Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Full Episode - Trump Is Desperate For Iran Off-Ramp As His Popularity Sinks + The Most Promising Model For Saving Local Journalism

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Full Episode - Trump Is Desperate For Iran Off-Ramp As His Popularity Sinks + The Most Promising Model For Saving Local Journalism · The Chuck ToddCast

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Speaker 1: hands as well. Hello thereon, Welcome to the Wednesday episode
1:53
Speaker 1: of the Chuck Podcast. So on Monday, I left you
1:55
Speaker 1: with a little bit of a cliffhanger, right, I said
1:59
Speaker 1: I had a new announcement coming and involved sports history,
2:02
Speaker 1: and of course the minute it loaded, it turned out
2:05
Speaker 1: my friends at Variety were dropping their story on Monday,
2:07
Speaker 1: not Tuesday, and I was not trying to hide it
2:10
Speaker 1: from anybody. I thought it was all hitting on Tuesday,
2:13
Speaker 1: so I was trying to respect the embargoes that I'd
2:16
Speaker 1: done with some coverage. But yes, I've teamed up with
2:20
Speaker 1: longtime sports journalists Ja Donde. You may know Ja from
2:25
Speaker 1: his work at the Washington Post or his work at
2:27
Speaker 1: the La Times. That's where I first got to know
2:29
Speaker 1: him and read them. As a Dodger fan, I would
2:32
Speaker 1: consume anything Jay wrote about the Dodgers, but would also
2:35
Speaker 1: follow his other work as well, and then, of course,
2:38
Speaker 1: as part of the hour long must see TV for
2:41
Speaker 1: the longest period of time on ESPN when he had
2:44
Speaker 1: Around the Horn at five pm Eastern and PTI at
2:47
Speaker 1: five thirty pm Eastern. Around the Horn is no longer
2:50
Speaker 1: with us. Ja's been He also is at the Medill's
2:55
Speaker 1: School and has been doing that at Midill at Northwestern,
2:59
Speaker 1: teaching sports journalism for I think it goes back to
3:03
Speaker 1: about twenty seventeen. So look, we've teamed up to do
3:10
Speaker 1: recall it dynastic, and basically what it is is every
3:13
Speaker 1: month Jay and I are going to do a deep
3:16
Speaker 1: dive on a franchise, whether it's a professional sports franchise
3:20
Speaker 1: or a college sports program that is gone to another level. Right,
3:26
Speaker 1: there's sort of there's that where they become iconic right,
3:30
Speaker 1: what makes a team or a program go from simply
3:34
Speaker 1: successful to that next level to become iconic? And we
3:39
Speaker 1: will make no bones. We are absolutely inspired by our
3:43
Speaker 1: friends over at Acquired what they've done for the business world,
3:46
Speaker 1: long form storytelling about how the great institutions in the
3:50
Speaker 1: business world were built. You know, they've done Google and
3:53
Speaker 1: JP Morgan Chase. They've even dabbled and talked about the
3:56
Speaker 1: NFL and F one Is businesses And honestly, we're you know,
4:00
Speaker 1: great ideas like why not do this for sports? And
4:02
Speaker 1: we're applying the same approach to sports franchises and programs.
4:05
Speaker 1: We want to discuss the key people in the history
4:08
Speaker 1: of that franchise, the decisions of turning points of forks
4:11
Speaker 1: on the road. So our first episode dropped Tuesday. You
4:13
Speaker 1: may have gotten it in the feed already, you may going,
4:16
Speaker 1: what the hell is this? And our first franchise that
4:20
Speaker 1: we're doing a deep dive is the Dodgers, the La Dodgers.
4:23
Speaker 1: It's a franchise that has spent decades chasing the Yankees
4:28
Speaker 1: in prestige in World Series Championships. Right, you know, in
4:33
Speaker 1: many ways it was always that's the measuring stick. But
4:35
Speaker 1: along the way in order to chase the Yankees, they
4:38
Speaker 1: ended up becoming probably arguably the most innovative sports organization
4:44
Speaker 1: in all of sports history, regardless of sport that you pick.
4:48
Speaker 1: In order to catch the Yankees, they had to be
4:51
Speaker 1: the innovators, and usually that's what happens, right. Necessity is
4:54
Speaker 1: the mother of all invention, right. And of course the
4:58
Speaker 1: story doesn't start there. The story begins in this little
5:02
Speaker 1: burrow before it even became a borough of New York City. Brooklyn,
5:06
Speaker 1: New York. Eighteen eighty three is when the franchise was born.
5:11
Speaker 1: Happened to be the same year that the Brooklyn Bridge opened,
5:14
Speaker 1: and within six or seven years Brooklyn itself would become
5:18
Speaker 1: part of New York City. But that's sort of how
5:21
Speaker 1: we're going to go through this, and Jay and I
5:23
Speaker 1: are both get involved with the research, and it really
5:26
Speaker 1: is sort of are we're making the argument. That's sort
5:29
Speaker 1: of like we're making the case why this franchise X
5:33
Speaker 1: is iconic. So every month we're going to take a
5:35
Speaker 1: deep dive into an iconic franchise. So this month it's
5:39
Speaker 1: the Dodgers. It'll be from teams you love and teams
5:43
Speaker 1: you hate and everyone in between. The curious those that
5:48
Speaker 1: you're curious about. So the Dodgers this month, we're going
5:50
Speaker 1: to tackle the Pittsburgh Steelers in April. They will be
5:54
Speaker 1: the franchise that hosts the NFL Draft, so we thought
5:56
Speaker 1: that would the timing of that will be good. We're
5:59
Speaker 1: going to do these every month. In between each episode
6:01
Speaker 1: sort of again borrowing a you know, we're not trying
6:04
Speaker 1: to reinvent the wheel here, borrowing a page from our
6:06
Speaker 1: friends that acquired We'll also have a have an episode
6:10
Speaker 1: with somebody who can sort of talk about the franchise
6:16
Speaker 1: in more personal terms. Look, we're doing this independently. We
6:21
Speaker 1: have no patron for any time we do this. So
6:23
Speaker 1: I think as much as we know there are plenty
6:25
Speaker 1: of sports documentaries out there and episodic you know sort
6:31
Speaker 1: of takes on you know, various individual players part of
6:34
Speaker 1: a franchise, we are not taking our cues from anybody.
6:38
Speaker 1: We are simply doing it. Really, I look at it
6:40
Speaker 1: through the eyes of a of a want to be historian. Right,
6:44
Speaker 1: I'm a history junkie, and I think what I love
6:48
Speaker 1: about Jaa and our partnership is that he you know,
6:51
Speaker 1: he's not he's as interested in the off the field
6:53
Speaker 1: stuff as he is in the on the field stuff
6:55
Speaker 1: just like I am. And in that sense, I think
6:58
Speaker 1: this is why this partnership is already working. I'd like
7:02
Speaker 1: to think. So take a listen. It's a couple takes
7:05
Speaker 1: more than it's more than two hours, right, you can't
7:08
Speaker 1: you know you're telling the story. It takes more than
7:13
Speaker 1: a thirty minute episode. But we don't expect you to
7:17
Speaker 1: listen to it in one listening. We know that you
7:19
Speaker 1: know it may be that's why we're going to do
7:20
Speaker 1: one of these a month and not try to make
7:23
Speaker 1: you consume this here. But it's a lot of fun.
7:27
Speaker 1: It's a labor of love for me, and it's just
7:32
Speaker 1: been amazing to get to know Ja and to work
7:36
Speaker 1: with him. Special shout out to the sort of the
7:38
Speaker 1: godfather of this idea, the third partner in this my
7:42
Speaker 1: longtime friend and colleague Steve Hall as well. So I
7:45
Speaker 1: hope you give it a chance. It's called Dynastics. Subscribe
7:48
Speaker 1: today wherever you get to all your podcasts me on,
7:51
Speaker 1: iHeart already it's being syndicated there. And look, each episode
7:55
Speaker 1: we come up with a we're both Jay and I
7:58
Speaker 1: have a mount rushmore of the four most iconic people
8:02
Speaker 1: associated with that franchise Hard Stop. You know, I will
8:07
Speaker 1: argue for more than you know, multiple amount rushmores that
8:10
Speaker 1: we could come up with, but we decided to lean
8:12
Speaker 1: into that gimmick. And we know it's a fun gimmick,
8:14
Speaker 1: and yes it's a gimmick, but it to just narrow
8:19
Speaker 1: it down to four creates fun little debates. So we'd
8:23
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Don't be shy about giving
8:26
Speaker 1: us your opinion on this. Trust me, in the world
8:28
Speaker 1: of sports. The only place where people are more opinionated
8:32
Speaker 1: in the world of sports is of course, in the
8:34
Speaker 1: world of politics. So I hope you'll check it out.
8:37
Speaker 1: I appreciate the patients in this feed that I've added
8:41
Speaker 1: to it. As for this episode, we got a lot
8:46
Speaker 1: of a lot of interesting nuggets on all things having
8:49
Speaker 1: to do aroun. I have a little bit of a
8:50
Speaker 1: campaign twenty twenty six update, including a fascinating new top
8:54
Speaker 1: five list, a unique take on my top five this week,
8:57
Speaker 1: which is top five most likely state wide incumbents to
9:01
Speaker 1: lose to not return to office, so slightly different it
9:05
Speaker 1: would be either gov or sitting governors or sitting senators,
9:08
Speaker 1: but the five most vulnerable of those, I thought it
9:11
Speaker 1: would be a different way to slice that idea going forward.
9:18
Speaker 1: We'll take some questions, and of course my interview is
9:21
Speaker 1: with somebody I've known for some time, really one of
9:24
Speaker 1: the pioneers in the local journal in the sort of
9:28
Speaker 1: the twenty first century local journalism startups. His name is
9:32
Speaker 1: Warwick Saban. He is the publisher and founder, if you will,
9:37
Speaker 1: Deep South Today, which is the parent company of some
9:42
Speaker 1: local news publications in Mississippi and in Louisiana. They'll be
9:45
Speaker 1: expanding soon in Arkansas. All of this, of course, is
9:48
Speaker 1: part of my attempt to support on April ninth, Local
9:53
Speaker 1: News Day, our awareness campaign where a bunch of independent
9:57
Speaker 1: local news entrepreneurs are getting together because we're trying to
10:00
Speaker 1: get more people to know what's happening in their community.
10:04
Speaker 1: There are a lot of great local news startups that
10:07
Speaker 1: people aren't aware of, so doing my best to contribute
10:11
Speaker 1: to the marketing of this day, April ninth, Local News Day.
10:14
Speaker 1: It is so this is a get to know your
10:17
Speaker 1: local news entrepreneur, if you will, And with another interview
10:21
Speaker 1: there so well of that. But obviously, in the world
10:26
Speaker 1: of politics, it is still we are still living in
10:30
Speaker 1: one story that is going to continue and will continue
10:34
Speaker 1: to dominate, and that is all things Iran. It is
10:38
Speaker 1: as has been foreshadowed on this podcast, and I've said
10:43
Speaker 1: in other places, Donald Trump was not going to have
10:47
Speaker 1: a lot of patience and he was going to look
10:48
Speaker 1: for an exit ramp. And he is certainly trying to
10:51
Speaker 1: talk talk his way into getting out of this war
10:57
Speaker 1: that he got himself into. And it's clear he is
11:01
Speaker 1: struggling with the political pain this is causing because remember,
11:05
Speaker 1: as I reminded you on Monday, the people feeling the
11:12
Speaker 1: immediate tax hike from this war, and in this case,
11:15
Speaker 1: the tax height is the rise in gas prices. It
11:18
Speaker 1: is more folks who supported him, right, this is this gap.
11:25
Speaker 1: When gas prices go up, it is folks in rural
11:29
Speaker 1: and ex Serban America who are hit hardest. Well, that
11:34
Speaker 1: is geographically the heart of the Trump political base. So
11:41
Speaker 1: this is having a huge impact on his side politically,
11:45
Speaker 1: which is why he knows and is so desperate to
11:48
Speaker 1: find his way out. But what does victory actually look like.
11:54
Speaker 1: It's a question that Donald Trump is trying to He's like,
11:57
Speaker 1: if we can they pledge out to have a nuclear bomb,
12:01
Speaker 1: which they had actually pledged to do before if they
12:04
Speaker 1: get we destroyed their navy, he's saying, and we're able
12:07
Speaker 1: to get them from doing a state sponsor of terrorism.
12:12
Speaker 1: But and he's trying to say, and there's going to
12:15
Speaker 1: be new people in the regime, so it's kind of
12:17
Speaker 1: like regime change. Yeah, but it's not regime change, right,
12:21
Speaker 1: And that's the problem. He's trying to spitball how he
12:26
Speaker 1: would sell victory in this. But this is the problem
12:31
Speaker 1: he's in, is that there is no easy way out
12:34
Speaker 1: of here, and there's not a good answer because there
12:36
Speaker 1: might not there's no victory he can declare in the
12:40
Speaker 1: next four to six weeks. And at this point they
12:44
Speaker 1: kind of know it. And it looks like he is
12:46
Speaker 1: desperate to get out of this energy crisis that he's
12:49
Speaker 1: helped create. So we've arrived at one of those moments
12:51
Speaker 1: in American form policy where every path forward carries risks.
12:56
Speaker 1: And this is I've said it before. He boxed himself in,
12:58
Speaker 1: he boxed the country in. No matter your political persuasions,
13:03
Speaker 1: your political feelings about Donald Trump, America's prestige is on
13:07
Speaker 1: the line here and that's a huge problem. So what
13:11
Speaker 1: are the options that are facing it, it's clear that
13:15
Speaker 1: militarily he's being given the option to escalate. Right, we
13:18
Speaker 1: continue to send more troops who look like they would
13:22
Speaker 1: be the first troops on the boots on the ground
13:25
Speaker 1: for some sort of ground incursion. Maybe it's just simply
13:28
Speaker 1: to keep this straight of horm moves open. But the
13:31
Speaker 1: type of resources we're sending over there now is in
13:34
Speaker 1: case the President makes the decision and gives the green
13:37
Speaker 1: light to putting actual American troops on the ground in Iran.
13:41
Speaker 1: But of course that's an escalation, and if you do that,
13:44
Speaker 1: that risks a wider regional war and more energy shocks
13:48
Speaker 1: and a long term commitment with no clear endgame. If
13:52
Speaker 1: you're doing what he's doing now, he's trying to hurry
13:53
Speaker 1: up and de escalate, Okay, but he risks something that's
13:56
Speaker 1: potentially just as dangerous, handing irantrategic victory without ever formally
14:02
Speaker 1: admitting it. Right, if the regime survived, who won this?
14:06
Speaker 1: For Yes, we've absolutely eviscerated their military and we've certainly
14:12
Speaker 1: degraded degraded their ability to cause problems for the United States.
14:17
Speaker 1: What about for the region itself and any circumstance that
14:21
Speaker 1: he's negotiating at the moment continues to keep and this
14:24
Speaker 1: is where geography is Iran's best weapon. Here they're going
14:30
Speaker 1: to have a large say over who gets to travel
14:32
Speaker 1: through the Straight of Hormoves. So former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis,
14:38
Speaker 1: who was the Defense secretary for Donald Trump in his
14:44
Speaker 1: first term, and he's no Iran dove, trust me on this,
14:47
Speaker 1: but he put it as bluntly as anyone has. Earlier
14:50
Speaker 1: this week, he said, the United States declares victory and
14:52
Speaker 1: steps back. Now Iran will effectively claim control of the
14:56
Speaker 1: Strait of hor Moves. And we know what that means.
15:00
Speaker 1: Means at any moment in time, they can essentially create
15:03
Speaker 1: an energy problem for the United States and the world,
15:07
Speaker 1: but it's a political problem for the US and is
15:11
Speaker 1: you know, he had his own warning here was even
15:13
Speaker 1: more vivid because he expects that under any scenario they're
15:18
Speaker 1: going to start to charge basically charging attacks on global
15:24
Speaker 1: shipping to go through the Strait of ormanis because if
15:27
Speaker 1: you were then you know Israel wants regime change. How
15:31
Speaker 1: do you know that they've said it, Prime Minister, that
15:34
Speaker 1: Meau said it. So they're not going to feel secure.
