The World and Everything in It: February 6, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Convicted under the FACE Act and then pardoned by President Trump. We’ll hear one man’s story.

MYNRA BROWN, HOST: Also, asylum seekers are in limbo with new executive orders on immigration:

NAVARRO: So they decided to stay there on the Mexico side … nobody knows, nobody knows what's going to happen.

And a Deep-South conservative sets out to answer critics who say pro-lifers only care for the unborn.

PICKERING: You would think with a Republican super majority in the House and the Senate, that it would be a slam dunk. But it wasn't.

And WORLD commentator Cal Thomas on the rise of new media.

REICHARD: It’s Thursday, February 6th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

BROWN: And I’m Myrna Brown. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time for the news. Here’s Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump order protecting women’s sports »  President Trump welcomed a crowd in the East Room of the White House as he prepared to sign an executive order aimed at protecting women’s sports.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

He chose to sign the order on Wednesday to coincide with National Girls and Women in Sports Day. And the president welcomed many female athletes and their families to the White House to mark the occasion.

TRUMP:  We will defend the proud tradition of female athletes and we will not allow men to beat up, injure and cheat our women and our girls. From now on women sports will be only for women. [cheering]

The order reinterprets Title IX to make clear that only other biological females should be permitted to compete against women and girls in school sports.

Title IX is a section of civil rights law intended to protect women’s equal rights in education.

And the president added:

TRUMP: We're putting every school receiving taxpayer dollars on notice that if you let men take over women's sports teams or invade your locker rooms, you will be investigated for violations of Title IX and risk your federal funding. There will be no federal funding.

President Biden had sought to reinterpret Title IX in exactly the opposite way prioritizing transgender accommodations over women’s rights. Federal courts put that order on hold.

And numerous groups are vowing to sue over President Trump’s order.

Reaction to Trump Gaza proposal »  At the Pentagon:

SOUND: [Military band playing]

A U.S. military band helping to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wednesday was day-two of the prime minister's visit to Washington. Inside, Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth and the prime minister both highlighted the bond between the two nations.

HEGSETH: You have a long memory. We have a long memory. And may our relationship continue to endure. 

NETANYAHU: I truly believe Israel obviously has no greater friend than the United States. And I think the United States has no better friend than Israel.

The meeting came roughly 24 hours after President Donald Trump said he wants the United States to take control of the Gaza Strip and rebuild it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the move would help secure peace and safety for Israel.

JOHNSON: It's a bold move, certainly, far bolder than what's been done before. But, I think we've got to stand unequivocally, in an unwavering manner, as the whip said, with Israel, our closest ally and friend in the Middle East.

Democrats, though, are blasting the plan. Senator Chris Coons said “You can put me down as this is between offensive and insane and dangerous and foolish.”

Political battle over DOGE » Republicans and Democrats are also clashing over DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s an independent office led by Elon Musk that President Trump has commissioned to identify wasteful spending in Washington.

Democrats say DOGE is a nefarious, shadowy entity. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:

SCHUMER:  Democracy does not skirt the rule of law. The American people deserve to have a seat at the table when these important decisions are made.

But White House Press Secretary Karline Leavitt says the American people had a seat at the table when they elected President Trump.

LEAVITT:  He campaigned across this country with Elon Musk vowing that Elon was going to head up the Department of Government Efficiency and the two of them with a great team around them were going to look at the receipts of this federal government and ensure it's accountable to American taxpayers.

And the White House notes that DOGE cannot make spending cuts. It can only then recommend them to the duly elected president and his administration.

Sen. Schumer said he’s asking government employees to come forward with any complaints against DOGE.

DPS border numbers » The Texas Department of Public Safety is reporting a sharp drop in migrant encounters at the southern border. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: Texas officials say they’re seeing the lowest number of illegal immigrants at or around the border in years.

The DPS says it recorded just 446 encounters on Monday. Officials say that number is two to three times smaller than in President Biden’s final week in office when daily encounters in Texas ranged from 1,200 to 1,400.

The decline comes as the first group of Mexican National Guard troops arrived at the border. Mexico's president has pledged to send a total of 10,000 troops in exchange for the U.S. delaying tariffs.

