Why Good News Is Worth the Effort with Journalist David Begnaud

Some people see a rule and follow it. Some people see a rule and ask what it was for. David Begnaud has built a career out of finding the second kind. For 20 years, David was the lead national correspondent for CBS News, reporting from hurricanes, earthquakes, and mass shootings — including the Hurricane Maria coverage that made him a lifeline for millions of Puerto Ricans and changed the direction of his career. Today he hosts “Beg Knows America” on CBS Mornings and is the founder of Do Good Crew, where he tells the stories that remind us of our shared humanity. Fair warning — expect some spirited debate. David and Simon dig into where trust in the news went and who gets to rebuild it. But they land in the same place: the only thing that makes an imperfect system work is a person willing to do the right thing and accept what it costs them. In this episode you'll learn: ➡️ Why fear is louder than hope, and what 25 years of it does to your body ➡️ How to ask for the work you want and keep the relationship ➡️ Why the best feel-good stories keep the tension and the pain in ➡️ What to do when the rules stand in the way of what’s right ➡️ Why doing the right thing makes you equal to anyone in the room ➡️ Why protecting your peace may be the thing that extends your life The people in David’s stories decided for themselves what the right thing was, and then stood behind it. That same choice belongs to all of us. And this conversation makes it a little easier to make the next time the call is yours. This… is A Bit of Optimism. A note on this episode: David and Simon talk openly about the human cost of covering disaster, including death, hospice and the end of life. They also discuss how newsrooms handle the reporting of suicide. This episode contains strong language. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by calling or texting 988 in the US. + + + To learn more about Do Good Crew, visit: https://www.thedogoodcrew.com/ Want more David? Tune into his podcast “The Person Who Believed in Me,” head to: https://www.thedogoodcrew.com/podcast And check out “Beg-Knows America” on CBS Mornings here: https://www.cbsnews.com/feature/beg-knows-america/ + + + Chapters Chapters 00:00:00 The Craving for Good News (And Why We Don't Actually Watch It) 00:01:52 How 20 Years of Tragedy Broke a Journalist 00:05:22 Puerto Rico: The Hurricane That Changed Everything 00:08:24 When Advocacy Crosses the Line: The Journalist's Dilemma 00:09:18 How the News Industry Lost Its Way (And Who's to Blame) 00:15:00 The Fixed-Rate Solution: Removing Financial Incentives from News 00:17:10 When Journalism Blurred the Lines 00:21:05 From Lead Correspondent to Feel-Good Storyteller 00:32:25 The Stories That Make It All Worth It 00:34:46 Why Cortisol Can't Be Your Life: Protecting Your Peace 00:51:33 The George Floyd Lesson: When Bearing Witness Changes Everything 00:54:42 Civil Disobedience and Doing the Right Thing 00:55:49 Short-Term Ratings vs Long-Term Integrity + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Leaderful: https://simonsinek.com/leaderful Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek + + + #SimonSinek

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Simon Sinek?

  Let's talk about good news, because you and I have that in common. I think there's a craving for positivity.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  I meet it on the street every day. I don't watch the news anymore. I can't stand the news. I only want the good stuff. I only want the hard stuff. It's what I hear all the time.

• 0:12Simon Sinek?

  But?

• 0:12Speaker 01

  But it frustrates me because you say you want it, but you guys don't watch it in a way that meaningfully rates or meaningfully makes money.

• 0:19Simon Sinek?

  Fear is louder than hope. A story about a horrible murder is more, dare I say it, attractive than a wedding, for example. And for good reason. We're attracted to bad news because that fear, that paranoia, helps us stay alive. At least it did in caveman times. And even though our world has changed, our biology hasn't. And news organizations exploit that for ratings, which is why I wanted to talk to journalist David Begno. For 20 years, David covered the worst days of people's lives as the lead national correspondent for CBS News, until it actually broke him. He walked away intent to tell the feel-good stories that unite us,

• 1:04Simon Sinek?

  or at least to prove that spreading good news is a worthwhile pursuit. And pursue them he does, as host of Begno's America on CBS Mornings and founder of Do Good Crew. You'd think because David and I are both optimists that this is a very mushy episode, but it's not. Because I think the media itself needs to take more responsibility for the news it reports, and we got into it.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  If you were running CBS, what would you do?

• 1:31Simon Sinek?

  If I was CBS? CBS News.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  If you were running it?

• 1:35Simon Sinek?

  But we talked about more than how we found ourselves in this mess. We also talked about how we can get out of it. If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is a bit of optimism.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  You went to Brandeis.

• 1:53Simon Sinek?

  I did.

• 1:53Speaker 01

  And so I went to a school at the edge of the Brandeis campus. And I'll never forget, someone wrote to me saying, "David, there is a girl with autism, who's, I think, in the, she was in the second grade, who has befriended and made a best friend out of our school police officer. You should come and see it." And they sent me the video. And sure enough, we went there, because I tell the stories that kind of remind us of our shared humanity, where this girl, who was non-verbal, every day would run to the school's only police officer, grab his hand, and would walk around the playground while everyone else played, and she'd walk with him. And they would do nothing but circle and circle and circle. And she was his safety net and his safe place. Story got millions of views. But it was at the edge of the campus.

• 2:38Speaker 01

  And so it's as close as I came to your campus.

• 2:41Simon Sinek?

  Well, I'd like to say it's a pretty campus. It's not as pretty as some, but it was home for me for four years. I liked it there. I had a good, I had a good education and made some great friends. A perfect segue, though, because you said you like to tell the stories that remind us of our humanity, our shared humanity.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Our shared humanity.

• 2:58Simon Sinek?

  You and I have that in common. I'm just trying to bring human back into everything, work, the way we interact in a somewhat less and less human world. Was that a discovery? Like, did you come to that as a cause? As a desire? As a cornerstone for your work? Or was it a sort of an early decision?

• 3:17Speaker 01

  I'm obsessed with the fact that most people can't tell their own story in a way that makes them feel like they did a good job. And I had somebody who helped me realize that the good Lord put me on this earth to use my voice to tell stories, and I'm grateful I found it. And I think one thing that I'm good at is helping people tell their story. So that's number one. Number two, I think I started doing what I do because I needed to see it, because I was becoming broken by what I was doing. Right? So I was the lead national correspondent at CBS. And I was, you know, I say that I've knocked on more doors of mothers whose kids have had their heads blown off at school than I can remember, done more massacres and mass shootings and volcanoes and earthquakes. I was able to compartmentalize it, Simon, in what I thought was a very effective way.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  I could go to the scene of a massacre and meet you for dinner and not trauma dump on you and have a very enjoyable dinner. And then all of a sudden, it became too much. After one story in particular, when I went to Puerto Rico and I covered a hurricane there. And I think it became too much because, despite my ability to guardrail around my intentions, meaning, in journalism, it is not your job to cross the line and affect change. But my heart always felt compelled and called to do it. However, I had good boundaries.