15:40
Speaker 1: Is the United States is going to guarantee that the
15:43
Speaker 1: US would somehow prevent Israel from attacking them again, are
15:49
Speaker 1: we going to do that? Is Israel going to sign
15:51
Speaker 1: off on that? I'm skeptical. So here we are, we're
15:57
Speaker 1: going to be in a situation where the Iranians will
16:00
Speaker 1: control the straight. This regime will control the straight, which
16:03
Speaker 1: means still roughly twenty percent of the world's oil passes
16:08
Speaker 1: through this narrow passage, and that continues to give the
16:14
Speaker 1: Arminians leverage over the global economy. So it's hard to
16:19
Speaker 1: imagine that. First of all, they didn't have this much.
16:23
Speaker 1: You know, they arguably always kind of had this leverage
16:25
Speaker 1: if they chose to use it, but there was an
16:26
Speaker 1: uneasy piece that was there. But now by engaging in this,
16:31
Speaker 1: they know and what is their incentive not to continue
16:36
Speaker 1: to cause disruptions because they know their days are numbered
16:41
Speaker 1: if they just sort of stand pat So it's hard
16:44
Speaker 1: to it's hard to see how we get an uneasy
16:47
Speaker 1: cease fire here that somehow is attainable in sticks. I
16:51
Speaker 1: hope I'm wrong. I don't think any of us want
16:53
Speaker 1: to see a war that escalates where we have American
16:58
Speaker 1: young American men and women coming home in body bags,
17:03
Speaker 1: fighting a war of choice. Yes, iron's a menace, but
17:07
Speaker 1: it would be a war of choice. Is this the
17:10
Speaker 1: time to have this war? I think we know what
17:17
Speaker 1: the answer to that is. And certainly President Trump has
17:21
Speaker 1: created a situation with our allies that makes it where
17:24
Speaker 1: we're going in alone on this. I'm going to get
17:27
Speaker 1: to more on that in a minute. But Mattis is
17:29
Speaker 1: warning becomes something bigger than just a military assessment, because militarily,
17:35
Speaker 1: you know, it's both the military has had massive strategic
17:39
Speaker 1: victory here and at the same time, there's only so
17:42
Speaker 1: much the military can do. Mattis said one other thing
17:47
Speaker 1: in his interview. He said, you know, we're in a
17:48
Speaker 1: tough spot. Now. This goes back to being boxed in.
17:51
Speaker 1: I can't identify a lot of options. This is coming
17:55
Speaker 1: from jam Mattis. This isn't coming from some left wing blogger, okay,
18:00
Speaker 1: because that's the reality. There's no clear path forward here,
18:05
Speaker 1: and it's clear they didn't think this through at the
18:09
Speaker 1: White House. They really believed, or the President believed that
18:16
Speaker 1: this was going to be just like Venezuelan and that
18:19
Speaker 1: the incentive to survive would somehow. You know, he doesn't
18:25
Speaker 1: seem to acknowledge that this regime has kept power for
18:31
Speaker 1: forty seven years, which means there's a lot of people
18:33
Speaker 1: that are devoted to this regime and they're not going
18:35
Speaker 1: to go away quietly because their livelihood depends on the
18:39
Speaker 1: regime staying in power. You would think Donald Trump would
18:45
Speaker 1: understand when you have kind of that kind of loyalty, right,
18:49
Speaker 1: It's the type of loyalty he tries. He wants people
18:51
Speaker 1: loyal to him, not because they like him, loyal to
18:53
Speaker 1: him because they need him. Well, that's the type of
18:55
Speaker 1: loyalty this regime is created. They're not going easily. This
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20:41
Speaker 1: And there's another reality that's hard to ignore. Airpower. A
20:44
Speaker 1: loan doesn't change regimes. History continues to show this again
20:47
Speaker 1: and again. So even after weeks of strikes, even after
20:50
Speaker 1: the damage to all these Iranian military targets, we're still
20:54
Speaker 1: left in a position where we've demonstrated force and we
20:58
Speaker 1: haven't secured the outcome, and are how are more you know,
21:03
Speaker 1: more threats sort of fall on deaf ears to those
21:07
Speaker 1: that have survived, just surviving, what more is there for
21:10
Speaker 1: us to destroy? And again this is asymmetric. Just the
21:17
Speaker 1: regime surviving is victory for them. So we're stuck. Neither
21:21
Speaker 1: side can force the other to change course, neither side
21:24
Speaker 1: can claim a decisive when. And the longer that continues,
21:28
Speaker 1: the more this becomes about perception and who looks like
21:31
Speaker 1: they held firm and who looks like they blinked. And
21:35
Speaker 1: let's just say Donald Trump is blinking a lot. So
21:40
Speaker 1: this isn't just about Iran. This has got second order
21:43
Speaker 1: effects already in motion among the Iranian diaspora, menary who
21:45
Speaker 1: hope this would be a turning point. Now that hope
21:48
Speaker 1: fades right among the Gulf States, the question becomes is
21:53
Speaker 1: the United States still the security partner of choice? And
21:57
Speaker 1: if the answer becomes even slightly uncertain. They don't walk away,
22:01
Speaker 1: but they're going to hedge. That's where China comes in.
22:05
Speaker 1: There'll be regional arrangements, There'll be a lot of self preservation.
22:10
Speaker 1: Because alliances don't break overnight. They hollow out. And this
22:14
Speaker 1: is yet another uncomfortable part of this. We didn't just
22:18
Speaker 1: stumble into this moment. Donald Trump helped create this moment.
22:23
Speaker 1: Sometimes the hardest thing is to say in politics are
22:25
Speaker 1: the most obvious ones, not because they're complicated, but because
22:28
Speaker 1: they're so basic you assume one doesn't need to even
22:32
Speaker 1: say it. It doesn't need to be said. But if you
22:35
Speaker 1: hollow out expertise, you get worse decisions. If you surround
22:38
Speaker 1: yourself with people who agree with you, you make more mistakes,
22:41
Speaker 1: And if you alienate your allies, you end up alone
22:43
Speaker 1: when it matters. This is an advanced political science. This
22:47
Speaker 1: is organizational leadership one oh one. Yet here we are right.
22:51
Speaker 1: How did he hollow out the expertise? He gutted the
22:53
Speaker 1: National Security Council. He surrounded himself with a bunch of secofans.
22:59
Speaker 1: There is no Jim Madis at the Defense at the
23:01
Speaker 1: Pentagon right now offering sage questionable advice. There's Pete Hegsea, who,
23:09
Speaker 1: let's just say, couldn't carry Jim Madis's jockstrap. So you've
23:14
Speaker 1: got a secretary state in theory that I think is
23:20
Speaker 1: sort of reality based, but his political future hinges on
23:25
Speaker 1: whether Donald Trump thinks he's the heir apparent. So we
23:30
Speaker 1: know what kind of limited pushback. And notice when you
23:33
Speaker 1: get all of the the fact that JD. Vans and
23:37
Speaker 1: Tulsea Gabbert have both used the same spin while the
23:39
Speaker 1: President came to this conclusion, and Marco Ruby where the
23:41
Speaker 1: President decided there was an imminent threat, and the President
23:44
Speaker 1: decided right by the way, talk about CYA. None of
23:47
Speaker 1: them want to own this. They're making it clear this
23:51
Speaker 1: is a Donald Trump decision all the way through. They
23:57
Speaker 1: somehow think that they don't have it, that this is
24:00
Speaker 1: just a stain and not a tattoo. But we shall see.
24:03
Speaker 1: So here we are. He has spent the last year year,
24:06
Speaker 1: in a couple of months, berating our allies, using tariffs
24:12
Speaker 1: to bludgeon our allies, and ad tacks, creating all sorts
24:15
Speaker 1: of uncomfortable alliances, making NATO, you know, threat with the
24:19
Speaker 1: threat on greenland, shaking the confidence of our NATO allies.
24:23
Speaker 1: So that's how we spent twenty twenty five as a nation.
24:27
Speaker 1: And then he's boxed himself in and on this Iran decision.
24:31
Speaker 1: Could use some allies to help us out with the
24:33
Speaker 1: straight of oar moves, and they're all like, hey, good luck, brother,
24:36
Speaker 1: you're on your own now. You can sit here and complain.
24:39
Speaker 1: Where are our allies? Well, you alienated them. You made
24:45
Speaker 1: it a lot harder for them to stick by us,
24:47
Speaker 1: because sticking by the United States is suddenly politically unpopular
24:51
Speaker 1: in places like the UK, Germany, France, and Italy let
24:54
Speaker 1: me repeat myself, or Japan. Can you believe that standing
24:59
Speaker 1: on the side of the the United States is unpopular
25:01
Speaker 1: in those countries? That's a problem. Ironically, Donald Trump had
25:09
Speaker 1: in theory diverse voices in the room. He had a
25:13
Speaker 1: national security team that looked like it did represent a
25:15
Speaker 1: range of perspectives, from a dove like Tulsea Gabbert to
25:20
Speaker 1: a hawk like Marco Rubio. But here's the difference between
25:25
Speaker 1: theory and practice. No one appeared willing or able to
25:27
Speaker 1: tell the President something he didn't want to hear. General
25:30
Speaker 1: Kine came the closest, but He even did that through proxies,
25:33
Speaker 1: right through interviews with the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post,
25:36
Speaker 1: New York Times. And that distinction matters a lot here
25:39
Speaker 1: because dissent isn't about having different resumes in the room.
25:42
Speaker 1: It's about whether anyone feels empowered to challenge the decision
25:45
Speaker 1: that's already been made. And if they don't, then what
25:48
Speaker 1: you have is in a debate, it's a performance. And
25:53
Speaker 1: we spent all this time beating up our testing all
25:55
Speaker 1: of our alliances. We treated them as transactional people, even
25:59
Speaker 1: publicly keturing. Then the Vice President lectured Europe about their
26:03
Speaker 1: internal values. When I thought the whole point was real politique.
26:07
Speaker 1: You do you, we do we? And it raised a
26:10
Speaker 1: simple question, if you knew you might be heading into
26:12
Speaker 1: a conflict they could disrupt global energy markets, would you
26:15
Speaker 1: spend the previous year making it politically harder for your
26:18
Speaker 1: allies to stand with you, or would you be strengthening
26:21
Speaker 1: those relationships. Because what we're seeing right now is in
26:24
Speaker 1: a collapse of alliances, it's something more subtle. It's hesitation,
26:28
Speaker 1: it's hedging. It's a quieter kind of distance. They're not
26:30
Speaker 1: saying they won't help, but like wrap up this war
26:33
Speaker 1: and then we'll see what we can do. And then
26:36
Speaker 1: this is where it all connects. When you narrow the
26:38
Speaker 1: circle of advice, when you prioritize loyalty over challenge, when
26:41
Speaker 1: you weaken alliances, you don't just change the environment around
26:44
Speaker 1: a decision, you actually change the decision itself. The risks
26:48
Speaker 1: look smaller they weren't. The timeline looks shorter it wasn't.
26:52
Speaker 1: The outcome feels more manageable. Well, this hain't been as well. Now.
27:01
Speaker 1: It's interesting here is that polling is showing this poor.
27:04
Speaker 1: This war is unpopular, Okay, not surprising, and that's a
27:11
Speaker 1: huge issue for him, and I think he's very aware.
27:15
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's the problem here, right. He knee
27:19
Speaker 1: jerked his way into this, and now he's going to
27:20
Speaker 1: knee jerk his way out of this. And it ain't
27:24
Speaker 1: going to be that clean. I know he thinks it
27:27
Speaker 1: could be, and he has you know, rolled the dice
27:31
Speaker 1: before on Middle East decisions, and he's not and it
27:37
Speaker 1: hasn't hurt him yet until now. And I think he
27:40
Speaker 1: still thinks in his head that if they can somehow
27:42
Speaker 1: wrap this up, he can declare some sort of victory
27:45
Speaker 1: and somehow the markets will right themselves sooner rather than later.
27:50
Speaker 1: There's no doubt this global economy and the American economy
27:53
Speaker 1: has been resilient, but at some point it ain't going
27:56
Speaker 1: to be this resilient, and more importantly, everybody's going to
27:59
Speaker 1: start hedging all over the place. What's been interesting is
28:08
Speaker 1: what we're watching among independence in the polling. They don't
28:13
Speaker 1: like Democrats, they don't like Republicans, but they particularly don't
28:16
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump and Mega. So that is why independents
28:20
Speaker 1: look like they're supporting Democrats, because what they're voting against
28:24
Speaker 1: is Trump, and MAGA is Trump. Trump is Mega support
28:30
Speaker 1: among independences that sit in the low twenties. That is
28:34
Speaker 1: a huge problem here. Wherever independence go in Chunk is
28:38
Speaker 1: usually when that party wins. Something else that's popped up
28:45
Speaker 1: in the polls that I kind of want people to
28:47
Speaker 1: pay attention to. Marquette is out and what's interesting is
28:52
Speaker 1: that they did fave on favor ratings for Democratic Party,
28:55
Speaker 1: Republican Party, and then Mega. Believe it or not, the
28:59
Speaker 1: Republican Party. Of the best ratings of those three entities.
29:02
Speaker 1: Democratic Party actually had the lowest rating of those three entities,
29:05
Speaker 1: but MAGA was looked closer to being as unpopular as
29:08
Speaker 1: the Democrats were, and certainly more unpopular than Republicans. And
29:13
Speaker 1: now there's always been a distinction between those that call
29:15
Speaker 1: themselves Republicans and those that call themselves MAGA, and of
29:18
Speaker 1: course anything MAGA is always more loyal to the president
29:21
Speaker 1: on everything like this. Around war, we've seen some polling
29:24
Speaker 1: showed like ninety nine percent support among MEGA voters, but
29:27
Speaker 1: among those that consider themselves more Republican than MEGA, it's
29:31
Speaker 1: been like fifty five to forty. You know, it's not
29:34
Speaker 1: been a clean break, you see. And I know, I
29:37
Speaker 1: know MEGA influencers are more anti war than the rank
29:40
Speaker 1: and file of MAGA, right, but it tells you how
29:45
Speaker 1: bad the MEGA brand has become. Where the Republican brand
29:49
Speaker 1: is in better shape with voters than the MAGA brand.
29:54
Speaker 1: If you're a Republican on the ballot, you should be
29:56
Speaker 1: relieved that this is true. I think the great fear
29:59
Speaker 1: among some Republicans is that Trump and MAGA was going
30:02
Speaker 1: to drag the Republican brand with it. If you've got
30:05
Speaker 1: voters willing to distinguish between the two, this should be
30:10
Speaker 1: the time to go rush and grab it. Except guess
30:12
Speaker 1: what this Republican Party and Jerryman. It's made primaries so
30:16
Speaker 1: important that Republicans can't distance themselves fast enough from Trump
30:22
Speaker 1: because if they do, they won't win primaries. This is
30:24
Speaker 1: the trap that John Cornyn did, right. So it's a
30:32
Speaker 1: it's it's it's interesting here. None of this is yet
30:36
Speaker 1: benefiting the Democrats' brand, even as it benefits them in
30:42
Speaker 1: binary choices when you do those head to head tests.
