My Trans Twitter Spat With J.K Rowling - Caolan Robertson
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
210.51411
Summary
In this episode of Trigonometry, we speak to journalist Caelan Kelly about her controversial interview with trans journalist India Willoughby. During the interview, India revealed that they'd called the police on JK Rowling and that she could be arrested.
Transcript
00:00:14.280
It's things like being able to buy partial shares with TD Direct Investing.
00:00:18.380
And tracking your spending and saving with TD MySpend.
00:00:30.680
During the interview India revealed that they'd called the police on JK Rowling.
00:00:44.840
And I think she's been driven to breaking point actually.
00:00:50.520
Naturally I think you just get drawn down more of kind of extreme rabbit holes.
00:00:54.480
It is seen on the left on Twitter as okay to call JK Rowling a c**t.
00:00:59.320
Because we don't see people as human beings on the other side of our politics anymore.
00:01:06.940
You are in the process of leaving Byline Times following a conversation that you hosted with India Willoughby.
00:01:15.740
Although it was a very different India Willoughby that came on our show I think.
00:01:19.500
And then there was a big spat with JK Rowling involved.
00:01:38.160
And I saw on Twitter that JK Rowling had misgendered India.
00:01:53.800
Hey do you want to come on Byline TV and talk about this?
00:02:01.540
Because I just thought this was a really newsworthy thing.
00:02:03.800
This is what I've been doing for the last four years.
00:02:09.600
There was not really an agenda or anything behind it.
00:02:12.740
And during the interview India revealed that they'd called the police on JK Rowling.
00:02:45.460
I contacted Northumbria Constabulary yesterday.
00:03:03.420
Deliberately knowing that that person is a woman.
00:03:06.500
And I am a woman regardless of what JK Rowling says.
00:03:09.300
I've been through everything that's required of me.
00:03:17.760
And it should be treated just as somebody calling a black person the N word.
00:03:26.980
Something I expected to get coverage in the press.
00:03:31.800
But it exploded way beyond anything I'd ever posted in my political life.
00:03:49.400
And then started personally attacking me for the whole day with 11 personal tweets.
00:03:57.640
And then literally was tweeting my response to the interview.
00:04:09.600
I questioned them about the rise of detransitioners.
00:04:12.320
I questioned them about some of the darker side of the trans community.
00:04:29.220
Like I've never been at the center of a culture debate like that before.
00:04:32.740
I've never had it where someone as big as JK Rowling is like personally attacking me.
00:04:42.900
Interviewing someone about something that they've done.
00:04:57.140
I've never spoken or gotten involved in the trans debate before.
00:05:18.360
And then the trans right activists were coming after me.
00:07:16.680
And I think she's been driven to breaking point.
00:07:23.420
With someone who's basically trying to get them arrested.
00:08:07.420
So I can't imagine what she's been going through.
00:09:00.280
And I've never gone against people like JK Rowling in the past.
00:09:04.080
I think it was an attempt to basically just shut that whole thing down.
00:09:08.600
She was probably annoyed at me for even speaking to India.
00:09:20.920
Of just being absolutely done with all of this.
00:09:35.040
As someone who's very much lived in the online space.
00:10:20.360
If they were just doing an interview with someone.
00:11:40.740
And I think the algorithms keep pulling you that way.
00:11:42.700
And I just want to go offline for about six months.
00:11:52.240
Well I think most people that are really hyper engaged in Twitter that I know.
00:12:03.040
And feeling the same way that I've been feeling about everything.
00:12:29.020
Because it means that everyone now has the same platform.
00:12:39.160
The BBC are no longer in funding actual investigations anymore.
00:12:47.800
And have all these conversations between each other.
00:12:56.720
I think it's just caused everyone to go insane.
00:13:50.740
You know that that's going to generate more views.
00:14:07.900
So it didn't matter if they got more or less views.
00:14:17.240
It makes you feel like you have more of an impact.
00:14:52.020
That's almost the marketing tool you have to use.
00:15:41.460
Because they're saying more and more outrageous things.
00:15:49.380
To be the leader of who can say the most outrageous extreme things.
00:15:54.080
It doesn't necessarily mean it's always a bad thing.
00:16:09.700
I think there's a big role for personal responsibility.
00:16:14.560
If you put more outrageous things in the newspaper headline.
00:16:43.180
But I think the very nature of the trans discussion is such.
00:16:51.900
Without at least to some people taking a position.
00:17:30.080
Or whether you talk about India as a them later.
00:17:32.920
You have already made yourself part of the of the way the conversation is being had.
00:17:38.760
No I think if calling India as she is taking one side of the culture war.
00:17:42.300
And calling India as him is taking one side of the culture war.
00:17:44.780
Calling India as them is basically not referring to them as either of those things.
00:17:52.880
I think is the most neutral way that you can you can come at it.
00:18:01.480
I think it's the most neutral way that you can come you can come about it.
00:18:30.980
You might not agree with what those things are.
00:18:58.380
You know when Blair White was being interviewed.
00:19:13.060
But I'm not saying you're a man to India's face.
00:19:28.180
Because I'm supposed to be a journalist in this.
00:19:41.120
I'm not trying to get involved in the culture war.
00:19:47.020
Then the trans right activists would be annoyed.
00:19:48.780
And that's not the debate that I'm trying to get into.
00:19:55.420
I would argue your experience demonstrates otherwise.
