The Herald asked Associate Head of School for Academics Victor Lamas about mainstream and alternative media Lamas studied journalism and history at Washington and Lee.

KP: What’s your favorite news show?


VL: Okay, so I don’t watch as much as I do read. So I’m going to confess to a weakness. Is my the actual piece of the news site that I checked the most is called the Daily Mail. I love the Daily Mail. It’s, I think, an American version, but it’s a British tabloid digital one, and it is chock full of stuff, and I love it. So the Daily Mail is something that I read when, just to get, you know, the news I do consume. I do read the Washington Post. I check out. I do have a thanks to the school. I have some free subscription in the New York Times. And then I watch. I read, you know, I read stuff across the spectrum. I read the free press, right, which is Barry Weiss’s. I don’t think it was, it a sub stack. I read a lot. I subscribe to a lot of sub stack folks. I subscribe to the free press. This guy named Matt Taibbi, is this substack called racket, used to write for the rolling, you know, Rolling Stone magazine. And then really, I mean sub stack, I’m really interested in sort of like Narco, Narco states, Narco crime, things like that’s just, I find that fascinating. So I subscribe to a Mexican journalist named Ioan Grillo. His Substack is $5 a month. And he’s an investigative journalist, and he his beat is, is crime, global crime, mostly Narco, Narco stuff. 


MB: So, how did you like find yourself, like, drawing the Substack? Was it just like you just stumbled across it one day? Or you saw these guys, like migrating the Substack and you you went along with them?


VL: It’s a great question. I’m trying to I’m just trying to retrieve my memory. How did I first start? I think probably I started because even though, even at my age, I’ve always been interested in the news and reading news, but just out of ease, you start reading the same news on the internet. And so, you know, it’s described in magazines and things. So the internet is obviously an easy way to to now I’m going to click on this. Now I’m going to click on that. And so some of the I was interested in, some of the work that some of these journalists had done before. And so when I heard that they were going independent, I decided to check, check out their sites, and then then you have to make the decision. They draw you in, right? And you can read some couple of things articles for free, and then, boom, you run out of free articles, and then you have to put up or shut up. And then, am I going to put some actual money into subscribing to get the content? And for a few them, I did, but probably just the easy way was, I was I found them through the internet. You find a lot of stuff on the internet. Apparently, if you spend time on it right scrolling, you.


KP: Yeah, have you always been so interested in the news, or did that or has that helped your career? Like, what made you interested? Like, just following the news from so many different sources?


VL: My parents discussed world events, American events at the dinner table. My parents, my parents were big readers, and so they were very and so they talked about these things, and then they would often talk about the historical connections behind things. And so my brother and I were always interested in history and the news. So I think that’s an easy connection. And so I, I was a, still am, but as a year age, I was a, I was just, I loved reading. I read anything. If I was bored, I would read the back of the cereal box. So when you read a lot, you just read a lot, and a lot of that was also news. And being a teenager at that age, I also had strong opinions about stuff, so you always read a lot to just say stuff, right? So I’ve always been into the news, and how’s that helped me in my career? I mean, as a teacher, I think it definitely helps to be aware of everything, what’s going on. But I always try to be when I was teaching, I always tried to be careful about not expressing opinions in a way that my students knew actually how I felt about certain things, because I didn’t do it that way. But I love to read. I actually, at some point, thought I wanted to be a writer, and so I thought journalism was the way to go. So one of my majors in college was that one, one and but I ended up happily, ended up as a teacher.


MB: So you mentioned that when you were a teenager, you were very opinionated. You had strong opinions. So like, where did some of those fall? And, like, how did some of those register? What were some of those opinions?