30:45
Speaker 1: But the fact that this is really and in some
30:48
Speaker 1: ways you know, this Iran war could be the death
30:52
Speaker 1: knell for the MAGA brand, right because even though the
30:56
Speaker 1: influencers want the MAGA brand to be something else, as
30:59
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has always said, Mega is whatever he says
31:01
Speaker 1: it is. And it turns out the voters are look
31:05
Speaker 1: at MAGA through the prism of Trump, and Maga's numbers
31:09
Speaker 1: are as bad as Trump's numbers. But the fact that
31:12
Speaker 1: the Republican Party's numbers are actually slightly better than MAGA
31:16
Speaker 1: and Trump in theories an opportunity for the Republican Party
31:22
Speaker 1: to find its way away out of the wilderness, away
31:26
Speaker 1: from Trump if they so choose. What that really tells
31:29
Speaker 1: you is that independent voters, because that's where these numbers
31:32
Speaker 1: are coming from independence, have a better view of Republicans
31:35
Speaker 1: in general, the Republican Party when it's not associated with
31:39
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. I'll be curious to see what that means
31:45
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eight, and does the unpopularity of Trump's
31:48
Speaker 1: on pot you know, if this isn't recoverable. And there
31:52
Speaker 1: are always points and second terms where once it's gone,
31:55
Speaker 1: it's gone. He's bounced back a few other times, there's
31:59
Speaker 1: going to be a point he's ops bouncing back. This
32:01
Speaker 1: might be the time he stops bouncing back, which means
32:05
Speaker 1: there's an opening. And what's interesting, there's one there's one
32:08
Speaker 1: person I'm keeping an eye on, closest when it comes
32:11
Speaker 1: to somebody who would run as a sort of a
32:14
Speaker 1: non maga but maybe mega call it, you know, not
32:24
Speaker 1: anti this. And it's Brian Kemp in Georgia. And guess
32:29
Speaker 1: what state is the only state so far to do
32:32
Speaker 1: a gas tax holiday. Brian Camp in Georgia feels like
32:38
Speaker 1: an easy way for Brian Kemp presidential candidate to distinguish
32:41
Speaker 1: himself from a JD. Vance or Marco Rubio in the primary.
32:45
Speaker 1: So not lost on me that Camp, you know already
32:51
Speaker 1: has that feather in his twenty twenty eight cap should
32:54
Speaker 1: he need it, and you're starting to see polling conformed
32:57
Speaker 1: to that. Look, this is just early days of this,
33:01
Speaker 1: but I think this is going to be worth keeping
33:02
Speaker 1: tracking of, which is, how can does the Republican brand
33:07
Speaker 1: start improving in the mind of some independent voters simply
33:11
Speaker 1: because Trump and MAGA have become so dominant, and what
33:17
Speaker 1: Republican office holders find a way? Hear that? All right?
33:23
Speaker 1: With that, I had a few more political items I
33:28
Speaker 1: want to get to. I think I'm gonna punt. We're
33:30
Speaker 1: going to do that. We'll do that with tomorrow's episode,
33:34
Speaker 1: including this bizarre sort of Chuck Schumer sort of attempt
33:41
Speaker 1: to sort of quell the There is clearly a growing
33:44
Speaker 1: band of senator Democratic senators that want Schummer to go.
33:48
Speaker 1: He did a crazy interview with the Wall Street Journal
33:52
Speaker 1: where I think he sort of exposed himself as either
33:55
Speaker 1: being a bit out of touch or not fully on
33:59
Speaker 1: top of what is happening here. And at the same time,
34:05
Speaker 1: you know, one can understan what he's tried to do.
34:06
Speaker 1: And so if Chuck Schumer doesn't want progress to look
34:12
Speaker 1: like progressives have defeated him, he may want to go
34:16
Speaker 1: out on his terms rather than test the premise whether
34:20
Speaker 1: he could survive a vote himself come December should Democrats
34:25
Speaker 1: end up with the majority of the Senate. But I'm
34:29
Speaker 1: going to get more than that tomorrow. Will do a
34:30
Speaker 1: little bit more on the Democratic side of things. But
34:32
Speaker 1: considering where we are at the run, it is, as
34:34
Speaker 1: I've said before, there is only one story impacting American politics.
34:38
Speaker 1: Until it is no longer front and center, it's going
34:43
Speaker 1: to be hard to focus on anything else. So let's
34:45
Speaker 1: sneak at a break when we come back. My conversation with
34:47
Speaker 1: local news entrepreneur Work Saving, who's been focused on southern
34:53
Speaker 1: states including Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas when it comes to
34:57
Speaker 1: local news deserts. This episode of the Chuck Toodcast is
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Speaker 1: so use that code well. As I told you when
36:54
Speaker 1: we had John Adams on from the Montana Free Press,
36:57
Speaker 1: that I was going to spend the month promoting Local
36:59
Speaker 1: News Day, and as our way to promote Local News
37:01
Speaker 1: Day April ninth, basically, it's an awareness day so the
37:05
Speaker 1: people get to know the local news entrepreneurs that are everywhere. Unfortunately,
37:11
Speaker 1: not everybody knows of their existence, and so creating a
37:16
Speaker 1: day like this, which was John's idea there at the
37:20
Speaker 1: Montana Free Press he thought could be helpful around the country.
37:23
Speaker 1: Various partners are there well. One of the pioneers, frankly
37:26
Speaker 1: in this new independent space and one of the more
37:29
Speaker 1: bigger success stories there is somebody I've gotten to know
37:32
Speaker 1: over the last three years as I've dove into this
37:35
Speaker 1: space as work save it, and he is the publisher, owner,
37:40
Speaker 1: proprietor however you want to describe it for New South
37:43
Speaker 1: Today is the parent company I believe and he'll correct
37:47
Speaker 1: me with all the mistakes I make here in a second.
37:50
Speaker 1: I'm aware of Warwick through a variety of ways, but
37:53
Speaker 1: primarily through my old boss, Andy Lack, who, by the way,
37:59
Speaker 1: we will give a shut out here. He just committed
38:02
Speaker 1: seven million dollars to a local news initiative recently. I'm
38:06
Speaker 1: very proud of my former boss there. But he's been
38:09
Speaker 1: very active with Mississippi Today, which is part of De
38:11
Speaker 1: South Today, but Deep South Today is also in New
38:14
Speaker 1: Orleans Jackson. I know that they're I think in Arkansas,
38:18
Speaker 1: and just you know, by its very nature, Deep South
38:21
Speaker 1: Today about bringing better local news to the Old South.
38:26
Speaker 1: It's particularly more of the Old South states than the
38:28
Speaker 1: New South States. So work, how'd I do? And describing
38:32
Speaker 1: your company and describing your.
38:33
Speaker 2: Efforts, right, I think that's a great summary.
38:36
Speaker 3: You know, Andy really did get things going over ten
38:39
Speaker 3: years ago when Mississippi Today got started actually twenty sixteen,
38:44
Speaker 3: first nonprofit newsroom in Mississippi really coming in there to
38:47
Speaker 3: fill the gaps that existed as sort of legacy media
38:51
Speaker 3: was declining and small local papers and radio stations were
38:54
Speaker 3: going out of business. And just in the last ten years,
38:57
Speaker 3: Mississippi Today has become the largest newsroom in mississipp won
39:01
Speaker 3: the Pulitzer Prize in twenty twenty three, was a finalist
39:03
Speaker 3: for the Pulitzer in twenty four just wins numerous awards
39:07
Speaker 3: for the quality of its reporting. And this is really
39:09
Speaker 3: essential reporting, you know, the accountability reporting that nobody would
39:14
Speaker 3: be doing if not for Mississippi Today, just again providing
39:18
Speaker 3: essential local news and information there.
39:20
Speaker 2: And it's scaled.
39:23
Speaker 3: You know, Deep South Today, which is the organization I
39:26
Speaker 3: run now, actually includes three newsrooms. So we have Mississippi Today,
39:30
Speaker 3: we have Verite News here in New Orleans where I am,
39:33
Speaker 3: and the Current in Lafayette, Louisiana, and we're the only
39:37
Speaker 3: multi state nonprofit news network. We've got a centralized business
39:40
Speaker 3: infrastructure supporting all three newsrooms, and we're getting ready to
39:44
Speaker 3: scale across the rest of the.
39:46
Speaker 1: South, right. I know you're I think you're pretty close
39:49
Speaker 1: in Arkansas, maybe her but I know you've been deep
39:53
Speaker 1: there and there's really a frankly, I think a couple
39:56
Speaker 1: of communities that would really want it. And it's both
39:58
Speaker 1: Little Rock and Fayeteville, particularly northwest Arkansas. So I know
40:02
Speaker 1: there's a huge foundation there and I imagine and you know,
40:05
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of pretty good local news in Alabama.
40:10
Speaker 1: The folks over in Mobile. I feel like it's an
40:14
Speaker 1: old advanced media site. Correct, That's right.
40:17
Speaker 3: And I want to emphasize, you know, we're not looking
40:19
Speaker 3: to go in the places that don't need us, you know,
40:21
Speaker 3: where there's good stuff happening.
40:23
Speaker 1: You're not trying to be a predator here, You're not.
40:26
Speaker 1: We're not profitve right, this is not predatory behavior. We're
40:30
Speaker 1: going to go eat their lunch in Alabama. No, If
40:32
Speaker 1: they've got a good thing going, how do we help?
40:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the look journalism for a long
40:37
Speaker 3: time was so competitive, and it was competitive for a
40:40
Speaker 3: good reason, because it was a really profitable business, Like
40:43
Speaker 3: you could make a lot of money in journalism for
40:46
Speaker 3: a long time in.
40:46
Speaker 2: The twentieth century. And that's just not the case now.
40:49
Speaker 3: And what we've seen is, you know, when the Internet
40:51
Speaker 3: came and all of these local news organizations suffered as
40:54
Speaker 3: a result and a lot of them went out of business.
40:57
Speaker 3: There's a rebuilding that needs to happen because people have
41:00
Speaker 3: discovered that this was essential civic infrastructure that you know,
41:05
Speaker 3: no one's going to come and report the local news
41:07
Speaker 3: for you, especially in small, rural, poor places like the
41:11
Speaker 3: Deep South, Like we get plenty of national and international
41:14
Speaker 3: news from the internet, but nobody's reporting on the PTA meeting,
41:18
Speaker 3: the city council meeting, telling you who's running for office,
41:21
Speaker 3: holding elected officials accountable unless we rebuild this infrastructure. So
41:25
Speaker 3: we're doing it as a nonprofit. We're doing it as
41:27
Speaker 3: a public service. We're giving it away for free, and
41:30
Speaker 3: we'll work with anybody who wants to work with us.
41:32
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of gaps to fill, and that's
41:34
Speaker 3: where we're focusing.
41:35
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the vacuum you're filling and why it exists.
41:40
Speaker 1: What have you learned about the Jackson Clarion Ledger. This
41:43
Speaker 1: is the basically arguably was the biggest paper in Mississippi.
41:47
Speaker 1: Maybe the Biloxi Herald had certainly had a as a
41:49
Speaker 1: fairly large circulation. I think there's a Greenville paper that's
41:54
Speaker 1: fairly significant. Does that sound right, Greenville, Mississippi saying that,
41:59
Speaker 1: I think it's I'm thinking of a community that was
42:01
Speaker 1: in Benny Thompson's district. I think it's Greenville, but smaller
42:05
Speaker 1: that used to have pretty decent local political journalism. But
42:08
Speaker 1: let's take the Jackson Claren Ledger because this was the
42:11
Speaker 1: essentially the largest city, the state capital. Now, what have
42:15
Speaker 1: you learned from the failure there and the economics? It's
42:19
Speaker 1: just just bad manager. I believe it's it was a
42:21
Speaker 1: Gannette paper might still be Yeah, is it bad management
42:26
Speaker 1: or was there? They're really sort of a local business.
42:29
Speaker 1: Abandonment of the paper that made it very difficult.
42:32
Speaker 3: I think that's a tough business. I mean, I'm not
42:33
Speaker 3: looking to sort of, you know, take shots at anybody.
42:36
Speaker 1: No, and I'm not setting you up that way, but
42:38
Speaker 1: you're trying to learn from their mistakes. And that's what
42:40
Speaker 1: I'm curious about.
42:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean it's it's it's tough when when
42:44
Speaker 3: you're trying to run a business the same way that
42:46
Speaker 3: you've run it for a long time, and you're trying
42:49
Speaker 3: to dismantle maybe some of the structures that have been
42:52
Speaker 3: in place for a long time that served you well.
42:55
Speaker 3: I just think that's difficult. I think our advantage again
42:57
Speaker 3: was that we kind of got to build from scratch
42:59
Speaker 3: in this new environment. You know, I think being being
43:03
Speaker 3: part of a big national news network is tough, probably
43:06
Speaker 3: for Gannet being beholden to shareholders who are expecting a
43:10
Speaker 3: certain profit margin is tough. We don't have to do that.
43:14
Speaker 3: I'll emphasize. Also, the Associated Press doesn't even really have
43:17
Speaker 3: anybody in Mississippi anymore.
43:19
Speaker 1: Wow, completely abandoned basically the loss so that you know,
43:22
Speaker 1: they're very newspaper based. I mean, it's just how their
43:25
Speaker 1: network worked, and I kind of think it's this is
43:28
Speaker 1: something we need to rebuild, and I'm not sure ape's
43:30
Speaker 1: that in the position to rebuild it.
43:33
Speaker 3: That's it, like there's a wholesale implosion of the old model.
43:37
Speaker 3: We're fortunate that we're getting to kind of build something
43:39
Speaker 3: new and we're iterating and evolving and we're trying to
43:42
Speaker 3: stay in a nimble as we do it. But you know, again,
43:45
Speaker 3: we're not We don't have to please shareholders, we don't
43:47
Speaker 3: have to extract a profit. Every piece of revenue we
43:50
Speaker 3: get we can invest right back into the news product
43:53
Speaker 3: and that's why we're growing.
43:54
Speaker 1: Look, we've talked offline about the opportunities here with these
44:00
Speaker 1: rising independent news organizations, and you know you now have
44:04
Speaker 1: larger and larger ones that are showing up. I mean,
44:06
Speaker 1: we've got a gentleman here in Washington, d C. Named
44:08
Speaker 1: Robert Albritton. This is the one time owner of Politico.
44:12
Speaker 1: His father was in the local news business for years
44:15
Speaker 1: here before, both before I lived here in Washington. But
44:19
Speaker 1: the you know, there was a news it was a
44:22
Speaker 1: two newspaper town and a realistic one back in the
44:26
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies with the Washington Star. And then he
44:28
Speaker 1: also owned a local TV affiliate. Now, when Robert took
44:32
Speaker 1: over the media business, he got he didn't he stayed
44:34
Speaker 1: out of the local He sold all of his local
44:36
Speaker 1: news holdings at first and made some money with Politico.
44:40
Speaker 1: And and he's definitely you can you could see he's
44:43
Speaker 1: just sort of seeing opportunity. But if you get a
44:46
Speaker 1: couple of big tent poles in the independent space, you know,
44:49
Speaker 1: Texas Tribune's a tent pole, one could argue, maybe the
44:52
Speaker 1: Salt Lake Tribune, since they decided to go full independent,
44:55
Speaker 1: is a tent pole. Maybe Robert Albritton's revitalized Washington Sun
44:59
Speaker 1: or Star, ever name he ends up. I think he's in.
45:02
Speaker 1: All depends on what how expensive the buying the brand
45:07
Speaker 1: might be. If you do something like that, I could
45:11
Speaker 1: see rebuilding this national network that a Mississippi today could
45:14
Speaker 1: could benefit from.
45:15
Speaker 3: No, Yeah, no, look, I agree. I mean, just just
45:18
Speaker 3: to go back to your point. I mean, you know, yes,
45:20
Speaker 3: DC was had multiple newspapers, a two newspaper town, if
45:23
Speaker 3: you want to put it that way. But you know,
45:25
Speaker 3: so many small towns here in the South had two newspapers.
45:29
Speaker 2: I mean, if you can buy.
45:30
Speaker 1: The town was because guess what the dirty little secret was.
45:33
Speaker 1: Everybody assumed the media was on one side or the other. Right,
45:37
Speaker 1: that's right, there had to be a balance. Yeah, that's
45:41
Speaker 1: what the that's what the problem. That's what the the
45:44
Speaker 1: community supported. They wanted the balance.
