True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber

Tom Martin and I discuss top stories for the week prior and examine them from a "true journalsim" perspective, focusing on fact-based, non biased and truthful presentation of this news as well as cover historical journalism principles and approaches, e.g.., prior to the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine, which required journalists to speak the truth, which spawned the propaganda channels like Fox "News" as well as their liberal counterparts, MSNOW and others.

True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber is a news podcast hosted by Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber, with 23 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber hosts True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber, a news show with 23 episodes published.

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  True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber

  Episode 24 - Chasing the Story Four Decades in the White House Press Corps with Peter Maer

  Sep 25, 202649 min

  Peter Maer covered the White House press pool under six presidents and never took the access for granted. A network correspondent from 1977 through his 2015 retirement — first for Mutual Radio and NBC Radio, then 17 years for CBS News Radio — he covered every presidential campaign, convention, and election from 1980 through 2012, and won the White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award five times. This week he sits down with Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin to weigh that era of the press pool against today's — and to explain why, in his words, he has never witnessed anything approaching how this administration treats the White House press corps. The conversation moves from the shutdown of CBS News Radio after nearly a century on the air, through the shrinking White House press pool and the reporters this administration has frozen out, to the deeper question underneath both: what happens to accountability when access narrows and the audience for verified news keeps shrinking too. Maer, now retired and living in Virginia, recently published a memoir built from four decades of notebooks and press credentials. This is a conversation about institutional memory, not nostalgia — about what four decades in the press pool make visible when one reporter measures who used to get called on against who does now. Topics Covered The End of CBS News Radio: Maer reflects on CBS's decision to shut down its radio news division on May 22, 2026 — ending service to roughly 700 affiliated stations after nearly a century on the air — following Paramount Skydance's 2025 acquisition of CBS. CENTCOM Confirms, Then Denies, a Press "Disregard" List: A CENTCOM public affairs official told Intercept reporter Nick Turse he would be put on "a list of people to disregard" and confirmed the list exists; the command later said it keeps no such list. The Washington Post Reinstates Karen Attiah: An independent arbitrator ruled in August 2026 that the Post lacked good and sufficient cause to fire columnist Karen Attiah and ordered her reinstated with back pay, rejecting the paper's argument that her posts endangered staff safety. What Reuters Found in DC's Court Files: The White House credits the National Guard deployment with cutting crime, but a Reuters review of D.C. Superior Court filings found the Guard named in only about 1.3% of cases — 217 of them — while violent crime from January through mid-August ran roughly 4% above last year's pace. A DOJ Whistleblower on the Ivy League Investigations: Civil rights attorney Haley Van Erem's disclosure to Congress alleges the Justice Department's Title VI investigations into Brown, Columbia, and Harvard had predetermined outcomes; the department says she "did not work on university investigations" and stands behind their integrity. The Disputed Numbers Behind Federal Layoffs: OPM Director Scott Kupor says about 85% of deferred-resignation separations were never replaced, calling that "pretty good" for the program, while the Partnership for Public Service counted roughly 20,600 rehires into similar roles at an average of 1.4 GS grades lower in pay. About the Hosts Richard Schreiber Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution . His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always. Tom Martin Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous "I am not a crook" statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells. Guest: Peter Maer Peter Maer covered the White House for nearly four decades — first for Mutual Radio and NBC Radio, then 17 years as CBS News Radio's correspondent until his 2015 retirement. He covered six presidents, Jimmy Carter through Barack Obama, and every presidential campaign, convention, and election from 1980 through 2012. He is a five-time winner of the White House Correspondents' Association's Merriman Smith Award, a three-time Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame. His memoir, Chasing the Story: A Reporter's Journey to the White House , was published this year and anchors this episode's comparison of the press pool then and now. Our Mission True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

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  True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber

  Episode 23 - From a Motel Room to Oprah's Radio Network with guest John St. Augustine