00:20:15.280
That we're sitting down and having this conversation.
00:20:23.680
And what does I really say about society and journalism.
00:20:33.340
You're looking at people struggling to afford the basics of life.
00:20:43.520
What do you think is so incredibly toxic about this issue?
00:21:00.960
You can't talk about Palestine or Israel anymore.
00:21:27.860
Because people just expect you not to get into it.
00:21:44.460
It's become almost impossible to discuss anything on Twitter anymore.
00:22:02.000
Who I'll probably have friends for the rest of my life.
00:22:08.560
And they become incapable of even seeing the other side as human beings.
00:22:26.220
That I should never be able to be employed again.
00:22:31.220
Who engage in debates about things like immigration.
00:22:35.520
Who should be allowed to even exist or work anymore.
00:22:46.960
It looks like that kind of decline of civilization and society.
00:22:55.100
It's no better than the Palestine-Israel debate.
00:23:41.140
There is an unwillingness to be honest about a truth.
00:23:45.940
Which is not the case with Israel and Palestine.
00:24:05.260
And a lot of people just see that as dishonesty.
00:24:12.860
We have a value system that is to be overly polite.
00:24:18.660
So I think there should be a bit of a balance between.
00:24:23.780
Brutally honest and horrible to each other all the time.
00:24:33.320
That doesn't mean you deny facts and reality completely.
00:24:40.060
I don't think it increases or decreases the culture war anymore.
00:24:42.400
I think that's a nice British thing just to be polite.
00:24:47.840
I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
00:24:48.820
I mean you talk about that all the time with you know politeness and honesty.
00:24:51.500
But surely you know you acknowledge one of the great values about Britain is that we're
00:24:57.280
But I think the reason the trans issue is a little bit different is that the downstream
00:25:01.940
and this is it took me a little while to truly get this as well.
00:25:06.160
So I didn't necessarily start in this position.
00:25:08.060
But with the trans issue the difference is that by being initially polite you then have
00:25:14.100
a bunch of downstream consequences because you are not able to talk about people's sex
00:25:19.040
If you if you say this person identifies as a woman and wants to dress as a woman and
00:25:24.760
have a feminine name and whatever but is male that's fine because when it comes to single
00:25:30.060
sex spaces when it comes to female sports etc you go well we accept India's right to
00:25:35.140
be whatever India wants to be except in these situations where India is still male.
00:25:41.060
Well I mean it's kind of you can also draw a line.
00:25:43.780
This is like what people used to say about gay marriage.
00:25:45.440
Once we allow gay marriage then we'll be allowing people to have sex with animals.
00:25:48.160
It's like once we allow one thing then the rest is going to go.
00:25:51.240
Once we're polite to trans people then it will become more.
00:25:53.280
No sorry just to be clear so that we were talking about the same thing.
00:25:56.460
I'm not saying if we call India a woman then at some point later down the line things will
00:26:03.820
What I'm saying is the logical consequence in the present moment of not acknowledging that
00:26:09.020
India is male is India is then entitled to do things that India shouldn't be entitled
00:26:12.980
to do well that's right now like go into a female space like participate in female sports
00:26:20.620
So it's not about if we allow gay marriage then things will get even worse.
00:26:25.280
It's more like if we refuse to be honest about the truth now you're going to get Adam Graham
00:26:30.660
pretend that he's Isla Graham or Isla Bryson and end up in a female prison with a penis having
00:26:38.880
Yeah I mean this is also why I probably shouldn't really have gotten into this because you know
00:26:45.600
far more about this than I do and I've never really researched it this was just an interesting
00:26:48.900
story and I just wanted to get that perspective and thought saying then was it was an all right
00:26:52.220
thing to do I think it's why I'm so sad about this whole situation because I didn't have like
00:26:55.960
a bad intention but yeah I mean what you're saying is true.
00:26:59.640
Bad intention I'm just saying I don't think it's possible to have these conversations and
00:27:05.580
fudge on certain things because you're just not you're not going to get anywhere.
00:27:10.400
So you think I should have called India a man in the response?
