TRIGGERnometry - Emily Molli： Independent Journalism and the Hong Kong Protests

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is a show

00:00:09.980 for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about

00:00:14.900 the trigonometry don't pretend to be the experts we ask the experts as you can see we're not in

00:00:20.940 our normal environment we're recording this at the battle of ideas which many of you are going

00:00:25.120 to be so come and say hello if you're around and our brilliant guest this week is a journalist and

00:00:29.620 co-founder of Subverse Media. Emily Molly, welcome to Trigonometry. Hi there, good to be here. It's

00:00:34.520 good to have you. Thank you so much for coming to talk to us. For anyone who doesn't know who you

00:00:38.220 are, tell us a little bit about who are you, how are you, where you are, what has been the journey

00:00:42.600 that brings you to this very chair? Oh wow, okay. So I'm an independent journalist, I co-founded

00:00:48.940 Subverse News, and I've been doing a lot of on-the-ground reporting around the world. In

00:00:55.220 the US I cover certain topics. One of my main focuses is social movements. So within the US

00:01:01.360 I've been covering sort of the rise of white nationalism, Antifa, and then around the world

00:01:07.580 I've also been covering things like the Hong Kong protests, the LFS movement, and then also the

00:01:13.860 Catalan independence protests. And you mentioned earlier when we were talking just before that

00:01:17.840 you were covering the Donald Trump election campaign in 2016. You were not a credential

00:01:24.100 journalist at the time yeah so you had to wait in line for six hours and you find yourself chatting

00:01:29.300 to people and finding out what their views were and as part of that you could kind of see the

00:01:33.620 his election coming yeah so that's quite an interesting thing about actually journalism

00:01:39.000 where you actually talk to people it's quite unusual these days isn't it yeah and it really

00:01:43.280 illuminated to me just how much of the press in general kind of sits in a bubble and in uh you

00:01:49.000 know you could call it an echo chamber where they're pronouncing the same ideas off of each

00:01:53.000 other and they're not really getting the sort of real world view of normal people. So I followed

00:01:58.880 pretty much all of the candidates in 2016. And by just sitting in line, standing in line with people

00:02:04.860 and chatting with them about what they care about, their main issues, you kind of get a feel for

00:02:09.960 what they pay attention to, what they don't care about. Like a lot of the Trump supporters I know

00:02:15.160 didn't really care about what the press was saying about Trump. In fact, I think it made them like

00:02:19.760 him more. Um, uh, but yeah, uh, it was also just being able to see how, um, unenthused a lot of

00:02:28.560 people were about Hillary Clinton as well. Um, seeing how like extremely enthused a lot of people

00:02:33.700 were about Bernie Sanders. And then you kind of had sort of, uh, I guess lukewarm, uh, sort of,

00:02:42.260 uh, enthusiasm, enthusiasm for other Republican candidates. So yeah, it was a really interesting

00:02:47.540 experience talking to people. And Emily, so we're talking about how there's this disconnect between

00:02:53.900 the mainstream media and the people and the mainstream media were famous and that they

00:02:58.180 didn't predict and they didn't see Trump coming. Why do you think they're so detached? Is it

00:03:02.820 because they come from one part of society or? Well, that's a really good question. I think

00:03:08.160 a lot of journalists now come from a lot of the same background. You know, a lot of them go to

00:03:16.380 school for journalism and get taught by the same people. Um, and not everyone goes to school

00:03:21.840 journalism for journalism, but I think the more you have people who spend more of their time

00:03:27.780 around journalists, and this is another thing that's pretty true about Twitter is like a lot

00:03:31.660 of Twitter is just journalists talking to other journalists. And yeah, I mean, it is people

00:03:37.300 talking and reaffirming each other's beliefs. And when you have people disagreeing with their

00:03:43.180 viewpoints and opinions and there must be something wrong with that person because

00:03:46.580 everyone else in their bubble agrees with them. So I think it is, I mean, even after Trump was

00:03:52.920 elected, you saw a bunch of these media outlets saying, oh, well, we need to go into middle

00:03:56.820 America and talk to people and figure out why this happened. And it's like, well, you could

00:04:00.320 have done that before. And then maybe you wouldn't have looked so foolish. 1.00

00:04:04.900 And what did they miss? So you talked about people's enthusiasm, but what were some of the 0.97

00:04:09.500 issues on the campaign trails that were enthusing Bernie supporters? Why was Hillary not interesting 0.95

00:04:15.640 to people? Why was Trump so popular with the people that you talked to? I think a lot of it

00:04:19.620 had to do with economic issues, not so much social issues. A lot of the people who were more Bernie

00:04:26.920 supporting, the younger people were more interested in social issues, as well as student debt, which

00:04:32.840 is just a huge crushing problem for young people in America right now. But for Donald Trump

00:04:39.060 supporters specifically, I do believe economic issues and then some social issues like addiction,

00:04:44.620 like the opioid epidemic. A lot of people just think the status quo was putting them in these

00:04:52.100 situations where nothing was improving, nothing was really changing. And how do you change things?

00:04:58.220 You get somebody who's a total outsider in charge. And I think that's really what they wanted.

