co-production of Evergreen Podcasts and Emergent Risk International, a global risk advisory firm. Emergent Risk International. We build intelligent solutions that find opportunities in a world of risk.

20:38 Paul Brandus: Welcome back. The world's most populous country, it's no longer China by the way, it's India, is holding elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already served two terms and if his party, the BJP, can secure the most seats in India's 543 seat parliament, he will continue in that position. Some Western analysts call Modi an authoritarian, pointing to things like information blackouts and democratic backsliding. And what about alleged disinformation efforts by the Indian government? Let's bring in Pearl D'Souza of Emergent Risk International. She's senior analyst and regional lead for South Asia. The BJP I know is quite popular in Northern and Central India, but Modi's authoritarian streak, some say, has drawn criticism at home. Also abroad, he's certainly been criticized for his crackdowns on independent journalism, crackdowns on political dissent, Kashmir, and also his crackdown on Indian Muslims. Tell me about all of that very briefly.

21:55 Pearl D'Souza: Absolutely. And a third term for him could actually just worsen all of these things further because he'd be able to consolidate weak and democratic institutions and processes. And we've seen that clampdown on dissenting voices only amplify with each term that the BJP has won. So yes, the South and the East are somewhat like protected from these sort of changes, but that doesn't mean because they are in power in the central government, we've seen that dissent for that space for dissent shrinking even there. So there's a lot of use of controversial laws, including laws that are actually used otherwise to curb terrorism and militant activity. They are now being used against lawyers, civil rights activists, NGOs. A lot of them had to shut down because the environment there was such tight financial regulations. tightened any sort of other support avenues that international NGOs or human rights organizations could get. Even the media environment is such that if you watch the 9pm news without context, you'd believe that Prime Minister Modi is the best leader in India or in the world or the world has ever had. Even the few balanced journalistic voices have been actually pushed out of mainstream media or have had to tone down criticism. And all this while the PM has not given a single press conference where he could be questioned by journalists. In fact, any journalists that dare to question the government, they still exist, but they're either located in remote regional organizations or they've been forced to move to YouTube, Instagram and other forms of social media. But again, with new changes to social media laws, the space for them there has also been declining. And the government has realized that a lot of this dissent has moved online and they're looking for ways to clamp down on these new emerging forms of dissent.

24:02 Paul Brandus: So a crackdown on independent journalism, a crackdown on social media, a crackdown on dissent, all in an effort to maintain his grip on power, according to you. And that brings us to the issue of mis- and information. There are two industry associations in India, the Editors Guild of India and DigiPub, which is a group of news sites in India. They complain and tell me what you think. They complain that the Indian government has too much power to control the media. That's what you appear to be saying as well. Does the Indian government have too much power to control the media?

24:47 Pearl D'Souza: Well, of course they do. They don't have any opposition. If you look at how parliamentary proceedings have occurred in the past few weeks, you'll see that they managed to get opposition MPs who are already quite a few thrown out and then pass legislation that further strengthens their hold over power. Apart from that, they also have support from big businesses because, of course, a lot of big businesses will bet on the winning horse, as they'd say. So they're betting on the BJP winning the next elections. And so they've got a lot of these big businesses that support them to buy media houses, to gain a large or significant share within the media. They've completely taken over state-run institutions that had some sort of independence before this to state-run media institutions to push out their propaganda or to support their election goals. So, yeah, I agree with that. It does. Guild of India and Egypt, they do have a lot of control. So, yeah.

26:05 Paul Brandus: That's all right. I mean, like the U.S. and other Western countries, India, I'm not sure we'd call India a Western country. Yeah, I don't think so. Do you consider it a Western country?

26:20 Pearl D'Souza: No, I do consider it a democracy, but I don't think it considered a Western country.

26:25 Paul Brandus: Okay. Well, like a lot of democracies around the world, India is just a drowning or it would appear under a tide of misinformation and disinformation. Lots of organizations who are dedicated to fact-checking. These narratives have sprung up. It really seems like they're fighting very much an uphill battle here. How bad is misinformation in India?