  Sep 16, 20261h 14m

  John St. Augustine says a voice told him to go on the radio. By his account, he began in 1997 with five unpaid one-hour shows at a small station in Escanaba, Michigan, and in 2006 he helped launch the Oprah & Friends channel on XM Satellite Radio as a senior producer, coaching Dr. Oz and Jean Chatzky from guests into hosts. This week he sits down with Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin to recount the 1996 walk that came before his first broadcast — and to explain why he believes the inner voice most people drown out is the one worth following. The conversation moves from that walk, from Rapid River, Michigan, to Chicago and back, to his friendships with John Denver and Walter Payton and the kidney he donated to his daughter in 2002, to the question underneath it all: what a broadcaster owes an audience when dividing it pays better. He now hosts the Life 2.0 podcast and co-hosts Saints & Sinners with former WGN radio host Garry Meier, and he says he turned down advice to build a career on picking a political side. This is a conversation about listening, not shouting — about a broadcaster who tells his audience to figure things out for themselves in an industry he says rewards picking sides. Topics Covered The Walk That Came Before the Microphone: His account of walking from Rapid River, Michigan, to Chicago in 1996 with two companions, returning alone, and finding himself inside a recurring dream on the way home. Five Shows, No Pay, Sink or Swim: How cold calls from a motel phone led to a five-week trial in Escanaba, and how a guest appearance by Stedman Graham, which he says coincided with a new book, earned him more airtime. Human Math: His 2018 TEDx talk in Ontario, which converts a lifespan of roughly 78 years into about 28,000 days and asks how many remain. “Do You Know That Your Voice Matters?”: How a backstage conversation with John Denver in 1991 led, two years later, to an invitation to speak at Denver's Windstar event in Snowmass, Colorado. A Kidney for His Daughter: The 2002 transplant in which he donated a kidney to his daughter, and the unexplained experience in a ceremonial lodge in Michigan that he recounts in his book Phenomena . The Voice in the Edit Suite: His account of a 2008 Halloween taping when staff heard a voice speak a name later tied to a victim of the 1915 Eastland disaster, whose dead were taken to an armory later made part of Harpo Studios. Oprah, Oz, and Walter Payton: What he says he learned working with Oprah Winfrey, whom he sums up in one word, authenticity; coaching Dr. Oz for radio; and watching Walter Payton adjust to life after football. The Wire: A Pentagon proposal to exempt certain unclassified records from FOIA, the West Health-Gallup Center's 2026 finding that 24% of workers with employer coverage stay in unwanted jobs for insurance, and New Jersey's disclosure of 6,600 noncitizens registered through a system error. About the Hosts Richard Schreiber Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution . His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always. Tom Martin Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous "I am not a crook" statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells. Guest: John St. Augustine John St. Augustine is a Chicago-area radio host, producer, and author whose broadcasting career began in 1997. In 2006 he helped launch the Oprah & Friends channel on XM Satellite Radio, where he was senior producer for shows hosted by Dr. Oz, Jean Chatzky, and Bob Greene. He is the author of Living an Uncommon Life , Every Moment Matters , and Phenomena: Sacred Moments, Messages, Memories & Other Sh*t I Can't Explain . He hosts the Life 2.0 podcast and co-hosts Saints & Sinners with Garry Meier, and his career reflects a thread this episode explores: broadcasting that informs without telling an audience what to think. Our Mission True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

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  True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber

  Episode 22 - When a Machine Acts Who Answers With Larry Bridgesmith

  Aug 31, 202654 min

  Larry Bridgesmith spent more than thirty years representing employers in labor and employment litigation before deciding the courtroom was solving the wrong problem. An adjunct professor of law and coordinator of the Program on Law and Innovation at Vanderbilt Law School, and a faculty associate at Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, he has spent the years since pushing the legal industry to price for value instead of time. This week he sits down with Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin to explain why AI, more than any reform before it, may finally force that shift — and who answers when the decision being questioned wasn't made by a lawyer, or even a person, at all. The conversation moves from a Ninth Circuit ruling that found no existing legal framework for who is responsible when an AI shopping agent acts on a person's behalf, to a president's media company charging traders up to $100,000 a month for early access to his social posts, to courts now sanctioning lawyers for citing cases that generative AI invented outright. Bridgesmith, who this year became an advisor to the post-quantum cybersecurity firm Armored Quantum, connects all three to one open question: when a system acts on your behalf, who is left standing to answer for it. This is a conversation about accountability, not technology — about who bears responsibility when a decision gets made by something that cannot be sued, fired, or held in contempt. Topics Covered Who Answers for the Agent: The Ninth Circuit's ruling in Amazon.com Services v. Perplexity AI, which vacated an injunction against Perplexity's AI shopping tool and held that, on the record before it, it is the user — not the AI company — who is deemed to have "accessed" Amazon's systems, leaving the broader liability question for another day. Trading on the President's Feed: Trump Media's "Truth API" sells traders early access to the president's posts for up to $100,000 a month — which Boston College law professor Renée Jones told NPR looks like misappropriated information, and which Senators Warren and Schiff have asked the SEC to investigate as an "outrageous abuse" of office. A Government Contractor's 1.4% Tax Rate: A report from the Center for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research found that Palantir Technologies, one of the government's largest software contractors, paid no U.S. federal income tax last year, with a global effective tax rate of just 1.4 percent. The Hallucination Bill Comes Due: Courts have sanctioned lawyers for citing fake, AI-generated cases — $2,500 in the Fifth Circuit, $7,500 combined in the Southern District of Ohio, and $30,000 combined against two Tennessee attorneys in the Sixth Circuit for more than two dozen fabricated citations, per the ABA Journal. Harvest Now, Decrypt Later: Bridgesmith, who advises the cybersecurity firm Armored Quantum, describes nation-state and criminal actors already stockpiling encrypted legal, financial, and health data today so they can decrypt it once quantum computers are powerful enough to break it. Access to Justice by Chatbot: Bridgesmith says consumer AI tools, including Claude, are already letting ordinary people arrive at a lawyer's office understanding their own basic rights — a shift he argues could finally open up a justice system he says today serves mostly the wealthiest one percent. Billing by the Clock's Last Stand: Bridgesmith traces how corporate clients, armed with AI that can draft a contract in minutes, are pushing outside law firms to abandon the billable hour for legal project management and value-based pricing — a shift he helped pioneer decades before AI made it unavoidable. About the Hosts Richard Schreiber Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution . His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always. Tom Martin Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous "I am not a crook" statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells. Guest: Larry Bridgesmith Larry Bridgesmith is an adjunct professor of law and coordinator of the Program on Law and Innovation at Vanderbilt Law School and co-founder of DASH4Law DAO. He spent more than thirty years representing employers in labor and employment litigation before founding Lipscomb University's Institute for Conflict Management and later chairing the Tennessee Supreme Court's Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission. He now advises the post-quantum cybersecurity firm Armored Quantum and says he will soon publish a memoir on mediation and influence, tentatively titled The Life of Learning the Hard Way . His career sits at the intersection this episode explores: the collision between what the legal industry has always billed for and what AI now makes possible. Our Mission True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

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  True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber

  Episode 21 -THE DICTIONARY IS EVIDENCE

  Aug 28, 202650 min

  A federal case can turn on a single dictionary entry. This week, Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin trace a run of 2026 stories in which the underlying facts never moved — only the label attached to each one did, from a beach photo of seashells redefined as a threat to a war's death toll redefined by category. The conversation moves from Dr. Anthony Fauci's Fifth Amendment testimony before Senator Rand Paul, to a federal indictment built partly on a dictionary search, to a Pentagon casualty count that briefly dropped by four — three cases in which nothing had to be false for what the public understood to change. The Wire closes out the hour with five more stories that hold to the same pattern, from a paused media merger to a decades-old tariff statute revived for a new fight with Canada. This is a conversation about definitions, not deception — about how a category, a database entry, or a search history can move the story without moving a single fact. Topics Covered Comey's Dictionary Defense: Federal investigators building the case against James Comey over his “86 47” seashell photo searched FBI databases, ChatGPT, and Merriam-Webster for a violent meaning, then sought out former Gambino underboss Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, who said he didn't recall the term being used that way. Fauci Pleads the Fifth: Before a Senate panel chaired by Sen. Rand Paul on July 29, Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right more than 100 times, days after Paul released Fauci's private pandemic-era diary. The Pentagon's Missing Four: The Pentagon's public casualty tracker briefly dropped the Iran-war death toll from 18 to 14 overnight, removing four service members before they reappeared under a separate category; spokesman Sean Parnell called it a “data disruption.” Subpoenas Withdrawn, Reporting Intact: The Justice Department withdrew grand jury subpoenas for three New York Times reporters who covered security concerns about President Trump's Qatari-donated Air Force One jet, after a federal judge pressed prosecutors on their handling of the case. AI's Own Builders Ask for a Brake: More than 1,100 employees of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and Meta signed the “Pacing the Frontier” letter asking Washington to help build tools to pace AI development if needed; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg argued the opposite case in the Wall Street Journal. The Paramount-Warner Merger, Paused: Paramount Skydance agreed to freeze its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery until mid-2027 as a coalition of 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America pursue an antitrust challenge. Three Legal Theories, One Tariff: After the Supreme Court struck down the administration's IEEPA tariffs, Washington cycled through a Section 122 surcharge before landing on a 50% Section 338 tariff on Canadian goods, which Prime Minister Mark Carney says violates the USMCA. About the Hosts Richard Schreiber Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution . His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always. Tom Martin Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous “I am not a crook” statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells. Our Mission True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