00:05:03.760 And, you know, it's there was sort of this attitude towards the press where a lot of people felt like

00:05:08.060 they weren't being represented fairly. And so when you see them misrepresenting Donald Trump

00:05:13.620 or the things that he said, they felt a lot more in touch with what he was saying and how he was

00:05:20.540 treated than other candidates. And what's interesting about the mainstream media is

00:05:24.820 that they've made mistakes. And in a way, we all make mistakes. Of course we do. But

00:05:29.140 what seems baffling with them is that they don't seem to have learned from their mistakes. In fact,

00:05:33.920 they just seem to be doubling down oh my god yeah cnn is like the perfect example of that but um you

00:05:39.380 have to kind of look at their incentives at that point too uh they had the trump bump during the

00:05:44.020 2016 election and then after he was elected that sounds like a sex position doesn't it

00:05:48.440 sorry but yeah they saw that it was profitable and so they they doubled down they kept talking

00:06:01.640 trump trump trump and you know um a lot of other outlets followed suit with that it got more clicks

00:06:08.440 it got more uh a bigger it got a bigger audience and i don't know i just it's not sustainable

00:06:14.960 though at a certain point people do want to hear about real issues again and unfortunately a lot

00:06:19.900 of real issues have been going uncovered or uh just have been minimized because everyone is so

00:06:25.540 focused on what trump tweeted and do you think part of the problem as well is that the media

00:06:30.660 and I've seen it because I've worked in radio, is that the media are terrified because their

00:06:36.100 traditional ways of funding themselves, monetizing, they're evaporating.

00:06:41.020 Yeah, I absolutely think that's the case, because now it's more of a click economy,

00:06:45.260 and we've seen that failing. You see a lot of media outlets in the US, digital outlets failing

00:06:50.260 and laying people off and being bought up, like consolidating. And I really think you put your

00:06:58.060 eggs in the advertising basket rather than focusing on what your community what your audience

00:07:02.860 wants and will support you for which i i think is why so many more people are turning to

00:07:07.900 subscription-based options and um yeah there just needs to be better options out there for people

00:07:13.500 do you think that's not partly a problem though like uh we have a lot of subscription-based

00:07:18.080 services in this country and what i always feel is it forces people you know people have a limited

00:07:23.020 amount of money. So you end up like buying a subscription to the one newspaper that you

00:07:27.840 agree with. And they just keep feeding you the same stuff that you like. And then you end up in

00:07:32.360 even more of a bubble than you would and nearly would have done. Otherwise known as the Guardian

00:07:35.640 model. Well, the Guardian actually asked for donations. I'm actually talking about some of

00:07:41.360 the newspapers I've written. The Telegraph, The Spectator. If you want to read a lot of that,

00:07:45.420 you have to pay. And if you're not going to buy a subscription to 10 different outlets,

00:07:49.940 which most people are not, you end up with the, you know, not the Guardian, the spectator view

00:07:55.560 or the Telegraph view or the whatever view. All great newspapers, please keep getting my articles

00:08:00.660 into your newspapers, but you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. And that's where I think, like,

00:08:07.120 one of the issues is just how, yeah, I think it's just, it needs to almost be completely

00:08:12.320 reworked as an industry. I don't believe in putting important news or just news in general

00:08:18.580 behind a paywall but if people want like behind the scenes content or like if they want more

00:08:23.940 in-depth analysis on something that takes more time it takes more work and i think some people

00:08:28.780 are willing to throw down three dollars five dollars a month for some of those extras 30

00:08:34.020 pounds for a mug you never know but um you know with the clickbait thing it's interesting to me

00:08:40.500 and to get your perspective on i feel like the mainstream media they they're dying so quickly

00:08:45.960 that they are desperate for clicks they have now become the clickbait medium and it's us who are

00:08:52.320 doing new media that are actually doing long-form content in our case or on the ground reporting in

00:08:58.320 your case really giving people a completely different view of what's happening um do you

00:09:04.020 think this is going to continue do you think the mainstream media will at some point go actually

00:09:08.000 no we've gone too far we need to start doing things the way because their brand really it's

00:09:12.980 like substantive reporting historically yeah and they are killing their own brand by doing this

00:09:18.200 clickbait stuff aren't they yeah i think uh it just needs to be completely reworked the media

00:09:23.720 landscape and how it funds itself and how it i think a lot of like a lot of newspapers at least

00:09:30.020 in the u.s i think uh like the new york times specifically has kind of ostracized a lot of

00:09:34.620 their own audience by, by doing ridiculous clickbait or, um, yeah. And I think at that point

00:09:42.280 they need to take a look at what they started as and what they've turned into and kind of figure

00:09:48.380 out how to, how to return to their roots of actual journalism rather than telling people what to

00:09:54.060 think. But I'm not sure if they're, I think you see a lot of outlets who are taking, uh, taking

00:09:59.240 cues from new media, doing long form, doing podcasts, and trying to spread their content

00:10:08.080 that way. I don't know if it's sustainable for them to do that as well. I think we're just seeing

00:10:17.740 in general people are gravitating towards new ways of digesting information and how they find

00:10:24.360 And it and yeah, it does cause the problem of echo chambers again still.

00:10:28.900 But yeah, you have sort of a saturated media market with commentators.

00:10:33.820 And I don't think mainstream news outlets can necessarily compete with with like long form YouTube channels or podcasts like Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan, for example, like pulls millions, millions for his podcast.