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Vance at Religious Freedom Summit » Vice President JD Vance says the Trump administration is ready to stand up for religious freedoms.

He spoke Wednesday at the annual International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington:

VANCE:   Before he was elected president, John Adams observed that politicians, quote, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand.

He said religious liberty is not just about legal safeguards but also about fostering a culture in which faith can thrive.

And Vance said the Trump administration intends to do that, both at home and abroad.

He vowed that the administration will end what he called weaponization of government against religious Americans, including against pro-life groups.

And he said foreign aid dollars would be redirected to support groups that promote religious freedoms.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: confusion at the southern border as executive orders change U.S. immigration policies. Plus, a couple pro-life stories dealing with presidential pardons and rescuing abandoned babies.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday, the 6th of February.

This is WORLD Radio. Thanks for listening! Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up on The World and Everything in It: freedom at last.

Day one in office, President Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen pro-lifers. Some faced sentences of up to ten years for blocking access to abortion businesses.

Individual cases vary in the details— one protester received a three year sentence for livestreaming the effort. Another now pardoned person is an 89 year old woman.

TRUMP: Twenty-three people were prosecuted. They should not have been prosecuted. This is a great honor to sign this.

BROWN: One of those pardoned is Paul Vaughn. He was convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, passed in 1994. It makes it a felony to use, quote, “threats of force, obstruction or inflict property damage intended to interfere with reproductive healthcare services.”

REICHARD: Paul Vaughn received the good news of a pardon during a press conference with his lawyers and he joins us now. Paul, good morning!

Can you walk us through what led to your particular arrest under the FACE Act?

PAUL VAUGHN: Well sure is, I guess, a complicated issue at law. But we were at an event in March of 2021 and just a normal pro life event. We had sidewalk counseling teams out. I did not participate in the FACE activities, but we were doing sidewalk counseling and talking to people. I spent a lot of time talking with the police and, you know, babies were saved. A handful of people were arrested for sitting at the door, for criminal trespass, I think, was the official charge.

Fast forward 18 months later, and you know, I get the black booted Gestapo raid at my house, arrested at gunpoint in front of my children, with never having even heard that I was under investigation or did anything wrong. I wasn't arrested the day of the event. And, the FBI shows up with guns drawn, and that was my, you know, first exposure to and knowing that I was under investigation, I guess.

REICHARD: What personal or religious beliefs motivate you?

VAUGHN: I spent 10 years running from God, angry at God, and he had poured out an abundant amount of grace to intervene in my life and turn my life around. And so it's just that. It's just literally going and trying to be the hands and feet of our Creator to people that he created, that are in need and in a dire circumstance, in a tough situation.

REICHARD: Now did you believe at the time that you were violating the law?

VAUGHN: Oh, not at all. No, I actually, I mean, after 30 years, I was pretty well informed on the boundaries of the federal law and FACE law. And in fact, that was basically what I was I was informing the police officers, you know, kind of where the boundaries were on trespass and who, when somebody trespassed, who can legally ask the person to leave? Because you know you can't, the police just can't come arrest you for being on somebody else's property. For all they know you have permission to be there.So the expectation would be that you'd have, you know, the business, you'd have rights to be there and and so I ended up helping the police in that sense, I wanted to make sure they understood this was a peaceful group. They had Bibles, not bricks, and, you know, they they were going to be compliant and peaceful.

REICHARD: Now I know the FBI showed up unannounced at your house. How did the authorities treat you during and after your arrest?

VAUGHN: Well, the whole thing was a circus. The fact of the matter is, the way the FBI came in out of our local Nashville office, arrested me at gunpoint in front of my wife and children. They never presented a warrant, never presented any identification other than their little Velcro badge and and so we were treated very poorly and a gross amount of excessive force in the arrest itself. I had no idea how, how corrupt our judicial system had become. But having seen it firsthand, it needs some help.

REICHARD: Paul, did you spend time in jail?