00:27:14.120
No I there's I actually if you want to be tactical about it what I would have just said is India
00:27:22.840
Yeah that's how you might play it in that situation next time but but my point more broadly
00:27:27.920
is I just think this issue in particular is as contentious as it is because there's some
00:27:34.500
really key things that are being debated under the pretense of talking about the trans issue
00:27:40.380
and one of them is are we allowed to be truthful to prevent harm if it hurts someone's feelings
00:27:48.680
and my view after some consideration is yes we should be able to be honest even if some people
00:27:55.100
Yeah and and it's also as well then you bring in the whole kids element of it you know kids
00:27:59.760
of a certain age 9 10 11 begin given puberty blockers when the reality is they can't possibly
00:28:08.320
So what eventually happens with this issue is that people who aren't as aware of every facet of it
00:28:15.340
because it is kind of like an iceberg issue on the surface of it you go well we're just talking
00:28:20.080
about pronouns aren't we but there's everything else below and the moment people then walk into
00:28:27.140
this particular minefield they tread on something and they don't even actually know what's happened
00:28:35.420
Yeah it's true but I think I think generally it's yeah I mean that makes sense it's something I guess
00:28:40.840
I still don't know that much about yeah um but I can see how that would work but it's also why I
00:28:45.640
haven't really discussed this ever really on a show before or done any work about it because it's
00:28:49.580
extremely complicated and I just don't know you know it's not my area of what I've ever you know
00:28:53.840
studied or talked about but um the other reason that the bio that this may have happened as well is
00:28:59.980
I think it's the publication that you worked for which is I'm keen to get back to which will be
00:29:05.220
perceived by many people as being kind of far left certainly the publication side of it and so when
00:29:11.500
a that publication does a piece with India Willoughby people are going to put those two
00:29:16.480
two and two together and then they're probably not going to give you the benefit of the doubt of
00:29:19.940
this is a neutral interviewer trying to have that conversation so I guess the question is you're now
00:29:27.580
well no I'm I'm I'm basically going to just take a step back for six months because I've spent
00:29:34.040
far too long on the internet far too long on twitter and far too long with these things
00:29:37.680
and I'm probably going to go and start another network but for six months I don't know for sure
00:29:41.160
what's going to happen but I just want to uh get off get off the internet because I'm going to go
00:29:45.200
completely insane like uh like a lot of my friends and colleagues uh well I know you can't talk about
00:29:49.240
everything because you you ended up signing and yeah I'm just curious to some extent what it is that
00:29:54.860
caused you to leave I guess yeah without getting you in trouble without getting you in trouble I'm
00:30:00.760
just curious well I mean it's what you can say I think it's just that I became the thing that um you
00:30:06.100
know this was a mutual decision I became the thing that I hate which is which is a which is someone
00:30:12.040
that was at the depths of the of the culture war floor on the internet that called a really high
00:30:16.980
profile you know one of the most successful children's author in the world a cunt and and just can't
00:30:22.440
and I just you know can't continue to you know do professional content and be and be like a
00:30:27.800
I don't know it's not a good look but it's also just embarrassing and it's not who I actually
00:30:33.260
like am and have been for the last few years I focused on making great films and great content
00:30:37.700
and actually trying to add something to the public discourse and through being involved in this stuff
00:30:42.640
even for 48 hours became the thing that I've criticized for years and became the thing about you
00:30:47.400
know internet radicalization rabbit holes becoming crazy became that again it has just made me want
00:30:53.100
to just you know take a step back again for six months and reset but it's extremely um yeah it's
00:30:57.980
extremely draining it's difficult can I just finish one thing on this because I'm so I totally get all
00:31:05.620
that and people everybody makes mistakes everybody what I'm what I was curious about is sitting in this
00:31:12.740
chair only a few months ago was Lawrence Fox who said that he wouldn't shag a female journalist
00:31:19.740
and I wonder if he had called that journalist a putrid cunt whether the response would have been
00:31:27.600
as measured and mild as actually it has been with you you've been on both left and right in the media
00:31:33.720
and I'm I just I wonder look I what Lawrence said you know we talked with him about it and I think he
00:31:39.980
was actually not necessarily all that happy with the way we conducted that interview I thought we
00:31:44.220
were fair because I did think that what he said was I mean what you said was way worse yeah uh but
00:31:50.800
what he said was also out of line but I guess my question is do you think that if Lawrence Fox had said
00:31:57.960
that he would have been treated the same as you've been treated you know do you see what I'm getting
00:32:02.920
that do people on different sides of politics who make broadly similar kinds of transgressions get
00:32:08.240
treated equally no I think it is seen on the left on Twitter as okay to call JK Rowling a cunt because
00:32:16.480
we don't see people as human beings on the other side of our politics anymore right-wingers do exactly
00:32:21.980
the same thing to people on the left which is why they think they're all pedos and they should be
00:32:25.160
thrown in jail they don't see them as human beings and people on the left don't see people
00:32:28.220
like JK Rowling as human beings in a lot of ways as well so when I made that comment which I don't mean
00:32:32.640
and I actually always liked JK Rowling um the um uh the fact that I have been even in the last
00:32:39.380
couple of weeks at events I've been to or events that are left-wing told oh you shouldn't have
00:32:44.460
deleted it you were right anyway you know you're on the side was sad because I shouldn't have said
00:32:49.640
that people people were saying to you you were right to call her that yeah people on the left um
00:32:54.880
because that's what they think they don't see people like JK Rowling as human beings because we
00:32:58.920
don't see anyone on the other side of our politics as human beings anymore because of the atomization
00:33:03.380
of things like Twitter and because of the way that we converse in our politics anymore and that's that's
00:33:07.980
the most sad thing um and I didn't really know it was that bad until I tweeted that um but it's horrible
00:33:15.620
but it's the future of our politics this is how we're all going to start conversing and seeing each
00:33:19.080
other not necessarily this show and you guys you've been doing this for a long time and in a measured
00:33:23.840
and proper way you haven't been chasing likes and clicks but most commentators do and that's why I
00:33:29.460
think people are people are breaking down that's why we're probably headed for something like civil
00:33:32.720
war one day because we don't see anyone else as human beings who don't have the same politics as
00:33:37.960
us anymore. Kaelin I find that the fact that the people on the left would come up to you and you know
00:33:45.560
metaphorically slap you on the back for that tweet when the left always talk about patriarchy
00:33:53.100
misogyny and you're a man who called and look you apologize fine but you're a man who called a
00:33:59.820
woman a cunt and that's incredible. There's going to be so many bleeps in this interview. Yeah it is.
