By playing, you agree to uListen's Terms and Privacy Policy and YouTube's Terms of Service.
Simon SinekWhy Good News Is Worth the Effort | Journalist David Begnaud
Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
60 min read · 11,893 words- 0:00 – 1:52
The Craving for Good News (And Why We Don't Watch It)
- SSSimon Sinek
Let's talk about good news, 'cause you and I have that in common. I think there's a craving for, of, of positivity
- DBDavid Begnaud
I meet it on the street every day. "I don't watch the news anymore. I can't stand the news. I only want the good stuff. I only want the hard stuff." It's what I hear all the time.
- SSSimon Sinek
But-
- DBDavid Begnaud
But it frustrates me because you say you want it, but you guys don't watch it in a way that meaningfully rates or meaningfully makes money.
- SSSimon Sinek
Fear is louder than hope. A story about a horrible murder is more, dare I say it, attractive than a wedding, for example. And for good reason. We're attracted to bad news because that fear, that paranoia helps us stay alive. At least it did in caveman times. And even though our world has changed, our biology hasn't. And news organizations exploit that for ratings, which is why I wanted to talk to journalist David Begnaud. For 20 years, David covered the worst days of people's lives as the lead national correspondent for CBS News, until it actually broke him. He walked away intent to tell the feel-good stories that unite us, or at least to prove that spreading good news is a worthwhile pursuit. And pursue them he does as host of Beg Knows America on CBS Mornings, and founder of Do Good Crew. You'd think because David and I are both optimists that this is a very mushy episode, but it's not, because I think the media itself needs to take more responsibility for the news it reports, and we got into it.
- DBDavid Begnaud
If you were running CBS, what would you do?
- SSSimon Sinek
If I was CBS, CBS News-
- DBDavid Begnaud
If you were running it
- SSSimon Sinek
But we talked about more than how we found ourselves in this mess. We also talked about how we can get out of it. If you like this episode, please remember to subscribe. This is A Bit of Optimism. [upbeat music]
- 1:52 – 3:00
How 20 Years of Tragedy Broke a Journalist
- DBDavid Begnaud
You went to Brandeis.
- SSSimon Sinek
I did.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And so I went to a school at the edge of the Brandeis campus, and I'll never forget, someone wrote to me saying, "David, there is a girl with autism who's," I think in the, she was in the second grade, "who has befriended and made a best friend out of our school police officer. You should come and see it." And they sent me the video, and sure enough, we went there, 'cause I tell the stories that kinda remind us of our shared humanity, where this girl who was non-verbal every day would run to the school's only police officer, grab his hand, and would walk around the playground while everyone else played, and she'd walk with him. And they would do nothing but circle and circle and circle, and she was his safety net and his safe place. Story got millions of views. But it was at the edge of the campus, and so I, it's as close as I came to your campus, but I remember this.
- SSSimon Sinek
Well, I'd like to say it's a pretty campus. It's not as pretty as some.
- DBDavid Begnaud
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
But it was home for me for four years. I liked it there.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
I had a good, I g- had a good education and made some great friends.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
A perfect segue, though, uh, 'cause you said you like to tell the stories that remind us of our humanity-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... our shared humanity.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Our shared humanity.
- SSSimon Sinek
You and I have that in common. I'm just trying to bring
- 3:00 – 8:15
Puerto Rico: The Hurricane That Changed Everything
- SSSimon Sinek
human back into everything, work, the way we interact in a, a somewhat less and less human world. Was that a discovery? Like, did you come to that as a cause, as a desire, as a cornerstone for your work, or was it a sort of an early decision?
