The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 59 – Todd Starnes

Episode 59: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Dr. Jeff interviews journalist Todd Starnes at the National Religious Broadcasters Conference. Their conversation covers Starnes’ entry into journalism, his experiences working at Fox News, and the significant lack of Christian perspectives in the national media. Starnes discusses the cultural challenge of subjective truth, the importance of applying a biblical worldview to reporting, and the need to raise up a new generation of Christian journalists. He concludes by offering practical advice on networking, work ethic, and personal responsibility for aspiring professionals.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show. This show’s available on Apple, Google, Spotify, Edifi, Liftable, and wherever you get your podcast, please review the show and tell your friends about it. This is the show where I interview major thought leaders from many fields of influence to show how our worldview changes everything.

My guest today, I interviewed at the National Religious Broadcasters Conference. He received the Edward R, Murrow Award and the Associated Press Mark Twain Award for storytelling. He worked at Fox News Channel for 15 years, and now he hosts a three hour daily talk show, fittingly named the Todd Cast. As we were able to catch up, we had a fascinating conversation and I want you to welcome Todd Starnes to the show. Todd Starnes, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Todd Starnes (00:49):
Oh, it’s great to be here. You guys have quite the setup. Very nice.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:52):
It’s really fun. We’re at the National religious broadcasters.

Todd Starnes (00:55):
Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:55):
Usually we’re in a very quiet studio in Colorado and somebody is calling in and we’re doing it by video, but here we are live with crazy sounds. I hear the beeping. Somebody’s backing up a truck over here, people standing around.

Todd Starnes (01:08):
And a huge crowd. We had to plow through the crowd to get here and I’m like, oh my gosh. It’s like Amy Grant or Kirk Cameron here, but you’re the celebrity here.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:17):
Those are great. Those are great people and I can’t wait to meet them.

Todd Starnes (01:20):
I have one question though. Alright. What is the deal with the plant here? So is this like eucalyptus?

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:25):
You have to have a succulent in the shot. That’s just, that’s the rule for the show. Either that or a candle. Everybody who’s ever seen the show knows we have a candle in the shot, except for here, which, you can’t have a candle for fire reasons. So we got the succulent. I love it.

Todd, tell us, you are a journalist. People have seen you on Fox News. They’ve seen you through your website, your show. You’re very well known and around here, everybody knows who you are. They know that you’re a journalist who wants to tell the truth. I think a lot of the people in our audience are wondering, why did you become a journalist and how did you decide to go into that and why that to be a person who makes a difference?

Todd Starnes (02:13):
So when I was 13 years old, my dad told me, Todd, you’ve got to have a summer job. And he knew I liked to write, and so he took me down to the local newspaper. We had a weekly newspaper in our small town, and my first job was actually sweeping the floors at the newspaper. And so I worked my way up from the janitor as a teenager to when I was 16, I was actually covering city council meetings. I was the only reporter in town whose mom had to drive him to the city council meetings.

Dr. Jeff Myers (02:44):
A chauffeur to the city council meetings.

Todd Starnes (02:46):
But I was one of these odd ducks where I really didn’t, at the time, I didn’t understand this is God’s calling on my life, but this is really where I knew I was supposed to be. So as a young kid, I knew this is what I wanted to do, but what I didn’t know was where God wanted to put me in my comfort zone, small town, USA. I wanted to own a small newspaper in a Mayberry town in the south, but that’s really not what God had in store for me. And probably I was more surprised than anyone that I would ever end up in New York City at a news network.

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:19):
Tell us what that is. I mean, we’ve seen the show on Fox News, we know, but it seems so huge, but what’s it actually like to work there and to produce stories?

Todd Starnes (03:32):
It’s huge, like you said. I mean, it really is. For me, it was every day I walked into the building at 1211 Sixth Avenue, this massive skyscraper, and I’m just shaking my head. I’m like, I cannot believe that I get to work here. It was fascinating. And I think right away you realize that the stories you do make an impact. And so you’ve got to make sure you get all the facts correct. You make sure you get everything. Otherwise there’s going to be issues, there’s going to be problems.