00:34:05.300
Because we want that YouTube advertising money thank you very much. Exactly and it sounds it sounds
00:34:09.840
better when I say it let's be fair the accent it gives it a little je ne sais quoi but that's deeply
00:34:16.580
misogynistic. Yeah because because it isn't about misogyny it isn't about who's right and who's wrong
00:34:22.720
it's about us versus them and it's about it's about us being divided and the good side and the
00:34:27.860
evil side and that's all we see each other as. It doesn't matter whether it's actually misogynistic
00:34:31.940
or not. There are countless examples of stuff like this I saw on the right with hypocrisy as well
00:34:37.380
there's also. Like what give us some examples. Well I mean it's you know we talk about right-wingers
00:34:43.740
talk about grooming gangs being one of the central problems in Britain but there's a huge problem with
00:34:47.180
sexual abuse and sexual assault being tolerated with figures on the right and that's very well
00:34:50.820
known by a lot of. Which figures? Well there's well there's a lot of members of the EDL who are
00:34:56.480
convicted who were who were who were who were all doing this stuff who had all their names and stuff
00:35:01.380
published who didn't really have any backlash from from those groups and then there are figures now
00:35:05.340
who are very high profile who are some of the most high profile people in the world who have been
00:35:09.440
who have been engaged in that stuff who who see it as absolutely fine and who's who's you know
00:35:15.120
the right basically have a tolerance for that stuff and. I have to be honest with you we've had
00:35:20.300
lots of people who are left and right of center and I obviously know lots of people we both do in
00:35:26.660
their circles I have no idea what you're talking about genuinely. Yeah you know I mean I can't go
00:35:30.680
into this because there's an active court case with these things but look there is also a culture
00:35:33.800
of language of people like say like people like Andrew Tate on the right who are. I don't know if
00:35:37.760
Andrew Tate is on the right I don't know if he's political I just well maybe you know more I don't
00:35:42.380
know. Well I think Andrew Tate is seen as a right-wing figure 100% who has said hugely
00:35:48.280
misogynistic things on his TikTok about women and treat women badly but then who will also talk
00:35:52.740
about grooming gangs being the biggest problem in the UK or you know how Islam is you know then his
00:35:57.180
colleagues and people like that will talk about how you know Islam is terrible because it's
00:36:02.560
misogynistic and hates women and hates gays when they're doing the same thing so there's a lot of
00:36:07.260
hypocrisy but again it's not about us it's not about you know misogyny or not misogyny it's about
00:36:12.120
you know my side versus your side and good versus evil and tribalism so that's why I think that's
00:36:18.160
why that stuff is happening with JK Rowling it's also the fact that you know we can't you know we
00:36:21.920
want to talk about how great it is to celebrate women in power and powerful women but a lot of
00:36:27.380
people on the left want to tear down the most successful children's book offer you know one
00:36:31.240
of the first female billionaires um for because she said a few things they don't like and that's you
00:36:36.180
know hypocritical as well so this it's it's it's again I don't really think any of this is really
00:36:39.800
about politics it's just about tribalism and hating people on the other side because that's
00:36:43.660
what gets clicks and that's who we've been you know taught to hate do you think how much of this
00:36:48.880
do you think is people's beliefs how much of this do you think is outright cynicism going for the
00:36:56.180
clicks and how much of this is people being manipulated in a sense by the algorithms by their
00:37:01.780
experience online to see people who disagree with them in that way well the people who propagate a
00:37:09.300
lot of this stuff I think are driven by clicks and likes and you know they'll they'll say anything
00:37:13.720
that will generate attention and usually replies to tweets get far more attraction than than a tweet
00:37:19.380
itself which incentivizes and encourages arguments and and takedowns and it's why everyone who writes
00:37:25.140
a tweet there's a one under it saying the opposite it's about encouraging people to to to constantly
00:37:29.780
constantly be pissed off and angry and argue with people so I think a huge amount of it is that
00:37:34.000
um but the second amount is it's our news feeds are entirely different from each other's now and
00:37:39.660
we consume 300 foot of news feed every day which you printed out would be the length of a football
00:37:44.200
stadium and that's how we form our entire world opinion we don't read newspapers watch television
00:37:47.960
anymore and that news feed is curated based on the political opinions that you already have
00:37:52.700
or they're driven to more extreme versions of those and that is how you perceive the world
00:37:56.860
and that is usually giving you only one version of an event in which there are two sides and that
00:38:02.420
will drive you more and more and more to see the other side as an enemy to hate them more whether
00:38:06.440
you're on the left or the right and it incentivizes that tribalism because it's very monetizable as
00:38:13.020
well I mean this is how these these social media sites are are designed and driven to be profit-based
00:38:17.300
and to keep you on there for as long as possible and a lot of the time it's not people's fault they're
00:38:21.880
scrolling through their feed they think that they're looking at the real world they think that
00:38:25.060
they're looking at news stories but they're seeing one more extreme version of an event and not
00:38:30.660
believing the other thing happened um you know it's even like when when these kind of hate crime
00:38:34.780
statistics will come out you know in 2016 and 2017 I would read constant reports on my feed that would
00:38:40.220
talk about hate crime hoax here the big hate crime hoax in America with that Muslim girl with a hijab
00:38:44.700
that was faked and it was all about fake hate hate crimes happening and I went to my friend's news
00:38:49.160
feed on Twitter around the same time and it was talking about the rise in hate crimes and how it's become
00:38:54.640