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  True Journalism with Tom Martin and Richard Schreiber

  Episode 20 - Boiling the Frog_ How Propaganda Dismantles Democracies with Katya Soldak

  Aug 20, 202658 min

  Katya Soldak learned how propaganda works as a child. Editorial director of Forbes Media's international editions, director of the 2020 documentary The Long Breakup, and author of the December 2017 Forbes essay This Is How Propaganda Works: A Look Inside A Soviet Childhood, she was raised in Kharkiv at the end of the Soviet Union and has spent her career reporting on how manufactured stories move through a society. This week she sits down with Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin to trace that machinery from a single controlled party line to a fragmented algorithmic feed — and to explain why she considers the second version harder to live inside than the first. The conversation moves from her Soviet childhood, to the Russian influence campaigns she describes encountering across the international markets she oversees, to the fifth year of the war in her home country and the protests that followed Ukraine's dismissal of its defense minister. She is finishing My Kharkiv: Fortress of Solitude, a documentary about daily life under bombardment in the city where she grew up, and she argues that a film outlasts a news cycle in a way her own daily war digest cannot. This is a conversation about method, not opinion — about how an information system can be taken apart gradually enough that the people living inside it do not notice the temperature changing. Topics Covered ● The Void Around a Senator's Death: Senator Lindsey Graham's July 11 death from an aortic dissection drew baseless online claims blaming Russia, Iran, Ukraine and Israel, which PBS News fact-checked — a case study, as the hosts frame it, in how misinformation fills an unexplained gap. ● Absence, Disclosure, and a New Bill: Representative Tom Kean Jr. returned June 30 after nearly four months away, disclosing a depression diagnosis. On July 16, Representatives Ritchie Torres and Seth Moulton introduced the Duty of Transparency Act, requiring notice of absences of 21 or more consecutive days. ● A Soviet Childhood, Written From Memory: Soldak on why her December 2017 Forbes essay had no agenda to defend — she wrote from a child's memory rather than an analyst's vocabulary — and why, by her account, it is still among her most-read work. ● One Party Line, Then a Million Bubbles: The Soviet Union ran one controlled line nearly everyone received. The Reuters Institute's 2026 Digital News Report finds 54% of respondents now use social and video networks for news, while trust in news on social media sits at 22%. ● New Limits on Foreign Correspondents: A Department of Homeland Security rule finalized in July will cap foreign journalists' authorized stay at 240 days, and 90 days for Chinese reporters. Soldak reads it as one more step toward closing off outside access. ● Ukraine in the Fifth Year: Zelenskyy's July 16 dismissal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov brought protesters into Kyiv's streets. Soldak, who says she travels to Kyiv and Kharkiv regularly, describes Western support as real but never sufficient — particularly interceptors. ● My Kharkiv: Fortress of Solitude: Her second Ukraine documentary, supported by a Documenting Ukraine grant from Vienna's Institute for Human Sciences, follows local artists and childhood friends living under constant bombing. She says she is still raising funds to finish it. ● Two Sides of the Coin: The hosts close on the July 16 primetime address in which President Trump claimed China had illicitly acquired 220 million U.S. voter files — data election-security experts told fact-checkers is routinely and legally available. About the Hosts Richard Schreiber Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution. His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always. Tom Martin Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous "I am not a crook" statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells. Guest: Katya Soldak Katya Soldak is editorial director of Forbes Media's international editions, where she also publishes a running news digest on Russia's war in Ukraine. Born and raised in Kharkiv, she directed the 2020 documentary The Long Breakup, which followed her family and neighbors through Ukraine's break with its Soviet past, two revolutions and war, and which aired in Germany on Arte as Das Ukraine-Dilemma. Her December 2017 Forbes essay on growing up inside Soviet propaganda remains, by her account, among her most-read work. She is finishing a second documentary, My Kharkiv: Fortress of Solitude, supported by a Documenting Ukraine grant from Vienna's Institute for Human Sciences. Our Mission True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

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