• 4:33Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  And this hurricane in Puerto Rico made it to where

• 4:38Speaker 01

  I couldn't stay on the other side of the fence. And so I danced on that line. And then I came back and I said, "I'm exhausted. It's affecting my mental health. I've been pouring so much of my time and effort and joy and heart into this story, and I just don't want to do the tough things anymore. I want to focus on the things that remind us of our better angels. I want to go out of my way to focus on the things that plug into the same algorithm. I can't change Zuckerberg's algorithm, but what I can do is become better at triggering it the same way hate and rage does. And so that's what I spend my days doing now."

• 5:15Simon Sinek?

  So what was happening in Puerto Rico that made you cross the line? Or was it just the straw that broke the camel's back?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  Hurricane Maria, 2017, September 20th. I went to sleep having broadcasted one report. So the storm makes landfall, and civilization, as you know it on the island, collapsed.

• 5:35Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  And I filed a report for the CBS Evening News, and it was two minutes and some seconds in life. And I went to sleep.

• 5:42Simon Sinek?

  Like you always did after every massacre.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Always did, and I felt like shit. Because I thought, how do you convey how dire the situation is here in a "wham-bam, thank you, ma'am" piece? And so, because of the brilliance of one of my colleagues, who was a former United States Marine and was on our team as an IT professional, he had talked to the general manager of the hotel to get permission to get through the firewall to tap into the Wi-Fi, so that if, God forbid, everything went down and the generator at the hotel could still provide the signal for a Wi-Fi, we could get word out. And we did. And so what I did was at about

• 6:22Speaker 01

  nine o'clock that night, I picked up my phone and I started talking. Now, this is worth noting. I had spent a decade trying to build an audience on social media, doing everything I thought had been told, all this. And I think I had amassed like 10,000 followers on Facebook.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  And I posted a video that night in Puerto Rico. I don't even remember what the video said, but to the best of my recollection, I just dumped as much information as I could to people just to say what we were seeing on the island. And I woke up, and there was a message from New York by way of a walkie-talkie app called Zelle. And New York said, "We're having people at the front door who are dropping off cakes and flowers and cards and asking us to get it to you. We're not sure what's going on. What's happening over there?" And I had woke up, and I think there was like 100,000 followers overnight. And what happened was a lot of people found this guy whose name they couldn't pronounce, Begno, my last name. There are 8 million Puerto Ricans living on the mainland. And all of a sudden, they found this guy, who they weren't sure who I was,

• 7:23Speaker 01

  but they could tell that I think I had the best intentions and was moving with a sense of urgency to get the word out.

• 7:29Simon Sinek?

  But why, again, what was it about this news story that you reported it differently and were incapable of compartmentalizing that, in a way that you had done so well previously? Was it something particular about this? Or was it just the straw that broke the camel's back?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  I think it was this one, because the magnitude was like no other.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  And I felt a sense of responsibility, even though every journalist from every organization was there. We were the only ones who had Wi-Fi, though I didn't know it. And we were one of the only ones who could get the word out, though I didn't know it. And so I just, in a fit of, "Screw it, I'm just gonna..."

• 8:07Simon Sinek?

  So it was a perfect storm?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Dump.

• 8:08Simon Sinek?

  Bad, bad term of phrase.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna dump information, and it changed everything.

• 8:13Simon Sinek?

  So you became the lone voice, and you happened to have this epiphany at a time where you were the lone voice. So the reporting wasn't, it didn't sound like other reporters. It sounded, you were reporting with heart.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Sounded like an advocate.

• 8:24Simon Sinek?

  Can I play devil's advocate? Is that irresponsible as a journalist?

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Of course, it made a lot of people uncomfortable.

• 8:29Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  But at the end of the day, I will never apologize for doing what feels like the human thing to do.

• 8:33Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Never, ever. If I am driving down the street and I see a man attacking a child, I will pull over, try to stop it, and call 911.

• 8:43Simon Sinek?

  Sure, of course.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna do that. If I am, and this has happened before, if I am covering a story, as I was in Houston, and a woman was walking out of her flooded home with the ashes of her husband, which were on the second story, and that was the only story that hadn't flooded. And she gets into the boat, and the boat gets to where we're going, and there's nobody to help her get out, I put the woman on my back and got her out.

• 9:04Simon Sinek?

  Of course, of course.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  So that's as simple as it is for me.

• 9:07Simon Sinek?

  So I agree with all those things. Where I'm curious is...

• 9:13Simon Sinek?

  If we go back to a time before we raided the news and sold advertising on the news based on the ratings.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Because it used to not happen.

• 9:22Simon Sinek?

  Because it used to not happen.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  I'm glad you're bringing that up.

• 9:24Simon Sinek?

  And the reason the news was, let's be blunt, better, is because it was part of the deal of using the public airwaves, that, you know, the government said to the media, you can use the public airwaves to make money and make TV shows, and you perform the civic responsibility called the news in return for making financial gain off the public airwaves. And that's how it worked, and it's how we had people like Walter Cronkite. And you know this, it was the Iran hostages where everything changed, and they saw the ratings go up, and the executives went, wait, what? When we started rating the news and treating it like any other TV show, and selling ads on the news like any other TV show, that now becomes a financial incentive to make

• 10:06Simon Sinek?

  more people watch our news coverage over somebody else's rather than report the news. You know all this.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Sure, sure.

• 10:12Simon Sinek?

  You know all this. And so, we know what bleeds leads, we know this. We know that being incendiary or political is good for ratings, we know this. Where I'm getting at is, it is having an opinion, having a point of view, intervening as a person, like, I'm going to help that little old lady out of the house, I'm going to call 911, which is what human beings are expected to do, but a journalist, it's not a normal human being. A journalist has to dance the fine line. You said it before.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Who made those rules?

• 10:46Simon Sinek?

  Wasn't that, wasn't that what you were taught in journalism school?

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Sure, but who made those rules?

• 10:52Simon Sinek?

  Wasn't that established back in the Walter Cronkite days, that we try not to give our opinions, we try and report the facts as they are?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Sure, but I'm loving this exercise. I didn't give my opinion, right? Like, a storm made landfall and devastated the civilization. Remember, this is also different in the sense that it wasn't a political story, wasn't a business story, wasn't even a controversial story. So, this in terms of advocating, and here's where people would ask the question. No one ever accused me of advocacy. But the guy who was actually, and he's a salt-of-the-earth human being, the head of our standards and practices, Al Ortiz, who still works at the network, once said to me, what do you say to people who might think that your work is advocacy? And that's when I said, I'll never apologize for doing what is human. And here's what it looked like. When I was at the hotel and someone ran in and said, the children's hospital is running

• 11:43Speaker 01

  out of diesel, and if we don't get it in the next half hour, we've got kids on ventilators who will die. What I mean is, I immediately took to social media, I interviewed the man, we went live, and then diesel showed up.

• 11:57Simon Sinek?

  Yep. So, what's the line between reporting and advocacy? Because if you report that there's children in this hospital, they've run out of diesel, you know, if you report that, I have to believe the goodness of people, they'll show up the same.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Yes, but there was probably an element in my tone and my voice that sounded more advocacy than it did observant.