VAUGHN: I did not, other than the day where I was arrested, processed in and held in the federal holding facility. You know, throughout that day, until I was arraigned, I did not spend any time behind bars. I was six months house arrest, and then I got off house arrest, January 2 and January 23’s when the pardon came down. And basically I had two and a half years of probation left, having already served two years of probation through the process as the punishment from the time of the arrest. Mary, this is something people don't understand as well— is we, we were we had to report to parole. I had to submit monthly financials. I had, I was restrained to the Middle District of Tennessee. I couldn't travel or go anywhere without permission from the government and and so in a normal Christian marriage, you have a husband and a wife, you have your children, and that's what you do make decisions with. But for two over two years, we had the husband and the wife and a federal agent making decisions for my family and and that's an egregious abridgment of freedom and of liberty and the principles that our nation is founded on.

REICHARD: Do you regret your actions, or would you do it again?

VAUGHN: Oh, absolutely, there's no regret I was telling our our church group this week, that I'm absolutely, 100% certain that I was where God wanted me, that he's orchestrated these events, they weren't of my own making, and, and that he's telling a story that he likes to tell, and, and he's he's good at telling the story, so we're just trying to be faithful to the narrative and see where he takes us.

REICHARD: Finally, what’s next for you? Do you plan to continue advocating on this?

VAUGHN: Sure, well, we have a unique circumstance here in Tennessee. We no longer have surgical abortion clinics, Tennessee has outlawed abortion. There's still a nationwide issue. There's still the heart of the people, right? There's still people that will end up in unwanted pregnancies and have crisis, and will need ministry and help, and to that extent, we're going to find ways to try to help them. And there's still chemical abortions. And so we are working with Personhood Alliance and other national groups and looking at ways we can help have good laws that produce freedom and help those in need and try to encourage them as well.

REICHARD: Paul Vaughn, thank you for talking with WORLD today.

VAUGHN: Thank you, Mary, good to be with you.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: uncertainty at the U.S./Mexico border.

President Donald Trump’s many executive orders quickly reshaped U.S. immigration procedures and policies after years of inadequate oversight under the previous administration.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Here to help set up our next story is WORLD’s Compassion reporter Addie Offeriens. She’s been looking into the recent U.S. immigration policy changes as well as talking with immigration experts and ministry leaders operating border shelters.

Good morning Addie.

ADDIE OFFERIENS: Good morning.

REICHARD: Lots of executive orders on immigration in the last few weeks, but Addie, let’s talk briefly about the Securing Our Borders Executive Order. You write in your recent story for WORLD digital about big changes to the asylum system. Tell us about that.

OFFERIENS: This executive order covers a lot of ground, but most significantly, in the order Trump ended the use of the CBP1 app, which allowed immigrants to schedule appointments to ask for asylum at ports of entry. So now, immigrants are uncertain whether they have any way to request asylum,and that lack of clarity has already been challenged in the courts.

REICHARD: You’ll hear more about that in just a moment.

BROWN: If you’d like to read Addie’s story on the border freeze, you can visit our website: wng.org or follow the link we’ve included in today’s transcript and show notes. Thanks for your reporting Addie.

OFFERIENS: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown is here now with this story from Addie’s reporting.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: It was 11 a.m. in Juarez, Mexico and 1 p.m. in Washington D.C., an hour after President Donald Trump officially took office last Monday. Asylum-seekers opened their phones to find their appointments at the port of entry into El Paso, Texas, had been canceled. Many had been in the queue a long time:

SOSA: They were waiting like about nine or 10 months.

Pastor Rosalío Sosa operates several shelters in Juarez.

SOSA: They were crying, waiting over there to see if they changed their mind. And most of them returned to the shelters because they really don't know what to do.

Sosa said a few of the immigrants have decided to make their way back to their home countries.

SOSA: But like 97% want to wait and see what happens.

He and other ministry leaders worry. Even though Trump’s border blockade may deter some illegal crossers in the short term, the lack of clarity about how the asylum system will function could push others into the arms of smugglers. And that could potentially increase more desperate and dangerous attempts.

SOSA: With this decision the traffickers, they are making a lot of money.

More on that in a moment. First a little background.

Trump’s executive order shut down a feature on a mobile app called CBP One. The app allowed immigrants to request an appointment at a port of entry and begin the asylum process. If they passed an initial screening, Customs and Border Protection officers paroled them into the country to await their hearing.

Former President Joe Biden created the virtual appointment system in 2023, and barred most immigrants from asking for asylum if they crossed between ports of entry. Customs and Border Protection issued a maximum of 1,450 CBP One appointments every day.