45:46
Speaker 2: They wanted the balance. But also it was just a
45:48
Speaker 2: really good business.
45:49
Speaker 3: Like people had to pay for the news, they had
45:51
Speaker 3: to have a subscription or buy it at the newsstand.
45:54
Speaker 3: If you wanted to advertise a product, you had to
45:56
Speaker 3: advertise it in a local paper, and nobody would know
45:58
Speaker 3: what sale was going on store. So it was a
46:01
Speaker 3: really really good business until it wasn't right until the
46:04
Speaker 3: Internet came and made all of that sort of inoperable.
46:08
Speaker 3: And I think you know, when when you talk about
46:10
Speaker 3: what we're trying to do again in the South, in
46:13
Speaker 3: these rural areas where there isn't an all Britain, you know,
46:16
Speaker 3: there isn't a Jeff Bezos like we are really like
46:20
Speaker 3: having to kind of figure out how do you make
46:22
Speaker 3: this hyper efficient, how do you stretch every dollar, and
46:26
Speaker 3: how do you do it in service of a product
46:28
Speaker 3: that's actually a quality product and not just slop. And
46:31
Speaker 3: we're doing that here, and so I want to emphasize
46:33
Speaker 3: that your point is correct. I think the networked model
46:36
Speaker 3: where you have a centralized business infrastructure that's supporting multiple
46:40
Speaker 3: newsrooms so that they can focus on the news product
46:43
Speaker 3: and the news gathering. And we're focused on again, you know, revenue, audience.
46:48
Speaker 2: Technology, all of those things that make that possible.
46:53
Speaker 1: Let's talk about I think the challenge in local journalism
46:58
Speaker 1: as far as the product itself is. I sometimes use
47:01
Speaker 1: the phrase journalism for journalists, and there's this balance meaning, look,
47:06
Speaker 1: there's some great stories, but if nobody reads them, you know,
47:10
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And you know, I do think there can
47:15
Speaker 1: be a disconnect at times between those of us who
47:20
Speaker 1: want to be the next Bob Woodward and those of
47:23
Speaker 1: us and those in the community who simply want what
47:26
Speaker 1: I call service journalism. And the right balance is you
47:29
Speaker 1: got to be both right. You've got to be there
47:32
Speaker 1: to help people find ways to save money, how to
47:35
Speaker 1: learn how to navigate local government. You know, sometimes you
47:39
Speaker 1: are literally the place that teaches people how the DMV works,
47:44
Speaker 1: and there's no that that's by the way. If that
47:48
Speaker 1: didn't exist, then you'd have to go to the DMV's
47:50
Speaker 1: website itself, and god only knows how clunky their explanation
47:53
Speaker 1: would be in some way. In some cases, the beauty
47:56
Speaker 1: of a local news organization is, I always say, is
47:58
Speaker 1: they speak American. There's there's government English, and then there's American,
48:02
Speaker 1: right like, you know, you want to tell people the reality.
48:05
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes that balance is difficult because a
48:09
Speaker 1: young journalist doesn't want to be the ones that help
48:11
Speaker 1: you navigate the DMV. They want to be the ones
48:14
Speaker 1: that win the pullets are how do you strike that
48:17
Speaker 1: balance and how do you learn from the community, I mean,
48:20
Speaker 1: because the important accountability stories aren't going to be the
48:23
Speaker 1: most trafficked any of traffic matters in this situation. So
48:26
Speaker 1: it's a it's an interesting balance that all local news
48:29
Speaker 1: I think, have to have to find.
48:32
Speaker 2: I think it's about leading with values.
48:34
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, the service journalism is sort of
48:36
Speaker 3: what leads to the sexy journalism that you're talking about.
48:39
Speaker 3: You know, when you talk about being the next Woodward,
48:41
Speaker 3: you know, we feel like we have the next Woodward
48:43
Speaker 3: in Anna Wolf, who won the police Mississipi today. And
48:46
Speaker 3: she did that by exposing you know, the misuse of
48:49
Speaker 3: welfare dollars in Mississippi. And by the way, that took
48:53
Speaker 3: years and she was going you know through literally just
48:56
Speaker 3: just you know, documents and searching for things.
48:59
Speaker 1: It's almost old fashioned foya story, right, Like it was.
49:04
Speaker 3: Pure shoe leather and foya and spending a lot of
49:07
Speaker 3: time with papers. It was the opposite of sexy. It
49:10
Speaker 3: was started as service journalism. It became the story that
49:13
Speaker 3: involved you know, Brett Farm, you know, all of these
49:16
Speaker 3: people that everybody's heard the story. And you know, I
49:20
Speaker 3: think about our New Orleans newsroom that last year exposed
49:23
Speaker 3: the junk science behind the conviction of a guy who'd
49:26
Speaker 3: been sitting on death row forever. That guy is now
49:28
Speaker 3: out of jail and on parole. He was on death
49:31
Speaker 3: row in Angola Prison here in Louisiana. And so, you know,
49:35
Speaker 3: again didn't start with sexy stuff, but ends up in
49:38
Speaker 3: a place where it has real impact. And I could
49:41
Speaker 3: spend the rest of this podcast go through all the
49:43
Speaker 3: journalism and all of our newsrooms that that really has
49:45
Speaker 3: had this kind of impact. But to your point, you know,
49:49
Speaker 3: we know that we need to cover sports, and we
49:51
Speaker 3: need to cover you know, the great touch points of
49:53
Speaker 3: Southern culture like food and music, and we're moving into
49:57
Speaker 3: video and audio journalism so we can reach people where
49:59
Speaker 3: they are are and not just assume that they want
50:02
Speaker 3: to read a two thousand words story about you know,
50:05
Speaker 3: torture and abuse in Mississippi prisons. So you know, we're
50:09
Speaker 3: trying to do all of those things, but it starts
50:10
Speaker 3: with the values that we're inculcating into our journalists.
50:14
Speaker 1: You know. And I when I talk about my as
50:16
Speaker 1: you know, and I just I think I view local sports,
50:20
Speaker 1: whether it's youth sports, high school sports, however, you want
50:22
Speaker 1: to view as a community bomb bond, right, And when
50:28
Speaker 1: you think about we're so desperate for fine community bonds,
50:32
Speaker 1: and what's a bond that is bigger than politics, Well,
50:34
Speaker 1: youth sports in some ways is Oh, by the way,
50:38
Speaker 1: it happens to be a younger demographic. We all want
50:40
Speaker 1: to have younger readers, right, So there's there's a lot
50:43
Speaker 1: of stickiness here, but it's also expensive to cover local
50:47
Speaker 1: sports because the audience is small, cumulative, collectively, it's a
50:52
Speaker 1: gigantic audience. Right, It's a fascinating I mean, trust me,
50:56
Speaker 1: I have. I think there's opportunity to scale, but it
50:59
Speaker 1: is more or if you come at it from the
51:01
Speaker 1: youth sports space, not from necessarily the local news space.
51:04
Speaker 1: It is hard to see the scalability when you're just
51:06
Speaker 1: looking at it as a building block to your community
51:09
Speaker 1: information headquarters. So it's a it's a it's it's there.
51:15
Speaker 1: It's a challenge. I remember Andy Lack saying to me
51:19
Speaker 1: the first hire we made was was was the leading
51:23
Speaker 1: sports columnists. You know, we knew we need to at least,
51:26
Speaker 1: you know, invite readers over. But what works and what
51:30
Speaker 1: are some things that you want to try that you
51:33
Speaker 1: haven't yet in this in this community sports space.
51:37
Speaker 2: Oh it's specifically in sports.
51:38
Speaker 3: Well I still think you know that again to your point,
51:42
Speaker 3: like sports is really really important.
51:44
Speaker 2: In our culture.
51:45
Speaker 3: You know, whether it's Friday night high school football, whether
51:48
Speaker 3: it's you know, college sports, and I know you've been
51:50
Speaker 3: up my alma mater, University of Arkansas, but it's also.
51:53
Speaker 1: In high school. I mean, it's what keeps communities from
51:56
Speaker 1: beating each other up. The It's sort of what's the
51:59
Speaker 1: last thing that communities ignore politics about. Let's just talk
52:03
Speaker 1: about the high school game. I mean, I see it,
52:05
Speaker 1: and I've spent a lot of time in Pennscola. I've
52:08
Speaker 1: got place down there. I consider myself a member of
52:11
Speaker 1: Deep South today. And you're larger, you know, I definitely,
52:15
Speaker 1: and I know this culture and I love it, and
52:18
Speaker 1: it is not inherently political. And yet these these people
52:22
Speaker 1: are getting stereotyped by how frankly the East Coasts sometimes
52:26
Speaker 1: covers the region. And yet I can feel the desire
52:33
Speaker 1: for community down here I do well.
52:36
Speaker 2: And again it's also you know, culture.
52:38
Speaker 3: I mean, I like to say that, you know, so
52:40
Speaker 3: much of what people consider American culture if they're not
52:43
Speaker 3: in America, they're really talking about so because if you
52:48
Speaker 3: ask them, you know, what's American food, you know, they'll
52:51
Speaker 3: say barbecue, They'll say fried.
52:52
Speaker 1: I know, they always think in so America, nobody's ever
52:54
Speaker 1: talking about the jello molds from Minnesota.
52:58
Speaker 3: I hope not, although I've loved my friends in Minnesota,
53:01
Speaker 3: but but I do do.
53:02
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, there South and the South, Yeah yeah,
53:06
Speaker 1: And then.
53:06
Speaker 3: You know what's what's American music if you're if you're
53:08
Speaker 3: not American, Well, it's jazz, it's blues, It's these genres
53:11
Speaker 3: that came you know, from right here in New Orleans
53:13
Speaker 3: and Mississippi and uh, this this region and even you know,
53:17
Speaker 3: when people talk about American writers, they're quick to talk
53:20
Speaker 3: about Faulkner and wealthy and you know, and this is
53:22
Speaker 3: this is a place deep, deep, deeply rooted in its culture,
53:27
Speaker 3: and it is a point of unity.
53:29
Speaker 1: Please, I think one of the best modern writers today
53:31
Speaker 1: is also a Mississippi native, right, Thompson, Well, I mean,
53:34
Speaker 1: you know, like it is, there's something about Mississippi that
53:37
Speaker 1: just produces terrific, uh terrific writers.
53:41
Speaker 2: It's true, and I think we need to lean into that.
53:43
Speaker 3: And and you know, you would also mention Rick Cleveland,
53:45
Speaker 3: who's you know, the sports columnists in Mississippi's kind of
53:48
Speaker 3: the the the sports columnists in Mississippi happens.
53:51
Speaker 1: To write a fine bomb of sorts, right, you know,
53:53
Speaker 1: And there you go, yes.
53:55
Speaker 3: And you know, he has a podcast, And this is
53:57
Speaker 3: kind of where I wanted to go with us too.
53:59
Speaker 3: When you talk about like the younger generation and what
54:02
Speaker 3: we need to do. We started experimenting with sort of
54:04
Speaker 3: video and audio, you know, a few years ago, and
54:08
Speaker 3: what we find is, you know, we still have to
54:10
Speaker 3: invest in the reporting. You know, we have to do
54:12
Speaker 3: the hard work to come up with the stories. But
54:15
Speaker 3: when we're able to translate those into you know, thirty
54:18
Speaker 3: to sixty second TikTok videos where you get to see
54:21
Speaker 3: the journalist and you make a connection with that person
54:23
Speaker 3: and that person's telling you in their own words what
54:25
Speaker 3: they reported about that, it really lands and we're getting
54:29
Speaker 3: way more engagement, you know, way more views, and it's
54:32
Speaker 3: a way of sort of amplifying the impact of the journalism.
54:35
Speaker 3: And so we're going to be doing a lot more
54:37
Speaker 3: of that, and we recently announced this thing called Deep
54:40
Speaker 3: South Today Studios, where we're going to be doing video
54:43
Speaker 3: across all of our newsrooms as well as audio. Again
54:46
Speaker 3: not new to a guy like you who's done video
54:49
Speaker 3: and of course as a podcast right now, but it's
54:52
Speaker 3: important for us to be getting all of our reporting
54:55
Speaker 3: out and all the ways that we can on every
54:57
Speaker 3: platform and the way that people want to receive it.
55:09
Speaker 1: So, you know, it's interesting I think about I'm sure
55:12
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pivot AI here because I actually think what
55:14
Speaker 1: you're talking about is the perfect response to this AI moment.
55:19
Speaker 1: You know, when I think about the unintended consequence of AI,
55:23
Speaker 1: one of the upsides that I see that i'm and
55:26
Speaker 1: maybe i'm this is the eternal I always say, I'm
55:28
Speaker 1: short term pessimistic, long term optimistic. You know, I know
55:32
Speaker 1: we're going to get it right. I just don't know
55:33
Speaker 1: how long it's going to take us to get it right,
55:34
Speaker 1: whatever right is. You know, I'll let other people describe
55:38
Speaker 1: their version of it, but well, we know we're not there,
55:41
Speaker 1: and I think we can all come to that agreement.
55:44
Speaker 1: I think that this moment of AI that we're in
55:47
Speaker 1: is going to have people crave human connection. I think
55:50
Speaker 1: it's going to crave and so in the world of journalism,
55:54
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be we're actually going
55:57
Speaker 1: to stick to this independent model for a while. You
56:00
Speaker 1: know that consolidation. First of all, it's not going to
56:02
Speaker 1: make business sense the way it did perhaps in the
56:05
Speaker 1: early nineties and then again in the early odds. So
56:07
Speaker 1: I don't think you're going to see predators out there right.
56:10
Speaker 1: There isn't going to be a Gannette that decides, hey,
56:11
Speaker 1: why don't we you know, gobble all these people up there.
56:15
Speaker 1: There's some scale here. I think Google took everybody's scale. Okay,
56:19
Speaker 1: so Google has everybody scale, So nobody's going to be
56:21
Speaker 1: thinking in those terms. But the demand for human connection,
56:25
Speaker 1: the demand to trust human curators and to be live
56:29
Speaker 1: and in person, so for instance, they got to see it,
56:31
Speaker 1: touch it, the byline alone, and all sorts of ways.
56:35
Speaker 1: I you know, people are now making personal connective decisions
56:40
Speaker 1: and how they get their information. And when you go
56:42
Speaker 1: audio in particular, even YouTube you're listening in a headphone,
56:47
Speaker 1: and even that physical distinction between turning on a TV
56:51
Speaker 1: where everybody hears it versus what am I only going here?
56:56
Speaker 1: Well then it's intimate and even more personal. And the
56:59
Speaker 1: last thing you want is a bot talking to you
57:01
Speaker 1: that way. So I, you know, I sense that opportunity.
57:06
Speaker 1: But look, but that doesn't mean AI isn't an incredible
57:10
Speaker 1: tool to help you aggregate information, deal with deep databases.
57:16
Speaker 1: And you know there's certainly a toolbox aspect of this.
57:18
Speaker 1: It's going to be phenomenal and can be phenomenal. So
57:22
Speaker 1: how are you guys looking at AI? And you know,
57:27
Speaker 1: I think it's a mistake to try to have hard
57:29
Speaker 1: and fast rules in the moment because AI is in
57:31
Speaker 1: the middle of evolving all the time. We will never
57:34
Speaker 1: use AI. Okay, I bet you said we will never
57:36
Speaker 1: use Wikipedia. Like I remember saying that about Wikipedia and
57:39
Speaker 1: going you know, in hindsight, it turned out Wikipedia is
57:41
Speaker 1: a B minus product, and that's incredible for the Internet, right,
57:45
Speaker 1: B minus is actually at a curve, probably a work right.
57:48
Speaker 1: So Wikipedia today is actually a pretty decent source versus
57:53
Speaker 1: twenty years ago when all of us snobby journalists that
57:55
Speaker 1: do no, no, no, don't you quote your Wikipedia to me?