an epidemic and how since Brexit is going through the roof and the two news feeds basically contrasted to
00:39:00.260
one that said they didn't exist they were all hoaxes and one that said it was becoming an epidemic
00:39:03.880
those two things are the reasons that we just don't understand basically reality anymore and can't
00:39:09.680
stand you know the other side because you know if I said you know hate crimes aren't on the rise
00:39:14.020
people would think I'm an absolute monster you know supremacist or whatever but I would think that
00:39:18.520
because my news feed told me that so it's it's hard so how did you make that transition from moving
00:39:24.240
right to left because you worked with some pretty major figures on the right you worked with Tommy
00:39:29.600
Robinson Lauren Southern you did a bit of work for Alex Jones yeah I mean that's and then moving to
00:39:37.920
byline times that's that's a hell of a gear change isn't it well kind of if you look at everything I've
00:39:44.000
said publicly in the last four years I haven't said anything that is left-wing you know I haven't said
00:39:48.680
a left-wing opinion you know I haven't said anything about the trans debate on the on the left or right
00:39:52.440
I've said Brexit's bad because it's damaged Britain because I saw that in the steelworks and news reports
00:39:56.700
I did a lot of work in Ukraine talking about war crimes but it wasn't really going on the left
00:40:00.660
byline times as far as I can see it I don't think I know you disagree is a hard left newspaper it's
00:40:06.200
one of the only newspapers that exist in Britain that are funding original investigative reporting
00:40:10.380
they exposed the PPE scandal they exposed a huge amount of corruption in the government and they
00:40:15.520
also facilitated me to be able to travel across the UK and do on the ground independent journalism
00:40:20.080
across Europe actually yeah and and at a time where we're not doing that anymore so I I saw that
00:40:26.200
outlet as a as probably a solution to the stuff that I was seeing on the right which was one-sided
00:40:31.980
commentary and no original reporting I saw a newspaper that's actually funding real investigative
00:40:37.180
journalism and I thought it was a great place to go which it was I'm really proud of my work with
00:40:42.380
byline so obviously I had the TV set up the TV so that was a separate wing of it I wasn't closely
00:40:47.660
involved in in the paper and their editorial and their investigations but I carried out you know
00:40:52.780
I used to I used to get a notepad and go out and find original stories when the stuff was happening
00:40:56.420
with farming and trade deals in this country I'd get into a car and drive all the way up to North
00:41:00.340
umberland and find farms knock on their doors ask them how they've been impacted and then do reports
00:41:04.220
and come back to London with them and they would do really really well because my work on the right
00:41:08.080
as much as you know it was it was very very successful and it was getting a lot of clicks it wasn't
00:41:16.020
adding anything to um to actual culture I don't think was adding anything to to to I don't think
00:41:22.940
it was doing anything really helpful or anything really good it was just propagating right-wing
00:41:25.940
opinions and I thought going on the left and doing the same thing would be just doing the you know
00:41:31.120
be doing the same kind of damage no one actually gets anywhere from it it's splitting society just
00:41:34.400
as much in the same way so that's why all my work has been investigative journalism for the last
00:41:38.700
four years the problem was getting involved for 10 seconds in in the trans debate but the reason I was on
00:41:43.580
the right was because you know in 2016 everything was on fire Europe was on fire everything was
00:41:49.680
burning there was terrorist attacks every five minutes you had Charlie Hebdo you had the newspapers
00:41:53.760
being shot up and no one was talking about it in the media you had the Orlando shooting where 50 gay
00:41:57.840
people were killed by a Muslim extremist and then you had Owen Jones being the only person they really
00:42:02.760
brought on to discuss it and say it had nothing to do with Islam they didn't look at the ideology
00:42:06.380
behind it they didn't look at the the reason it was it was happening they didn't look at the Quran
00:42:10.360
not like when Christchurch happened and they broke down the entire ideology of the white supremacist
00:42:15.020
tutor and took action against that and I felt like there was a gap in the media that needed to be
00:42:20.320
filled with people having these conversations and discussing them so that's when I wrote to Rebel and
00:42:24.280
I got a job as a presenter there and I was I you know I was at the beginning doing pretty good work
00:42:28.380
it was about free speech why we're not having these conversations it was talking about Islam
00:42:31.420
but it was pretty moderate and it was genuinely something I thought was really really good
00:42:35.460
but over time there is an incentive to create stuff that is more outrageous within the rebel model
00:42:42.900
there was that system which is why I left and then I guess I became a bit of a victim of it too
00:42:47.540
working with those people of just making stuff for the sake of being controversial and at the end of
00:42:51.660
it it wasn't what I had set out to do originally which was to fill a gap of having real conversations
00:42:55.780
it was just putting out right-wing propaganda and that's kind of how a lot of those people operate
00:43:01.140
um so so that's why I left a lot of that I mean there are other reasons also it's it's it's
00:43:06.740
extremely chaotic there's a huge amount of backstabbing that's why they're still all falling
00:43:11.060
out with each other even to this day sounds like the left mate to be honest yeah no but it's like
00:43:14.740
well I mean left is a little bit more organized but I mean it was well it's a bit more sensible
00:43:20.120
you know you don't have the same chaos on the left than you do on the right right now with you
00:43:24.040
know with the Daily Wire falling apart with Daily Wire's not falling apart they just got rid of
00:43:27.940
yeah and look what's happening with you know Steven Crowder and Jared and that lawsuit all in
00:43:32.560
the same week I mean that is not happening on on the left on that same level it's interesting because
00:43:36.780