Critics of the system pointed to haphazard vetting procedures and documented cases of fraud. Here’s Missouri Senator Josh Hawley:

AUDIO: The inspector general actually did a report, a full investigative report, on this app and found that frequently users of this app were claiming the same addresses in the United States as their intended destination even though they didn’t know each other, they weren’t family connections. In other words, it has been completely abused.

Others argue many individuals were granted entry into the United States with asylum cases that wouldn’t hold up in court.

U.S. immigration law allows asylum-seekers to ask for protection once they step onto American soil. Asylum-seekers must prove they are the victim of targeted persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or social group. It’s a narrow standard, and many claims are not legitimate.

GONZALEZ: There's a lot of people, they just come to have a better life.

Juvenal González hosts asylum-seekers in his home in Tijuana, Mexico. It’s directly across the border from San Diego, California. He says some asylum-seekers are really just after a job and economic opportunity. But not everyone is trying to game the system.

GONZALEZ: Some of the people cannot go back because they've been persecuted.

That includes a Christian family staying with González who fled government persecution in Russia.

Asylum-seekers must present their case to a judge or, in some cases, an immigration officer. But because more than 1.5 million cases are backlogged in immigration court, immigrants may wait years before a judge is able to hear their case.

AUDIO: We will reinstate my remain in Mexico policy [APPLAUSE]

President Trump also reactivated the Migrant Protection Protocols, a policy more widely known as Remain in Mexico. It requires immigrants who request an asylum hearing to wait in Mexico until a judge can hear their case. But at this point, it’s unclear whether immigrants have any way to request asylum in the first place.

In one of his executive orders, Trump said a provision of the U.S. Immigration law gives him the authority to turn away anyone that may be detrimental to the interests of the United States, even asylum-seekers. WORLD contacted CBP to ask whether it would allow walk-up asylum claims at ports of entry, but has not received a response.

CORREA-CABRERA: It seems that there is no way to process asylum requests as of this time.

Guadalupe Correa -Cabrera specializes in U.S.-Mexico relations and organized crime at George Mason University. She says authorities on the Mexican side of the border are making it difficult for immigrants to access U.S. ports of entry.

CORREA-CABRERA: Migrants report that the National Guard, Mexican Enforcement….the Institute of National Immigration of Mexico is not allowing them to move further…there’s a lot of enforcement on the Mexican side.

Back on this side of the border, the ACLU filed a suit arguing Trump’s asylum lockdown violates the United States’ responsibility to protect those fleeing persecution.

CORREA-CABRERA: This is going to be decided in courts probably. The one judge is going to say something, and they're going to continue implementing some sort of program to process asylum requests.

The lockdown on both sides of the border and the uncertainty of what processes are available for those seeking asylum concerns Correa-Cabrera. She sees a troubling trend on the rise. She currently lives in Tijuana where she’s conducting research on human smuggling networks. When she talks with migrants living in shelters, she finds that some of them are unwilling to wait any longer.

CORREA-CABRERA: I have talked to people who are thinking about hiring a smuggler. They have been waiting for nine months, seven months.

From what immigrants have told her, she estimates smugglers charge an average of $1,500. But the numbers are all over the map.

CORREA-CABRERA: If you pay them enough money to facilitate that mobility, they're gonna find a way.

Still, some immigrants, especially families, aren’t willing to gamble a future asylum claim on a risky illegal crossing and are choosing to wait. Carlos Navarro, is a pastor in the border city of Brownsville, Texas:

NAVARRO: It's a high risk of being detained and not only that, but being deported the next day or the following week.

Navarro operates a respite center for immigrants.

NAVARRO: They don't want to risk their families. So they decided to stay there on the Mexico side without knowing, nobody knows, nobody knows what's going to happen.

In the meantime, Navarro says shelters like his must walk a difficult line.

NAVARRO: Show compassion, but also respect the government's orders.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Snowstorms are rare in Dothan, Alabama, but so are Krispy Kreme babies! During a rare six-inch snow blizzard, 23-year-old Sha’nya Bennett was in labor and headed to the hospital.

But her baby had other ideas in the Krispy Kreme parking lot. Audio from WTVY News: 

BENNETT: I couldn’t stop pushing and I just saw him sliding out.