• 12:18Simon Sinek?

  Okay. Look, I agree with everything you've said and done, because you are talking about human stories, children in hospitals, people who are subjected to the tragedy of hurricanes, like, those are all, as you said, apolitical. And your point is, I'm not going to apologize for my advocacy, because it's the human thing to do. The question I'm raising is, should there be a journalistic standard? Because somebody else may say, this is the right thing to do, and their advocacy actually has political leanings, but in their mind, this is the human thing to do, this is the right thing to do. Like, who makes that? You just, you raised the question, well, who decided there should be this journalistic, you know, line down the middle? Well, who decides what the line of advocacy is?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  100%. And institutions do. So, for example, and CBS having some of the most stringent and strongest, right? I mean, our people are so diligent about the standards, they flip over backwards, talking about the verbs, and whether the verb is suggestive of something that we're not intending to suggest, right? And so, the people within the organizations do, which is why social media bothers me so much. You know why? Because we in the news business don't cover suicides. Why? Because there's a belief that a suicide might lead to somebody wanting to copycat it. At the end of the day, no twerp with a social media account is stopped from doing it, and they do it all the damn time.

• 13:36Simon Sinek?

  The internet's way more dangerous for that than the reporting.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  100%. And so, that's what drives me fucking crazy, is that you've got people sitting at home with accounts with millions of followers, who don't have the prudence and the appropriateness of an editor. When I hear fake news, fake news to me is singularly defined as this, a denial of what is obvious and the truth. That's what fake news, anybody who yells fake news, and I think we're now at a point where society kind of just laughs, like, oh, they're yelling fake news, yeah, they must not just like the news. The news is not meant for you to like. It is also not meant for you to agree with. And so, I miss the days when, yes, you would have an editor who would say, we're going

• 14:18Speaker 01

  to give people a balance of what the news is today, in a consumption diet that is appropriate, that is diverse, that is local, regional, and national, and is contextualized.

• 14:31Simon Sinek?

  Ted Couples said this, I mean, he said, we used to give people the news they needed, whether they wanted it or not, and now we give people the news they want, whether they need it or not.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  100%.

• 14:40Simon Sinek?

  And so, to me, the journalistic integrity, the journalistic standard, is giving people the news they need, whether they want it or not, but because of the screwed-up financial incentives, we give people the news they want, whether they need it or not.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  As if you don't, they'll go get it themselves.

• 14:56Simon Sinek?

  Or it's just not good for ratings. It's just not good for ratings. And this is the problem, which is, if you sell, I have a solution for this, by the way, that nobody ever listens to me, which is...

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Tell me, because I haven't...

• 15:06Simon Sinek?

  I'll tell you, which is, I think it's super easy, because it's all about financial, tell me how somebody's paid, I'll tell you how they behave, right? So, if you want to remove the financial incentive, all you do is each broadcaster, they don't have to volunteer their entire broadcast, they don't have to, their entire station, they could pick one hour per day, one program, and say, we agree that we will sell advertising at a fixed rate, that will not go up and down based on the ratings, so we can make money, but there's no financial incentive to get more people to watch. We sell advertising at a fixed rate, and that's it. And you can put, you know, a seal at the bottom of the program, that this is a free press broadcast, where there's no, there's no advertising financial incentive.

• 15:51Simon Sinek?

  And if you get multiple stations, multiple broadcasters to elect just one show, one hour, that they agree, everybody agrees not to care about the ratings, I think the quality and the integrity of that reporting gets better, because you remove the financial incentive.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  What do the critics say to that?

• 16:11Simon Sinek?

  Nobody wants to do it, because if you can squeeze, why agree to a fixed rate when you can potentially make more? Like I'm saying, one program is all you need. And my belief is that if you did that, and you removed the financial incentive, then the executives aren't involved, then nobody's putting pressure on anybody, and the journalists in the room can report on the things they think that people need to hear, whether they want it or not. And it might mean that the ratings go down, but the quality goes up. The other thing that I think, and journalists haven't taken accountability for this, made a huge mistake, it wasn't the journalist's fault, it was the executives' fault. I remember this, I remember when the internets was young and coming alive, and blogging became a thing, right?

• 16:50Simon Sinek?

  Now, to be a journalist, you traditionally had to study journalism, you obeyed certain accepted standards and practices, and there was a striving for a certain standard, right? That's what a quote-unquote journalist was, right? And then, to be a blogger, you needed an email address and a wifi signal, and that was it. And so, bloggers started quote-unquote reporting, but they had no training, no journalistic integrity, no standards that they were upholding, right? And the biggest mistake that journalism made in this time, and I remember when it happened, instead of separating themselves, saying, we appreciate the role of bloggers,

• 17:34Simon Sinek?

  they are there to give their opinions and do whatever they do, but as journalists, we obey, and this is what distinguishes us, but because blogging was a new thing, everybody got freaked out about it, and you probably remember this, and there was pressure put on journalists from the companies to start blogging, and the modern-day version was, you better have a social media following, the pressure they put on journalists to get on Instagram, get on TikTok, and build your following. Now, that's the pressure. Same, same. But back then, it was, you better start blogging, and so, by bringing the journalist down, it elevated the blogger and said, we're the same, because we're going to do what you're doing. I have no problem with blogging, but we blurred the lines of what journalism and blogging

• 18:17Simon Sinek?

  is, and journalism has only itself to blame. Because it could have said, we like this new technology, but as journalists, we obey different standards, but that's not what happened. And I think we now live in a world where we don't trust the news for all the good reasons, because the money's infected it, and I think we're going to agree on this. I don't think journalism as a profession has taken any accountability in their role in getting us to this point. They're the punching bag, and they're very defensive, but this is a relationship of me as listener and consumer, and you as reporter, it's a relationship, and journalism as a profession bears some responsibility for where we are now.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yes, but here's the contextualization that's key and important. When Roger Ailes, and this is a story I was told, so take it for what it's worth, somebody can fact-check me on this, when he started Fox News, someone said to him, you know, how are we going to go get all the people at all the other networks? And he's like, we're not, not going to worry about those people. We're going to go to the people who've been forgotten, who feel like they've been left out, ostracized in the middle of America, who have already tuned those folks out. And he did it...

• 19:28Simon Sinek?

  To his credit.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  From a business standpoint brilliantly.

• 19:30Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  The problem is, people watch Fox primetime like it's the news.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  And what ends up happening is the actual news is not being consumed for what it is.

• 19:43Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, but by the way, that happens on the left, too.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 19:46Simon Sinek?

  I mean MSNBC is Fox for liberals.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  A thousand percent, but the bottom line is someone giving their opinion on the news is not.

• 19:53Simon Sinek?

  It's not the news. I understand.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  And that, but that's a massive.

• 19:56Simon Sinek?