00:10:51.300 a lot of people go to him for information rather than because I'd rather hear Joe Rogan just shoot

00:10:57.640 the shit with people they're not going to get that from media outlet so they try to like they try to 0.86

00:11:04.240 do things like podcasts and long-form discussions but I'm not sure if it's going to take off the 0.99

00:11:08.660 same way as some other channels would and Emily it seems to me that we live in an age where people

00:11:14.920 are more distrustful of mainstream media than ever yeah is that because of the internet and

00:11:20.560 it's just hyperbolized that or is it actually that people more and more just switching off

00:11:26.120 and think to themselves you know what I do not want to engage with this anymore um I think

00:11:30.660 there's sort of a combination of um if people see something in the news that they know isn't true

00:11:38.240 then it's kind of a disillusionment factor there um like I know for me specifically I used to take

00:11:45.120 when I was younger I kind of took the news at face value because you're you trust them to tell

00:11:50.360 you the truth. And then when I started covering things and then seeing things in person and then

00:11:55.460 seeing it reported in a totally different way, then I was like, okay, well, I guess I can't trust

00:11:59.060 it anymore. And I think, especially when you have misrepresentations of what people say,

00:12:04.260 you lose a lot of people that way. But I also think there's sort of this bias towards, you

00:12:11.940 know, whether it's partisan media where people don't want to believe it or, yeah. But I do think

00:12:16.360 for the most part, a lot of outlets have ended up shooting themselves in the foot just by reporting

00:12:22.300 misinformation or disinformation. And it's also the style of conversation. I mean, I remember

00:12:28.880 the Kathy Newman, Jordan Peterson interview. I don't know if you caught that. And the Channel

00:12:33.800 4 argument, if you're a producer, there's go, look, we did this great thing. We got

00:12:37.460 20 million views on YouTube. Isn't that brilliant? I mean, we've just got a huge audience that we've

00:12:43.220 attracted. But most people who watch that will never watch a Kathy Newman interview ever again.

00:12:48.860 That's a perfect example. Yeah, no, and exactly. It's like, they'll probably look at that and be

00:12:53.720 like, wow, look how much controversy that generated and got us a bunch of views. You know,

00:12:58.280 bad press is still press. But again, they're not realizing how much of how much of the trust they

00:13:04.680 lost from their audience by doing that kind of thing. And tell us about Subverse News,

00:13:08.660 which is the organization that you co-founded what is the the antidote that you're trying to

00:13:13.900 offer what's your angle if you like um we just pretty much try to report straightforward facts

00:13:19.220 with context that like that shows what matters in a situation we don't um we don't cut up

00:13:25.480 interviews to make people look stupid we don't do uh combative or uh advocacy journalism um we

00:13:32.540 pretty much will interview people and let them say their thing for the most part like we'll 0.97

00:13:37.640 obviously fact check if somebody is spouting nonsense, but at the same time, I think there's

00:13:43.960 some merit to hearing people lie, and even if they don't know they're lying, if they're just

00:13:52.060 basically talking about talking points, for example, like in a lot of protests we cover,

00:13:57.560 a lot of people will echo back just the talking points that they hear in the media and stuff like

00:14:02.380 that. But there are some other situations where we can point specifically to somebody lying and

00:14:08.400 saying this is actually what happened. But we're basically just trying to come back with an

00:14:14.880 approach that gives people information to make up their own minds. Sounds like a gateway to the far

00:14:19.580 right. And on that note, that is something you have been looking at, haven't you? Looking at

00:14:25.400 the far right. And is there a rise in the far right now? Very much one of the narratives that

00:14:30.860 have been parroted in the mainstream media is that we have seen a rise in white nationalism,

00:14:35.840 the far right. Is this true, particularly in America? I would say in America, I don't think

00:14:41.040 they ever really went away, but I think we're seeing them more active in rallies. And recently,

00:14:48.080 it's been kind of a hyper focus of some outlets just saying, oh, you know, this is far right,

00:14:55.800 This is extremism. This is white nationalism. And I think people really do a disservice to to those actual problems when they will pretty much throw the label out on anything that they kind of suspect of being like alt-right.

00:15:10.860 If they even if they don't really know what that means, there are a lot of issues in the U.S. with white nationalism, white separatism and just white supremacy in general.

00:15:20.380 But I don't think it's as huge of an epidemic as a lot of people try to make it out.

00:15:25.800 Um, I think after, you know, there is a lot of it is reactionary where, um, there were like white

00:15:33.220 live matter, white lives matter rallies that were white nationalist groups coming out and

00:15:38.460 just trying to almost be antagonistic. A lot of them do, a lot of them do just want to cause

00:15:44.440 controversy and hope that Antifa will show up so they can get into a street fight with them and

00:15:49.940 it's worked. And so, I don't know, I think they're getting a lot more attention than they

00:15:57.060 should. And I think they're actually probably, they're probably finding it easier to recruit

00:16:01.520 with people throwing around terms like alt-right, white nationalists, because they're making it

00:16:06.960 sound, somebody who isn't necessarily that extreme will say, oh, well, they're calling me a white

00:16:11.460 nationalist anyway. Maybe I should like, maybe I should go with that group that they might not be

00:16:16.560 all that bad anyway. So people are being pushed into it is what you're saying. I think by using

00:16:21.520 the terms irresponsibly, I do think it is a recruiting tool. And I, so we both work in comedy,

00:16:29.520 which is very woke and, you know, social justice or the rest of it. Now, a lot of people have told

00:16:36.340 me that Donald Trump is a white supremacist. He's a white supremacist president. He's a sign that 0.99

00:16:44.020 that we have a rise of the Nazis in the US. Would you agree? And what are your opinions on this? 0.91

00:16:50.380 Because this is a narrative that is being pushed forward. Yeah, I hear it all the time too. Yeah,

00:16:54.100 people equating the Make America Great Again hat to the KKK hood. I think that is a gross

00:16:59.680 oversimplification of, I don't doubt that, like, I don't know, I don't know him personally, but I

00:17:06.260 also think i don't think uh he's gotten i don't think he's even been endorsed by a whole lot of

00:17:14.780 white nationalist groups because it's too extreme um but there are some things that he said that

00:17:23.020 people will try to jump on and be like oh look he's supporting white supremacists he's supporting

00:17:26.440 white nationalists but um there's there's things that he does that white nationalists and white

00:17:32.500 supremacists don't agree with, like mainly things with Israel. But yeah, I don't know. I think it's

00:17:38.640 a really gross oversimplification to call him a white supremacist or a white nationalist.