- DBDavid Begnaud
I'm obsessed with the fact that most people can't tell their own story in a way that makes them feel like they did a good job, and I had somebody who helped me realize that the good Lord put me on this earth to use my voice to tell stories, and I'm grateful I found it. And I think one thing that I'm good at is helping people tell their story, so that's number one. Number two, I think I started doing what I do because I needed to see it, because I was becoming broken by what I was doing, right? So I was the lead national correspondent at CBS, and I was, you know I say that I've knocked on more doors of mothers whose kids have had their heads blown off at school than I can remember, done more massacres and mass shootings and volcanoes and earthquakes. I was able to compartmentalize it, Simon, in what I thought was a very effective way. I could go to the scene of a massacre and meet you for dinner and not trauma dump on you, and have a very enjoyable dinner. And then all of a sudden, it became too much. After one story in particular, when I went to Puerto Rico and I covered a hurricane there, and I think it became too much because despite my ability to guardrail around my intentions, meaning in journalism it is not your job to cross the line and affect change, but my heart always felt compelled-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... and called to do it. However, I had good boundaries.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And this hurricane in Puerto Rico made it to where I, I couldn't stay on the other side of the fence, and so I danced on that line. And then I came back and I said, "I'm exhausted. It's affecting my mental health. I've been pouring so much of my time and effort and joy and heart into this story, and I just don't wanna do the tough things anymore. I want to focus on the things that remind us of our better angels. I wanna go out of my way to focus on the things that plug into the same algorithm." I can't change Zuckerberg's algorithm, but what I can do is become better at triggering it the same way hate and rage does. And so that's what I spend my days doing now.
- SSSimon Sinek
So what was happening in Puerto Rico that made you cross the line, or was it just the straw that broke the camel's back?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hurricane Maria, 2017, September 20th. I went to sleep having broadcasted one report. So the storm makes landfall, and civilization as you know it on the island collapsed.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And I filed a report for the CBS Evening News, and it was two minutes and some seconds in length. Then I went to sleep.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like you always did after a massacre.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Like I always did-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... and I felt like shit, because I thought, "How do you convey how dire the situation is here in a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am piece?" And so because of the brilliance of one of my colleagues, who was a former United States Marine and was on our team as an IT professional, he had talked to the general manager of the hotel to get permission to get through the firewall to tap into the Wi-Fi so that if, God forbid, everything went down and the generator at the hotel could still provide the signal for our Wi-Fi, we could get word out, and we did. And so what I did was at about 9:00 that night, I picked up my phone and I started talking. Now, this is worth noting. I had spent a decade trying to build an audience on social media, doing everything I thought, had been told, all this bit, and I think I had amassed, like, 10,000 followers on Facebook. [inhales] And I posted a video that night in Puerto Rico. I don't even remember what the video said, but to the best of my recollection, I just dumped as much information as I could to people just to say what we were seeing on the island. And I woke up, and there was a message from New York by way of a walkie-talkie app called Zelle.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And New York said, "We're having people at the front door who are dropping off cakes and flowers and cards and asking us to get it to you. We're not sure what's going on. What's happening over there?" And I had woke up, and I think there was, like, 100,000 followers overnight. And what happened was a lot of people found this guy whose name they couldn't pronounce, Begnaud, my last name. There are eight million Puerto Ricans living on the mainland, and all of a sudden they found this guy who they weren't sure who I was, but they could tell that I think I had the best intentions and was moving with a sense of urgency to get the word out.
- SSSimon Sinek
But why, again, [clears throat] what was it about this news story that you reported it differently and were incapable of compartmentalizing that y- in a way that you had done so well previously? Was it something particular about this, or was it just the straw that broke the camel's back?
- DBDavid Begnaud
I think it was this one 'cause the magnitude was like no other, and I felt a sense of responsibility. Even though every journalist from every organization was there, we were the only ones who had Wi-Fi, though I didn't know it, and we were one of the only ones who could get the word out, though I didn't know it. And so I just, in a fit of, "Screw it, I'm just gonna"-
- SSSimon Sinek
So it was a perfect storm-
- DBDavid Begnaud
"... dump"
- SSSimon Sinek
... bad, bad-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... fortune of phrase, but like, every-
- DBDavid Begnaud
I'm just gonna dump information, and it changed everything.
- SSSimon Sinek
So you became the lone voice, and you happened to have
- 8:15 – 9:18
The Advocacy vs. Objectivity Debate
- SSSimon Sinek
this epiphany at a time where you were the lone voice, so the reporting wasn't... It didn't sound like other reporters. It sounded, you were reporting with heart.