VL: You’re not gonna get me to say those opinions. Nice try, though. I’ll say this in my in people probably think of where people are on the spectrum of certain a lot of issues. I found my it’s in some of the ways I felt at certain ages. I don’t know if I feel exactly the opposite now or I hear but you’d be amazed, maybe as you get older, so you’d be amazed how your opinions will change about stuff that you felt pretty certain about, you know, trying to think of, I’m trying to think of an example capital punishment. I used to have a very strong opinion about that, and then I veered on the other side, and now I find myself veering back a little bit to where I used to feel when I was young,
KP: just the more you’re educated, I guess.
VL: Well, yes, but now on the third swing back, it’s not so much education. Yeah, as I get older, in some ways, I am more certain about some things and far less certain about others, right? And one thing I’ll say, connect this back to the news, is one thing that I do find fascinating is reading the news. Is reading the point of view of with opinion stuff. It’s easy to know what the point of view of the person is, but actually reading what is often described as objective news, figuring out from what’s left out, or what’s in there, or the way certain words are chosen, what the point of view is of the writer reporting something right? Sometimes, when you read, how many of you read . . . the Washington Post, the New York Times? Sometimes, for example, you can see what’s happening based on what you think this person’s sources were right. If a person has anonymous sources and they’re saying things source and then you have a quote like ‘sources familiar said,’ or ‘people close to the administration,’ or ‘people close to the blah, blah, blah, blah.’ So, you can often figure out who is talking to the reporter and making themselves look good, and you know, and making the other folks as part of story looking bad, and the reporter has that source, right? I find that. I do find it myself reading the news and. And sometimes trying to figure out what it is that the writer is actually trying to convince me of, while trying to be objective,
trying to look objective. 

KP: I don't want to, I don't want to read the stuff that disagree, like, with my opinion, like they're proving me wrong. I don't my opinion challenged..

VL: there's a famous, there's a famous, there's this famous thing about, you know, bias. It was, I was like, in the ‘80s, I remember watching this, some person went to Harvard graduation, right? These super they're Harvard graduates, and they had told them, hey, we interview. And they asked a simple science question was, why do we have seasons, right? Do you remember why we have seasons? Do you know why we have fall and spring here in Virginia. It's based on what do you know? Don't be embarrassed, because I you know, isn't it like the rotation? It's either the access to the rotation, that's the tilt of the Earth, right? It's the tilt of the earth. And so when we're getting direct rays, it's summer, when we're getting indirect rays, it's winter, and then it's in between, right? That's it. That's it. That's all it is, because the Earth's tilted at 23 degrees and we're closer to the blah, blah, blah. So they asked this question, and a lot of these Harvard kids had forgotten that, and so they said, a lot of them said this stuff that other people often say, Well, it's actually in winter because the Earth is slightly farther away from the sun, right? And in summer, it's because the Earth is a little bit closer, right? Because it's actually not a, you know, and they it all sounds super smart, but it's clearly off. I mean, it's wrong, if you think about it, because then would it be winter everywhere in the world at the same time and summer, you know what? I mean, yeah. So they would say this stuff, they'd sound really smart. And then when a person, when the reporter, would say, you know, well, it's actually based on the tilt of the earth 23 degrees. And hearing that, the amount of people that would take that truth, that evidence, and say, Oh, wow, I was wrong. Thank you. Was very close to this, yeah, instead, what you would have is these people. They would make up all these reasons why. Well, maybe it's the tilt, but it's still this, and they would hold.
Were made waging, you know, like war all day, and it's really and he talks about the nature of existence and what he thinks happens when you die, and things that a person can work on to be a better person, like his diary. It was like a diary, but it's not even a diary of like, I did this today. I did that today. It's more like, maybe he had a day where he was snapped at someone, you know, and he was rude, or this, that, and then at night he's writing, it's like, come on, Marcus, you know. And it's really interesting. And a lot of people have read it and said that it has changed their it was a very famous American pow, is this guy named Stockdale. James Stockdale, he was, he was a pilot Vietnam War. He was shot, and he was held in brutal captivity for years, right in this North Vietnamese cell, until he finally was, I mean, he didn't have hearing when he left. He was just this physical wreck. But he never, he was tortured it, but he never gave his captors what they wanted, right? He never made he never said stuff against his country, his intermarried stuff. And he said one of the things that kept him going was that he had read Marcus Aurelius meditations. And he would, he would say some of he would just think about some of the stuff that he'd read in that book, you know. So I definitely think, at y'all age, books about philosophy or the nature of existence, why are we here? Is are really good, are really, are really, really good things to read. So those two man, that was a long one
today. Why do you think we're here?