00:17:43.920 All right. And what about on the other side? Because as you say, there are issues around

00:17:48.300 white supremacy in the United States. There's residues of that that is happening. You do see

00:17:53.560 them showing up armed and being violent and, as you say, hoping for Antifa to turn up. But what

00:17:59.260 about on the other side what about antifa what are they doing what is what is your reading of

00:18:04.060 them because you've reported on this quite a bit uh so it's interesting because like i've covered

00:18:08.600 antifa in various countries and the u.s one is kind of well i want to say i'll try to be nice

00:18:16.600 um disjointed and disorganized and i don't know i don't know exactly what they're they're aiming

00:18:26.000 to achieve. But the ways that they're doing it, by intimidating people, harassing people,

00:18:33.400 I don't think that is an effective way to do whatever they're trying to do.

00:18:39.860 There's, I don't know, I think a lot of people are searching for meaning right now, because they

00:18:45.240 don't have either, they don't have much going on in their life to give them meaning. And when you

00:18:49.440 put a cause in front of someone, you say, hey, let's be anti-fascist. Like, yeah, of course,

00:18:54.140 Like, why wouldn't you be an anti-fascist? Nobody, nobody in their right mind would be pro-fascism, I believe. But when these kind of movements get co-opted by people who have either, I guess, I guess I'm still trying to be nice.

00:19:10.420 But I want to say issues where they really succumb to mob mentality and harassment, vandalism of people who aren't against them even.

00:19:25.680 Yeah, I think in the U.S. especially, they have some issues.

00:19:29.740 And we see some of their violence.

00:19:31.400 We've had Andy Ngo on the show, for example.

00:19:34.100 Do you think they're a terrorist organization, Antifa?

00:19:36.040 I think you have individual members who are using tactics that you could call terrorism to achieve a political end.

00:19:47.700 I don't even think they can be considered an organization in themselves because just because you fly a flag doesn't mean you're part of an organization.

00:19:54.880 um but i do think there are individuals who are using extremely extremely like

00:20:03.360 harsh tactics to intimidate people to cause harm to people and i would call those probably acts

00:20:11.560 of terrorism if they're trying to achieve a specific political mean means but again i don't

00:20:17.360 even know if they know what they want as far as demands or what what their goals are well anarchists

00:20:23.400 being unsure about the calls and people on the left being disorganized i don't even think a lot

00:20:28.760 of antifa are even anarchists i think uh a lot of them are trend like a lot of them will try to be

00:20:34.560 communist or socialist i don't even know if they understand a lot of the the systems that they

00:20:39.660 endorse but it's it's kind of just a trendy thing for a lot of a lot of people it seems

00:20:44.660 and it does seem to be something that people put on a twitter bio anti-fascist yeah and then like

00:20:50.720 you said it sounds good it sounds like something that you should be we were all anti-fascist

00:20:54.460 right yeah i would assume speak for yourself but do you think part of the problem that

00:21:00.900 is what happened with things like charlottesville where people think that there is a purpose for

00:21:06.740 this movement yes i think uh there are specific things people look at like charlottesville where

00:21:12.940 they see if somebody ran over a bunch of protesters and you know that's that's another

00:21:18.400 thing it's just you have these certain situations that will give legitimacy to a move to people who

00:21:24.600 think this movement is is a good cause and in a lot of ways a lot of people's hearts are in the

00:21:30.800 right place but the tactics that are being used aren't necessarily effective or for the good of

00:21:36.740 whatever movement they're trying to push and so we've been talking a lot about you know active

00:21:43.060 journalism and going in on the ground. We interviewed Melissa Chen, and it was a brilliant

00:21:48.980 interview, and she was saying actually it's very, very difficult to find out what's happening

00:21:53.300 in Hong Kong, because unless you're on the ground, then things become distorted, and obviously

00:21:58.860 it's difficult to get what the real message is out of China. So could you explain to us what is

00:22:04.020 actually happening in Hong Kong? Okay, so these protests started back in, I believe, end of May

00:22:11.780 or early June, when an extradition bill was proposed. And the extradition bill was, a lot

00:22:18.200 of people in Hong Kong saw that as a veiled attempt to be able to extradite people from Hong Kong to

00:22:22.440 mainland China. And just with people feeling like China's been encroaching on the rights of Hong

00:22:28.200 Kongers, it sort of broke the camel's back. That was sort of the final straw for a lot of people.