57:59
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to have a little bit of that
58:02
Speaker 1: of that sort of lack of hubris, I guess about AI.
58:07
Speaker 1: But where are you on it? And how do you do?
58:09
Speaker 4: Yeah?
58:09
Speaker 2: I mean, and I've got a lot to say on this.
58:11
Speaker 3: I want to reiterate something you mentioned, which is, you know,
58:14
Speaker 3: the factor of trust. You know, we are very rooted
58:19
Speaker 3: in place here in the Deep South. The big part
58:21
Speaker 3: of our sort of model, of course is having the newsrooms,
58:24
Speaker 3: you know, locally based, having our journalists in the community.
58:28
Speaker 3: It's really very important to us.
58:29
Speaker 1: And how many people in the community ask and how
58:31
Speaker 1: many generations have yours family lived here that's the first
58:34
Speaker 1: question out of their mouth, right.
58:35
Speaker 2: And well, it's a big question.
58:37
Speaker 3: But more importantly, just people want to know that like
58:39
Speaker 3: you actually live there, that you're experiencing the same thing
58:41
Speaker 3: they're experiencing. And it's one thing for us to kind
58:44
Speaker 3: of have like this network model where we're doing these
58:46
Speaker 3: business functions at you know, the Deep South today level.
58:49
Speaker 3: But it's even more important that the newsrooms themselves are
58:53
Speaker 3: again rooted locally. The journalists are in the community, they're seeing,
58:57
Speaker 3: they're touching. You know, we do a lot of in
58:59
Speaker 3: person events. To your point, again, the video and the
59:02
Speaker 3: audio is important so people see the journalists and can
59:04
Speaker 3: make those personal connections. But you know, when it comes
59:07
Speaker 3: to AI, then I think, you know, it's it's important
59:09
Speaker 3: to start with like the fact that I think people
59:11
Speaker 3: can really sniff out the fraudulent aspects of AI. Like
59:15
Speaker 3: just recently, you know, this book was canceled because people
59:18
Speaker 3: figured out I guess as soon as they started reading
59:21
Speaker 3: it that have been generated with AI. I think people
59:23
Speaker 3: see that with articles, they see that with videos and voices,
59:26
Speaker 3: you know, when we're on social media, and so you know,
59:29
Speaker 3: the more that we can kind of again convey the
59:31
Speaker 3: authenticity in our reporting.
59:34
Speaker 2: It's really really important.
59:36
Speaker 3: Now we know that, like all of us use AI
59:39
Speaker 3: even if we don't mean to, because when we're doing
59:41
Speaker 3: like a you know, a Google search, or we.
59:43
Speaker 1: Can't do search anymore without AI getting in the way anyway.
59:46
Speaker 1: And frankly, search is so terrible with all of its advertisements,
59:51
Speaker 1: you know, which takes you eight you know, eh, scrolls
59:54
Speaker 1: before you find the first link that wasn't ad supported, you.
59:57
Speaker 3: Know, right, And and there are AI tools that can
59:59
Speaker 3: make report more easy, like when you're you know, trying
1:00:01
Speaker 3: to analyze really big data sets, obviously you can do
1:00:04
Speaker 3: it more efficiently, more accurately if.
1:00:07
Speaker 2: You know how to use it.
1:00:08
Speaker 3: And so we're training our journalists in you know, data
1:00:12
Speaker 3: analysis and the use of data and data visualization and
1:00:15
Speaker 3: all of those things. But the point is we're doing
1:00:17
Speaker 3: this in partnership with our journalists. We're not obviously trying
1:00:21
Speaker 3: to replace human beings. We're not trying to use AP
1:00:24
Speaker 3: to do sorry AI to do the actual reporting.
1:00:27
Speaker 1: But you know, it's funny you say that AI shouldn't
1:00:30
Speaker 1: be used like AP was used by a lot of
1:00:32
Speaker 1: local news organizations for too long and it ended up
1:00:35
Speaker 1: I mean talk about your Freudian slips. I actually think
1:00:38
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful mispake because that was how you
1:00:41
Speaker 1: knew a local paper had given up when you saw
1:00:44
Speaker 1: nothing but wire copy on its front page. I mean
1:00:46
Speaker 1: that used to be the that was, oh it's a
1:00:49
Speaker 1: wire copy paper. Never mind. I mean literally, that's the
1:00:51
Speaker 1: way I would feel.
1:00:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, I mean definitely with someone.
1:00:55
Speaker 1: And AI could end up. And that's the point. AP
1:00:58
Speaker 1: was our version of commodity news. AI is going to
1:01:02
Speaker 1: be this generation's version of it.
1:01:04
Speaker 3: And we think our value proposition again is really you know,
1:01:07
Speaker 3: our people, Our people are important.
1:01:10
Speaker 2: Our people are doing this work.
1:01:11
Speaker 3: They're making it, you know, better than the work that's
1:01:14
Speaker 3: happening in other places and again having more impact. So
1:01:17
Speaker 3: we're going to continue investing in that and upholding that,
1:01:20
Speaker 3: and any use of AI that we have, you know,
1:01:22
Speaker 3: in the journalism process will be done decided, you know,
1:01:25
Speaker 3: in partnership and collaboration with our journalists.
1:01:28
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the newsrooms you've chosen and the ones
1:01:30
Speaker 1: that you're potentially going to launch. Yeah, what do you need?
1:01:34
Speaker 1: What does a community need to have for you to
1:01:36
Speaker 1: consider going? You know, what you should be part of
1:01:39
Speaker 1: the Deep South today network.
1:01:41
Speaker 2: Well, it's what it doesn't have to be honest with you.
1:01:43
Speaker 3: I mean, we're looking at the places of most need
1:01:46
Speaker 3: and we're prioritizing those because we want to be additive.
1:01:49
Speaker 3: We want to go to the places where we can
1:01:50
Speaker 3: do the most good because now that we've created this infrastructure,
1:01:54
Speaker 3: but it's so much easier to scale, you know, and
1:01:57
Speaker 3: and with so much more efficient Like let's take Arkansas,
1:02:00
Speaker 3: for example, a place where you know, unfortunately it's sort
1:02:02
Speaker 3: of headed in the direction that Mississippi was ten years ago,
1:02:06
Speaker 3: where you know, the legacy media has declined, a lot
1:02:08
Speaker 3: of local news has you know, disappeared.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: And I want to I want to give a shout
1:02:13
Speaker 1: out though, to the owner of the Arkansas Democratic.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: Is that absolutely?
1:02:16
Speaker 1: Because I feel like they staved this off longer than most.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: I agree, I completely.
1:02:23
Speaker 1: Made a pivot to digital quicker than most. Now, look
1:02:27
Speaker 1: was it was. I was I crazy about all the
1:02:30
Speaker 1: decisions they made. I wasn't. I think that they did
1:02:32
Speaker 1: some stuff that I understood why they got sold that software.
1:02:36
Speaker 1: I think they got sold a bill of goods, you know,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: when they were trying to make it where you'd see
1:02:40
Speaker 1: the paper itself in a PDF. There were a lot
1:02:43
Speaker 1: of local proprietors got caught up in hey, that our
1:02:47
Speaker 1: newspapers should look exactly like a newspaper does. In the end,
1:02:51
Speaker 1: it was like, actually, no, that isn't a necessity. But
1:02:56
Speaker 1: the point being is early on they mitigated that is
1:03:01
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, do you know them very well? And
1:03:04
Speaker 1: what have you wanted? And yeah, what do you can
1:03:06
Speaker 1: you tell me about them?
1:03:07
Speaker 3: Look, I'm become a University of Arkansas graduate. I lived
1:03:10
Speaker 3: in Little Rock for most of my adult life. I
1:03:13
Speaker 3: was an elected official there. I was also in journalism
1:03:15
Speaker 3: and other endeavors there. And I would always say, you
1:03:18
Speaker 3: know that that we were so so lucky to have
1:03:21
Speaker 3: the Democrat Azette because it did sort of uphold again,
1:03:24
Speaker 3: you know, this quality journalism. It wasn't wire copy to
1:03:27
Speaker 3: your earlier point. I mean, it was, you know, the
1:03:30
Speaker 3: only statewide daily newspaper really and so so it.
1:03:34
Speaker 1: Was and it was a robust, statewide daily, like it
1:03:36
Speaker 1: felt like it truly covered the state. It sure had
1:03:39
Speaker 1: a little Rock focus, but it it. They did. They
1:03:43
Speaker 1: accepted the premise they were a state wide paper.
1:03:46
Speaker 3: Definitely, And and so you know, I will always say,
1:03:49
Speaker 3: you know that, like I just really respect and admire
1:03:52
Speaker 3: that commitment and and what was what they did to
1:03:56
Speaker 3: to keep that going. I will say, going back to
1:03:59
Speaker 3: like the very first things we were talking about at
1:04:01
Speaker 3: the beginning of the podcast, is this is just a
1:04:03
Speaker 3: tough business, right. I mean, I think like if you're
1:04:05
Speaker 3: trying to do this on a for profit basis, and
1:04:07
Speaker 3: you're trying to do it the right way, where you're
1:04:10
Speaker 3: not trying to cater to a particular ideological or audience
1:04:13
Speaker 3: or exclude people, but just report the you know, the
1:04:16
Speaker 3: vegetables and the protein of daily news, you're probably going
1:04:21
Speaker 3: to have a hard time. And I think they've had
1:04:23
Speaker 3: a hard time, and so there's been some you know,
1:04:25
Speaker 3: more kind of unfortunate decline there. But also there's like
1:04:30
Speaker 3: a lot of need in Arkansas because you have a
1:04:32
Speaker 3: lot of growth in northwest Arkansas. You have obviously the
1:04:35
Speaker 3: capital city, Little Rock. You've got rural areas in the
1:04:38
Speaker 3: Mississippi Delta part of the state that are just lacking
1:04:40
Speaker 3: in news coverage. And if you want to really prioritize
1:04:43
Speaker 3: where the need is, Arkansas, like I said, is sort
1:04:46
Speaker 3: of where Mississippi was.
1:04:47
Speaker 2: Ten years ago.
1:04:48
Speaker 3: It's in need of a nonprofit you know, news operation
1:04:52
Speaker 3: that can fill those gaps, that can work in collaboration
1:04:55
Speaker 3: with the existing news media in the state, which is
1:04:58
Speaker 3: what we're going to be doing, and provide that essential
1:05:01
Speaker 3: information that people need to make decisions about their lives
1:05:04
Speaker 3: and to participate in their civic life. And the thing is,
1:05:07
Speaker 3: we can do that much more easily because now instead
1:05:10
Speaker 3: of somebody who would have to like build everything from
1:05:12
Speaker 3: scrib up, we've already got all the infrastructure. All we
1:05:15
Speaker 3: need to do is hire the editors and the reporters
1:05:17
Speaker 3: and put them to work.
1:05:18
Speaker 2: And that's what we're going to do.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting about Arkansas, as I was, is,
1:05:22
Speaker 1: you know, I talk about it like, why is it
1:05:24
Speaker 1: important for a small state to elect a president? I said,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: because because Bill Clinton approved a new airport for Northwest Arkansas.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: And I say this because what was the ultimate goal.
1:05:36
Speaker 1: The ultimate goal was to prevent Walmart and Tyson's Chicken
1:05:39
Speaker 1: from headquartering in Chicago or somewhere else. But it was
1:05:42
Speaker 1: Chicago was the most likely place because you know, it's central,
1:05:46
Speaker 1: and you know it makes you you can't argue against
1:05:49
Speaker 1: the logic of being in a centralized location like Chicago,
1:05:53
Speaker 1: and you know, and what essentially, I don't know that
1:05:56
Speaker 1: it went down this way, but you just sort of
1:05:58
Speaker 1: like Bill Clinton going, no, well, airport, we're gonna we
1:06:01
Speaker 1: can make Northwest Arkansas and what's phenomenal to me and work.
1:06:05
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to take a minute, since you're
1:06:07
Speaker 1: an Arkansas guy and a native and you know this
1:06:10
Speaker 1: state better than I do. In the eighties and nineties,
1:06:13
Speaker 1: Little Rock was the center of everything, center of power,
1:06:16
Speaker 1: center of culture, center of government. And now I feel
1:06:21
Speaker 1: like Little Rock is just the center of government, and
1:06:23
Speaker 1: Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas has become the sort of the
1:06:27
Speaker 1: cultural center. You know. Obviously, it's really sort of with
1:06:31
Speaker 1: the University of Arkansas being and faithful, You've got Walmart,
1:06:35
Speaker 1: You've got the Tysons and both, you have a lot
1:06:37
Speaker 1: of family members who chose to stay and invest in
1:06:41
Speaker 1: the community. So I look at it. It's been a
1:06:43
Speaker 1: remarkable transformation. And that's why I go back and go
1:06:48
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen unless without Bill Clinton becoming president. Because
1:06:51
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton made got them an airport like it is.
1:06:55
Speaker 1: You cannot under you know. I'm just curious if you've
1:06:59
Speaker 1: seen this, it looks dramatic from where I sit I
1:07:04
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in Little Rock for obvious
1:07:05
Speaker 1: reasons in the nineties, and so we all got to
1:07:08
Speaker 1: know Little Rock got the lovel I've had family in
1:07:10
Speaker 1: Little Rock a long time, so I knew it a
1:07:11
Speaker 1: little bit before. But it is remarkable to me the
1:07:14
Speaker 1: incredibly shrinking importance of Little Rock to the state of Arkansas.
1:07:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I represented Little Rock in the legislature and
1:07:21
Speaker 3: ran for mayor of Little Rock in twenty eighteen. So
1:07:23
Speaker 3: you've just you know, pulled the string and now you've
1:07:25
Speaker 3: gotten me started. And you know, I'll just say this
1:07:27
Speaker 3: goes back to the nineteenth century. You know, Arkansas's kind
1:07:31
Speaker 3: of bisected geologically. Half the state is you know, plantation,
1:07:36
Speaker 3: sort of Mississippi River farmland. The other half is you know,
1:07:39
Speaker 3: kind of Ozar Boston Mountains. And what that meant for
1:07:43
Speaker 3: the economy and the politics is that like all the
1:07:45
Speaker 3: wealth was in the agricultural side, you know, for you know,
1:07:48
Speaker 3: the first like one hundred hundred and fifty years, the
1:07:50
Speaker 3: plantation owners controlled you know, the politics in Little Rock.
1:07:54
Speaker 3: That's why Arkansas affiliated with the Confederacy. Even though everyone
1:07:57
Speaker 3: who lived in northwest Arkansas in the mountains, they all
1:08:00
Speaker 3: sort of affiliated and sympathized with the Union, and it
1:08:03
Speaker 3: created a lot of problems in the politicans.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: No, it's always been behaved weirdly like a border state,
1:08:08
Speaker 1: even though it is never technically a border state, right.
1:08:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, one hundred percent.
1:08:11
Speaker 3: And then you fast forward to the twentieth century, and
1:08:14
Speaker 3: you know, obviously as agriculture gets mechanized, you have the
1:08:17
Speaker 3: great outmigration, people leave. The Delta becomes the poor part
1:08:21
Speaker 3: of the state. Meanwhile, because you couldn't grow anything in
1:08:24
Speaker 3: northwest Arkansas, that's where Sam walton O been a general store.
1:08:28
Speaker 3: That's where the Tysons started raising chickens, and JB. Hunts started,
1:08:32
Speaker 3: you know, his trucking company. And then over the next
1:08:35
Speaker 3: fifty years is the aggs out of the stay goes
1:08:37
Speaker 3: and to decline. These companies I just mentioned become like
1:08:40
Speaker 3: Fortune one hundred companies, like Fortune fifty companies. They're Walmart's
1:08:44
Speaker 3: the biggest retailer in the world, Tyson's the biggest protein producer.
1:08:47
Speaker 4: JB.