But one of the things I discovered, though, even at Fox News Channel, is just how few believers there are in the national media. And that’s a big problem because a lot of people think, well, the media just, they hate Christians. I don’t think, necessarily, that’s it. Yeah, there are some, maybe folks at CNN. No, I’m just kidding. Not CNN. No, no, no. But I think they just don’t understand who we are. They don’t understand Christian worldview. They don’t understand those concepts of worldview. So it’s really out of ignorance that they cover us, not necessarily out of spite or hate.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:35):
Yeah. Okay. I wasn’t going to ask this question, but how do we change that perception? I mean, when I walk in the Fox News building, I have to check with security. It’s not like I get to walk in and say, hey, you’re misrepresenting what I believe. What do everyday people do?

Todd Starnes (04:55):
Well, we can support, first of all, if we’re going to change the culture of the newsrooms, that’s got to start at home. And so I think we have to raise up a generation of young Christians who are passionate about journalism and doing journalism the way it used to be done. It means supporting Christian universities that are churning out good solid journalists and have good strong journalism and broadcasting programs. So we’ve really got to get back to the fundamentals. It’s not something we’re going to change overnight. This is something that’s going to take a long time.

But the biggest issue in our culture is this idea of the truth. We no longer live in a society where truth is absolute, and so everybody has their own version of the truth, as Oprah said so famously many years ago. But the problem is, and I wrote a book about this, what happens when your truth conflicts with my truth? Whose truth takes precedent? Well, now we know the answer. No one’s does. And you have chaos in the culture.

Dr. Jeff Myers (05:48):
Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people see that. We talk about fake news, we talk about the mainstream media bias and so forth. Is all of that real? And if so, how do we discern?

Todd Starnes (06:03):
Well, it is real. And so I own my own media company now, and we’re very clear this is who we are and this is where we’re approaching the stories from. And that’s important for us. We are one of the few conservative websites in America that actually has an approval rating from the secular fact checkers.

And the reason why is, yeah, we’re conservative. Yes, we approach things from a Christian worldview perspective, but we do good journalism and that’s important to us, and it means making some adjustments here and there to accommodate their rules and regulations. But I want people to know, and especially pastors, they’re going to be sharing my information from the pulpit. I want to make sure they’re getting the information that’s factual and accurate.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:45):
Yeah. Todd, give us a little insight in how you do that, because I think the tools you use as a journalist might be tools our students can use when they’re in the classroom or in the workplace and so forth. So let’s take an issue, say, well, in the news, Russia has invaded Ukraine.

Todd Starnes (07:01):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:02):
Okay. You process that from a biblical worldview. What does that even look like? How do you get started?

Todd Starnes (07:07):
So for us, everybody seems to be focused on Ukraine. And yes, there are so many Christians in that country, but there are a lot of Christians in Russia as well. I think from our coverage, and this has been a big issue, is getting information that’s actually accurate.

(07:25):
In the first five or six days, we were getting these incredibly inspiring stories, courageous stories, bravery, and most of those stories turned out not to be true. The ghost of Kiev, the Ukrainian fighter who was blowing up air, it wasn’t true. The beauty queen who was wearing stiletto heels and holding an AR-15 mowing down the Russians, not true.

So for us, it’s important for the journalists here in America to understand, you know what? The Ukrainians are churning out propaganda, which they should be. If I was a Ukrainian, I’d be doing the same thing. But we have a responsibility back in this country to make sure that we’re not going to be stumbling our way into World War II based on inaccurate information. And that’s important.

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:10):
Yeah. Okay. But give us the process. Is there a step when you approach an issue, you say, okay, I want to look at this from a biblical worldview, step one, step two, step three. Do you have something like that?