VL: Why do we think why here all day. I don't think we come from I don't think we're just material. I don't think we're just atoms and stuff. I do think there's something, and I would hope that the purpose of life is to is to be, is to improve throughout your life. Take whatever you have, whatever you've been given, be it, if you believe it's God or some other folks, and with what you have to be better at the end than that. And I think that counts for an individual person as much as it does say for the human race.
As an avid history lover, how do you feel about current and like policies in place, trying to erase some history or trying to change it in a way
I gotta do traffic in a little bit. So catch me when it's 234,
okay, three minutes.

VL:I don't, I don't think that's that's often a tough question, right? So, like in some countries, or in this country, like, should we? Should statues have been erected, right? And then later statues are torn down. Or, Yes, or stuff that you know, this country, for example, this country has, this country is, is has, has its, you know, has its sins and mistakes and progress. So Should one. I don't think any of that should be erased. I think you should teach warts and all. I think the focus on the warts over the progress, I don't know how beneficial that is to to everyone. And at the same time, I don't think always focusing on the rosy stuff while ignoring, you know, mistakes or or sins and that stuff. I also don't think that's helpful. I don't think that any people or country or civilization, for the most part, has a monopoly on on evil or I think people, people used to be pretty rough to each other, more people. In other words, we actually live in the least violent time in human history. People used to kill each other and treat each other in horrible ways, a lot more than they actually do, even though, despite what you often read on the news and things like that, we actually live in the safest, most comfortable and least violent era in human history. I also don't think that people you are not you are not at fault for the sins of your fathers. So, no, I'm not in favor of erasing anything. Yeah, so like

KP: I, I remember my grandma told me this, which I think is an interesting perspective, because I don't think of it like what you just said about you're not at fault for the sins of your father's i. She told me that my grandfather, when he was alive, he didn't like going to Germany, just because he loved history so much. So when he went over there, he and whenever he traveled to country, he learned so much about their history, but he didn't like because he had learned so much about World War Two, it just made him angry, and he didn't want to go. And it wasn't like he just didn't like he just didn't like German people, because that it's not the same. They weren't the ones. The current people in Germany weren't the ones that did those things. And then also, like all the other countries have, like America, for example, we've had a fair bit of not great things that we've done. But like, you don't think that just because a country or people like have made bad history, it's really you should look at them or it differently, just because.

VL: So there's this, there's this that, yeah, there's this, actually, there's this writer. His name is TaNehisi Coates, and he wrote this thing where he said it is, he's talking about slavery. And he wrote this thing, I only read an excerpt of it, but he said it is kind of, it was a version of, it's either uncomfortable or disquieting to realize, as I read all this stuff, to know that if I had lived in that time period, I probably would have been accepted. I would have accepted slavery. I would have maybe had some etc. In other words, I would have probably, like most people, participated in the evils of of the era, right? It is. How many of us, when people are often asked, would you have done this back in the day? Would you have or would you have rebelled against it or spoken against it? Most people say, of course, I would have.

RRR: And just he is. He's probably the most famous outspoken person articulating a need for America to deal with its racist past, and his book is effectively entitled How not to be a racist. So it is a fascinating thing.

VL: And once again, I mean, what would people 100 years from now, they might look at all of us as utter barbarians, right? Like, for example, they might say we all used to eat meat, used to you all used to raise animals.

RRR: You saw climate change and did nothing?

VL: or all sorts of things. And, you know, and I like meat. But point is, it's also really hard to judge, to judge people, especially when 1000s or hundreds of years ago, 1000 years ago, people all over the Earth used to kill and mutilate each other all the time, and for the most part, humanity has made good progress towards we should pat ourselves as a human race on the back more than we do. We've gone in the mood. We We have effectively solved problems that people used to think would be with us all the time, or at least those problems are getting much, much less, right? We should also, we should. I also think we should celebrate a human achievement, progress, inventions, systems being developed. We should also, we should look at ourselves instead of like saying, Oh my God. We should also say, You know what? No, actually, we used to, we used to have to make fire with sticks and stuff and live in skins. And, you know, bear skins wrapped around and stuff. And now we send rockets and we explore. And, I mean, we're able to pave roads. We're able to have these devices that do all this stuff. We people don't suffer the way they used to. So we should also, you know, news once in a while, it's that's why it's often good to turn the news off as well and read books about lofty things philosophy. Why are we here? Right? That's also, that's actually in some ways more important. I got it.

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