00:22:33.380 And so they started protesting. And it's funny because what could have been put to rest very

00:22:40.160 easily. They ended up withdrawing the bill formally anyway, not too long ago. But if they

00:22:44.820 had done that months ago, this wouldn't have spiraled into what it is now. Now they have five

00:22:49.620 demands. There's been incredibly harsh police brutality. There's been basically every single

00:22:57.440 week there's been protests and they've had up to half a million people marching in the streets

00:23:04.640 in pouring rain, in extremely hot weather. And it's just incredible determination on the part

00:23:11.620 of these protesters, incredible organization. And it's funny because you're starting to see

00:23:17.000 other movements take tactics from the Hong Kong protesters because of how effective they've been

00:23:22.560 in just staying unified and staying on message. I've never covered anything like it. It's extremely

00:23:27.740 well organized and it's not the kind of solidarity or unification you see in a lot of movements a

00:23:35.020 lot of people will try to co-opt it and push their own messages but they have their five demands now

00:23:40.960 and which are what so they want full withdrawal of the extradition bill which finally just

00:23:46.280 recently happened they want dual universal suffrage for the legislative council and

00:23:51.640 i think one of the other i can't remember what the other government body is but they want to be

00:23:56.060 able to choose their own leaders rather than having the Chinese Communist Party choose who

00:24:02.500 they can elect from. They want the classification of rioters to be dropped because basically in

00:24:12.260 order to protest in Hong Kong, you have to apply for a letter of no objection. And if you get that

00:24:17.700 letter of no objection, then you can protest. But what they tried to do to stop the protest was not

00:24:23.460 not issue any of the letters of no objection. So if they don't, then they get charged with

00:24:27.740 rioting. A riot charge can put you in prison for up to 10 years. So they want the classification

00:24:33.400 of rioting, of riots to be dropped. They want amnesty for the arrested protesters. How many

00:24:40.980 is that? I think that's, oh, and the last one is they want an independent investigation into the

00:24:47.960 police for the conduct that they've been using. They've been using expired tear gas.

00:24:52.000 They've been using excessive force.

00:24:54.200 They've been firing tear gas in enclosed spaces, which is extremely dangerous.

00:24:57.860 They've been targeting journalists.

00:25:01.040 When they enacted the anti-mask law, the idea was that you're not allowed to be wearing a mask when you're protesting.

00:25:09.400 But they were supposed to make exceptions for people who need masks for work, which would be journalists.

00:25:16.160 However, they were still abusing that.

00:25:18.460 And they were, even people who weren't protesting, they would arrest them for wearing masks or they would intimidate them.

00:25:25.020 They told the journalists that they couldn't wear a mask and threatened to rip them off.

00:25:31.320 And, yeah, it's just really no accountability on behalf of the police.

00:25:38.540 And basically the government has been running defense for them and trying to justify all of the tactics they've been using.

00:25:45.200 And it's it's just it's it's kind of gone out of control.

00:25:49.720 The the public in Hong Kong has sort of turned against like one of the main things that a social movement needs is public support.

00:25:57.920 And one of the the best ways to squash a movement is to turn the public against them.

00:26:04.460 It's extremely hard for them to do that when the police are also harassing, intimidating and brutalizing regular citizens, not just protesters.

00:26:15.200 So even if they do try to put undercover police into the protests and have them either beat people up, throw Molotov cocktails or cause general chaos, the overwhelming majority of the public support is still with the Hong Kong protesters.

00:26:31.760 Like there was one instance, they were trying to kettle the protesters and basically instead of, because they couldn't run away, they were basically cornered and a bunch of residents opened their doors to let them into the building and hide them.

00:26:46.220 You don't really see that in any other protest anywhere else. It's really incredible.

00:26:51.140 And the Chinese government have accused, you know, the protesters of violence, of, you know, vandalism, all the rest of it. Is this true? Is it?

00:26:59.080 The vandalism is interesting because it's very targeted.

00:27:01.760 It's mostly targeted at pro-Chinese companies, companies that come out against the protests

00:27:07.920 and then companies that are owned by the mainland.

00:27:12.320 I'm sure there's been a couple here and there.

00:27:14.580 They have mistakenly targeted some and they actually will release an apology, which is

00:27:20.660 really sweet if you think about it.

00:27:22.100 Um, and yeah, there has been violence where people who will go and either, they've had issues with people going and taking photos of the faces of protesters. And of course, in that situation, a lot of people fear retribution from the government. So they'll ask if they don't get the person to delete it off their phone, they'll usually beat them up. They'll, uh, yeah, they'll spray paint them.

00:27:45.720 Same thing if they find people trying to tear down the Lenin walls and people who have run and almost tried to run over protesters.

00:27:54.560 Actually, some people have run over protesters and they pull them out of the car and beat them up.

00:27:58.500 So, yeah, there has been violence from the protesters as well.

00:28:02.140 And how do you see this going? Because it seems that it's been organically, like you said, happening and growing and mushrooming.

00:28:10.980 Surely China, great human rights record, are not going to let this go and keep growing because it undermines their authority.

00:28:20.380 Yes. And I think it's you can't really put this genie back in the bottle at this point.

00:28:25.080 So I do think they're waiting for something and then they're going to come down pretty hard on it.

00:28:32.500 There's various ways they can do that.

00:28:34.920 A lot of people have been speculating already because at the People's Liberation Army barracks, there's been footage of people within the barracks dressed up like protesters running around as if they're training to be undercover protesters.

00:28:52.500 There's also the emergency ordinance powers that can pretty much deport foreigners, journalists, and it will enact all kinds of, it's basically martial law at that point.

00:29:04.920 And the anti-mask law was part of an emergency ordinance, so it kind of shows that they're not opposed to using that.

00:29:13.040 So I'm worried it is going to be a pretty brutal crackdown, and that's why a lot of the protesters are asking for help from other countries.