we have a running joke whenever we have a left-wing guest uh we always say to the guys don't if
00:43:42.180
they're running late setting up well don't worry he's on the left he's not going to be on time well
00:43:45.920
I'm not on the left but but it's interesting I mean our experience with left-wing people which
00:43:53.820
was our industry in comedy is there far less organized than people in the right but anyway
00:43:58.820
uh so I so I it sounds like to me that actually many of the reasons that you were attracted to
00:44:05.760
the right-wing space still are valid in your mind and that's kind of you still think those things are
00:44:10.860
important yeah I mean the the questions are still valid why didn't media cover this stuff we still have
00:44:16.700
a complete lack of of courage to be able to have any of the conversations that you have on this show
00:44:21.180
which is why this is so successful and BBC is failing because you're having the conversations
00:44:24.980
that people need and want to hear for society to continue to develop um but the answers to those
00:44:30.760
aren't making videos uh in no-go zones with Tommy Robinson in Rome they are having these conversations
00:44:36.160
like this and I think just because the solutions I found were wrong doesn't mean that the questions
00:44:42.100
um were wrong I still think those questions are valid I've always said that um it's just
00:44:47.300
and just so that people understand why isn't doing a video in a no-go zone why isn't that part of the
00:44:54.740
answer to show people what's happening on the ground if if if it's an accurate I think it's if it's with
00:45:00.720
if it's with a commentator who is doesn't have an interest in showing exactly what's going on and is
00:45:08.120
there with an incentment to cause chaos then it's probably not the most healthy way to do it
00:45:16.480
you know yeah so can you sorry yeah I'm not sure I do know just can you explain that a little bit
00:45:23.720
more like what do you mean well I think I think going to a uh a lot of the time my reporting with
00:45:31.220
people on the right was already decided what what would happen and then we would go and cover it just
00:45:35.500
to fill an agenda right um and that wasn't again for nefarious sinister reasons it was because we knew
00:45:40.860
that we get views and then we would be able to become more influential to have these conversations
00:45:44.340
but yeah that that's that's just not a healthy way to do it to start with with your answer and
00:45:49.860
and to work backwards to to go and film it and you know if you know if you're going to go to an area
00:45:53.300
and you know it's going to erupt or you know it's going to kick off or you know whatever's going to
00:45:57.480
happen and then you film that and act really shocked I just don't think that's a healthy way to
00:46:00.680
you know make news um yeah so the the other way to do it is where you go there and you don't have
00:46:07.720
an agenda and you just report on what you see which is what I did with byline for the last four
00:46:12.480
years that's why that's why I left the right and tried to do content and investigative journalism
00:46:16.720
where I would arrive in a country like in Kiev last year I arrived there and I had no agenda I
00:46:22.120
didn't know how extreme the war was and I didn't really know what was going on I wasn't covering
00:46:26.680
Ukraine at all but ended up staying there for three months going all the way to the front line
00:46:29.780
and spending months figuring out and speaking to villagers understanding if they actually wanted to be
00:46:34.060
part of Russia or not going down to her so I'm actually figuring out what's going on for
00:46:37.300
myself and developing a film um with no agenda at the beginning and that's that's I think that's
00:46:42.360
something that I've transitioned to it's not from the right to the left really it's from making stuff
00:46:46.960
with an agenda to making stuff without an agenda um and just because byline times is perceived as being
00:46:52.320
a left-wing newspaper doesn't take away from the fact that it still allowed me to do actual
00:46:59.140
investigative journalism which I think is important I think I'm just hearing between the lines that you
00:47:04.660
think that like thinking that something is a left-wing newspaper is like a criticism the new left-wing
00:47:10.960
newspapers are allowed to exist and a part very important part of the ecosystem because left and
00:47:16.300
right will naturally focus on different issues and some of the issues the left will focus on are also
00:47:21.100
very important um as long as they're being covered accurately and fairly which as I think we'd both
00:47:26.380
we'd both agree hasn't always been the case with left and right yeah so going back to the
00:47:33.000
investigative journalism bit one of the threads that I'm noticing more and more and we've talked
00:47:37.740
about a lot of journalism with this it's actually really worrying that investigative journalism seems
00:47:44.820
to be on the way out when it's much needed in society because it holds powerful figures to account
00:47:51.200
yeah it shocked me how successful my neutral reports were when I started with uh with the tv like
00:47:57.820
literally just going to a town going to a farm going to a steelworks that was closing down or the
00:48:02.820
honda factory that closed down in swindon and just asking workers why it had happened or what the
00:48:07.440
reasons were and getting their perspective and then putting it out we get millions of views and then I
00:48:11.620
would hear the next day that you know lewis goodall or or someone from the bbc had gone and tried to
00:48:15.460
find them and ask them for an interview because these institutions are no longer getting in a car
00:48:19.640
getting a notepad out and doing actual work a because it's expensive and these companies want to save
00:48:25.060
money they have boards all across you know channel 4 and itv whose entire purpose is to cut costs as
00:48:31.780
much as possible and in that they lose the first thing to go is always investigative reporting and
00:48:36.640
that's why we're not seeing actual trusted stuff come out of these news organization anymore there's
00:48:40.940
been a new hiring process that is getting rid of their old reporters and replacing them with
00:48:45.060
political influencers for their tiktok account so they can drive engagement which is only going to
00:48:49.740