- DBDavid Begnaud
It sounded like an advocate.
- SSSimon Sinek
Can I play devil's advocate?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Please.
- SSSimon Sinek
Is that irresponsible as a journalist?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Of course it made a lot of people uncomfortable.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
But at the end of the day, I will never apologize for doing what feels like the human thing to do.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Never ever. If I am driving down the street and I see a man attacking a child, I will pull over, try to stop it, and call 911.
- SSSimon Sinek
Sure, of course.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I'm just gonna do that. If I am, and this has happened before, if I am covering a story, as I was in Houston, and a woman was walking out of her flooded home with the ashes of her husband, which were on the second story, and that was the only story that hadn't flooded-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... and she gets into the boat, and the boat gets to where we're going, and there's nobody to help her get out, I put the woman on my back and got her out.
- SSSimon Sinek
Of course, of course.
- DBDavid Begnaud
So that's as simple as it is for me.
- SSSimon Sinek
So I agree with all those things. Where I'm curious is w- if we go back to a time before we rated the news
- 9:18 – 15:00
When Journalism Became a Ratings Game
- SSSimon Sinek
and sold advertising on the news based on the ratings-
- DBDavid Begnaud
'Cause it used to not happen
- SSSimon Sinek
... 'cause it used to not happen.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I'm glad you're bringing that up.
- SSSimon Sinek
And r- and the reason the news was, let's be blunt, better, uh, is because it was, um, part of the deal of using the public airwaves that, you know, the, the, the, the, the government said to the media, "You can use the public airwaves to make money and make TV shows, and you perform the civic responsibility called the news in return for using-"
- DBDavid Begnaud
That's right
- SSSimon Sinek
... uh, for making financial gain off the public airwaves, and that's how it worked, and that's how we had people like Walter Cronkite. And you know this. It was the Iran hostages where everything changed, and they saw the ratings go up, and the executives went, "Wait, what?" When we started rating the news and treating it like any other TV show-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Mm
- SSSimon Sinek
... and selling ads on the news like any other TV show, there now becomes a financial incentive to make more people watch our news coverage over somebody else's rather-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Sure
- SSSimon Sinek
... than report the news. You know all this.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Sure, sure.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know all this. And so w- we know what bleeds leads. We know this. We know, uh, that being incendiary or political is good for ratings. We know this. Where I'm getting at is it is having an opinion, having a point of view, intervening as a person, like, "I'm going to help that little old lady out of the house. I'm gonna call 911," which is what human beings are expected to do.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Uh-huh.
- SSSimon Sinek
But a journalist, it's not a normal human being. A journalist has to dance the fine line. You said it before-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Who, who-
- SSSimon Sinek
... he has to dance the fine line
- DBDavid Begnaud
... who made those rules?
- SSSimon Sinek
I, wasn't that, wasn't that what you were taught in journalism school?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Who, b- well, sure, but who made those rules?
- SSSimon Sinek
Wasn't that established back in the Walter Cronkite days, that we, we try not to give our opinions, we try and report the facts as they are?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah, but, but sure, but I'm loving this exercise. I didn't give my opinion, right? Like, a storm made landfall-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... and devastated the civilization.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Remember, this is also different in the sense that it wasn't a political story, it wasn't a business story-
- SSSimon Sinek
Right
- DBDavid Begnaud
... wasn't even a controversial story. So this, in terms of advocating, and here's-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, yeah, yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... here's where people would ask the question. No one ever [laughs] accused me of advocacy.