00:29:21.480 But, I mean, they're up against an extremely powerful government, and I don't really know how well that's going to go.

00:29:27.800 And what was it like for you being on the ground as a foreign journalist in this kind of environment?

00:29:32.160 You kind of get royalty treatment, which I am not used to as a journalist among protesters.

00:29:37.660 It's wild.

00:29:38.480 Like, they really take care of the press there.

00:29:40.500 I'm sure I also had sort of Western privilege.

00:29:42.480 If they saw I was from the U.S., they were like, oh, thank you.

00:29:45.620 Thank you for being here.

00:29:46.380 Thank you for covering this.

00:29:47.460 People would always come up to you offering you water and food.

00:29:50.460 And if it starts raining, they'll come over and put your umbrella over you until you can

00:29:54.120 get your rain cover out.

00:29:56.000 They really know how to use public opinion to support their cause.

00:30:01.360 And again, it's like Hong Kongese people are just very nice.

00:30:05.260 They are extremely polite.

00:30:07.180 So, yeah, it's it's I get I feel spoiled every time I go over there to cover things.

00:30:12.620 And they, you know, it's they're really just grateful people are paying attention to it.

00:30:16.780 They really want, especially America, they just want some help.

00:30:21.120 And it's it's it's amazing that you say that the way they treat because they're grateful because I suppose they realize that they put their lives on the line here.

00:30:29.100 And, I mean, that's the definition of bravery.

00:30:33.880 Extremely courageous, yeah.

00:30:35.240 And, you know, the nicer they are to you, the more welcoming, the more likely there is their messages to spread.

00:30:39.960 But it's not looking like a lot of Western countries are supporting them.

00:30:45.100 No, but I think there's a lot of economic interests in Hong Kong.

00:30:49.680 So I think once those things start to be threatened, then Western countries will start paying a bit more attention.

00:30:54.840 but i think uh right now a lot of countries are just not i mean it's it's kind of crazy like in

00:31:03.500 the u.s you have a couple couple lawmakers who will pay attention and support their uh express

00:31:09.080 their support for the protests um however there isn't a whole lot more being done uh u.s congress

00:31:16.360 is trying to pass the uh hong kong human rights and democracy act but that's kind of just like a

00:31:21.600 broad condemning of human rights violations. The other one that they're trying to pass is the

00:31:26.880 PROTECT Act, which would ban the exporting of non-lethal crowd control rounds to Hong Kong

00:31:34.860 because of it being misused. So those are just two things that are kind of being done. But I don't

00:31:41.140 know how much else is going to be done unless money starts getting involved. It's quite interesting

00:31:46.080 that Donald Trump is very much at odds with China and has been since he started running.

00:31:51.600 But it's not an issue that he's talked much about, is it?

00:31:54.860 No. In fact, it was kind of strange because a lot of people in Hong Kong will express their their want for Donald Trump to do something.

00:32:04.740 And then on the Chinese National Day, October 1st, which was one of the largest protests in Hong Kong, they called it the National Day of Mourning.

00:32:13.700 Donald Trump tweeted congratulations to President Xi Jinping on 70 years.

00:32:18.040 And as everyone was kind of like disappointed at that point, it's like you're congratulating Xi Jinping on a communist regime.

00:32:26.720 It's like and well, meanwhile, all of these you have a lot of protesters in Hong Kong, like waving American flags and supporting expressing support for Donald Trump or expressing support for the U.S. in general.

00:32:39.040 And it's like I don't want to I don't want them to they're already disappointed.

00:32:43.160 I just want to tell them, like, don't hold your breath for him to get involved.

00:32:46.460 He's not really paying attention.

00:32:47.360 He said something the other week saying, oh, well, you know, it's not as bad as it was at the beginning.

00:32:52.640 It's like you're obviously not paying attention because it's way worse than it was at the beginning.

00:32:57.100 So, yeah, I don't know if he's going to end up doing anything about it.

00:33:01.220 I guess, you know, he ran on the platform of America first.

00:33:04.540 So his battle with China is of America's interest as opposed to Hong Kong.

00:33:08.600 So people in Hong Kong shouldn't hold their breath.

00:33:10.720 No, no, I don't think I don't think he's going to do much.

00:33:13.840 And on that uplifting night.

00:33:17.340 I was going to ask you about the style of reporting that you do,

00:33:22.600 which is a lot of it is on the ground, kind of, I'm here.

00:33:26.300 There's an argument to be made that this kind of, I don't know if it's,

00:33:29.680 do they call it gonzo journalism?

00:33:31.520 Or did I just invent that in my head?

00:33:33.480 There is a gonzo aspect of that.

00:33:36.200 I think gonzo is a little more,

00:33:37.600 I think there's a little more advocacy in gonzo journalism.

00:33:40.720 Okay.

00:33:40.960 So, well, with your style of journalism, is there not an argument to say that by its very definition, like eyewitness testimony is extremely unobjective, right?

00:33:51.060 The person who is right there in the moment when something happens actually doesn't have a broader objective perspective.

00:33:58.200 Do you see where I'm going with this?

00:33:59.620 Yeah, I mean, before I was doing this, I was mostly doing raw footage.

00:34:02.740 And the thing about that is you really can't lie if you just let it play out.