  But that's, that, okay, let's talk about accountability. That was Ted Turner. When you invent CNN and you invent the concept of 24 hour news, there isn't 24 hours of news. Right? And you got to fill the airwaves and there's only so many times you can repeat a story. But that's how they used to fill it in the early days. They just to repeat it and you just to turn up and like, I've seen this already four times. And so you got to start filling the airwaves. And so you start filling with an entertainment, news entertainment, which turns out, because it is news entertaining, kind of more fun to watch than the news. Because people are yelling at each other and screaming bloody murder about something that happened, making mountains out of molehills. It's unbelievably entertaining, which is good for ratings, which is good for advertising, which is good for money.

• 20:41Simon Sinek?

  And so all of a sudden you have 23 hours worth of news entertainment and one hour of news.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  But here's what I would say. There's not a journalist at CBS News who I have encountered or worked with, who is to blame for where we are today.

• 20:55Simon Sinek?

  Blame is not the right word. I wouldn't, I don't like the word blame.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Okay, accountability. But there's no one who I would hold accountable that I have worked with day in and day out from my experience.

• 21:05Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  I'm just saying that you add social media, which is a place where anybody can show up. Anybody with a phone can now stream live the same way a news organization does. Well, okay. All of a sudden, then you have the people giving their opinions on the news. I, I think it's in my experience, and I'm only speaking from my experience. This is less about a cabal of people wanting to betray journalistic standards.

• 21:30Simon Sinek?

  There's no, I don't have a, I don't have a conspiracy theory here.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 21:34Simon Sinek?

  I don't think there's a group of people going like muhaha and we're going to screw journalism. I think this is a slow, steady drumbeat.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  I have not seen a news executive who would sit here and tell you that they have successfully navigated the waters of the last 10 years of technological changes that affects our business. I don't know that there's one. I haven't met them. Maybe there is.

• 21:54Simon Sinek?

  So how did we get here? How did we get here? Something happened by accident. I mean, I can look at business as a whole and I can show you this slow but steady change of events that got us to the point where we now use mass layoffs to balance the books and, you know, short-termism. Nobody decided to do it in a way of upending anything. It was done for short-term, valid business reasons, but it's come to the point where we've accidentally screwed, you know, capitalism and made it excessively short-term. We do long-term damage at the expense of the happiness of people. Something similar has happened in journalism. I don't think anybody was personally to blame. I don't think

• 22:35Simon Sinek?

  there were well-intended decisions, but over the course of time, we've chipped away at this thing called journalistic integrity. And I agree, there are good and in high integrity journalists that exist, of course. But as a category, journalism is fighting for its relevance.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  But I think you're lumping in things you see on channels like MSNBC, CNN and Fox. And you're applying it to the legacy institutions like ABC, NBC and CBS.

• 23:02Simon Sinek?

  ABC, CBS and NBC have lost their positions on the mantle.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Listen, to some degree, 100%.

• 23:11Simon Sinek?

  I mean, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw. I mean, I don't think they've been replaced. I think they were the last of a generation, you know?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  Perhaps, but I think that was also influenced by the fact that there was one place to get the news. And if you didn't read the newspaper.

• 23:25Simon Sinek?

  Well, there were three places to get the news.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Sure, but if you didn't read the newspaper, you didn't listen to the radio, that was the only other place. I don't think Tom Brokaw, or let me, let me say, God rest his soul, Walter Cronkite. I don't know that Walter Cronkite could, could get a job in news today.

• 23:40Simon Sinek?

  I don't think he could.

• 23:42Speaker 01

  I don't think Walter Cronkite could command the audience that he did. The audience has been fractioned and cut up 100 different ways.

• 23:48Simon Sinek?

  The diffuse nature of the news and what has happened is definitely contributing. It's a contributing factor. But when I look at publishing or the music industry or the TV industry, how poorly they understood the internet, you know? You know, it's embarrassing that Amazon invented the e-reader, the Kindle, and not the publishing industry. It's embarrassing that Apple invented iTunes and not the music industry. It's embarrassing that Netflix, that pioneered streaming or a new model of subscription to get our, our, our movies, was a startup and it didn't come from the television and movie industry or Blockbuster.

• 24:32Simon Sinek?

  Right? The incumbents. And, and it's because they were too busy protecting their old business models. Didn't really know how to wrap their head around how they could use this new technology called the internet. So it's because the publishing industry was trying to sell books, not trying to give people things to read. And if they were trying to give people things to read, they would have pioneered the e-reader when the technology showed up. It's because the music industry was trying to sell us albums and CDs and completely missed the fact that because the internet and MP3 players would change into a song culture. They weren't giving us things to listen to. They were trying to sell us albums. And I would argue that the news, maybe like those industries,

• 25:15Simon Sinek?

  is yet another industry that really couldn't wrap its head around how to use the internet to give people the news they need, but play defense until other organizations sort of became the iTunes, became the.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  I, I think that's a very fair assessment. I just looking at that, I don't blame anyone. I simply say it was inevitable. And again, I go back to, I don't think there's one executive in broadcast television who would say they were the best at handling the change.

• 25:50Simon Sinek?

  Okay, we're on to something here.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:52Simon Sinek?

  I would love a journalist.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:54Simon Sinek?

  An executive.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:56Simon Sinek?

  To come out and say that.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  No, but I'm, but I'm saying the best at navigating the change. You gave the, you know, examples of the movie business and the music business. It's not because they wanted to fall behind. It's just because no one was at the helm who could see like Reed Hastings did when he started Netflix, right?

• 26:14Simon Sinek?

  I think it's because they had a warped sense of what their job was. They thought their job was sell albums. They didn't understand their job was give us music.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:22Simon Sinek?

  One is serving us and one is serving the customer.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:24Simon Sinek?

  And I think when you have a product-centric mentality, sell more of what we make versus give people the thing that they want rather than sell them more of what we make. Subtle but significant difference.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Look, I will tell you as a business owner, it's easy, and I think you're a business owner as well.

• 26:41Simon Sinek?

  To fall back on the numbers and the stuff and the stuff.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  I have a whole lot more grace towards people who run a fucking business. You know, it is so easy to stand out on the street and criticize the guy in the CEO's office when the guy in the CEO's office is just trying to preserve as many jobs as he can, keep the lights on, while also do what the business needs to do. So, so I'm just saying, I give a little bit more grace.

• 27:06Simon Sinek?

  I'm not, but I'm not screaming on my soapbox. I am a business owner and I do face these conflicts of interest.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Simon Sinek?

  Do I do the right thing for the bottom line or do the right thing for the customer? And we've been out of balance before and we've caught ourselves and said, guys, guys, guys, hold on. Let's get back to why we're in this business and what we're doing. And that might mean that we may not make the money in the short term, but we believe this is the right thing to do in the long term.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  If you were running CBS, what would you do?

• 27:31Simon Sinek?

  If I was CBS, CBS News.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  If you were running it.

• 27:36Simon Sinek?

  If I was running CBS News or any of the news organizations, the first thing I would do as a new, as the new, the new boss is I would make a public accounting, both internally and then to the broader public, saying, the news as a category is weirdly controversial. Right? There are accusations of bias and to some we've lost relevancy. And to some we can't be trusted. And to some, we aren't the main and best source of quote unquote truth. And whether these things are true or not, to some degree, perception is truth. And we as a profession bear some responsibility. We have to own that we find ourselves in the situation in part because we got us here.

