Grace sits down with Will Folks, the founding editor of FITSNews, an online media outlet based in South Carolina. The two delve into the current American political landscape. They explore the origins of FITSNews, its commitment to diverse perspectives, and its controversial offerings. They also dive into South Carolina's political environment, its gerrymandering situation, and the need for judicial reform.

00:01 Introduction to Frogmore Stew

00:04 The Rise of Independent Americans

00:34 The Influence of Media on Our Beliefs

01:08 Interview with Will Folks, Founding Editor of FITSNews

02:06 The Accidental Birth of FITSNews

02:48 The Role of FITSNews in South Carolina

03:20 The Importance of Diverse Perspectives in Media

06:52 The Impact of Politics on Small Businesses

10:11 The Problem with Gerrymandering

14:35 The Need for Judicial Reform in South Carolina

18:47 The Role of School Boards in Education

19:01 Conclusion and Preview of Next Episode

Hi, it's Grace and this is Frogmore Stew.

Nearly half of Americans now identify as independent. Not necessarily because they're centrists or moderates, but because neither party truly reflects their views. We're all unique in our own perspectives and beliefs, and there are many things that influence how we come into those beliefs.

Our families, our peer groups, where we grow up, to some degree, our teachers and how much they expose us to, personal experiences, and the work we do as adults. Those experiences often dictate the news feeds that we hear and the specific topics and stories and perspectives we're exposed to. Especially if we only see a headline, it reinforces what we already think, rather than causing us to expand our thinking.

The media ecosystems we choose to live in reinforce us rather than inform us. So the thing about podcasts is that they allow you to listen to a deeper understanding of the context around someone's views. How we speak to each other makes a real difference. And on that note, this week I sat down with Will Folks.

Will is the founding editor of FITSNews, and in the time of local papers and news outlets shuddering, FITSNews is going strong. FITS is an online media group based in Columbia, South Carolina, that covers state politics and some pop culture stories, often with salacious titles and hot political takes and off the beaten path opinions.

His outlet was first to report on the Alex Murdaugh story and garnered national attention because of it. He's a soft spoken, funny, and certainly nuanced human. His take on many issues is pretty different from mine and maybe different from yours. I asked him about a variety of topical issues happening in our state.

I urge you to do what I did. Listen.

Will Folks, what made you want to start a media outlet?

I didn't. It's crazy. The site actually started accidentally. This was back in the days when political blogs were just starting and I was on one of these political blogs and was reading something that I guess someone had written about me. And this was back when I still really cared what people.

So I, I was responding very passionately to whatever this person had written and I hit the button to send it and I must've hit the wrong button and it took me to this page that said create your own blog in three simple steps. So I was like. I'm not very literate technologically, but I thought I could probably do that.

So I did the three steps and that's how it started just accidentally.

I said to you before this interview, FITSNews to me, it's a little bit of our South Carolina version of the New York Post. It's a little bit salacious, but it's also very informative and you dig up stories that most of the news outlets don't always cover.

It gives an insight from both lenses. It's not one size fits all. It's really human stories in a lot of ways.

Yeah. Hey, if they put salaciously informative on my tombstone, I could probably live with that.

I know from reading your paper that we likely have pretty different views on several topics, but I also think we have a lot of common views.

I wanted to ask you, what really influenced your political views?

I think the answer to most political questions is the wrong answer. For example, we start conversations like, do you like that politician or do you dislike that politician? For me, when somebody asked me, do you like my responses on what issue?

You know, I think we've gotten into this sort of space in our public discourse where dislike has taken a primary position in our minds, whereas what are they actually doing? What are they actually standing for? sometimes goes on the back burner. And I think the other thing that's troubling is you mentioned just a minute ago, Grace, that we've got things that we disagree on and things that we agree on.

And I think a lot of it is, where do you put your energy? And so on, on my media outlet, I put a lot of energy into putting into the public sphere, what I think, what I believe about certain things, but I also, and this is again, one of the things as part of maturing, I hope as a news outlet. Is trying to put more of a focus on, okay, if what I believe is correct and is as right as I think it is, it should be able to withstand intelligent argument from any different direction.

And so one of the things I'm most proud of FITSNews is that if someone submits something that is. diametrically opposed to what I believe, or is in fact very critical, we will publish it. And not only will we publish it, we're not going to bury it on page 39, like the Post and Courier, we will put it front and center exactly as prominently as what I said, because that's the only way I think that we are able to move forward with some basis of respect for each other's beliefs and So, I hope that the website does that.

I hope the website is viewed as an open microphone and a part of the marketplace of ideas.

And I think that sort of goes into why I started a podcast. I think that the way we speak to each other makes a real difference as well. And so you can read op eds and, but it's one sided typically. So on a podcast, you can really get into a deep, and you have a podcast as well, and you can get into a little bit more of the, the context around someone's views and really hear it in a way that isn't people screaming at each other, like on traditional television news.

That's true. Also, I would just want to say if you and I met, the first thing I would say to you wouldn't be, Hey, I'm a. political libertarian. I'd be like, Hey, how you doing? You know what?