Baby Dallas, nicknamed 'Glaze,' was born healthy. And get this: Krispy Kreme rolled out the sweet treatment: free donuts for a year and birthday parties for life!

BENNETT: I feel like superwoman, right? [laughs]

Definitely a superpower!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 6th.

We thank you for joining us today. Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Caring for the babies once they are born.

Abortion activists often say that the pro-life movement is focused solely on the unborn. But what happens when a woman and her friends set out to prove them wrong? WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson brings us this report.

KIM HENDERSON: The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022. That day on the court’s steps, abortion activists shouted in anger.

AUDIO: [Abortion activists chanting]

They also pointed their fingers at conservatives like Dianne Pickering, a district director with the Mississippi Republican Federation of Women. She’s a feisty, pint-sized blonde. She was watching the action in the capital from her home in Collins, Mississippi.

PICKERING: We're accused of not caring about the child after the child gets here. Well, yes, we do.

Pickering knew crisis pregnancy centers were already thriving all across her state. So she got on a different band wagon, joining hundreds of her fellow Republican women.

NEWS CLIP: The Mississippi Legislature gavels in for the 2023 session…

Pickering and her group lobbied for a safe haven baby box law. That’s different from the safe haven law that was already on the books in Mississippi.

PICKERING: You could leave a child at a hospital, police station, fire department, and not be prosecuted, but you had to be identified, all kind of questions asked…

With a baby box, the mother could remain anonymous.

The box is a sort of incubator/bassinet built into a wall. It allows someone to safely and secretly surrender an infant. We reported on the organization behind these baby boxes two years ago.

But even in the state where the Dobbs case originated, Pickering says they had a hard time getting the law passed.

PICKERING: You would think with a super majority, Republican super majority in the House and the Senate, that it would be a slam dunk, but it wasn't. It was very hard, because they felt like they had a law that took care of that.

But the baby box advocates had a slogan: No shame. No blame. No names.

PICKERING: I don't think that a lot of people understood that a woman in crisis is more likely to leave a child in a safe place when she doesn't have to be identified.

So Republican women from 21 counties pulled out all the stops.

PICKERING: Calling our legislators, going to the Capitol, texting.

The law passed in April, 2023. That August, Pickering attended the dedication of Mississippi’s first baby box at a fire station in Long Beach.

PICKERING: And that's the first time I had seen a baby box. You know, physically, a baby box. And I cried. [LONG PAUSE] It was very emotional. God loves these mothers in crisis.

Pickering left that event with a new goal. She wanted a baby box in Collins, where she lived. But where could they put it? She went to see Greg Gibbs, the local hospital administrator.

PICKERING: I said, “Greg, are you going to get us a baby box here in the hospital?” And he looked at me, and he said, “Well, are you going to raise the money?”

They needed $20,000. Pickering and her group of local Republican women got to work. Here’s Janice Bryant, the group’s president.

BRYANT: I think this was probably the easiest fundraiser that I've ever participated in. Within two weeks, we had raised $20,000.

And the wheels got rolling. Meanwhile, though, the unthinkable happened just a few hours drive away.

NEWS CLIP: Investigators with the Marshall County Sheriff's office are asking for your help after a newborn baby is found behind a dumpster...

The news broke Pickering’s heart. And spurred her on.

LADIES: There's a little baby blanket in here, a mattress pad with a blanket, and a little cap to put on their little precious heads.

Today, there’s a baby box on the exterior wall of Covington County Hospital, just west of the ER entrance.

LADIES: It's temperature controlled, and you can feel the warmth in there. Yeah, it's very warm.

The hospital dedicated the box last May. That was about the same time a woman who we’ll never know discovered she was pregnant. Seven months passed. It was December. Cold. Christmas lights sparkled in the small community.

AUDIO: [Baby box alarm]

David Culpepper, the hospital’s director of marketing and communications, was on his way to work when he got a call.

CULPEPPER: We've had a baby safely surrendered in the box. Baby is stable and being transferred. And that's all the information I get.

And even that information wasn’t released to the media until January. But still, Culpepper felt the weight of what happened.

CULPEPPER: There were a few fist bumps here and there. It's a joyous occasion, but at the same time, it's a sad occasion, because, you know, at some point, a parent has made that decision to place that child there and walk away and give them an opportunity.