make this worse news night as part of their cuts last year cut their investigative department
00:48:54.320
as well which was literally the point of news night there's going to be a debate show now
00:48:57.600
and that leaves a huge void in britain that we have of what the hell is going on especially outside
00:49:03.640
news studios in london like i remember going to um when i went to portal but the steelworks my report
00:49:08.680
there got something like four or five million views and it was why the plant closed down and i just spent
00:49:12.720
two nights there speaking to steelworkers speaking to some of the key leaders no one in the news really
00:49:17.860
understood why it was closing down they went there for two seconds and left or they did it from london and
00:49:22.240
i asked all these people who gave me these really profound answers have the news reached out to you have
00:49:26.080
you been asked for interview and none of them said yeah even the first minister of wales said he hadn't
00:49:29.640
been reached out to and that report was i think really successful because people in this country
00:49:34.800
want original investigative on the ground reporting and they're not getting it from their televisions
00:49:39.600
anymore um and and it's it's it's really really sad because the point of the media is to give us that
00:49:45.600
so that we can um we can understand what's going on in our own country which we don't um i think that's
00:49:51.720
i've been most proud of is that work whatever i do next whether it's uh with you know byline again or
00:49:57.100
whatever it is it'll be that because even though it's expensive it's invaluable and it's fulfilling
00:50:04.380
as well you're actually finding out something that's true and then putting it out in the world
00:50:08.240
that people didn't know about and if it's popular as as it can be then that you will generate the
00:50:13.740
revenue that you need to actually keep doing it as well yeah you don't actually need to be
00:50:17.380
you don't actually need to be outrageous or extreme or just say crazy stuff to get clicks
00:50:22.920
you can actually produce really really high quality good work and people want that just as much um i
00:50:29.540
think people now want it more which is why we've always taken that approach and um i i understand look
00:50:35.260
it's true what you say people always respond to incentives um but the the incentives are not always
00:50:41.560
clear there was a moment when you know there is a short-term incentive to be outrageous and get
00:50:47.340
clicks but what i think we've observed in the six times six years we've been doing this is
00:50:51.400
most of the people who do that they rise quickly and then they fall quickly yeah whereas if you're
00:50:56.960
true to core principles which is trying to get to the truth wherever it goes then people will over
00:51:04.040
time actually see that and even if they don't agree with every individual interview you've done
00:51:08.300
or a bit of reporting you've done they'll know that you are trying to get to the truth and they'll
00:51:12.160
respect it more and then they'll watch it even if it's not necessarily the thing that panders
00:51:17.720
perfectly to their particular opinion yeah i mean it's kind of how the world works if you put
00:51:21.620
something of quality out enough times and something that's actually valuable that you've considered
00:51:25.560
it will reward you and the world will you know be able to feel its value so that's that's already
00:51:31.320
important but it's also why so many commentators on the right and the left who are really outrageous
00:51:34.980
and who do say inflammatory things usually only last about two years yeah yeah um and then it's and
00:51:40.540
then it's over it's because really all they have is outrage and they're not saying anything of
00:51:45.520
substance so once i've delivered that whatever it is outrageous comment fine you can keep doing it
00:51:51.820
again and again but it's almost like a drug here then you're going to need to get more and more
00:51:55.600
outrageous yeah and then that's and then they get into problems but also yeah i really feel that
00:52:01.440
people now are craving things that are more substantive constantin did this amazing series where he just
00:52:06.600
went out and talked to people at israel and palestine that was great protest and he asked
00:52:13.400
apolitical questions to protesters and they gave his response and it was fascinating to watch because
00:52:20.560
you're there you're there seeing this piece of content and part of you is going this is really
00:52:25.040
interesting and the other part of you is going i haven't seen something like this in 20 years yeah
00:52:31.080
no i had exactly the same thought with that i was even looking at like who shot it who i was just
00:52:36.020
fascinated with the whole crew everything everything about how you did it because it was completely
00:52:39.880
original and it was similar to the work that i've been doing um but no one's doing it because a people
00:52:45.580
are very lazy you can just do a show behind your computer screen b it's expensive but c it's it's it's
00:52:50.480
hard it's actually hard work it's it's scary you have to go into crowds it's a different it's a
00:52:54.420
difficult thing to do but the not when it does happen it does happen properly it will cut through
00:52:59.400
it will cut through culture completely yeah which is very important no and it's great and i i think
00:53:05.540
the the main thing is to i hear a lot of kind of disempowerment in the way you talk about social
00:53:12.660
media and i'm just always wary of having that approach because i think ultimately we're all
00:53:18.320
responsible for yes twitter can drive you to the extremes but doesn't have to like i played around
00:53:24.720
with that dunking on people thing and all of that for a while and then i was like no i don't like
00:53:29.020
doing this um and i'd much rather get a hundred thousand new subscribers by doing a speech that
00:53:35.300
goes viral than i would by dunking on india willoughby or jk rowling do you know what i mean
00:53:40.500
yeah but you're i think you're very unique in that you're also smarter than most people i would say
00:53:45.040
most people are kind of passive and they're not engaged in this all the time and they just want
00:53:48.560
to get their news for an hour before dinner time and then they need to go to bed they don't have the
00:53:53.120