- 15:00 – 16:42
The Fixed-Rate Solution: Removing Financial Incentives from News
- SSSimon Sinek
and this is the problem, which is if you sell... I have a solution for this, by the way, that nobody ever listens to me, which is-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Tell me, 'cause I haven't heard
- SSSimon Sinek
... I'll tell you, which is I think it's super easy 'cause all, it's all about financial- tell me how somebody's paid, I'll tell you how they'll behave, right? So if you wanna remove the financial incentive, all you do is each, uh, broadcaster, they don't even have to volunteer their entire broadcast. They don't have to v- their entire station. They could pick one hour per day, one program, and say, "We agree that we will sell advertising at a fixed rate that will not go up and down based on the ratings, so we can make money, but there's no financial incentive to get more people to watch. We sell advertising at a fixed rate, and that's it." And you can put, you know, a seal at the bottom of the program that this is a free press broadcast where it, there's no, there's no advertising financial incentive. And if you get multiple stations, multiple broadcasters to elect just one show, one hour that they agree, everybody agrees not to care about the ratings, I think the quality and the integrity of that reporting gets better because you remove the financial incentive.
- DBDavid Begnaud
So, uh, uh, what do the critics say to that?
- SSSimon Sinek
Nobody wants to do it because if you can squeeze it, why agree to a fixed rate when you can potentially make more?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
Like I'm saying, one program is all you need, and my belief is that if you did that and you remove the financial incentive, then the executives aren't involved.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
Then nobody's putting pressure on anybody, and the journalists in the room can report on the things they think that people need to hear whether they want it or not. And it might mean that the ratings go down, but the quality goes up. The other thing that I think, and journalists haven't taken accountability for this, made a huge mistake. It wasn't the journalists' fault. It was the executives' fault.
- 16:42 – 23:00
How Journalism Lost Its Way
- SSSimon Sinek
I remember this. I remember when the internet was young and coming alive and blogging became a thing.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Right?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
Now, to be a journalist, you traditionally had to study journalism. You obeyed certain accepted standards and practices, and there was a striving for a certain standard, right? That's what a, quote-unquote, "journalist" was, right? And then to be a blogger, you needed an email address and a Wi-Fi signal, and that was it. And so bloggers started, quote-unquote, "reporting," but they had no training, no journalistic integrity, no standards that they were upholding, right? And the biggest mistake that journalism made in this time, and I remember when it happened, instead of separating themselves, saying, "We appreciate the role of bloggers. They are there to give their opinions and do whatever they do. But as journalists, we obey, and this is what distinguishes us."
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm.
- SSSimon Sinek
But because blogging was a new thing, everybody got freaked out about it, and you probably remember this, and there was pressure put on journalists from the companies to start blogging. And the modern-day version was, "You better have a social media following." The pressure they put on journalists-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... to get on Instagram, get on TikTok, and-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... build your following.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Mm.
- SSSimon Sinek
Now, that's the pressure. Same, same, but back then it was, "You better start blogging." And so by bringing the journalists down- It elevated the blogger and said, "We're the same, 'cause we're gonna do what you're doing." I have no problem with blogging, but we, we blurred the lines of what journalism and blogging is, and journalism has only itself to blame. 'Cause it could have said, "We like this new technology, but as journalists, we obey different standards." But that's not what happened. And I think we now live in a world where we don't trust the news for all the good reasons, um, because the money's, uh, infected it, and I think we're gonna agree on this. I don't think journalism as a profession has taken an- any accountability in their role in getting us to this point. They're the punching bag, and they're very defensive, but this is a relationship of me as listener and consumer, and you as reporter. It's a relationship, and journalism as a, as a profession bears some responsibility for where we are now.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Well, yes, but here's the contextualization that's key and important. When Roger Ailes, and this is a story I was told, so take it for what it's worth. Somebody can fact check me on this. When he started Fox News, someone said to him, you know, "How are we gonna go get all the people at all the other networks?" And he's like, "We're not. [laughs] We're not gonna worry about those people. We're gonna go to the people who've been forgotten, who feel like they've been left out, ostracized in the middle of America, who have already tuned those folks out."
- SSSimon Sinek
Yep.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And he did it-
- SSSimon Sinek
To his credit
- DBDavid Begnaud
... from a business standpoint brilliantly.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
The problem is people watch Fox primetime like it's the news, and what ends up happening is the actual news is not being consumed for what it is.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, but by the way, that happens on the left, too.
- DBDavid Begnaud
100%.