That’s Dianne Pickering’s take, too. She’s in the dark about the baby, and she’s perfectly fine with it. She says that’s the whole premise—privacy. And she hopes critics are watching.

PICKERING: No woman in the state of Mississippi should feel that they're alone.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Collins, Mississippi.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, February 6th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Change is in the air for the news business. Here’s WORLD commentator Cal Thomas.

KAROLINE LEAVITT: According to recent polling from Gallup, Americans' trust in mass media has fallen to a record low. Millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets in newspapers to consume their news from podcasts, blogs, social media, and other independent outlets.

CAL THOMAS: When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced last week that the briefing room is now open to “new media” reporters, she was acknowledging the power and reach of these outlets…clearly demonstrated in the last election when President Trump made himself available to outlets that were ignored by the Kamala Harris campaign.

The “legacy media” are in decline and the new media are surging. Part of this has to do with evaporating trust in what many regard as biased coverage.

Longtime NBC news host Chuck Todd announced last week that he’s resigning after 18 years behind the desk. He cited the lack of trust as one of the reasons for leaving earlier than he’d planned…adding that the national media is ill suited to address the problem. But perhaps it’s not the industry’s fault. The former host of “Meet the Press” once said he would never have a guest on the program who didn’t believe in “climate change.” His liberal bias and unwillingness to question what he calls “settled science” may be one of the reasons Americans are distrustful of him, and the business.

Outrageous claims are another reason Americans distrust the legacy media. After last week’s plane crash. “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin blamed Trump and those who voted for him. These sorts of comments not only feed the anger of many anti-Trumpers, they do nothing to improve the credibility of the media, or increase their subscriptions, advertisers and ratings.

As reported by the conservative Newsbusters.com, “The leftist media began (the week) by attacking President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees and dumping on his (inauguration) moment. They then proceeded to libel Trump and Elon Musk as a bunch of fascist Nazis, while tossing final bouquets to Joe Biden.”

The legacy media’s unwillingness to report on inconvenient stories has further eroded trust over the last few years. The coverup of the Biden family’s business dealings, his cognitive decline, plus the infamous Hunter Biden laptop all top the list of stories the “mainstream media” buried…while trying to undermine the emerging alternative new media outlets as conspiracy theorists or MAGA loyalists.

The fact is, the legacy media created the opportunity for new media to expand its influence…giving audiences a place to go in their disgust. So the question now is what will the old guard do?

During other cultural transitions of the past there were die-hards who tried to keep the future from happening. There were those who resisted the transition from horses to motor cars. There were some who thought the telephone was a fad and that man was not made to fly. Some Hollywood moguls believed…or at least hoped…TV wouldn’t last.

The one constant among resisters to change is that they are left behind when change comes. This is a continuing problem for much of the legacy media. Most seem incapable of self-reflection and have an ideological view that resembles “eat your vegetables because they are good for you.” Their attitude seems to be that consumers of news should swallow whatever they offer, whether they like it or not.

This doesn’t mean the media should avoid questioning the policies and pronouncements of President Trump or anyone in his administration. Quite the contrary. What it does mean is that their approach should not be one of “he can do no right” when so obviously giving those who agree with them a pass. It also means when Trump and other Republicans succeed, that success should be acknowledged, instead of ignoring and moving on to new rounds of cynical questioning.

It may be too late for legacy media to redeem itself given the leftist bent of many within that cocoon. If they go the way of previous outmoded and irrelevant things, they will have only themselves to blame.

A free press is essential to a strong America. The arrival of new media may be journalism’s life-line.

I’m Cal Thomas.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Tomorrow: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Also, an account of how one of our recent stories proved to be the right word at the right time. And, singer-songwriter Charlie Peacock talks music and his recent memoir. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Thanks to each one who volunteered for our focus groups starting next week. We’ve gotten a lot more responses than spots available. We’ll be reaching out in the days ahead with the Zoom meeting specifics for those who did make it in. And if we couldn’t squeeze you into one of the groups, you’ll still have a chance to share your opinions in an online survey next month. So hang in there!

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.’” —Mark 13:33.

Go now in grace and peace.

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