I'd be like, you look like you like fireball. Will you take a shot of fireball with me?

Actually, what's crazy? I've been sober for 17 years.

Then that would make a really awkward first meeting.

I would be a great designated driver. Great designated driver.

Okay. So that goes back to like how we speak to each other and all of those things of talking down to each other and understanding things from different perspectives. Okay. There's a statistic that I read recently that said half of voters now see politics as a struggle between right and wrong.

And this sort of goes back to what you were saying. It's really about the individual issue, not necessarily about politics in general.

Yeah. I think we've made politics kind of a zero sum game, and that's unfortunate because there's so many things that, for example, A lot of the division, I think, is really stoked by people who profit from it.

And when, when I say profit from it, the first two entities I'm looking at are the Republican and Democratic parties. They exist to foment dissension, but increasingly, to me anyway, it's dissension at the margins. When I look at sound economic policy, I don't think it is partisan. I don't think it's ideological.

I think it's simply a matter of supply, demand, and are we doing things to either unlock those or restrain them? And so a lot of the work that I do journalistically anyway, is to try to break through these special interest strangleholds, because let's be honest, the, the corporate media, the mainstream parties, they are run by special interests and those interests are going to, they're going to frame these debates Um, in ways that often pit you and I ideologically anyway against each other.

What we don't see is that while that's happening, while we're arguing about this thing, both of our small businesses are getting completely screwed over by the same uniparty hacks. And so I think being a voice for those small businesses, individual taxpayers. Because I'll be honest, a lot of the Bernie bros are not that far off from the maga files.

I think there's a lot more common ground there. Both are searching for a populist champion. And I think both are very dissatisfied with this. The uniparty status quo debate we've got going not only in Washington, but also down here in Columbia, South Carolina.

And there was another thing that I read that said 90 percent expect that the victory by the other party will cause lasting harm to the nation, which is where we are right now that we've gotten so far away from exactly what you just said is paying attention to the individual bills and policies coming out of our.

Leadership and legislature and being focused on winning is like winning at all costs, that zero sum game. And I think the national noise is really making its way into our state legislatures, and we're passing bills that have nothing to do with problems that are in the state. It's just to satisfy. The national noise.

Oh, no, you're absolutely right. There's so much wasted oxygen in those legislative chambers. The crazy thing is we've got a ostensibly Republican supermajority in both the South Carolina House and the state Senate. You've ostensibly got all these statewide offices occupied by Republicans. And yet when it comes to the issues that Republicans are supposed to advance, be it.

Uh, more individual freedom, lower taxes, less government. They're doing none of those things. So we've entered this weird realm where, you know, what exactly are we arguing about when you look at the two parties? Because they're both, as far as I'm concerned anyway, different sides of the same coin.

It's Coke and Pepsi.

They're essentially very similar products, but they fight each other to the death. To your point of what our state legislature and top leadership looks like. Essentially, we've been gerrymandered to guarantee Republican control. And it's backfiring a little bit now because there's this wing of the party that is even further right than the leadership right now.

And I think that they have a chance to win a lot of races in these next state House and Senate races.

Yeah, I think you're right. And one thing I would want to point out, we talk about the gerrymandering issue. Let's be perfectly clear. It is a cooperative venture. One of the primary orchestrators of those unfair, and in my opinion, really unconstitutional electoral maps is Jim Clyburn, who is the arguably, not arguably, he is the most powerful Democrat in South Carolina.

It's a cooperative effort. And I think the problem is what you end up. And when these two, again, flip sides of the same coin, when they're looking out for their own interests, particularly their electoral interests, uh, what we end up with all of us are totally non competitive elections with very limited choices.

And so that does not serve the debate. It doesn't serve, again, those people who are being forgotten by that special interest dominated governing structure.

And it means that really the only elections that we vote in are the primaries. The state primary in most of our districts, I would say maybe there's eight or nine that are competitive right now.

And for the most part, they're all predetermined. And so then it just is who wins the primary and that's going to be who's elected.

Grace, it's actually worse than that. Most of the primaries, these guys run unopposed. And so if you have a competitive election, you're right. It's nine times out of 10, it's in the primary, but.

The problem is that five or six times out of 10, nobody's even challenging the incumbent.

I think I looked at those numbers last week and out of the 124 house seats, it was like 46, I think was the number of Republican seats that were. That ran unopposed in 2022 and then 19 for Democrats that had no competition at all.

How is that democracy? Talk about a rigged election. That's where it is. And then on the federal level, we have three house districts that are going to see some pretty good action. Jeff Duncan, William Timmons, and Nancy Mace. She is getting primary just announced.

Absolutely. Katherine Templeton, a very credible opponent who is going to be supported by the GOP Establishment in Washington.

Macy's actually, she's a very interesting Candidate to look at because in the last election it was Trump who tried to take her out because she had spoken out against Trump He tried to take her out. Now, it's the other GOP coin Trying to take her out from the middle, Nancy Mace to me anyway. And again, full disclosure, she was a former business partner of mine way back in the day.