- SSSimon Sinek
I mean, M- MSNBC is Fox for liberals, you know?
- DBDavid Begnaud
A thou- 1000%, but the bottom line is someone giving their opinion on the news is not the news.
- SSSimon Sinek
Is not the news. I understand.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And that, but, but that's a massive-
- SSSimon Sinek
But that's, that... Okay
- DBDavid Begnaud
... issue.
- SSSimon Sinek
Let's talk about accountability. That was Ted Turner. When you invent CNN, and you invent the concept of 24-hour news, there isn't 24 hours of news, right? And you gotta fill the airwaves, and there's only so many times you can repeat a story, but that's how they used to fill it in the early days. They used to repeat it, and you just turn it off, and you're like, "I've seen this already four times." And so you gotta start filling the airwaves, and so you start filling with then entertainment, news ortainment, which turns out because it is news ortaining, kind of more fun to watch than the news. Because people are yelling at each other and screaming bloody murder about something that happened, making mountains out of molehills. It's unbelievably entertaining, which is good for ratings, which is good for advertising, which is good for money, and so all of a sudden you have 23 hours [laughs] worth of news ortainment and one hour of news. [laughs]
- DBDavid Begnaud
But here's what I would say. There's not a journalist at CBS News-
- 23:00 – 36:27
Fear Is Louder Than Hope: Our Caveman Biology
- DBDavid Begnaud
institutions like ABC, NBC, and CBS.
- SSSimon Sinek
ABC, CBS, and NBC have lost their positions on the mantle.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Listen, to some degree, 100%.
- SSSimon Sinek
I mean, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw. I mean, I don't think they've been replaced. I think they were the last of a generation, you know?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Perhaps, but I think that was also influenced by the fact that there was one place to get the news. And if you didn't read the newspaper-
- SSSimon Sinek
Well, there were a few places to get the news
- DBDavid Begnaud
... or listen to the... Sure, but if you didn't read the newspaper, you didn't listen to the radio, that was the only other place. I don't think Tom Brokaw, or let me, let me say, God rest his soul, Walter Cronkite. I don't know that Walter Cronkite could, could get a job in news today.
- SSSimon Sinek
I don't think he could.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I don't think Walter Cronkite could command the audience that he did. The audience-
- SSSimon Sinek
No, I-
- DBDavid Begnaud
... has been fractioned and cut up 100 different ways
- SSSimon Sinek
... the diffuse nature of the news and what has happened is definitely contributing. It's a contributing factor. But when I look at publishing or the music industry or the TV industry, how poorly they understood the internet, you know?
- DBDavid Begnaud
Mm.
- SSSimon Sinek
You know, it's embarrassing that Amazon invented the e-reader, the Kindle And not the publishing industry. It's embarrassing that Apple invented iTunes and not the music industry. It's embarrassing that Netflix that pioneered streaming or a new model of subscription to get our, our, our movies was a startup, and it didn't come from the television and movie industry or Blockbuster, right? The, the incumbents. And, and it's because they were too busy protecting their old business models, didn't really know how to wrap their head around how they could use this new technology called the internet. So it's because the publishing industry was trying to sell books, not trying to give people things to read. And if they were trying to give people things to read, they would've pioneered the e-reader when the technology showed up. It's because the music industry was trying to sell us albums and CDs and completely missed the fact that because the internet and MP3 players would change into a song culture. They weren't giving us things to listen to. They were trying to sell us albums. And I would argue that the news may be like those industries, is yet another industry that really couldn't wrap its head around how to use the internet to give people the news they need, but play defense until other organizations sort of became the iTunes, became the-
- DBDavid Begnaud
I, I, I think that's a very fair assessment. I just, looking at that, I don't blame anyone. I simply say it was inevitable. And again, I go back to, I don't think there's one executive in broadcast television who would say they were the best at handling the change.
- SSSimon Sinek
Okay, we're onto something here.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
I would love a journalist-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... an executive-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... to come out and say that.