time and capacity i think to think through the processes like that i think they're they're consumers of
00:53:56.880
of a news feed that determines their their their world opinion and they don't have the time and
00:54:01.800
capacity to go beyond that or to even think beyond that um which is why which is why everything is
00:54:06.680
becoming more radical it's why when you go to those protests and you speak to those protesters and you
00:54:10.920
say well what do you think about hamas and they have no idea that they're even you know they have
00:54:14.720
right-wing views because they've never seen that on their feeds and they become radicalized to the
00:54:19.100
left it's universal it's it's everywhere it's why christmas dinner parties are now basically ruined
00:54:24.800
because no one can talk to each other than other grandparents um and but the solution to it is that
00:54:30.440
kind of work and i think is the kind of work i've been doing for the last few years but for the media
00:54:34.500
to do it as well yeah and it's also as well look just because something is easy and it gets clicks and
00:54:40.560
it gets an instant hit doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do actually what is more prudent is to
00:54:47.760
take the longer route work work harder and actually you're gonna get what you truly want
00:54:54.260
what you really because most people okay once you get over the cheap dopamine hit of when something
00:55:00.160
goes viral if it's not something you're really proud about it's not a good feeling no it's why it was hard
00:55:06.580
back in the in the days with with a lot of right-wingers because i became that person and was just making
00:55:10.940
stuff every day for clicks that was outrageous sometimes stuff that goes way beyond what i would believe
00:55:15.500
and it's just it's just bullshit and it's why i didn't it's why i didn't stay in it for very long
00:55:20.600
as well it's why the people a lot of people i work with don't really exist now because they were doing
00:55:24.440
the same thing but um yeah it makes sense one of the final thing to explore i found interesting
00:55:32.480
particularly the contrast that i brought up with lawrence is i think the thing that happened even
00:55:37.000
though i as i said i think what you said was much worse than what he said actually
00:55:40.160
you apologize very quickly and we live in an age where so many people think that apologizing when
00:55:47.440
you said something wrong is the wrong thing to do as you people were telling you that afterwards
00:55:52.140
i actually think your example shows quite the opposite which is if you said something wrong which
00:55:58.540
we all do everybody the best thing to do if you said something wrong genuinely that you regret is to
00:56:05.100
apologize straight away yeah and and then to just be like look i apologize that's it and people will
00:56:10.720
move on uh a lot of the time yeah and i think it's why i think it surprised jk rollings why she replied
00:56:17.720
three times to that apology saying like we all make mistakes please leave cain alone like you know it's
00:56:22.620
fine like i really appreciate this apology and i replied and said i'm actually really in awe of this
00:56:26.580
response this is really really respectful and gracious and there were so many people saying like that we
00:56:31.120
need more of this on the internet because it doesn't happen anymore but there was also a lot of
00:56:34.560
people on the left who are then furious at me and the place i was worried for um for for even
00:56:40.500
apologizing or for even those people though yeah i know but it just shows how sad how sad that is
00:56:45.060
because it's i think it was genuinely a good moment like a nice moment yeah that morning at like 8am
00:56:50.040
um but yeah but you know you're always going to get the ideologues on either side yeah you know the
00:56:56.960
people go never apologize for anything you're like really yeah i'm um i'm sure you're great to hang
00:57:02.280
out with yeah and the thing is as well as for so many of these people to your point about how the
00:57:07.000
internet changes people i go never apologize is that is that what you teach your kids never apologize
00:57:12.200
for anything because i don't think you do and with many of these people i've seen them with their
00:57:16.580
children and they're good parents i don't think you'd be teaching your children always double down yeah
00:57:22.300
that's just raising a mini trump yeah just but it's how we're teaching ourselves to behave now i
00:57:28.640
think going on twitter i think that actually is the attitude it is to never apologize it is to never
00:57:32.660
back down and it's getting worse as we get more of a feed from from the internet i think that that's
00:57:36.820
the core problem with it and again not seeing the other side as human beings and never apologizing to
00:57:41.320
them because they're not people are they they should be you know thrown in prison that's what they think
00:57:44.980
well there we go uh we're about to go to locals and ask you questions from our supporters but before we do
00:57:50.760
the final question we always end with is what's the one thing that we're not talking about that
00:57:54.600
you think we should be before caitlin answers the final question make sure to head over to our locals
00:58:01.120
at the end of the interview the links in the description to see this working with the right there
00:58:07.140
was a lot more people i was surrounded with who really believed what they were doing and they really
00:58:11.580
had a purpose a lot of people on the left are driven by personality and money a lot more how do you
00:58:17.760
manage your propensity for extremes is his question well i don't think what i was involved in was
00:58:22.640
extreme well i think working with alex jones is extreme well the one thing we should be talking
00:58:28.620
about yeah but we're not i mean i guess i mean i i just my whole thing is i think we should just be
00:58:34.000
doing more actual investigating and thinking for ourselves and we should be funding more investigations
00:58:38.900
and actually looking at what's going on in the world and we should all just get off the internet for
00:58:42.660
a while that's just my end that's my end philosophy with all of it perfect head on over to
00:58:47.100
locals where we ask caitlin your questions stay on the internet what's the best way to get someone
00:58:53.600
to seriously consider arguments from the other side