• 28:20Simon Sinek?

  It's like being in a relationship like, it's not just your husband or your wife that got you here. We both got us here to this point of tension. And we are committed to once again restoring all of journalism to a profession of legitimacy and nobility that people will seek out our trained reporters, trained journalists for truth, even though we sometimes get it wrong. But I think they need to work together as opposed to apart from each other. You know more about this than I do. But I think they, they need to cooperate. If, if the goal is to restore integrity in the category, then the whole category has to work together.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  I do wonder if we still have, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Fox, CNN, you know, it's like.

• 29:05Simon Sinek?

  There's a bit much.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, just.

• 29:08Simon Sinek?

  Maybe what you're proposing is that ABC, CBS, NBC decide to combine forces rather than compete. And then all work together in one unified news department that they all feed on all their channels at the same time. It's kind of like when there's a presidential address or a shuttle launch. Like everybody shows the same thing simultaneously and you go to your coverage of choice, but it's basically the same coverage. That if you happen to be watching whatever sitcom was on CBS before the news, you end up watching it on CBS. And you get the viewers you get, but maybe that's a solution.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just wonder if consolidation.

• 29:42Simon Sinek?

  But it's not consolidation of everything. It's just the consolidation of three.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:46Simon Sinek?

  So I don't think it's anti, anti-trust.

• 29:49Simon Sinek?

  How did you, I mean, you're no longer at CBS, right?

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, of course I am.

• 29:54Simon Sinek?

  Oh, you are still at CBS? But you're doing your own thing, too?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Every Monday morning. So I host Beg, Knows America. So I went from the lead national correspondent, and this is actually applicable to this conversation.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  So the standards applied to the lead national correspondent, right, pretty heavily? And so when I went to them, I said, hey, here's something I want to do, and you can't let me do it. So love me enough to let me go. And I said this to Wendy McMahon, who at the time and for the first time, I think, was the CEO of CBS News, CBS News and Stations and Media Ventures, which is all of syndication. And she said, what are you going to pitch me? And I said, I want to do something. I want to tell the stories that unite us. I want to tell the feel-good stories. I want to prove they can rate well, and I want to help effect change. You can't let me do it, so let me go. And to her credit, she said, well, this is an experiment that you and I are going to do together. And the biggest thing confronting us was, but how do we let you do it as the lead national correspondent?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  And I said, you don't let me stay the lead national correspondent. So I said, why don't I become a contributor, right? We have contributors all the time, and contributors do things on the outside. And so they said, ah, great, that's what we can do. So I stepped back, I became a contributor, and I started my company, Do Good Crew. And so I still have my Beg, Knows America segment, which airs every Monday morning on CBS Mornings, but I don't do the news anymore.

• 31:14Simon Sinek?

  Do you miss it?

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Not one bit. Not one flippin' freakin' bit. And I will tell you, and I'm also not ashamed to say this,

• 31:26Speaker 01

  I don't watch any news, because I can't.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  I just can't ta- I don't know what's happened to me, Simon. I can't handle bad news anymore.

• 31:36Simon Sinek?

  I admire how much you've been defending the, you know, CBS and the institutional news in our conversation while at the same time no longer consume it.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  I read, I read.

• 31:46Simon Sinek?

  Who do you read?

• 31:47Speaker 01

  I read the Wall Street Journal, I read the New York Times, I read The Economist, and I peruse the Financial Times, and the Washington Post from time to time. But let's be clear, when you say defending, what I'm doing is I'm simply telling you that if I took you to an assignment meeting at CBS News, you would be dreadfully bored.

• 32:07Simon Sinek?

  No, no.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Because you would understand that the whole boogeyman perspective people have on the outside is not what it is. When a script gets sent to standards and we're arguing over the right fucking verb, that tells me we're doing a pretty damn good job at adhering to our standards.

• 32:25Simon Sinek?

  Okay, let's talk about good news, because you and I have that in common. You and I have-

• 32:28Speaker 01

  I love good news.

• 32:29Simon Sinek?

  You and I have that in common. You know, I think there's a craving for positivity.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. I meet it on the street every day. I don't watch the news anymore. I can't stand the news. I only want the good stuff. I only want the hard stuff. It's what I hear all the time.

• 32:42Simon Sinek?

  But-

• 32:43Speaker 01

  But, yes, finish the sentence.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  But it frustrates me because you say you want it, but you guys don't watch it in a way that meaningfully rates or meaningfully makes money. And so I end up having a conversation now as the CEO of a company that talks more about the bottom line, because despite what people say, you know what they click on? The porn that is a crime scene.

• 33:04Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, of course.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  And a travesty and a tragedy.

• 33:07Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  And so you got to put your money where your mouth is. Meanwhile, I've had some people who agree with me and believe in me and have helped me to support building the company.

• 33:17Simon Sinek?

  So there's a bunch of influencers on, on, on socials who are out there giving away money and, you know, setting people up and surprising them with goodness and kindness. And the videos are very inspiring, and they're lovely to see. Some of them have amassed significant followings.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Significant.

• 33:36Simon Sinek?

  But I have an opinion as to why,

• 33:40Simon Sinek?

  even though they've amassed and done well, they still can't compete with negative.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  What's the opinion?

• 33:49Simon Sinek?

  It's repetitive.

• 33:51Simon Sinek?

  Whereas-

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 33:52Simon Sinek?

  -tragedy-

• 33:53Speaker 01

  But people love that repetition.

• 33:55Simon Sinek?

  Or fear, or any of those things.

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Is repetition with a different time, date-

• 33:59Simon Sinek?

  But it's not-

• 34:00Speaker 01

  And character.

• 34:01Simon Sinek?

  Yes, it's like this person got shot, this person got hit by a car, this person, you know, jumped off a bridge, this person held somebody hostage.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  In 20 years of journalism, I covered the same story 50 different ways.

• 34:12Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  I could give you a shooting script and tell you it happened in Torrance, tell you it happened on a Saturday and plug in the name. The rest of the story wrote itself.

• 34:20Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. So is it just our biological-

• 34:23Speaker 01

  A thousand percent.

• 34:23Simon Sinek?

  Just our biology that, that because we have to stay alive, you know, our inherent sense of fear and paranoia is, is much more important to us as, as cavemen.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 34:34Simon Sinek?

  The rustle in the leaves that could be a saber-toothed tiger is more important than the beautiful sunset.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  One requires a cortisol response.

• 34:41Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  The other requires a meditative response.

• 34:44Simon Sinek?

  And one keeps you alive and the other one's just nice.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 34:46Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  And, and, but I'm in the business of making the argument that after 25 years of a cortisol response, I don't want to live the rest of my life like that, because I think the kind of work I do now is going to help me extend my life.

• 35:01Simon Sinek?

  That I agree with. And I think that's, that's the irony, which is people who tune into, let's, you mean cortisol is right, stressful stories are injecting stress in their bodies.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 35:13Simon Sinek?