- DBDavid Begnaud
No, but I'm, but I'm saying the best at navigating the cha... You gave the, you know, examples of the movie business and the music business. It's not because they wanted to fall behind. It's just because no one was at the helm who could see like Reed Hastings did when he started Netflix, right?
- SSSimon Sinek
I think it's because they had a warped sense of what their job was. They thought their job was sell albums. They didn't understand their job was give us music.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Sure.
- SSSimon Sinek
One is serving us, and one is serving the customer.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Sure.
- SSSimon Sinek
And, and I think when you have a product-centric mentality, sell more of what we make versus give people the thing that they want rather than sell them more of what we make, subtle but significant difference.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Look, I will tell you, as a business owner, it's easy, and I think you're a business owner as well. I have-
- SSSimon Sinek
To fall back on the numbers and the stuff and the silos. Yeah, yeah.
- 36:27 – 39:38
Protecting Your Peace After Covering Tragedy
- DBDavid Begnaud
Um-
- SSSimon Sinek
And was it because of Puerto Rico?
- DBDavid Begnaud
No, it's because of the culmination of everything. Puerto Rico was, it, it broke the camel's back because it was the time where I said, "I'm not standing on the sidelines anymore. I'm not standing back." The good Lord didn't put me on this earth to make the next 25 years of my life something that puts me behind the metaphorical line. Like, I'm not doing it. Like, that's a me decision, and that's why I absolved CBS of it. I went to them and I was like, "You can't let me do this."
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
"So love me enough to let me go."
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And to their credit, they took a risk, and we are still defining it as we go.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
We're still defining it as we go.
- SSSimon Sinek
Now, there's an irony in this conversation.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And it is?
- SSSimon Sinek
I spread optimism as a, for a living. The name of our company is The Optimism Company.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Oh, I know it is.
- SSSimon Sinek
The name of the podcast is A Bit of Optimism.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I know it is.
- SSSimon Sinek
And, um-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Are we not being optimistic?
- SSSimon Sinek
We are being optimistic.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Oh.
- SSSimon Sinek
I think, I can be cynical and optimistic at the same time.
- DBDavid Begnaud
[laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
It's n- I'm not Pollyanna-ish about these things.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Me neither. Me neither.
- SSSimon Sinek
But I do believe that the world tends towards good, and I believe people-
- DBDavid Begnaud
100%.
- SSSimon Sinek
What, what did, uh, what did Churchill say about America? He said, "You can always count on America to do the right thing after they've exhausted all other options."
- DBDavid Begnaud
Do you know where I've-
- SSSimon Sinek
And I think human beings are like that too. [laughs]
- DBDavid Begnaud
Do you know where I've accounted s- do you know where I have encountered some of the happiest people? On their deathbed.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- 39:38 – 46:22
The Stories That Make It Worth It
- DBDavid Begnaud
good question. Damn it. Ugh. Can I give you a story that sets my soul on fire?
- SSSimon Sinek
No, answer the question.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I don't have a good answer.
- SSSimon Sinek
[laughs]
- DBDavid Begnaud
I don't have a good... I hate getting stumped on a story, on a question.
- SSSimon Sinek
Then what's it all for? Then why is it worth it? You made a significant sacrifice.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Because the stories-
- SSSimon Sinek
You work harder
- DBDavid Begnaud
... I tell now-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... okay, the stories I used to do when I would knock on people's door, they would run or call their criminal defense attorney. I walk in people's houses now and they greet me with a hug, and they write to me and they say thank you, and they check in with me a decade later. At the end of the day, when the simplicity of life comes to bear on our deathbed-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm
- DBDavid Begnaud
... there are no complexities and no contradictions. Things tend to get real fucking simple.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Right?
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Okay? And so I simplify it.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And so for me, it's that simple, right? You can call me less intelligent than most. I don't give a shit.