Todd Starnes (08:24):
So for us, everything is based on knowing the truth. So we have an arbiter, we have a benchmark for what the truth is. And so everything we cover, and again, we’re sort of in a weird world because yes, we’re Christian, but we’re also journalists as well. And I’m an opinion guy, so they pay me for my opinion. That’s what I do. So sometimes I have to get a little, it gets a little crazy, and that’s a difficult thing. Sometimes I do a good job of that. Some days I don’t. My preacher normally lets me know, or the ladies on the wisdom night prayer circle.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:02):
Tell us what it’s like when you say something and people have this strong negative reaction to it. I think a lot of our students are in class, they’re thinking, man, if I speak up the professor, all of my fellow students are going to come down on me like a ton of bricks, and I’d like to see what can you do to help them? Tell us about when that’s happened for you and what it was like.

Todd Starnes (09:26):
Yeah, that happens a lot. And you do have to be prepared for the consequences, and you’ve got to be careful. Not every fight is a hilted Iowan, so you’ve got to be really wise in how you approach things. And you also have to do it in a gentle spirit. You can be firm, what was it? Adrian Rogers, one of my favorite preachers, said, we are to be civil lambs, but not silent lambs.

Dr. Jeff Myers (09:51):
Got it.

Todd Starnes (09:51):
And so many times, and especially out of this weird political cycle, we’re still kind of in the middle of where Christians have really been bullied into silence by fellow Christians. And I think we have to be careful about that. Just because you support a particular candidate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re supporting the candidate’s behavior, but maybe his policies. So I think we all have to step back and realize, hey, we can’t be fighting each other and beating everybody up. And the Christian Church has a black eye right now, I do believe.

Dr. Jeff Myers (10:24):
Is there a water cooler at Fox News where people stand around off camera and actually talk about things?

Todd Starnes (10:30):
No, that’s the weird thing. So everybody is sort of in their own world. I mean, unless you’re on a show with somebody, you really never get to see them. You’re either in your office or you’re out in the field somewhere. And the dirty little secret about Fox is that maybe 2% of the people there are actually conservative. But when you’re talking about evangelical Christians, folks like you and me, maybe 0.1%. So a very small demographic there at Fox. And that’s the way it is across the board, really.

Dr. Jeff Myers (11:03):
So there is a really big need for Christians to find out these good journalism programs that exist at Christian universities, attend them, support them financially, and move in. Is it even possible for people from those situations to get into a place like Fox News and how would they do it?

Todd Starnes (11:22):
Well, absolutely. As a matter of fact, Shannon Bream is one of the top anchors at Fox News. She is a graduate of Liberty University. I went to a school called Lee University, which is a Church of God school in Tennessee. I’m a Baptist, but I went to a Church of God. I’m a bapti-costal, so I don’t speak in tongues, but I can’t jump up here. So that’s a joke. It is a joke. Don’t send an email.

But Lindsey Keith, who is a news anchor on newsmax, she’s a recent Liberty University graduate, and on my national show we actually have a couple of Liberty students as well. So it’s absolutely possible. And the best part about it, I love sitting around watching all of my colleagues who went to Harvard and Yale, they’re up to the wazoo. Are we allowed to say wazoo? I don’t know their wazoo. We know they’re up to their wazoo in debt. And I got the same education, ended up at the same place they did for a fraction of the cost.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:15):
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Todd Starnes (12:17):
Well.

Dr. Jeff Myers (12:17):
In a place like Lee University, I taught at Bryan College for many years just across the river from there. But yes, for a fraction of the cost, you can get a biblical education and then you still have the opportunity. So people would start with an internship. Is that how that works?

Todd Starnes (12:32):
And that’s huge. And one of the things that students, and this was hard for me to understand, that networking is a very big part of it. So you can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t know how to network with people, if you don’t know how to make those connections, that’s going to be tough. But also teamwork and learning to work together as a team, it is really not about yourself. You’ve got to build others up.

And most importantly, and I’ve learned this in my career, is that you’re going to make mistakes. And here’s the problem. If you’re in journalism, you work at McDonald’s and you make a mistake on a Big Mac, nobody’s going to know you make a mistake. As a journalist, the entire country knows about it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:06):
Yeah.