  They're making themselves angry, they're making themselves paranoid, they're making themselves upset, which is just not good for the body.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  And I have put boundaries around myself. You know, my parents used to say to me when I would call them, and I don't know why I, I would do this to my poor parents from time to time, but you know, I would, the worst things happened for a decade, and I was the one who got the call, right? COVID, when nobody's traveling and when airports are empty and streets in America are empty, I'm traveling on empty airplanes, driving down streets that are empty, walking COVID ICU units, watching people die, and then tell me after they survived. I remember asking a man in Louisiana if he planned to wear a mask or get a vaccination. And he was like, no, that, that's bullshit. Now, this man had just come off the ventilator, had just come off the water and was still against it.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  So anyway, I would call my parents and I would tell them what I was doing. My mother would say, David, I, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. And I used to be like, why do you want to hear it? I'm the same fucking way now. Like shit happens and people come to me, I'm like, I don't want to hear it. Even if I'm watching a scripted series, I don't want to hear it. I've seen the worst of humanity. There's nothing you can show or tell me that I hadn't seen. I guarantee you I've seen it worse than you have. But I protect my peace now, and I'm very serious about it.

• 36:27Simon Sinek?

  And was it because of Puerto Rico?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  No, it's because of the culmination of everything. Puerto Rico was, it, it broke the camel's back because it was the time where I said, I'm not standing on the sidelines anymore. I'm not standing back. The good Lord didn't put me on this earth to make the next 25 years of my life something that puts me behind the metaphorical line. Like, I'm not doing it. Like, that's a me decision, and that's why I absolve CBS of it. I went to them and I was like, you can't let me do this, so love me enough to let me go. And to their credit, they took a risk, and we are still defining it as we go. We're still defining it as we go.

• 37:03Simon Sinek?

  Now, there's an irony in this conversation.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  And it is?

• 37:05Simon Sinek?

  I spread optimism as a for a living. The name of our company is The Optimism Company.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  I know it is.

• 37:11Simon Sinek?

  The name of the podcast is a bit of optimism.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  I know it is.

• 37:13Simon Sinek?

  And-

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Are we not being optimistic?

• 37:15Simon Sinek?

  We are being optimistic. I think I can be cynical and optimistic at the same time. It's not, I'm not Pollyanna-ish about these things, but I do believe that the world tends towards good. And I believe people-

• 37:24Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 37:25Simon Sinek?

  What did, what did Churchill say about America? He said, you can always count on America to do the right thing after they've exhausted all other options.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Do you know where I've-

• 37:32Simon Sinek?

  And I think human beings are like that.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Do you know where I've accounted, do you know where I have encountered some of the happiest people? On their deathbed.

• 37:39Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Why is it that in our final days, we talk about things that bring us joy, perspective and reflection, rather than rage?

• 37:47Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Why do we go to that?

• 37:49Simon Sinek?

  Nobody wants to die angry.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  I'm talking about people who have had difficult lives who go to that. Right? My death and dying teacher, which was my favorite course in college, just died. And my classmate, who was in the class with me, called me probably four months ago to tell me she was in hospice. And I thanked her for the call, and I was outside walking.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  And it just kind of hit me like a lightning bolt. And I said, well, I wonder if I should, like Mitch Albom, go and visit her for one final lesson, and so I did. And the woman was almost radiant. And she gave me some of the best lessons, which I shared with the people around the country, and put it on CBS. And why would you put a story about death on morning television? I still don't understand why they let me do that. But it is because I am dead set on proving that we can do difficult things and we can talk about difficult things without gutting people emotionally. And so that for me, you talk about the influencers who are doing the money. I'll be honest with you, sometimes I'm a little jealous, because I wish I, sometimes I wish I could be doing that.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  I mean, they're really fucking good at it, okay? They're really, it's very, and I get sucked in. But at the end of the day, what I do can't be so saccharine that it's a turnoff. It can't be too sweet. And so I, I bring a realistic approach to stories that will melt your heart, and that's what we do.

• 39:16Simon Sinek?

  What's your favorite story? Like, give me an example of a specific story that you've told. Maybe you've told it publicly, maybe you haven't yet, that really encapsulates why this mission is so important to you. It really makes the point that this, this more, this is the example of, of, of why I'm doing this.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  I hate getting stumped on a good question, damn it. Can I give you a story that sets my soul on fire?

• 39:42Simon Sinek?

  No, answer the question.

• 39:43Speaker 01

  I don't have a good answer. I don't have a good, I hate getting stumped on a story, on a question.

• 39:50Simon Sinek?

  Then what's it all for? Then why is it worth it?

• 39:53Simon Sinek?

  You made a significant sacrifice, you work harder.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Stories I tell now.

• 39:57Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Okay, the stories I used to do when I would knock on people's door, they would run or call their criminal defense attorney. I walk in people's houses now and they greet me with a hug and they write to me and they say, thank you. And they check in with me a decade later. At the end of the day, when the simplicity of life comes to bear on our deathbed, there are no complexities and no contradictions. Things tend to get real fucking simple, right? Okay. And so I simplify it. And so for me, it's that simple, right? You can call me less intelligent than most. I don't give a shit.

• 40:29Simon Sinek?

  Tell me a specific story that when you walked away, you went, yep, I'm gonna wanna, I wanna keep doing this. Yep.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Ms. Roberta Bell was a prison guard in Mississippi. When an inmate came up to her and said, Ms. Bell, I'm about to deliver my baby, but my parents can't take it, would you? And Ms. Bell, who has a thick Mississippi accent, said she was into it, open and interested. The warden found out, came to her and said, Roberta Bell, is it true that you said this? And she said, yes, sir. If the hospital calls and that baby's gonna go to Child Protective Services, I'll go get it. And he said, well, you're fired. And Roberta Bell, a week later, without a job, living in a mobile home

