Democracy Now!

Until last week, Lewis Wallace was the only out transgender reporter at the public radio show "Marketplace." Then he published a blog post on the website Medium about journalistic neutrality and the challenges of being a transgender journalist who covers the current administration. Under the headline "Objectivity is dead, and I'm okay with it," he questioned whether people who hold "morally reprehensible" positions, such as supporting white supremacy, can be covered objectively, and he argued journalists shouldn't care if they are called "politically correct" or "liberal." "Marketplace" said Wallace's blog post violated its code of ethics. It suspended him for writing it and asked him to take it down. When he later republished it, he was fired. Lewis Wallace joins us to explain what he wrote, and why.

President Trump has selected Gina Haspel to be the new deputy director of the CIA. The Intercept reports Gina Haspel was directly involved in the CIA’s torture program under the George W. Bush administration. She was responsible for running a secret CIA black site in Thailand where prisoners were waterboarded and tortured. The Intercept also reports Haspel played a role in the 2005 destruction of two interrogation videotapes that depicted the torture of prisoners. We speak with journalist Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of The Intercept, which reported on Haspel's record at the CIA.