26:54 Pearl D'Souza: It's extremely bad and they are fighting a desperate battle. I don't know if you've seen some of the reports lately indicate that around 80 or 90 percent of the mis and disinformation regarding the Israel-Hamas war or the Israel-Palestine conflict has been coming from India. And it's mainly being pushed by right-wing handles as part of their larger Islamophobic propaganda. Similarly, during the Russia-Ukraine war, a lot of the pro-Russian information or disinformation was also coming from India or Indian-based handles. Why? Well, there is actually There is quite an interesting mix of nationalism and far-right influence there. But really, it was just that they had all of these tools available, right? This troll army in India was ripe and there for breeding to push out that sort of information. Why would they support Russia? I don't really understand the why behind it, but from what I know, they also have paid, like there are paid firms that run these sort of things. And so, of course, they will do the bidding of whoever's paying them the most. And in this case, that could be Russia or Russian institutions.

28:33 Paul Brandus: You're saying that the Russians are paying Indian social media people Were programmers and whoever, who were the Russians actually paying to do this?

28:46 Pearl D'Souza: They're not really social media programmers or people even. They're people that run bots or trolls on social media. So you've got troll armies, you've got, so like the BJP has its IT cell, the BJP's IT cell is quite infamous for things like this. And so there have been private organizations, private firms, if you like to call them, that have begun in India that can be paid to do that sort of work for you.

29:19 Paul Brandus: But coming back to the moving from the Russia-Ukraine conflict back to the Middle East, there's an organization in India, it's a fact-checking organization called the BOOM, I believe, and they've reported that most of the false narratives that have permeated India's public life are, as you say, tied to Islamophobia and that they're helping to spread disinformation throughout the country, throughout India, with the goal, according to Boom, of portraying India as something like, what, 220, 230 million Muslims. The goal of portraying this gigantic Muslim minority population as a threat to the bigger, Hindu population. Tell me about that boom allegation.

30:10 Pearl D'Souza: Well, like I was mentioning earlier, this sort of Islamophobic rhetoric plays out really well in some of the political narratives that are being pushed, including those by the ruling party. And that plays out really well for them during election time. So if you look at the timing of this conflict and all of that news that is being spread, a lot of the disinformation that has been spread regarding the conflict, you see there is a very clear anti-Islamic or Islamophobic angle to it. And part of that is, yes, to sort of rile up communities within India, sort of try to get them to play the communal card and ignite clashes or riots right before elections. Because one of the One of the political campaign calls of the BGP is Hindu khatri mein hai, which translates to the Hindus are in danger. And just amplifying that message over and over again sort of appeals to their core voter base.

31:27 Paul Brandus: Even though the Hindus, of course, are the far larger population, they feel threatened by the much smaller minority Muslim population.

31:39 Pearl D'Souza: Yes, or they are being conditioned to be threatened by a much smaller minority population because of this constant barrage of misinformation or disinformation relating to Muslims or relating to Islam. One of the other things you did mention the population and like one of the other key disinformation pieces that they push out regarding Islamophobia or regarding this Hindu khatre mein hai concept is that the Muslim population is growing at a much faster rate and that Muslim communities everywhere in India are trying to do this on purpose because they want to overtake the Hindu majority population, which if you actually look at statistics and figures is not really the case at all. And there are very clear figures like the Hindu birth rate and the Muslim birth rate now after years are almost on par. So it's really unlikely that the Muslim minority would at some point overtake the number of Hindus in India. But again, it's a narrative. It's a piece of disinformation that's pushed on repeatedly on social media across India.

33:02 Paul Brandus: And I'm listening to everything that you're telling me, Pearl, and the question that I have, if you are a normal citizen in India, where do you go? or unbiased, factual, balanced, fair information about events in India? Where do you go? And how do you know what's true?

33:27 Pearl D'Souza: Well, it is very difficult to know what's true. But I think if you're a common person in India, I'd say stay clear of TV news completely. There was a point where TV news was not balanced, but you could see the channels were divided based on their bias. If they were left-leaning, center-right, right-leaning. If they were pro-government, anti-government. You don't have that sort of divide anymore. It's just all pro-government. So I'd say stay completely, like steer clear of TV news completely. If you're getting your news from newspapers, Again, they have their leanings, so take them with a pinch of salt and independently fact check any and every message that you get on social media, because a lot of them, a lot of them either are completely untrue or throw their own spin on things. For me personally, I rely on, I rely on independent journalists that are still working on YouTube and on their news sites.

34:41 Paul Brandus: Thanks to Pearl D'Souza and from our earlier segment, Professor Margott Susca for their insights. Our sound designer and editor, Noah Foutz. Audio engineer, Nathan Corson. Executive producers, Michael Dealoia and Gerardo Orlando. And on behalf of Meredith Wilson, the CEO of Emergent Risk International, I'm Paul Brandus. Thanks so much for listening.