00:34:07.480 you trust your eyes more than you trust people telling you what's going on. I think that's kind

00:34:14.000 of what our audience appreciates is that we just let the footage and the people do the talking and

00:34:19.540 not telling our, using our own conjecture or our own analysis to sort of push an agenda or anything

00:34:28.580 like that. And because honestly, like at the end of the day, that was really kind of what

00:34:33.060 disillusioned me with the media was seeing something with my own eyes and then hearing

00:34:37.880 it reported in a totally different way. So a lot of people say, oh, you know, it's boring. It's

00:34:42.600 very monotonous and stuff like that. But a lot of people really appreciate that and, you know,

00:34:47.380 are willing to take a little bit of monotony if it means they get the truth.

00:34:51.280 And we've seen now with these protests with, you know, Hong Kong, Catalonia,

00:34:56.640 that yellow vest, absolutely in France. And it just seems to be that there just seems to

00:35:03.040 be these uprisings is this is there more of this happening or are we just becoming more aware of it

00:35:09.620 i think this point in time right now there's a lot going on um and everything is due to different

00:35:16.280 circumstances but at the same time i feel like we see it a lot more just because of how technology

00:35:20.280 has progressed and we're able to see on twitter the protests happening in lebanon and iraq and

00:35:25.460 like all of these other places and a lot of people do want to draw a connection and be like oh it's 0.99

00:35:30.120 just the whole world's going to shit. And it's, you know, there's some truth to that because 0.98

00:35:34.040 there's all kinds of, you know, there are individual circumstances in these different

00:35:39.440 countries that have made these happen. And then you kind of also just have to look at just a

00:35:44.600 global scale, some of the trends, you know, a lot of it has to do with standard of living,

00:35:50.280 unemployment, economy. And, you know, a lot of people are not happy with their governments for

00:35:57.720 different reasons like the the reason that the LFS are unhappy with the government is different

00:36:02.540 than why people in Lebanon are unhappy with their government and so you kind of have to look at

00:36:07.020 those individual situations to and do you think the reason they've been able to mobilize so

00:36:12.700 effectively is because of social media whereas before it would be so much more difficult to

00:36:17.480 communicate to mobilize to organize but now with social media it's oh it's super easy with social

00:36:23.880 media. However, there are a lot of movements that still have issues with things like Facebook

00:36:28.000 taking down their events, the LOS in particular. That's why in Hong Kong they've been using

00:36:33.320 Telegram, and Telegram has actually come up with new features to help them organize and

00:36:39.600 stay secure during the organizing of their protests. So in Hong Kong they have a bunch

00:36:47.200 of different Telegram channels that tell people, they spread flyers, they tell people what's

00:36:53.520 happening. And, you know, you do also have to realize that, of course, people are going to get

00:36:58.000 into those and try to spread propaganda or, you know, fake information. They've had issues where,

00:37:03.680 you know, they have police creating their own telegram groups and then trying to spread false

00:37:08.840 information that way. And it's funny because they actually figured it out because they were using

00:37:12.540 Mandarin instead of Cantonese. All right. That's a pretty big mistake, isn't it? A little bit

00:37:18.180 incompetent. I was going to ask you, are you planning to be covering the 2020 election campaigns

00:37:22.340 in a similar way to the way you covered 2016.

00:37:25.160 Yeah, it'll probably be more in-depth

00:37:28.020 because 2016 I was mostly talking to people

00:37:31.320 and writing the occasional article

00:37:33.400 and doing mostly photojournalism.

00:37:36.100 This time we're going to be doing a lot more video interviews with people

00:37:38.920 and, yeah, it's going to be a lot more in-depth.

00:37:41.780 I look forward to watching that.

00:37:43.300 That'll be very interesting.

00:37:44.280 And what do you make of the situation now?

00:37:46.680 I mean, I'm, by British standards, in the centre politically.

00:37:52.340 And I look at what the Democrats are talking about, and I'd vote for Donald Trump over any of them.

00:37:59.940 Well, not any of them.

00:38:00.720 I mean, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard are the kind of outsiders.

00:38:05.860 And if they were to do well, which at this point seems unlikely, then they'd certainly get my vote.

00:38:10.180 But, you know, Elizabeth Warren talking about the rights of transgender Mexican illegal immigrants, 0.99

00:38:16.040 you're just like, it's not where ordinary people are at.

00:38:19.120 what do you make of the the stay of the democratic party and and the upcoming 2020 elections yeah

00:38:25.680 there's they've they've got a big battle coming up and the question is like who can actually stand

00:38:31.840 a chance against donald trump um and i mean i've got my opinion of who i don't think stands a chance

00:38:39.800 and it's it's really it comes down to is it somebody who's going to play his game is it

00:38:44.960 somebody who's going to play the populism card or is it somebody who's going to try to rise above it

00:38:48.560 is it going to be is the dnc going to make the same mistake and try to rig it for their

00:38:52.920 establishment candidate and are they not like you would assume they'd be smart enough to know

00:38:58.840 that who's the establishment candidate at this point is it joe biden yes but but also won't come

00:39:05.720 out and support him yeah but i don't think it's just by i think they're still waiting to figure

00:39:09.300 out who their establishment candidate is because i don't think biden you know even though he's

00:39:12.820 pulling pretty high right now i just don't think people think he can win no i think there's a lot

00:39:17.840 of, uh, I think whoever's going to win needs to be able to pull back the votes that went from

00:39:24.080 Democrat to Trump last time, or not even to Trump, but people who just didn't want to vote for Hillary

00:39:29.640 or who just voted against Hillary, because that was a huge issue. Like there were so many people

00:39:34.740 who just didn't want Hillary for a lot of reasons. And I think if the, if the Democrats can't

00:39:40.480 understand that they're doomed to the same mistakes. And so I think whoever has a chance

00:39:46.380 is going to have to be able to take some of those those votes that went to Trump either out of

00:39:53.940 protest or out of economic reasons that the Democrats were ignoring. So I think it's it's

00:40:01.040 not going to necessarily be a the person who stands a chance isn't necessarily going to be

00:40:06.340 pretty far left. I don't think I don't think Americans in general will get on board with that.

