Former Editor of the New York Observer Discusses "Fake News"

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with Ken Kurson, Former Editor of the New York Observer, to discuss his relationship with former owner of the Observer, Jared Kushner, and his take on the impact of the Trump administration and responsibility of the media.

2/1/18 #2108

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to welcome our good friend Ken Kurson, former editor, New York Observer. He's so much more than that. He is someone who understands politics, media, and thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me Steve. And by the way, describe for those who don't have a sense of the New York Observer, its place in the media landscape in this region. Well I probably have an outsized view of its place and importance, but the Observer is famous for punching above its weight. You know it was founded about 30 years ago to sort of be... they often described it... when the Wall Street banker, Arthur Carter who founded it as the college newspaper of the Upper East Side, but it grew way beyond that. And while... the five years I was editor, it actually grew to a national publication. That's right. And... because our publisher and owner at the time was the son-in-law of this guy running for president... Jared Kushner? Yeah. That's exactly right. Its influence and intrigue were beyond anything that I had experienced prior to that. You know, I told Ken, right before we started the program, that we always disclose when we're taping. We're taping during the holidays of 2017. There are so many things happening and changing around us every minute, forgot about every day. A quick description of Jared as a person? Jared was a... I'll give you a description of Jared Kushner as a publisher first, alright? He never got the credit he deserved, in my opinion, for what an excellent publisher he is. And as you're seeing now, the media experienced this, like, unprecedented wave of breakdowns, where it's under constant assault of being fake news on the one hand, and on the other hand there really is these, you know, these evidences of extreme bias and misbehavior and all kinds of bad content. I just felt that Jared paid a lot of money to run this thing, almost always let us do what we thought was best, and when, you know, when he had an opinion, he lobbed it in there, sometimes forcefully, but never was heavy-handed. And even the people who worked for him, the editors, my predecessors, who weren't personal friends with him as I have been, you know, they can attack his politics, they can attack his, you know, the fact that he's serving in the government now, but they really haven't been able to lay a glove on him as far as integrity goes. So let's... I'm always fascinated by your thoughts on bigger picture questions like the relationship between the media... not a monolithic entity, including those of..."