• 41:14Speaker 01

  on a rural lot in Mississippi, took a phone call from a hospital in Monroe that said, Roberta Bell, your name is on the list. The baby has been born and you have 24 hours to pick it up. And if you don't, we will deliver it to Child Protective Services. That lady went and picked up that baby. Ms. Bell is African American. The baby was white. She took that baby home and she raised that baby as her own for 30 days until the mother got out of prison, jail.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  The mother ended up reoffending, went back to jail. Ms. Bell gave it back to them. Anyway, the story ends with the baby going into foster care. But the story ends with the baby actually going to the foster parents who were raising its biological sister. And so they will grow up together. Ms. Bell has been invited to be the godmother to the baby as part of the new family. We were able to come together and give Ms. Bell some assistance that has financially supported her in ways that have been immeasurably helpful. My point is, that, Simon, is where I go every time when I travel across the country looking for those kinds of stories. That's what I'm looking for. I just did a story.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  I was at home in Sherman Oaks, California on a Saturday when I saw the cover of the Cincinnati Enquirer. And it was a photo of a principal standing next to a boy in a cap and gown. The boy, as it turns out, was his former student. Here's the story. Lakota East High School in Ohio. The principal finds out the student is homeless, living in his car, not safe to live at home. Principal's like, hey, let's help you. They start, all right. The district finds out his mother's living in another part of town, in another school district. So they send a letter saying he's gotta leave Lakota East and go to another school. Sounds reasonable. But because that school he was at was a place of safety and security and he would eat there. That's where he got his meals. He didn't want to leave. So anyway, the principal goes home, tells his wife. The wife says, well, if he needs a place, he can come here.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  The principal lets the kid move in with him. The wife in, and they end up adopting him as a guardian. But the school district finds out and they end up firing the principal because we told you, he has to leave. His mother lives in that district. He can't stay here. But the principal wanted him to stay here. The principal lost his job trying to help this student stay there. Fast forward, they helped him graduate. He's now in aviation school. I told the story and here is the one thing I couldn't do, Simon, that I finally was able to do. We told the story, it got millions of views and people said, I wanna help, I wanna help, I wanna help. And as a show of how we are still figuring it out, I called New York and I said, I wanna put out. I don't think I've told this story publicly.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  I got taken to HR about two years ago for putting out the GoFundMe page of a homeless man who I was trying to help. Now, the rules of CBS News say you can't put out GoFundMe pages. Why? Because number one, do we know if it's an authentic GoFundMe page? Okay, that's a very reasonable thing. Second, if we put out this GoFundMe, we gotta put out others. So we don't wanna do it. Okay, fair. I put it out because I made the argument that I knew it had been created. I could vet it and verify. Anyway, got taken to HR by someone who's no longer at the company. And I remember telling the boss at the time, can you imagine the headline in the New York Post?

• 44:36Speaker 01

  David Begno fired from CBS News for putting out GoFundMe page to help homeless man. And that there lies in where my conundrum falls. I will not apologize for trying to help a homeless man while at the same time abiding by your rules. And the rules are, we don't put out a GoFundMe unless we know it's legitimate. I found out it was legitimate. And as an employee of CBS News, I can show you that, but you didn't give me the chance to show you. And so I got a thing in my file and an official formal talking to. Now, back to the student and the principal. I just did the story and so I told my senior, I was like, I don't wanna get in trouble again. So I called New York and had a conversation.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  And we were able to work out that, hey, we're not gonna put the GoFundMe on television. That's the decision. But you can put it out. And we raised $55,000 for the man.

• 45:29Simon Sinek?

  Fantastic.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  And so the $55,000 is going to be used by the principal to help start scholarships for other people like DeeDee, who's the kid's name, and also to help DeeDee go to aviation mechanic school. But DeeDee's now a part of the family. The principal has six other kids and DeeDee's number seven.

• 45:46Simon Sinek?

  So he got his job back?

• 45:48Speaker 01

  He never got his job back.

• 45:49Simon Sinek?

  So, so wait, he's the principal, though?

• 45:51Speaker 01

  He got fired.

• 45:52Simon Sinek?

  Oh, oh, he's no longer the principal.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Never got his job back.

• 45:55Simon Sinek?

  So, so in every story you've told, both the two stories about other people and your own story, of course, there's the obvious person who did the good thing, the right thing, who put themselves out there.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  But there is.

• 46:05Simon Sinek?

  In every, in every story you're telling, there's the person who interrupted, got in the way, denied them.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 46:13Simon Sinek?

  And put, and put stakes on the ground and threaten them. If you do good, you're gonna suffer.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  The best stories have what my old stories used to, which was tension and pain, right? Roberta Bell had the pain of saying, I got fired because I did the right thing. And so you tell that story. And by the way, in fairness, Ms. Bell acknowledges she broke the prison rules. You can't be taking an inmate's baby. Like, why would they allow that? That doesn't make sense. She understands that they said no. I understand that they didn't want me to post the GoFundMe of a homeless man. But I authenticated it. That should have been enough, okay? Ms. Bell did the right thing. The principal did the right thing. And to your point, yes, I look for stories that have some difficulty.

• 47:01Simon Sinek?

  So is your message, do the right thing? Or is your message, if you're in a position of authority where you are tasked with upholding standards and enforcing rules and somebody wants to do the right thing, find ways to support them and work with them?

• 47:18Speaker 01

  It's all three. And it takes me back to the question I asked you at the very beginning is who made the rules? At the end of the day, we as man make the rules. And I agree and fully support, and I've said a hundred times, Simon. I believe in the standards and practices of CBS News and I will say it until my dying day. But at the end of the day, we need to bring sensibility to situations where people can look at it on a case by case basis. And my experience, more often than not, has been that they always do. And CBS deserves the credit for putting me in this position to be able to define a lane while working consistently with them to get it right.

• 47:59Simon Sinek?

  What you're talking about is one of the challenges we have in our modern social media world, which is everything is right, wrong, good, bad, black, white.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 48:06Simon Sinek?

  And the truth is always in the middle and there's always new ones.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Complexity.

• 48:09Simon Sinek?

  And complexity. And what we're getting to is the intention of the law.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:12Simon Sinek?

  And enforcement of the law.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 48:13Simon Sinek?

  The law says no mechanical vehicles in the park.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 48:17Simon Sinek?

  They didn't mean electric wheelchairs. But technically, you know, and so.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  The law says don't speed over 55. If you're heading to Cedars and the woman's bleeding out in the backseat, I'm going to do. Okay, so here's a, let's make this shit up. A story comes across my desk of a CHP officer who pulls over a man and the wife's in the backseat bleeding out, delivering the baby. And the CHP officer keeps the man on the side of the road to write him a ticket and the baby dies. That to me is the quintessential story where I want us as a public to talk about. Whether or not it was right for him to enforce that ticket because he was driving too damn fast. Or whether he should have said, you know what, listen, this is a ticket that can wait for another day.

• 49:04Simon Sinek?

  But it's also, look, the reason we have speed limits is to keep the public roadways safe. And the reason you don't want somebody driving very, very fast is because it's a danger to them and to other people.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 49:14Simon Sinek?

  So if the cop pulls him over because what he's doing is dangerous. And there are extenuating circumstances as to why he's speeding. The goal isn't hold him accountable. The goal is how do I get this guy to the hospital quickly and safely?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  And it should be.

• 49:27Simon Sinek?

  And if I turn my sirens on and let him drive behind me, everybody will get out of our way.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  And I didn't used to be that great. I grew up based on my childhood, very black and white.

• 49:36Simon Sinek?

  And the cop knows that he could get in trouble for that.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 49:39Simon Sinek?

  But a good leader can see, and again, we're talking about this problem that we have in our world, which is we do not appreciate nuance anymore. At all. We do not appreciate context anymore.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  And we're quick to judge.

• 49:53Simon Sinek?

  We're quick to judge.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Quick to cancel.

• 49:55Simon Sinek?

  We can hear a 30 second clip or watch a 30 second video.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 49:58Simon Sinek?

  And judge and jury, we've got it all figured out.

• 50:01Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 50:02Simon Sinek?

  I know exactly what happened.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 50:03Simon Sinek?