1:08:47
Speaker 3: Hunt's the biggest transportational logistics company like in the world.
1:08:51
Speaker 3: And they're all in northwest Arkansas. And so to your point,
1:08:55
Speaker 3: you know, it became richer and it's starting to become
1:08:59
Speaker 3: more powerful politically. But I will say one more thing,
1:09:01
Speaker 3: because I used to pound my fist on the table
1:09:03
Speaker 3: about this in Little Rock. The thing is the folks
1:09:06
Speaker 3: with the money and the power in northwest Arkansas about
1:09:08
Speaker 3: twenty five years ago, they pulled everyone together and said
1:09:12
Speaker 3: we have got to cooperate. Like at the time, all
1:09:14
Speaker 3: the cities and counties up in that part of the
1:09:16
Speaker 3: state were fighting over things, and they said, we're going
1:09:18
Speaker 3: to have one strategy.
1:09:19
Speaker 2: We're going to be together.
1:09:21
Speaker 3: We're going to have you know, not just you know, infrastructure,
1:09:24
Speaker 3: but culture. And it was really you know, the Waltons
1:09:26
Speaker 3: who drove a lot of this.
1:09:27
Speaker 1: But you know when you see it, Bettonville and Faydeville
1:09:29
Speaker 1: or behave like sister cities, not competitors, correct.
1:09:32
Speaker 3: And they've got bike trails and museums and you know,
1:09:37
Speaker 3: hotels and and they've done all this together, whereas Central
1:09:41
Speaker 3: Arkansas unfortunately still fights with itself. And they used to
1:09:44
Speaker 3: drive me crazy. And I say, that's all about leadership.
1:09:47
Speaker 3: It's all about who's in charge and who decides to
1:09:50
Speaker 3: exert their authority to do something good. And they've done
1:09:53
Speaker 3: something really good in Northwest Arkansas.
1:09:55
Speaker 1: Now they have and it just feels like the it
1:09:57
Speaker 1: just you know, you feel the poll and power, right,
1:09:59
Speaker 1: and business, culture and education all sort of are there.
1:10:03
Speaker 1: The only thing that they don't have is politics, right,
1:10:06
Speaker 1: is the government, and.
1:10:08
Speaker 2: They don't have the state capital.
1:10:09
Speaker 1: But increasingly like and you can and it's and that
1:10:13
Speaker 1: is I think it's going to be an interesting source
1:10:15
Speaker 1: of political tension. Right. You just know that this will
1:10:18
Speaker 1: this will go back and forth. I mean frankly to
1:10:21
Speaker 1: a much different degree. But it was sort of like,
1:10:24
Speaker 1: how this can go. It can go sideways. Miami is
1:10:28
Speaker 1: the cultural and always has been the sort of the
1:10:31
Speaker 1: center of Florida, but it's never been the political capital
1:10:34
Speaker 1: and political capitalism, so you can it can it can
1:10:37
Speaker 1: sometimes create tension there. So I bring all that up
1:10:40
Speaker 1: about Arkansas because if you're starting a nonprofit journalistic organization,
1:10:44
Speaker 1: it's obvious you got to start where the money is
1:10:46
Speaker 1: because you got to have patrons. And yet at the
1:10:48
Speaker 1: same time, you just describe where the need is. It's
1:10:51
Speaker 1: not necessarily where the money people are. And this is
1:10:53
Speaker 1: the balance of this. Which business model do you pick? Right?
1:10:58
Speaker 1: Is a nonprofit? Is it a cooperative? Is it a
1:11:00
Speaker 1: full on for profit? Is it a not for profit,
1:11:03
Speaker 1: which is slightly different than just a nonprofit. Right, So
1:11:07
Speaker 1: I say, this is how much do you factor in? Hey,
1:11:12
Speaker 1: the community we're in has to also have enough Brinkley
1:11:18
Speaker 1: wealthy patrons. Yeah.
1:11:20
Speaker 3: Well interestingly, just so you know, I mean, Northwest Arkansas
1:11:22
Speaker 3: is actually where the need for journalism is more acute
1:11:25
Speaker 3: than Central Arkansas. Like you know, when I'll tell you
1:11:28
Speaker 3: when I was starting to work on this project and
1:11:30
Speaker 3: I was visiting Northwest Arkansas, I just so happened to
1:11:32
Speaker 3: be there like the day before a primary. This was
1:11:34
Speaker 3: like a couple of years ago, and I ran into
1:11:37
Speaker 3: somebody anew on the street and they didn't even know
1:11:39
Speaker 3: what I was doing, like at the time.
1:11:41
Speaker 2: And they just like they were just relating to me. Warwick.
1:11:44
Speaker 3: You know, there's this election tomorrow, and I have no
1:11:47
Speaker 3: idea who's running for office. I have no idea who
1:11:49
Speaker 3: to vote for because there's no news up here. And
1:11:52
Speaker 3: literally they didn't even know what I was up there
1:11:54
Speaker 3: to do in the first place. And I just I
1:11:57
Speaker 3: know this is anecdotal, but it's true. And so you
1:12:01
Speaker 3: have this very again, the fastest growing, richest part of
1:12:04
Speaker 3: the state doesn't have journalism. But then Also, you know,
1:12:07
Speaker 3: the rural parts and the poorest parts don't have it either.
1:12:10
Speaker 3: And I say that to say we're going to be
1:12:12
Speaker 3: in both places. We're going to see it like, yeah,
1:12:15
Speaker 3: everyone who needs it, because when I define need, I
1:12:17
Speaker 3: define it in terms of need and journalism. The other
1:12:20
Speaker 3: thing I'll just say too, is like we're in an
1:12:22
Speaker 3: underresourced region, Like we don't have anything close to the
1:12:26
Speaker 3: wealth of a New York City in La San Francisco, Chicago,
1:12:30
Speaker 3: d C. So I take it for granted that, like
1:12:32
Speaker 3: we're doing more with less here no matter what. Like
1:12:36
Speaker 3: we don't have big philanthropy, we don't have a lot
1:12:38
Speaker 3: of wealthy people. We have a handful of small successful
1:12:42
Speaker 3: business owners and in our region, but nothing to the
1:12:44
Speaker 3: scale of other places. So we're just going to do
1:12:47
Speaker 3: as much as we can. And that's why we've built
1:12:49
Speaker 3: such an efficient business model to take advantage of these
1:12:52
Speaker 3: economies of scale.
1:13:04
Speaker 1: What other states you've got Arkansas, Uh, We're.
1:13:07
Speaker 2: Going to be in Arkansas.
1:13:08
Speaker 3: And I want to emphasize too, we still have room
1:13:11
Speaker 3: to grow in Mississippi and Louisiana. I mean, we have
1:13:13
Speaker 3: two newsrooms in Louisiana, but you.
1:13:15
Speaker 1: Could be you could be in southern Mississippi. You're not
1:13:18
Speaker 1: in southern mississ and.
1:13:19
Speaker 3: We're working on that. We definitely want to be on
1:13:21
Speaker 3: the coast in Mississippi in a in a bigger way.
1:13:24
Speaker 3: But you know, there are parts of Alabama that need us,
1:13:27
Speaker 3: there are parts of Tennessee that need us. You know,
1:13:30
Speaker 3: I can see Georgia is a place we go in.
1:13:32
Speaker 3: And again, this is not a manifest destiny situation where
1:13:36
Speaker 3: we want to be everywhere and lick every lollipop. It's
1:13:39
Speaker 3: just about, you know, trying to find the places where
1:13:43
Speaker 3: our particular model can do the most good because of
1:13:46
Speaker 3: the region that we're in.
1:13:47
Speaker 1: So are you Are you convinced that nonprofit is what
1:13:52
Speaker 1: it's going to be or do you envision it eventually
1:13:56
Speaker 1: trying to create a sustainable revenue stream.
1:14:00
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's sustainable.
1:14:02
Speaker 3: I mean, the way I would just describe it to
1:14:04
Speaker 3: you is that, you know, we are a civic institution,
1:14:07
Speaker 3: sort of the way a college or university or a
1:14:09
Speaker 3: museum or a performing arts institution, where people understand the
1:14:12
Speaker 3: value that it has in the community. They also understand
1:14:15
Speaker 3: that like in most cases, a college, a museum, or
1:14:19
Speaker 3: a performing arts institution isn't going to work as a
1:14:21
Speaker 3: for profit. You're not going to make a lot of
1:14:23
Speaker 3: money from that, but you're going to support it with philanthropy.
1:14:26
Speaker 3: You're still going to charge tuition, you're still going to
1:14:29
Speaker 3: sell tickets, you're still going to charge admission. And those
1:14:33
Speaker 3: are earned revenue sources. And so we're also going to
1:14:36
Speaker 3: have earned revenue sources. We have earned revenue sources through advertising,
1:14:40
Speaker 3: through you know, events, sponsorship, through you know sponsorship of
1:14:44
Speaker 3: things like podcasts and videos and things like that. So
1:14:46
Speaker 3: earned revenue is a pillar, but it's alongside membership and
1:14:51
Speaker 3: alongside philanthropy to keep it sustainable. And I don't think
1:14:55
Speaker 3: there's anything wrong with that, and in fact, I think
1:14:57
Speaker 3: it's necessary because when you look at journalist, the way
1:15:01
Speaker 3: you can make a profit in it is by either
1:15:04
Speaker 3: really appealing to like an ideological niche or appealing to
1:15:07
Speaker 3: like a particular industry sector.
1:15:10
Speaker 2: So if you want to get like all the people who.
1:15:11
Speaker 3: Really need, you know, very specific news about Capitol Hill
1:15:16
Speaker 3: or very specific news about Wall Street or about you know,
1:15:19
Speaker 3: Silicon Valley, you can get those people, and you can
1:15:21
Speaker 3: charge them like premium subscriptions because you're giving them and
1:15:25
Speaker 3: you know this better than anybody, but for us, again,
1:15:28
Speaker 3: we're trying to give them meat and potatoes of daily news.
1:15:31
Speaker 3: It's the kind of stuff people don't think they need
1:15:32
Speaker 3: to pay for so but they do need it, and
1:15:35
Speaker 3: we need it to have a.
1:15:36
Speaker 2: Healthy government and a healthy civic life.
1:15:38
Speaker 3: So we're doing it as a as a civic good,
1:15:41
Speaker 3: and we're giving it away for free.
1:15:43
Speaker 1: What's a what's something that you because you're right about
1:15:47
Speaker 1: this this it's interesting. You want to pick up on
1:15:49
Speaker 1: something you said earlier, which is, and I think this
1:15:52
Speaker 1: has happened. What happened to the Arkansas Democratic is that
1:15:55
Speaker 1: it arguably is sort of what Bezos has decided how
1:15:59
Speaker 1: Besils has decided to deal with his problems at the Post,
1:16:02
Speaker 1: which is, you do have legacy costs. You've been around
1:16:04
Speaker 1: long enough, you're going to have you know, healthcare costs,
1:16:08
Speaker 1: pension costs, labor union contracts, all sorts of you know.
1:16:13
Speaker 1: There's somebody was telling me that, like, you know, the
1:16:18
Speaker 1: Washington Post has to print ninety thousand copies minimum every
1:16:21
Speaker 1: day and for a couple of like contracts or whatever.
1:16:25
Speaker 1: It is, right, and there's sort of like it's a
1:16:27
Speaker 1: loss leader now, right, And how on how that works
1:16:30
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, you do develop those legacy costs,
1:16:33
Speaker 1: and that happens, and there is something about Robert Albritton
1:16:37
Speaker 1: has the luxury of being able to start from scratch.
1:16:40
Speaker 1: You have the luxury starting from scratch. That doesn't mean
1:16:43
Speaker 1: you're you're anti union or pro union. It could mean
1:16:46
Speaker 1: that you're going to probably have employees. At some point
1:16:49
Speaker 1: you say, hey, we'd like to be unionized New York.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. It's it's employee decisions and you
1:16:56
Speaker 1: go from there. And I think, you know, there's always
1:16:59
Speaker 1: a there's there's a fine line here on collective bargaining
1:17:02
Speaker 1: versus individ you know, all of that stuff. And I
1:17:04
Speaker 1: think every every news organization should make their decisions that way.
1:17:09
Speaker 1: But what are the I mean in some of this
1:17:14
Speaker 1: is where you have an advantage and where the Birmingham
1:17:17
Speaker 1: News and the Arkansas Democratic is that are still sort
1:17:20
Speaker 1: of you know, they have obligations that they'd love to
1:17:24
Speaker 1: give up on to focus on what you're doing, and
1:17:26
Speaker 1: they like, hey, we're just stuck. We can't.
1:17:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean, you know, I again I'll emphasize,
1:17:34
Speaker 3: I mean, we are able to be a little bit
1:17:37
Speaker 3: more nimble than these legacy news organizations. And you know,
1:17:42
Speaker 3: again I think we don't when I look at like
1:17:45
Speaker 3: what that they've had to do to stay in business.
1:17:47
Speaker 3: They've had to raise their subscription rates, which in poor
1:17:51
Speaker 3: places like Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, you know, it leads to
1:17:56
Speaker 3: fewer people having access to that news and information they're
1:17:59
Speaker 3: putting out, you know, and most of them have stopped printing.
1:18:03
Speaker 2: In fact, you know, the Democrat is.
1:18:04
Speaker 3: Dded famously sort of given out iPads to people, which
1:18:08
Speaker 3: was a really I think innovative thing that they did.
1:18:11
Speaker 1: Again, they tried things that like you see what they're
1:18:13
Speaker 1: trying to do. In hindsight, it I understand why it
1:18:16
Speaker 1: didn't work.
1:18:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, but I know, I really do admire them
1:18:19
Speaker 3: for trying. It was innovative at the time. And but again,
1:18:24
Speaker 3: like to your point, like when you've got a situation
1:18:26
Speaker 3: where you have to please shareholders or private owners, you
1:18:29
Speaker 3: have to generate a profit, and you have all of
1:18:33
Speaker 3: these sort of you know things like you know, having
1:18:34
Speaker 3: owning a printing press and having to to service all
1:18:38
Speaker 3: of this you know, different kind of debt or obligation.
1:18:41
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a difficult thing.
1:18:43
Speaker 3: And that's why I really do believe in our model,
1:18:45
Speaker 3: like as a nonprofit doing it as a public service,
1:18:47
Speaker 3: knowing that you know, the revenue we do generate gets
1:18:50
Speaker 3: invested right back into the product.
1:18:53
Speaker 2: There's there's no sort of you know, doubt about you.
1:18:56
Speaker 3: Know, where where we're putting the money, why we're doing
1:18:59
Speaker 3: what we're doing. And then understanding that like going forward,
1:19:04
Speaker 3: we're going to be supported by our members who are
1:19:06
Speaker 3: kind of you know, our small dollar donors, who you
1:19:09
Speaker 3: could call them the equivalent of like subscribers, because these
1:19:12
Speaker 3: are people who are voluntarily giving a certain amount of
1:19:14
Speaker 3: money per month just because they value the news that
1:19:17
Speaker 3: we're providing.
1:19:18
Speaker 1: I'm a recurring annual donor exactly.
1:19:22
Speaker 5: Exactly ten dollars, you know, whatever you want to give,
1:19:25
Speaker 5: pay pay what you can. And we appreciate our members
1:19:28
Speaker 5: so much and they're kind of our our core foundation.
1:19:31
Speaker 5: And then you have you know, again, the the revenue
1:19:33
Speaker 5: we generate through advertising and sponsorship and all of that,
1:19:36
Speaker 5: which I think is an important pillar. And then and
1:19:39
Speaker 5: then the philanthropy is what makes you know, the books
1:19:42
Speaker 5: balance out and give us, you know, also the catalyzing
1:19:45
Speaker 5: opportunities to do innovative things like we just started an
1:19:48
Speaker 5: investigative reporting center and partnership with the New York Times.