- SSSimon Sinek
Tell me a specific story-
- DBDavid Begnaud
When-
- SSSimon Sinek
... that when you walked away you went, "Yep, I'm gonna wanna, I wanna keep doing this." Yep
- DBDavid Begnaud
... Miss Roberta Bell was a prison guard in Mississippi.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
When an inmate came up to her and said, "Miss Bell, I'm about to deliver my baby, but my parents can't take it. Would you?" And Miss Bell, who has a thick Mississippi accent, said she was into it, open, and interested. The warden found out, came to her and said, "Roberta Bell, is it true that you said this?" And she said, "Yes, sir. If the hospital calls and that baby's gonna go to Child Protective Services, I'll go get it." And he said, "Well, you're fired." And Roberta Bell, a week later, without a job, living in a mobile home on a rural lot in Mississippi, took a phone call from a hospital in Monroe that said, "Roberta Bell, your name is on a list. The baby has been born and you have 24 hours to pick it up, and if you don't, we will deliver it to Child Protective Services." That lady went and picked up that baby. Miss Bell is African American. The baby was white. She took that baby home and she raised that baby as her own for 30 days until the mother got out of prison, jail. The mother ended up re-offending, went back to jail. Miss Bell gave it back to the m-... Anyway, the story ends with the baby going into foster care, but the story ends with the baby actually going to the foster parents who were raising its biological sister, and so they will grow up together.
- SSSimon Sinek
Wow.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Miss Bell has been invited to be the godmother to the baby as part of the new family.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
We were able to come together and give Miss Bell some assistance that has financially supported her in ways-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- 46:22 – 50:12
Breaking the Rules to Do the Right Thing
- DBDavid Begnaud
what my old stories used to, which was tension and pain, right? Roberta Bell had the pain of saying, "I got fired because I did the right thing." And so you tell that story, and by the way, in fairness, Ms. Bell acknowledges she broke the prison rules. You can't be taking an inmate's baby. Like, why would they allow that? That doesn't make sense. She understands that they said no. I understand that they didn't want me to post the GoFundMe of a homeless man, but I authenticated it. That should've been enough, okay? Ms. Bell did the right thing. The principal did the right thing. And to your point, yes, I look for stories that have some difficulty.
- SSSimon Sinek
So is your message, do the right thing? Or is your message, if you're in a position of authority where you are tasked with upholding standards and enforcing rules, and somebody wants to do the right thing, find ways to support them and work with them?
- DBDavid Begnaud
It's all three, and it takes me back to the question I asked you at the very beginning, is who made the rules? At the end of the day, we as man make the rules.
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And I agree and fully support, and have said 100 times, Simon, I believe in the standards and practices of CBS News, and I will say it until my dying day.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
But at the end of the day, we need to bring sensibility-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- DBDavid Begnaud
... to situations where people can look at it on a case-by-case basis.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And my experience, more often than not, has been that they always do.
- SSSimon Sinek
Which you're-
- DBDavid Begnaud
And CBS deserves the credit for putting me in this position to be able to define a lane while working consistently with them to get it right.
- SSSimon Sinek
What you're talking about is one of the challenges we have in our modern social media world, which is everything's right, wrong, good, bad, black, white.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Correct.
- SSSimon Sinek
And the truth is always in the middle, and there's always nuance. And-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Complexity
- SSSimon Sinek
... and complexity.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Everywhere.
- SSSimon Sinek
What we're getting to is the intention of the law-
- DBDavid Begnaud
That's right
- SSSimon Sinek
... and enforcement of the law.
- DBDavid Begnaud
That's right.
- SSSimon Sinek
The law says no, uh, mechanical vehicles in the park.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yes. [laughs]
- SSSimon Sinek
They didn't mean electric wheelchairs, but technically You know? And so-
- DBDavid Begnaud
The law says don't speed over 55
- SSSimon Sinek
Right
- DBDavid Begnaud
If you're heading to Cedars and the woman's bleeding out in the backseat-
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah
- 50:12 – 55:49
Bearing Witness: Why Ignorance Can Be Your Superpower
- SSSimon Sinek
and it goes right back to your story, which is to bear witness.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I bring the journalistic principles to what I do with the Do Good Crew.
- SSSimon Sinek
But to bear witness, to bear witness, to say-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yes
- SSSimon Sinek
... to say, "I understand why you would think that, but let me sh- give you some context because I was there."