So we worked together. I know her and like her very well, but I would argue if you've got that kind of blowback from both sides of the spectrum, I think that symbolizes somebody doing something right. So. You know, that's my view anyway.

Yeah. Based on the last redistricting, it's a pretty secure Republican seat.

So even the two guys that are running for it on the Democratic primary, Mac DeFord and Michael Moore, either one of them who wins, I don't think really truly has a chance against whoever the Republican is.

That's correct. They don't. I don't think it was that competitive before. I think it was just Joe Cunningham was able to catch a wave.

I think if he'd have been a better office holder, I think maybe he would have had a better chance to hang on to it. But that's going to be a district that they can move the borders a bit here and there. And I want to point out again that the reason some of those borders were moved was Jim Clyburn wanting to shore up his district.

So it is important to point that out, but that's always going to be a district that's going to veer back to being a swing district. And so I think those voters are always going to be looking for an independent streak, even if they're Republican voters. Remember, a Republican in Charleston is vastly different from a Republican in Greenville upstate.

Yeah. Two totally different animals.

What was that? The Rhett Butler line? Excellent manners and questionable morals. Oh, I like it. And so you're one of the primary places to find information about the judicial reform. You brought this up way, way early in the game, why we needed. Something to be done about reforming how our judges are picked in South Carolina.

And for our listeners right now, it's through the legislature, but it's a small committee. The whole legislature doesn't get to vote on it. And most of the people on that committee are lawyer legislators. Is that right?

That is correct. The majority of that panel that, that screens and picks the candidates are lawyer legislators.

Now the legislators do get to vote on the judges, but that's after this screening panel, basically, like you said, rigs it. We see it in every cycle, every year when these judicial elections come up. It's just one of the most corrupt processes I've ever seen. And again, we're talking about a state where corruption is in the bloodstream to begin with.

This is just something that has had an incredibly adverse effect on justice, on victims rights, on public safety. It has just been incredibly damaging on all those fronts. And so I am glad to see the conversation starting to take hold. I'm still very skeptical on whether or not we're going to get anything resembling real reform.

So we're one of only two states where the lawmakers pick the judges. Other states, it's either they're appointed by the governor, which I don't necessarily think that's a great idea. And then, uh, public elections, which I think that's an even worse idea, because you actually need to do a lot of research and know a lot about, you know, what you're voting for.

And I, I don't know that our voters in this state want to be that involved with picking judges or maybe they do, I don't, what do I know, but what's the best outcome in your mind?

Yeah, we, we did a column, I think it was last spring, outlining what I think is the perfect, uh, well, not perfect, but certainly the, A solution that would encompass a lot of these different areas and the way I would do it if it were up to me, I would have a panel, a representative panel, including victims, advocates, law enforcement, defense attorneys, bring a broad group of stakeholders to the table, have them submit recommendations to the governor, let the governor nominate, let the legislature approve those nominations, advice and consent, But here's the key to it, and you talked about it earlier about how none of those methods would be better, and I see where you're coming from on that, and here's why I think what I'm proposing would be beneficial.

If we had retention elections, say, every two years, where if you're a judge, you're in a position, your rulings have been consistent with your mandate, you have not erred on one side or the other, that retention election, after that, you're back in office, there's no issue. But if you have been someone like Transcribed For example, Bentley Price down there in Charleston, who has a long record of accommodating violent criminals, very lenient in bonds and sentencing.

And I'm talking about some really bad criminals, not just gangbangers, shooting folks, but I'm talking about habitual offenders against women. Um, in fact, one of the victims of Bentley Price testified recently at a hearing up here in Columbia, Molly Vick, just an incredibly brave woman. There's so many like her out there.

Who again, due to his rulings were subjected to repeated abuse. And so I think a guy like Bentley Price, he was ultimately found unqualified by the legislative system. But if we'd had a retention election, we could have gotten him out years ago. And so all these people were re victimized by our system because there was no way to get him out.

And so I think that retention election is going to be very critical to any reform package. But all of that, whether it's gubernatorial appointment or having some sort of public involvement, all of that's going to require a constitutional change. And I just don't know that the lawmakers are going to give up their power that easily.

Having a group like that actually picking the judges and determining who moves forward I think is critical. And the same thing with elections. That's how you stop gerrymandering, right, is having an independent committee come in. But I also think to take this into our next conversation is that's supposed to be what school boards are, right?

Fair enough.

Ah, that was such an interesting conversation with Will. I hate to cut it off there. We have a two part series of our conversation because we had so much to cover, and we'll post that in the next couple of weeks. Make sure to listen this Friday as Katelyn Brewer and I serve up a second helping.

That's all for the Stew for today. Talk to you on Friday.

Myrn. Yeah, my belongs to South Carolina.

The Frogmore Stew podcast is written and hosted by Grace Cowan Editing and IT support by Eric Johnson, produced by TJ Phillips with the Podcast Solutions Network.