1:19:52
Speaker 5: And that was something that we conceived with the New
1:19:54
Speaker 5: York Times, but then I went out and raised the
1:19:56
Speaker 5: money for it. Or Andy Lack, who you mentioned at
1:19:59
Speaker 5: the beginning, who just made a very important gift to
1:20:02
Speaker 5: us so we could further invest in our deep South
1:20:04
Speaker 5: to day studios and do more video and audio.
1:20:07
Speaker 3: So so again. But it's like when you read about
1:20:09
Speaker 3: a college or university getting a philanthropic gift to do
1:20:12
Speaker 3: something awesome around medical research or whatever it is. Right,
1:20:16
Speaker 3: people are going to understand more and more how journalism
1:20:20
Speaker 3: truly is a civic institution, because without it, our democracy
1:20:26
Speaker 3: just doesn't work.
1:20:27
Speaker 1: That's an interesting look. I will, I will confess to
1:20:30
Speaker 1: being I believe you know, I want to try to
1:20:35
Speaker 1: make most of these work without being a nonprofit, right
1:20:38
Speaker 1: I am because I think you can get donor fatigue.
1:20:42
Speaker 1: I'm sure you hit you you know how that feels? Right?
1:20:45
Speaker 1: You know and want to you want to try to
1:20:49
Speaker 1: be able to how can you handle the lean times? Right?
1:20:51
Speaker 1: You know, I've got a friend of mine who's obsessed
1:20:53
Speaker 1: with getting local news organizations to buy buildings, you know,
1:20:57
Speaker 1: go get real estate again, so that way in the
1:20:59
Speaker 1: tough times, you something to borrow again so you can
1:21:01
Speaker 1: make payroll. And I thought it was an interesting you
1:21:04
Speaker 1: know that that you know, that's why ann Alden came
1:21:07
Speaker 1: in and bought all these newspapers because they wanted the
1:21:09
Speaker 1: real estate you know there was that was the value
1:21:12
Speaker 1: they saw in some of like the Denver Posts and
1:21:14
Speaker 1: it's downtown real estate or the Miami Herald, that incredible
1:21:17
Speaker 1: real estate at one time in Miami, And uh, it
1:21:22
Speaker 1: is it is interesting. I I've not heard somebody make
1:21:27
Speaker 1: the case the way you're making it, in a really
1:21:30
Speaker 1: smart way that it's like, look, and you don't want
1:21:32
Speaker 1: to say newspapers are a museum, and I kind of like,
1:21:35
Speaker 1: you know, but when I think about, like take a
1:21:40
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about how the how Faytteville gets it and
1:21:44
Speaker 1: gets all these people to stop at their tours and
1:21:47
Speaker 1: why do they do that? Because you do have patrons
1:21:50
Speaker 1: that come in and will spend the extra money to
1:21:53
Speaker 1: make sure Faytefeld makes it onto the major stops for
1:21:57
Speaker 1: musicals or play or maybe artists tours, you know, if
1:22:04
Speaker 1: they want to show their work and this sort of
1:22:08
Speaker 1: public private partnership anyway, it's you've articulated it better than
1:22:12
Speaker 1: I've heard others in making the nonprofit case. That look,
1:22:16
Speaker 1: it's more of a public private partnership like a private
1:22:19
Speaker 1: frankly like a private university more. It's more of a
1:22:22
Speaker 1: private university partnership necessarily than the public because I assume
1:22:26
Speaker 1: you're not looking for government money. Some do. Some news
1:22:29
Speaker 1: organizations are hoping. You know, I'm more open to the
1:22:33
Speaker 1: idea of tax breaks for local advertising than subsidy subsidizing
1:22:38
Speaker 1: directly workers. But you know, I know some people are
1:22:42
Speaker 1: looking to state governments for some financial subsidies for local needs.
1:22:47
Speaker 3: You know, as a former elected official, I don't want
1:22:50
Speaker 3: us to be anywhere near government money.
1:22:52
Speaker 2: I don't think it's appropriate.
1:22:54
Speaker 3: But I also don't think it's It's a it's a
1:22:57
Speaker 3: dangerous game to play, I think sometimes.
1:22:59
Speaker 1: Because all the many you take it, then you're just
1:23:01
Speaker 1: compromised yourself, even you don't even hundred percent.
1:23:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, and our job is to stay neutral and objective
1:23:07
Speaker 3: and to and I hold people in power to account,
1:23:09
Speaker 3: and so we can't kind of be vulnerable to that
1:23:11
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. So so no, and and again, I
1:23:14
Speaker 3: mean I want to emphasize too, Like I am all
1:23:16
Speaker 3: for people who can make a profit doing journalism in
1:23:19
Speaker 3: the right way, and I want you and everybody else
1:23:22
Speaker 3: to be successful in that. But I do think that
1:23:25
Speaker 3: like in this day and age, it is really difficult
1:23:28
Speaker 3: again just to deliver the straight you know, essential news
1:23:32
Speaker 3: and information, and especially regions like ours that don't have
1:23:35
Speaker 3: a lot of wealth to begin with, without it being
1:23:38
Speaker 3: in some degree like a public trust.
1:23:41
Speaker 2: It's it's uh, that's why.
1:23:42
Speaker 3: I compare it to these other institutions, because nobody begrudges.
1:23:45
Speaker 1: Now the museum, and the and the and the local playhouse.
1:23:48
Speaker 1: That feels that that that makes a lot of sense
1:23:51
Speaker 1: to me, like putting it in those categories, yeah, or
1:23:55
Speaker 1: the private university. What do you hope to get out
1:23:57
Speaker 1: of Local News Day? I mean, I know you're you're
1:23:59
Speaker 1: more than just a just a cheerleader for John Adams.
1:24:03
Speaker 1: You guys are a partner organization, you know. I mean, look,
1:24:08
Speaker 1: it is literally what I've described it as. It is
1:24:12
Speaker 1: an awareness day. Guess what. And if you don't have
1:24:15
Speaker 1: local news, you should be asking for more of it
1:24:17
Speaker 1: right in your community. But what do you hope to
1:24:19
Speaker 1: get out of it? How do you guys want to
1:24:21
Speaker 1: want to use the day and what do you. Obviously
1:24:23
Speaker 1: John and hopes it's something that that is an annual
1:24:28
Speaker 1: event all Lah Earthday.
1:24:30
Speaker 2: I'm sure it will be. I mean, let me cheerlead
1:24:32
Speaker 2: for John for a second. Even though you said I
1:24:34
Speaker 2: don't have to.
1:24:34
Speaker 3: I mean, he this was his idea and the fact
1:24:38
Speaker 3: that he was able to manifest that into what now
1:24:41
Speaker 3: it's become, which is I mean, you know, so many partners.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: So many quests and so much fifty or seven hundred
1:24:48
Speaker 1: partners or something only the.
1:24:49
Speaker 3: First year too, which means I think there's no doubt
1:24:51
Speaker 3: it's going to be sustainable in perpetuity and it's only
1:24:55
Speaker 3: going to get bigger. But to have achieved this just
1:24:57
Speaker 3: in the first year is incredible. So kudos to John
1:25:00
Speaker 3: for conceiving this and inviting us all to participate. But
1:25:04
Speaker 3: to your point, I mean, I think there's a lot
1:25:06
Speaker 3: of work to do to raise awareness about local news.
1:25:09
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we all have to.
1:25:11
Speaker 3: It's sort of like politicians who think, you know, people
1:25:13
Speaker 3: are paying attention to the bill that they've introduced, when
1:25:16
Speaker 3: really everybody's just trying to get their kids to school
1:25:18
Speaker 3: and get the groceries and go to work. It's the
1:25:20
Speaker 3: same thing with local news, Like we're obviously very fixated
1:25:23
Speaker 3: on what we're trying to accomplish, but most people just
1:25:26
Speaker 3: look at their phone and they don't usually even know
1:25:28
Speaker 3: where the information they're reading is coming from. Like there,
1:25:31
Speaker 3: it's already been through two or three like iterations, right,
1:25:34
Speaker 3: like somebody's reposting something that appeared somewhere else, or an influencer.
1:25:38
Speaker 1: It's the worst game of telephone, right.
1:25:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know for a fact, like we generate where
1:25:44
Speaker 3: like we are the primary source for so much news
1:25:46
Speaker 3: and information yet are hardly ever credited for it, which
1:25:49
Speaker 3: is okay because it's just getting out in all the
1:25:52
Speaker 3: different ways across you know, the world, and so local
1:25:56
Speaker 3: news day is that maybe that moment for people to understand,
1:26:00
Speaker 3: maybe for a split second, that you know, this information
1:26:04
Speaker 3: comes from somewhere. It's really important. It's even more important
1:26:07
Speaker 3: because it's local. It's not the hundredth version of what's
1:26:11
Speaker 3: going on in DC. It's actually what's happening in your community,
1:26:14
Speaker 3: and were not for us, you wouldn't know about it,
1:26:17
Speaker 3: and it's affecting your life, you know, when you turn
1:26:19
Speaker 3: on the faucet or when you're you know, hope hopefully you.
1:26:22
Speaker 1: Know, they don't have total We've had a drinking water
1:26:25
Speaker 1: issue in Jackson, Mississippi. I find it to be the
1:26:27
Speaker 1: most shameful, right, I find it to be the most
1:26:30
Speaker 1: shameful fact that a state capital in the United States
1:26:34
Speaker 1: of America didn't have drinking water that they could reliable
1:26:39
Speaker 1: drinking water, and our federal government just shrugs, like I
1:26:45
Speaker 1: found the whole thing to be like this entire But
1:26:47
Speaker 1: it's like, this is why local news is there, this
1:26:50
Speaker 1: is why we're pound it. It's like, you know, you
1:26:53
Speaker 1: got to have it there and look, yes, and to
1:26:56
Speaker 1: make sure you're reading local news every day. We'll tell
1:26:58
Speaker 1: you where to find cheaper or chicken or gas or
1:27:03
Speaker 1: these other things too. Right, Like, you know, there's no
1:27:06
Speaker 1: doubt you want to be the the community guide for
1:27:10
Speaker 1: surviving in your community, surviving and thriving. Right, there's the
1:27:13
Speaker 1: survival part of journalism, and then there's the thriving part
1:27:15
Speaker 1: of life. We'll do that too. But you know, when
1:27:19
Speaker 1: you think about just the small things that that Mississippi needs,
1:27:24
Speaker 1: you know, just letting people know that somebody is paying
1:27:26
Speaker 1: attention to the to Jackson. I mean even though it's
1:27:29
Speaker 1: a state capital, you couldn't get state loanmakers to worry about.
1:27:32
Speaker 2: It, right, and and and again.
1:27:34
Speaker 3: The reason why we are doing this in the first
1:27:36
Speaker 3: place because you know, the other news organizations have kind
1:27:40
Speaker 3: of you know, filtered out, and so we're sort of
1:27:43
Speaker 3: standing in the breach.
1:27:44
Speaker 1: And I want to I want to land the plane
1:27:47
Speaker 1: quickly in two ways. One is print dead or do
1:27:50
Speaker 1: you see a a path for some print in a
1:27:55
Speaker 1: in the in the future of local news like a
1:27:57
Speaker 1: weekly or twice weekly or nation And I say this,
1:28:02
Speaker 1: I'm sort of seeding the question here. Different local news
1:28:06
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs are starting to dabble again in some print, and
1:28:11
Speaker 1: it's usually on a weekly or a twice weekly basis.
1:28:14
Speaker 1: But I'm curious what you guys have found.
1:28:16
Speaker 2: No, I think what you said is insacher. It's kind
1:28:17
Speaker 2: of like, you know, the resurgence of vinyl and music.
1:28:20
Speaker 2: It's like there's going to be opportunities for niche products
1:28:24
Speaker 2: in print, Like it's not going to be how people
1:28:26
Speaker 2: consume their daily news. But could you put out, you know,
1:28:29
Speaker 2: a monthly compendium of news? Could you focus I think.
1:28:34
Speaker 1: Give you simply did local obituaries for the week. I
1:28:37
Speaker 1: know that sounds people. You know, that is a commune.
1:28:40
Speaker 1: I've always said, you know, the one of the most
1:28:42
Speaker 1: important things you've got to do if you're going to
1:28:43
Speaker 1: be a local news entrepreneur is celebrate the lives in
1:28:46
Speaker 1: your community, and the obituary page is no better place
1:28:48
Speaker 1: to do it.
1:28:49
Speaker 3: That's right, or you know, in those areas of culture,
1:28:51
Speaker 3: I think you know, the coffee table presence, the physicality
1:28:55
Speaker 3: of it is still a value that I used to
1:28:56
Speaker 3: publish a magazine called The Oxford American, so I know.
1:28:59
Speaker 2: The value who I remember that with a print product, but.
1:29:02
Speaker 3: It's too disposable for daily news utilization.
1:29:06
Speaker 2: It doesn't economics make sense.
1:29:08
Speaker 1: But you start, I can start to see the and
1:29:11
Speaker 1: what's interesting. I've also heard that classifieds in a limited
1:29:15
Speaker 1: capacity are an opportunity, again because of the localized nature,
1:29:20
Speaker 1: meaning there is a sense of I just want people
1:29:24
Speaker 1: in the community. I'm not interested in advertising. You know,
1:29:26
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a dog walker, you're not going
1:29:28
Speaker 1: to put that on indeed, right, or you're not going
1:29:30
Speaker 1: to put that on Craigslist. You actually, you know, might
1:29:32
Speaker 1: do that. You know, you'd want to have a local
1:29:35
Speaker 1: So I've heard that, let me ask one other aspect,
1:29:38
Speaker 1: the local local independent radio and public radio in particular,
1:29:44
Speaker 1: has been gutted. We know, we know the situation as
1:29:47
Speaker 1: to why what does that meant? In Mississippi, a lot
1:29:50
Speaker 1: of these rural, poor communities the only source of information
1:29:54
Speaker 1: was local public radio. There's a lot of there's a
1:29:59
Speaker 1: lot of innovation taking place with some local radio pioneers
1:30:02
Speaker 1: that I've been curious where you guys are at, how
1:30:05
Speaker 1: much do you work with? What's left? How is the
1:30:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to focus on Misissippi and Louisiana. What is
1:30:11
Speaker 1: the public radio situation like in those two places? Right now? Yeah?
1:30:14
Speaker 3: No, I know you left this for the end, but
1:30:15
Speaker 3: this is actually something we've been working really hard on
1:30:18
Speaker 3: with our friends in public radio. So whether it's the
1:30:22
Speaker 3: local affiliates here in Louisiana, Mississippi, also Arkansas, I'll say,
1:30:26
Speaker 3: or whether you know even at the regional level with
1:30:28
Speaker 3: the Gulf States newsroom here and the national level, I'll
1:30:32
Speaker 3: just say, uh, stay tuned, as maybe you would say,
1:30:36
Speaker 3: because we've got some really.
1:30:38
Speaker 1: Some real opportunities in there. I think I think there, Yeah,
1:30:41
Speaker 1: that's what I've been hopeful for.
1:30:42
Speaker 3: That.
1:30:42
Speaker 1: Look, public radio, I'm you know, it is such a
1:30:47
Speaker 1: localized lifeline that there should be a partnership with local
1:30:50
Speaker 1: media in general. And I think there's opportunities there, and
1:30:53
Speaker 1: I think.
1:30:54
Speaker 3: The distinction between public media and like nonprofit media is
1:30:57
Speaker 3: basically gone now that obviously the governments really investing in that.
1:31:01
Speaker 3: So we need to find a way to bring it
1:31:03
Speaker 3: together and again find some some awesome collaborative opportunities to
1:31:08
Speaker 3: do what we do respectively even better together.