00:40:13.480 however we're talking about doom to make the same mistakes is it fair to say that they're making the

00:40:18.740 same mistakes all over again in fact they seem to be making them harder yeah it blows me away it's

00:40:25.760 like they they either don't want to learn or they're just clinging to what little they have

00:40:31.120 left i don't know i think they are going to make a lot of the same mistakes because they're just

00:40:34.760 so used to their status quo i'm curious there's probably eight or nine candidates currently in

00:40:41.820 the race. I think Beto O'Rourke dropped out this morning. So you talk about bringing back the

00:40:47.940 voters who either didn't vote or voted for Donald Trump. Conventionally, the argument has been that

00:40:52.620 Bernie Sanders speaks to a lot of those people, actually, in the Rust Belt, etc. He's just had

00:40:59.300 a heart attack. I'm not sure you come back from that during a presidential election campaign.

00:41:03.960 So who are these people that you think might bring some of those people back?

00:41:08.340 I think Yang is hitting a lot of the economic issues that people care about.

00:41:12.820 I think Tulsi is hitting a lot of the foreign policy issues that people care about.

00:41:17.160 This is like a centrist bubble right here.

00:41:20.120 I think Bernie Sanders hits a lot of also economic issues, but I think people aren't necessarily going to agree with him on some of the social stance, social issue stances he takes.

00:41:31.680 um i think uh i mean in america it's just this whole this whole um health care system thing is

00:41:38.960 it's a mess like i don't think anybody really knows what they want out of it and they're scared

00:41:45.000 of taxes going up they don't know if it's going to work and it's it's it's a mess so i don't i

00:41:50.360 really don't know who would be the one other than like people who can can speak to the same economic

00:41:58.280 issues that Trump was talking about. Well, let me put you on the spot before we ask our final

00:42:02.900 question, which is, it sounds to me like you think Donald Trump's going to win again.

00:42:07.000 I think he's in a pretty good position to, if the Democrats make the same mistakes, yeah.

00:42:15.040 And penultimate question, before we ask the final question, it's a bit of a tricky one, but

00:42:21.300 how should the Democrats attack Trump? I don't think they should focus on attacking Trump,

00:42:27.800 honestly. I think they give him more power that way. I think they've got to, I don't want to say

00:42:33.880 ignore him, because you don't want to ignore somebody who's in a position of power who can,

00:42:39.380 you know, can do a lot of, make a lot of moves that make a lot of changes and can affect a lot

00:42:47.160 of people. But I don't think attacking him is the way to address the problems and to actually

00:42:54.520 get support behind the other other side it's like i can't remember which cartoon i remember

00:43:00.720 watching where there was this the monster and the more rockets you fired at him the bigger he got

00:43:05.000 he always loves a high brown 0.99

00:43:08.260 we are nothing if not an intellectual channel you made a dick joke earlier

00:43:14.040 so don't use that anyway we've got one more question for you emily which is the same question

00:43:19.620 we ask all our guests which is what is the one thing that no one is talking about that we should

00:43:24.300 be talking about, and you took a deep breath as I said it, so I'm now full of anticipation.

00:43:28.800 Oh man, there's, I mean, there's just a lot in general with, I mean, a lot of the stuff that I

00:43:34.340 cover is just, is social movements, things that the U.S. media doesn't tend to cover a lot, but

00:43:40.460 it sounds like you're having a lot of conversations with people who talk about these things. I think

00:43:45.980 it's, for the most part, there's, I mean, I can talk to what a U.S. audience probably

00:43:54.560 would want to hear more about, and that's kind of issues with lower economic class and 0.98

00:44:01.540 how they're being largely ignored by certain political...

00:44:08.560 It's not just America, that one.

00:44:10.100 Yeah.

00:44:11.100 It's a big issue in this country.

00:44:12.740 Yeah, like things like addiction, the pharmaceutical industry, like really messing people's lives up is a really huge issue.

00:44:21.200 And that's actually one that I really want to tackle going forward in my work.

00:44:25.080 Well, we'll look forward to seeing that.

00:44:26.420 And if people want to follow you and your work with Subverse News, where do they go for that?

00:44:31.420 So Subverse News is at on Subverse on Twitter.

00:44:35.300 It's also YouTube.com slash Subverse News.

00:44:37.840 um they can follow me at mom's molly on twitter m-o-m-e-s-m-o-l-l-i and um yeah i mean we've also

00:44:46.260 got a website subverse.net where they can see our videos and our articles and catch up with um with

00:44:52.200 our coverage and keep an eye on it well thanks for coming on the show and we're gonna follow

00:44:56.620 your work very closely keep up with it thanks for watching guys we'll see you in a week's time

00:45:00.940 another brilliant episode take care see you next week

00:45:07.840 We'll be right back.

00:45:37.840 The next musical mega hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.

00:45:43.040 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, the Princess of Wales Theatre.

00:45:47.960 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.

TRIGGERnometry - January 05, 2020

Emily Molli： Independent Journalism and the Hong Kong Protests

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