Episode Description
A veteran LA Times correspondent on Trump’s assault on the press, the White House Correspondents' Dinner security scare, and the fight for truth in a fractured media era.
In the latest episode of the Sentinel podcast, former CIA Operations Officer Margaret Henoch interviews Bob Drogin, a 38-year veteran of the Los Angeles Times. Drogin describes what he assesses as the Trump administration’s unprecedented assault on the First Amendment: cutting NPR and PBS funding, banning reporters from the White House and taking over the press pool. He frames this against a backdrop of limiting FOIA access, targeting government data, and filing punitive lawsuits against major news outlets.
Drogin contextualizes this crisis within the brief "golden age" of journalism, the rise of billionaire press lords, and today’s fragmented media landscape. He discusses the White House Correspondents' Dinner security scare, and reflects on how AI and social media are reshaping (and threatening) the future of news.
Guest Info:
Bob Drogin spent 38 years at the Los Angeles Times as a national correspondent, foreign correspondent, and Washington correspondent. He covered intelligence and national security for more than a decade, later serving as national security editor and White House editor during the first Trump administration. He is the author of Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War, about the case for the Iraqi war made by the GW Bush administration.