Above photo: Robert Scheer, from Annenberg at USC.
Robert “Bob” Scheer, famed journalist, interviewer, activist, and editor-in-chief of TruthDig.com, stops by the podcast to discuss his career, his interviews with American presidents from Nixon to Clinton, and his radio show / podcast Scheer Intelligence. Here is part 1 of 2. Enjoy!!!
Transcript:
All right, well, hey, listeners, we have another really solid interview today. And I guess we’re kind of running the old TruthDig circuit right now. We had Chris Hedges last week, who some of you have probably already listened to that episode, which was was really solid. And now we’ve got the boss. Although he probably wouldn’t like the term, Robert ‘Bob’ Scheer, who, you know, is senior editor over there, you know, founder, you know, co founder just really started up the whole TruthDig scene. And, and the thing that’s interesting about Bob is, you know, we have more than a little of a personal relationship these days, but I’m constantly learning about him. And, you know, I’ll mention it, but we just all watched the documentary on bob above the fold. And, you know, I thought I knew everything about him. And I was just totally blown away by some of the aspects of his career. So let me just throw in You know, a relatively, you know, circumscribed bio, because there’s so much to say. But you know, first off, you know, Bob and I share that peculiar New York City insider lingo, you know, whereby unlike me, who hails from what Matt of Bob’s time in place would call the backwater of Staten Island. Bob was born and raised in an ironic twist on Sarah Palin sentiment and, you know, the real New York up in the Bronx. And I think it’s fair to say that his his immigrant, family upbringing, working class, garment worker, mother and family, you know, bred in political activism and education in New York City public schools all influenced what really was a remarkable career that that followed and continues to, to roll on. So, you know, on the merits, let’s just say that Bob has been in the journalism writing and activism game for, I think over 60 years and one could argue argue really, that he’s been in it since his days as you know what they call a red diaper, baby. In the 1940s Bronx, his columns appear in newspapers across the country. He’s done in in depth interviews that have made the headlines famously the Playboy magazine interview in which Jimmy Carter confessed to the sin Reagan planting and he has a whole book about his interviews with the presidents, as well as other prominent political and cultural figures. So, from 64 to 69, he was a Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor, editor in chief of ramparts magazine, which I learned a lot about in the documentary The influence it had on figures like Jane Fonda and Martin Luther King, and we’ll get to all that. Then from 76 to 93. Bob was a national correspondent for the la times in 93. He then launched a nationally syndicated column based at the LA Times and that ran for 12 years and is now running at the San Francisco Chronicle. Bob is the former co host of the political radio program left right center on kcrw W. He now hosts sheer intelligence. I wish I think I’ve been on three or four times a half hour kcrw w podcast again, where he interviews you know, a variety of social, political and cultural thinkers. Bob has written eight books, I’m not going to list them all, but notably in sort of relevant for our listeners and our topics, the pornography of power, how defense hawks hijack 911 and weakened America, and then most recently, and I just finished. They know everything about you how data collecting corporations and snooping government agencies are destroying our democracy. Bob is the clinical professor in communications at USC. I’ve been in his class and number of times, it’s really an experience and the editor of the Webby Award winning political website TruthDig where I’ve, you know, written for many years, so to kind of quickly frame our relationship with Bob. Bob started picking up my Tom dispatch pieces at TruthDig. I want to say back in 2017 and 18 when I really first started getting into the game, I was still on active duty that eventually turned into him asking for some originals. which became a bi weekly and then for at least almost two years weekly columns. The thing about Bob is that he’s willing to step outside what is typical or what people think is gonna sell and and he had enough trust and faith in me probably against this better judgment to really put together with me this profoundly rare I mean for the business TruthDig ors3, you know, there was a 38 part series, I was writing eight to 12,000 words sometimes and you know, he didn’t bat an eyelash and it was really something else that you don’t see all over the web. So, like I said, Bob is the subject of an incredible documentary above the fold. I thought I knew him, especially after countless hours chatting and philosophizing together in his downtown LA apartment for a full week actually, right before the pandemic outbreak so I’m either lucky or unlucky that I didn’t get stuck there because I’d probably still be in the apartment. But anyway, finally, a bob was senior mainly from watching the documentary and getting to know him at the center or at least significantly evolved in just about every fight for peace, freedom or justice since the Second World War. He was born in 1936. He has seen a lot sorry to date him. just turned 84 he is there. I say for me, a solid boss, good friend, great mentor and really a treasure to free thinkers. Everywhere. So with that long typically Danny verbose introduction. Thanks for taking the time, Bob.