- DBDavid Begnaud
Okay, but let's go back to Puerto Rico.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, because I was-
- DBDavid Begnaud
That's what I'm telling you
- SSSimon Sinek
... I was there.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I was bearing witness.
- SSSimon Sinek
I mean, I remember y- you know, you talked about the, when the Gulf War kicked off and-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Ooh
- SSSimon Sinek
... what was his name was in the hotel room reporting-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Bernie Shaw
- SSSimon Sinek
... Bernie Shaw was in the hotel room.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Bernard Shaw.
- SSSimon Sinek
Bernard Shaw was, was in the hotel room reporting from a telephone, and he was bearing witness. Now, he didn't have all the context. He had one point of view, but he gave us a point of view that we didn't have.
- DBDavid Begnaud
That's right.
- SSSimon Sinek
And, and I think there's something to be said for bearing witness as opposed to I saw a post on Reddit or on X or on Instagram.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Well, and it's why we still go there. If you were to say to me, "What's the one thing you miss?" It's going there. But the thing that I also can't do after spending 200 days a year in hotel rooms for many years is I just, I abhor travel now. But the bearing witness thing, we still do that.
- SSSimon Sinek
I-
- DBDavid Begnaud
We still spend, in journalism, a lot of money to go there and bear witness.
- SSSimon Sinek
Yeah, but more and more, they're closing those, those-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Sure, because, because, yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... because of money.
- DBDavid Begnaud
It costs money. Yeah.
- SSSimon Sinek
So, so-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Yeah
- SSSimon Sinek
... I'm gonna make an argument that goes counter to my argument.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Okay.
- 55:49 – 57:51
The Long Game: Building Trust Over Chasing Ratings
- SSSimon Sinek
I think what we're talking about is short term versus long term, which is if it bleeds, it leads is good for short-term ratings, short-term readers, and short-term this. But over the course of 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, you have no integrity, and you have no following, and you, you have no trust.
- DBDavid Begnaud
That's right.
- SSSimon Sinek
But if you do the right thing as often as you can, knowing that you will make mistakes, and taking accountability when you do, if you stick to that, it may be a slower burn, but what you end up with is more integrity, more trust-
- DBDavid Begnaud
Hmm
- SSSimon Sinek
... and more honor at the end of the day, and at a, you'll die with a smile on your face.
- DBDavid Begnaud
We are born alone, and we will die alone. And the longer I live, I realize that I just need to be okay with my soul and myself, and I do that by doing what I believe is right. I may not always get it right, but I'm gonna work damn hard to try and get it right. I may not always be right, but I try to get it right, you know? And I work with a lot of people, Simon, in the journalism world who are very uncertain about where things are going-
- SSSimon Sinek
Hmm, hmm
- DBDavid Begnaud
... and are terrified-
- SSSimon Sinek
Hmm
- DBDavid Begnaud
... about whether they'll have a job. What's gonna exist next year? What's gonna exist five years from now?
- SSSimon Sinek
Hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
It's why I'm building a company.
- SSSimon Sinek
Hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Right? But the key for me is I didn't say, "Hey, CBS, you guys are like old-timers. Peace out."
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
I said, "Hey, what if we do this together?"
- SSSimon Sinek
Hmm.
- DBDavid Begnaud
And to their credit-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm
- DBDavid Begnaud
... they said-
- SSSimon Sinek
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm
- DBDavid Begnaud
... "Yeah, let's give it a go."
- SSSimon Sinek
They let you experiment with an MP3.
- DBDavid Begnaud
Let's give... There you go.
- SSSimon Sinek
In the record business.
- DBDavid Begnaud
There you go.
- SSSimon Sinek
David, thank you for coming.
- DBDavid Begnaud
My pleasure.
- SSSimon Sinek
What a treat.
- DBDavid Begnaud
This was-
Episode duration: 57:52
In the uListen app, the transcript lights up word by word as you listen. Get uListen
Transcript of episode clSxOnzLbVw