Todd Starnes (13:06):
So my recommendation to young people always, always own up to your mistakes. Take personal responsibility, be the one to fall on that sword, and you’re going to build respect and trust in your newsroom, but you’re also, you’re going to learn from those mistakes. And I think people respect that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:26):
I’m so encouraged by this because I think when I was in college, Todd, nobody ever told me that I could do an internship in Washington DC until I had some friends come back and say, oh, we just did an internship in Washington DC and I thought, you can do that. I didn’t know you could do that. But there are opportunities out there and media organizations on Capitol Hill with other organizations that work in Washington, DC where you can actually go there and get these experiences and build your resume and build that network. Most importantly, as you were mentioning.

Todd Starnes (13:58):
One of my favorite stories. There is a fellow who graduated from Cal Baptist University, California Baptist University, and he applied for a journalism internship at Fox News Channel. And I recommended him, and it turned out he was also on his resume. He listed that he was real big into it and computers and all this kind of stuff. Well, when they were looking at those internships at Fox News Channel, they were looking over this guy’s resume and they said, well, we’ve got plenty of journalism students, but it’s the weirdest thing. You know how to do this coding that very few people know how to do. Would you be interested in an internship? He said, yeah, sure.

Internship is almost over. They bring him in, they say, we want to hire you full-time right now. He was like, I’ve got to go graduate. He goes, no, but don’t you want a job? But I’ve got to go graduate. So they said, alright, here’s the deal. You go graduate, there will be a full-time job waiting for you. He came back, worked at Fox News, ended up running the digital division at the Blaze for Glen Beck, and now is at Vogue Magazine. And this Christian computer nerd is hanging out with fashion models in New York City. Praise the Lord.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:03):
Man. What an incredible story.

Todd Starnes (15:04):
It is a great story. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:06):
Because he was willing to work, he was willing to do the hard jobs that needed to be done.

Todd Starnes (15:11):
That’s it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:12):
And then maintain his convictions in the process.

Todd Starnes (15:16):
Get your foot in the door, and once you can do that, look, and his testimony was his work ethic. And that’s the thing about Christians, is that we are supposed to have a strong work ethic to get in there, sun up to sun down, do what needs to be done. And people respect that, and they see that, and it’s something very unusual. Especially to have college kids showing up to work the next day and they’re not hung over. They’re coming ready to do the job.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:42):
That sounds so basic. It takes no talent to show up on time.

Todd Starnes (15:46):
Right, exactly. Right. That’s about 90% of it right there, just showing up. Right?

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:51):
Yeah. Todd, this has been fantastic. Thanks for coming on the show today.

Todd Starnes (15:55):
Thank you, Jeff. God bless you. Thanks for your ministry.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:57):
Special thanks to my guest, Todd Starnes, for joining us on the show today. You can tune in to the Todd Cast and visit Todd’s website at toddstarnes.com, toddstarnes.com. Because we live in the super fast information age, it’s easy to get outraged quickly, and that’s especially why we need patience and humility to make sure we’re acting on reliable information as we seek to understand the times in which we live and to act faithfully in response. Thanks for watching the show. We’ll see you next week.

Hey, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. It’s a podcast from Summit Ministries, summit.org. Summit is a nonprofit ministry that exists to equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview. For nearly 60 years, Summit Ministries has been training students and those who work with students to develop, deepen and defend a biblical worldview through life-changing conferences, thoughtful church homeschool and Christian school curriculum books, free online resources, and more.

(17:04):
If you want to live out a biblical worldview in today’s world and you desire to instill a lifelong faith in the rising generation, visit summit.org/the Dr. Jeff Show. For more information listeners, I want you to know that our podcast is on Edifi, which is a truly powerful app that brings together thousands of the best Christian podcasts in one place for your listening enjoyment. You can download it at edifi.app. Be sure to share this show if you have enjoyed listening to it and leave a review if you would, on the site where you download the show that helps more people know about the Dr. Jeff Show, and I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.