  And I think where journalists have incredible value is, and it goes right back to your story, which is to bear witness.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  I bring the journalistic principles to what I do.

• 50:17Simon Sinek?

  But to bear witness, to bear witness, to say, to say, I understand why you would think that, but let me give you some context because I was there.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Let's go back to Puerto Rico.

• 50:25Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, because I was, I was there.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  I was bearing witness.

• 50:28Simon Sinek?

  I mean, I remember, you know, you talked about the, when the Gulf War kicked off and what was his name was in the hotel room reporting.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Bernie Shaw.

• 50:36Simon Sinek?

  Bernie Shaw was in the hotel room.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Bernard Shaw.

• 50:38Simon Sinek?

  Bernard Shaw was, was in the hotel room reporting from a telephone and he was bearing witness. Now, he didn't have all the context, he had one point of view, but he gave us a point of view that we didn't have.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 50:47Simon Sinek?

  And, and I think there's something to be said for bearing witness as opposed to, I saw a post on Reddit or on X or on Instagram.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Well, and it's why we still go there. If you were to say to me, what's the one thing you miss? It's going there. But the thing that I also can't do after spending 200 days a year in hotel rooms for many years is I just, I abhor travel now. But the bearing witness thing, we still do that. We still spend in journalism, a lot of money to go there and bear witness.

• 51:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, but more and more they're closing those, those.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Sure, because, because.

• 51:19Simon Sinek?

  Because of money.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  It costs money.

• 51:20Simon Sinek?

  So, so I'm going to make an argument that goes counter to my argument.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:24Simon Sinek?

  There is something to be said for bearing witness digitally. After George Floyd was murdered and I remember calling a friend of mine, African American friend, and I couldn't believe what I had seen. And I was moved, I was emotionally moved, a guy in handcuffs who's no longer a threat to himself or anyone else, why that that would continue. And I was cut up and he wasn't. And I said, how come I'm upset and you're not? And he goes, because this is the first time you've seen it.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 51:57Simon Sinek?

  He goes, he says, he says, I'm, I'm, this is, this is the hundredth time I've seen it, you know?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  But, but, but, but.

• 52:03Simon Sinek?

  And so the bearing witness, because, because there, there are plenty of people who were like, um, uh, um, George Floyd, prior to George Floyd, the difference was there was no cameras.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  But here's what you have to understand.

• 52:16Simon Sinek?

  The camera bore, bore witness for us.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  But here's what's so important about what you're saying. Oftentimes people walk into a situation bearing witness because it is the first time they've experienced it. And they get turned away by people who go, this happens all the time, you know, hey, and I've been called this before, hey, white boy, you're late to the party, you know, like, did it, okay. If I would have done that in Puerto Rico, you know what the best thing about me in Puerto Rico was? My ignorance. My ignorance. You know why? I had no clue that Puerto Rico has been treated like second-class citizens since the early 1900s. That Puerto Ricans are US citizens simply because the US needed them to fight in World War I. And so they made them US citizens so they could go and die for the American flag. I had no idea that the island's been treated like a redheaded stepchild.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  And so I reacted wet as shit behind the ears in a way that the Puerto Ricans were like, he must not know the history, but all right, guy, let's go. And that may be funny, but you know what? It was so fucking effective because it led to lives being saved. Those are not my words, those are the words that, that people will tell you. The coverage was pivotal. I would make a report, the White House would, would respond within a half hour. The Pentagon would respond within a half hour. I would have the governor and mayors and, and Jeffrey Buchanan, who was a four-star general, come to me because they wanted to get on my social media so we could put it out because they knew that the right players were watching. So what I would say to that is, when you run up to a situation where somebody says,

• 53:42Speaker 01

  babe, it's the first time you experienced, it's okay, it's always been like that, still bear witness.

• 53:48Simon Sinek?

  I, I, you know, it's funny because we're ending up in a place that I don't think provides the clarity that I was hoping to get to, which is naivete and ignorance is the thing that gets us in trouble, but it's also the thing that solves the problem.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 54:02Simon Sinek?

  Bearing witness with your eyes is what we need because bearing witness with a camera lacks the context, but bearing witness with a camera is a way to bear witness where none other can bear witness, no other can bear witness. And so we're back at square one, which is there were benefits and detriments to all of it. And the only thing that makes it work is, goes right back to your work. The only thing that makes it work is somebody with a big heart who's just trying to do the right thing.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:32Simon Sinek?

  Right? Because it's such an imperfect system and all of it can be skewed for right or skewed for wrong or skewed for this or skewed for that. And so long as there's a person who is driven by their objective sense of this is just the right thing to do and I accept the consequences because I understand that I may be breaking rules, which is, you know, what civil disobedience is. Civil disobedience is, is you can break the law to do the right thing, but you have to also accept the consequences that you might go to jail.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 55:05Simon Sinek?

  Right?

• 55:05Speaker 01

  Civil disobedience gave gays the right to marry and women the right to vote and blacks and, and, and our Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the right to legally marry a white woman. That's what civil disobedience gave us. I'm not advocating for any fighting in the street, but let me tell you something. When I walk into a situation and I'm outnumbered by someone who's got more degrees than a thermometer or more wealth than I'll ever imagine, I always am equal with everyone when I come at it through the lens of what's the right thing to do.

• 55:38Simon Sinek?

  I think that's.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  It may not be popular in the moment, but at the end of the day, when the final paragraph is written, the biggest critics kind of come around to the point you're making.

• 55:48Simon Sinek?

  I think, I think what we're talking about is short-term versus long-term, which is if it bleeds, it leads, is good for short-term ratings, short-term readers and short-term this. But over the course of 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, you have no integrity and you have no following and you have no trust.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 56:01Simon Sinek?

  But if you do the right thing as often as you can, knowing that you will make mistakes and taking accountability when you do, if you stick to that, it may be a slower burn, but what you end up with is more integrity, more trust and more honor at the end of the day, and you'll die with a smile on your face.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  We are born alone and we will die alone. And the longer I live, I realize that I just need to be okay with my soul and myself. And I do that by doing what I believe is right. I may not always get it right, but I'm going to work damn hard to try and get it right. I may not always be right, but I try to get it right, you know? And I work with a lot of people, Simon, in the journalism world who are very uncertain about where things are going and are terrified about whether they'll have a job, what's going to exist next year, what's going to exist five years from now?

• 57:01Speaker 01

  It's why I'm building a company, right? But the key for me is, I didn't say, hey, CBS, you guys are like old timers, peace out. I said, hey, what if we do this together? And to their credit, they said, yeah, let's give it a go.

• 57:17Simon Sinek?

  They let you experiment with an MP3.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Let's give, there you go.

• 57:22Simon Sinek?

  In the record business.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 57:23Simon Sinek?

  David, thank you for coming.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 57:25Simon Sinek?

  What a treat. What an absolute treat.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  This was great. This was really good.

• 57:28Simon Sinek?

  I love a spirited conversation.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  This was really good.

• 57:32Simon Sinek?

  A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company, lovingly produced by our team, Phoebe Bradford and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simonsonic.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself, take care of each other.