1:31:12
Speaker 1: Waick. Look, you're one of the you know, first when
1:31:15
Speaker 1: I when I wanted to you know, when I left
1:31:17
Speaker 1: Meet the Press and left NBC and wanted to throw
1:31:19
Speaker 1: myself in local news, I think you were like the
1:31:21
Speaker 1: first person I talked to and really gave me a
1:31:23
Speaker 1: great education and doing that and and my my friendship
1:31:28
Speaker 1: with Andy, I'm obviously a huge cheerleader of what you're
1:31:31
Speaker 1: doing over there in general. But but you've you sort
1:31:35
Speaker 1: of both. You have this ability and it's very important
1:31:40
Speaker 1: in this in this world that we're all trying to rebuild. Here.
1:31:43
Speaker 1: You see the local need and you see the place,
1:31:47
Speaker 1: you see what national could be, and you seem to
1:31:50
Speaker 1: be like I'm trying to figure out how to be
1:31:52
Speaker 1: in both places, and it is just there's not a
1:31:55
Speaker 1: lot of and perhaps your previous experience in publishing helps
1:31:59
Speaker 1: with that. But I think, thank you you sort of
1:32:01
Speaker 1: see this in a way. There's a few yourself, There's
1:32:03
Speaker 1: my friend John Ralston out in Nevada. There's only a
1:32:06
Speaker 1: handful of people that sort of both see the micro
1:32:09
Speaker 1: and macro at the same time. And I think that's
1:32:11
Speaker 1: a that's you know, that's what makes a good publisher.
1:32:14
Speaker 1: You've got to be able to do both both left
1:32:16
Speaker 1: brain and right brain stuff. So kudos to you, and
1:32:18
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what you guys do next.
1:32:20
Speaker 2: Well, thank you.
1:32:20
Speaker 3: That's a high compliment. And I'll just say, I mean,
1:32:22
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you're in it. It's great to be
1:32:24
Speaker 3: in it with you, and I really appreciate this opportunity
1:32:27
Speaker 3: to have this conversation, So thank you.
1:32:28
Speaker 1: All right, April ninth, Local News Day. What it really
1:32:32
Speaker 1: means is, if you're in Mississippi, sign up for a
1:32:34
Speaker 1: yearly subscription to Mississippi Today, or if you're in Louisiana,
1:32:38
Speaker 1: sign up for give me, give me the names of the.
1:32:40
Speaker 2: Pubs Verite News and the Current.
1:32:43
Speaker 1: Veritae News, and the current is in Lafayette. That's correct,
1:32:46
Speaker 1: and I know to say Lafayette, right, that's.
1:32:50
Speaker 2: Got to come down and visit and eat some of
1:32:52
Speaker 2: our good food too.
1:32:54
Speaker 1: There's always always Warick. This is terrific. Thanks for the.
1:32:58
Speaker 2: Time, Thanks so much. Check this was a place I appreciate.
1:33:00
Speaker 4: About it to Jest Top five Top top Jest, Top five.
1:33:13
Speaker 1: All right, this week I got a unique take on
1:33:16
Speaker 1: the top five list. I've been giving you my top
1:33:18
Speaker 1: five most Senate seats most likely to flip, your top
1:33:21
Speaker 1: five governor seats most likely to flip. I've done some
1:33:24
Speaker 1: historical top five lists, and I'm going to keep that going.
1:33:28
Speaker 1: But I thought i'd do a slightly different take on something,
1:33:34
Speaker 1: because which is the top five right now? My top
1:33:37
Speaker 1: five most vulnerable state wide incumbents. Because in some cases,
1:33:42
Speaker 1: you know, like the case in Louisiana or Rhode Island,
1:33:45
Speaker 1: where there's a state wide incumbent who's going to lose,
1:33:48
Speaker 1: but they're the same party is going to end up
1:33:50
Speaker 1: with the seats, so they don't. It doesn't make my
1:33:52
Speaker 1: top five most likely to flip, right, whether it's in
1:33:56
Speaker 1: the Senate races with Louisiana or the governor's races with
1:33:58
Speaker 1: Rhode Island. So That's why I thought we do a
1:34:00
Speaker 1: little bit of a take on that, and I wanted
1:34:02
Speaker 1: to give you right now who I think are the
1:34:05
Speaker 1: five most vulnerable statewide office holders who are more at
1:34:09
Speaker 1: this point, four of the five are more likely to
1:34:12
Speaker 1: lose than win given the situation that they're currently in
1:34:17
Speaker 1: literally for them underwater. One arguably has still got a
1:34:22
Speaker 1: slight advantage here and it is in my fifth slot.
1:34:25
Speaker 1: So number one on the list of most vulnerable incumbent
1:34:29
Speaker 1: is John Cornet, right, He's already being forced into a runoff.
1:34:33
Speaker 1: We will find out after Memorial Day whether that'll happen.
1:34:37
Speaker 1: A new pole came out a couple of days ago
1:34:39
Speaker 1: showed him down eight. He's sort of the forty one percent,
1:34:42
Speaker 1: you know, he basically the number he got in the primaries,
1:34:45
Speaker 1: the number he's sitting on the runoff. Paxton looks like
1:34:48
Speaker 1: he's got the you know, the more likely you know,
1:34:50
Speaker 1: this runoff is going to probably be lower turnout, and
1:34:55
Speaker 1: that is likely to advantage Paxton on this front. Trump
1:35:01
Speaker 1: is clearly not decided whether to endorse. I think in
1:35:05
Speaker 1: some ways he was probably he doesn't like being smoked
1:35:09
Speaker 1: out and the corn and people were trying corning in Thune.
1:35:12
Speaker 1: We're trying so hard to corner him into an endorsement
1:35:14
Speaker 1: within that first forty eight hours after the Texas primary,
1:35:16
Speaker 1: and when it didn't happen, then they knew others were
1:35:19
Speaker 1: going to get to him. And that's exactly what's happened.
1:35:21
Speaker 1: Others have gotten to Trump. So I think we're at
1:35:23
Speaker 1: the point now where I don't know if he gets
1:35:26
Speaker 1: if he gets comfortable endorsing. I just don't buy it.
1:35:30
Speaker 1: Not if poles continue to show corn And losing and
1:35:34
Speaker 1: he does not like tobacco loser. You know he does not.
1:35:37
Speaker 1: He will back somebody trailing in the polls if it's
1:35:40
Speaker 1: early in a primary and he thinks and he knows
1:35:42
Speaker 1: that it will flip. He doesn't like doing it late
1:35:47
Speaker 1: because he does it want to. He hates being with
1:35:50
Speaker 1: the losing candidate. And if he can't be convinced that
1:35:52
Speaker 1: Corny could win, I don't think that solo endorsement is coming.
1:35:56
Speaker 1: So Corn's in the one slot, in the number two slot,
1:36:00
Speaker 1: somebody that I haven't been mentioning. But it's like not
1:36:04
Speaker 1: even a close call. Dan McKee, who's the current governor
1:36:07
Speaker 1: of Rhode Island, he ended up replacing Gina Romundo and
1:36:10
Speaker 1: as governor back in twenty twenty two. He has just
1:36:14
Speaker 1: been in a hole for it feels like months. I mean,
1:36:18
Speaker 1: he's got a job approval rating that at times has
1:36:21
Speaker 1: been in the twenties. There was a primary University of
1:36:23
Speaker 1: new Hamship poll that had him at eighteen percent. He's
1:36:26
Speaker 1: likely his main rival is actually the niece of Chris
1:36:29
Speaker 1: Dodd for those of you keeping score at home, Helena Folks.
1:36:32
Speaker 1: He's a former executive from CVS the pharmacy, which is
1:36:36
Speaker 1: headquartered in Rhode Island, so they have that is not
1:36:40
Speaker 1: a net negative being a former CVS executive. Being a
1:36:43
Speaker 1: former CVS executive is mostly a net positive there. And
1:36:46
Speaker 1: look there's the you know Rhode Island, it's a very
1:36:50
Speaker 1: strong democratic state in general, so the primary is where
1:36:54
Speaker 1: all the action is. And you see these labor and
1:36:56
Speaker 1: business divides, like all the normal divides you normally see
1:36:59
Speaker 1: in a general election in Rhode Island always takes place
1:37:02
Speaker 1: in the primary, kind of like what we saw in Illinois,
1:37:04
Speaker 1: right where interest groups know that there's only it's a
1:37:07
Speaker 1: one party state. So you start to see that, well,
1:37:11
Speaker 1: Dan McKee is just it. You know, it's unusual for
1:37:14
Speaker 1: a governor to lose a primary, but it happens. It
1:37:17
Speaker 1: is happened. Frank Murkowski, Losa Murkowski's father basically over appointing
1:37:22
Speaker 1: his daughter the Senate seat, among other things, lost to
1:37:25
Speaker 1: primary back in twenty back in twenty oh six, and
1:37:34
Speaker 1: this woman named Sarah Palin ended up primary in him
1:37:38
Speaker 1: and she became She became governor, and I think kind
1:37:42
Speaker 1: of made a name for herself there for a few years.
1:37:45
Speaker 1: But this is why I wanted to do this top
1:37:47
Speaker 1: five list. I haven't been able to get this on
1:37:49
Speaker 1: the table. So Dan McKee number two. It is hard
1:37:52
Speaker 1: to see a path. You could make an argument that
1:37:54
Speaker 1: McKee should be in the one slot most likely to lose,
1:37:58
Speaker 1: Cornyn in the two. The only reason, and I'm putting
1:38:00
Speaker 1: corn in first is he's already been through round one
1:38:02
Speaker 1: of a primary and now the runoff. I mean it
1:38:04
Speaker 1: is sitting out there in theory because that primary is
1:38:08
Speaker 1: not till September, and so he's in theory, got five
1:38:11
Speaker 1: more months to fix himself. So just because he's got
1:38:13
Speaker 1: more time, he's number two. Corning's number one. In my
1:38:18
Speaker 1: third slot is Bill Cassidy, another one who's more likely
1:38:21
Speaker 1: to lose in a primary than in general. He appears
1:38:25
Speaker 1: slightly more competitive in a multi candidate primary as Julia Letlow,
1:38:31
Speaker 1: who is basically the unofficial official endorsed challenger of Cassidy
1:38:38
Speaker 1: in some form. Right, these are the getting let Low in.
1:38:41
Speaker 1: This is where Trump wants to be. It's likely who
1:38:44
Speaker 1: he's going to end up supporting. We'll see how heavily
1:38:46
Speaker 1: he comes in. But there are multiple candidates in the race,
1:38:49
Speaker 1: and the more crowded this primary is, in theory, the
1:38:52
Speaker 1: better for Cassidy. But it would end up in a
1:38:53
Speaker 1: runoff as well. I mean they remember the state of
1:38:56
Speaker 1: Louisiana changed its rules basically just so that Bill Cassidy
1:39:00
Speaker 1: could be primary because of his impeachment vote pure and simple, right,
1:39:05
Speaker 1: Louisiana used to be a jungle primary state, all parties
1:39:08
Speaker 1: on one ballot. If nobody gets fifty, top two face off. Well,
1:39:11
Speaker 1: the fear this would have been Cassidy's opportunity. He would have.
1:39:16
Speaker 1: Cassidy would be winning reelection under the ole the rules
1:39:21
Speaker 1: of Louisiana's election system that they had the first time
1:39:25
Speaker 1: he ran. I promise you there is, and he would
1:39:28
Speaker 1: probably be running a different race. Now, maybe there Isn't
1:39:34
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's somehow done. He has figured out
1:39:37
Speaker 1: how to alienate the left over with his playing footsie
1:39:41
Speaker 1: with RFK Junior and the right by voting to convict
1:39:45
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and maybe there's no coming back from that,
1:39:48
Speaker 1: and because of that squeeze, there really isn't there Isn't
1:39:51
Speaker 1: you know, he's so alienated both that nobody wants to
1:39:53
Speaker 1: see him succeed either way. He's easily number three on
1:39:57
Speaker 1: the list, but he he's not dead yet. And I
1:40:00
Speaker 1: just think that that is you know, it is you know,
1:40:05
Speaker 1: I keep waiting, you know, I just don't know if
1:40:08
Speaker 1: he ends up benefiting when Bobby Kennedy messes up because
1:40:12
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, even though he's been
1:40:14
Speaker 1: a critic now of what Kennedy's doing, he's still the
1:40:18
Speaker 1: guy that got Kennedy into that job. And we kind
1:40:22
Speaker 1: of and I think we all know why he did it.
1:40:24
Speaker 1: He thought this is if he thought, this is what
1:40:26
Speaker 1: it would take to get Trump's endorsement. And we know
1:40:29
Speaker 1: what the Trump White House did, well, they said, well,
1:40:31
Speaker 1: certainly it will help. He was never going to he
1:40:35
Speaker 1: was never going to flip. He was never going to
1:40:39
Speaker 1: do it. That's something I don't know why Cassidy misread
1:40:43
Speaker 1: that situation Number four on the list, Susan Collins. She
1:40:49
Speaker 1: trails both Mills and Platner and polling, and I've seen
1:40:52
Speaker 1: she is now benefiting that Mills and Platner are going
1:40:55
Speaker 1: after each other. Mills is up with another attack ad
1:40:57
Speaker 1: on Platner. And we're going to find out, right, how
1:41:00
Speaker 1: much do voters in Maine care about this stuff? You know,
1:41:04
Speaker 1: how powerful is the Donald Trump effect on Democratic primary voters?
1:41:09
Speaker 1: We already know that Republican primary voters that you know,
1:41:13
Speaker 1: the personal character issues just are not what they used
1:41:16
Speaker 1: to be, not at all. Right, Donald Trump is sort of,
1:41:21
Speaker 1: you know, is sort of almost like pardoned anybody running
1:41:26
Speaker 1: for office on the Republican side on character. And there's
1:41:31
Speaker 1: clear a lot of Democrats think, Hey, they shouldn't be
1:41:34
Speaker 1: as picky either. I think this is generational. I think
1:41:39
Speaker 1: those that have grown up mostly living online know that
1:41:43
Speaker 1: a lot of dumb stuff gets said. So I think
1:41:45
Speaker 1: they're going to be a younger voter is going to
1:41:46
Speaker 1: be more forgiving for what Platner did, and an older
1:41:49
Speaker 1: voter is going to be less forgiving. Right, And in Maine,
1:41:53
Speaker 1: Maine is the oldest state, oldest electorate in the country,
1:41:56
Speaker 1: the single oldest electorate in the country. So I do
1:42:00
Speaker 1: think we under rate Mills's chance to get to win
1:42:04
Speaker 1: this primary this way and death by a thousand cuts,
1:42:08
Speaker 1: then I think, you know, I know, the energy feels
1:42:10
Speaker 1: like it's with Platner. What don't underestimate sort of the
1:42:16
Speaker 1: main electorate, which is again not a young electorate. Just
1:42:20
Speaker 1: something to think about there. As for Susan Collins, I
1:42:22
Speaker 1: think she's you know, I think she's in. I don't
1:42:27
Speaker 1: see a way out of this for her because independence
1:42:30
Speaker 1: have turned on her and I don't know if there's
1:42:32
Speaker 1: going to be any moment where she can show her
1:42:34
Speaker 1: independence again. And if anything, it's you know, she's had
1:42:37
Speaker 1: those opportunities and she's chosen partisanship over over independence. Right.
1:42:42
Speaker 1: If you think about Lisa murkowskians in Collins, who both
1:42:45
Speaker 1: essentially have a similar electorate, you know, cranky independence, that's
1:42:51
Speaker 1: the Alaska that's the Alaska voter arguably, and that's the
1:42:54
Speaker 1: main voter. Collins tries to always find herself on the
1:43:02
Speaker 1: side of Republicans. Murkowski always seems more likely to find
1:43:07
Speaker 1: her side herself on the side of not being there
1:43:10
Speaker 1: with the Republicans being more independent or sometimes voting against them.
1:43:14
Speaker 1: And I think Murkowski's displayed independence more credibly than Collins has.
1:43:20
Speaker 1: And that's why I think this time it's hard. So
1:43:23
Speaker 1: when I say the first four on my list are
1:43:24
Speaker 1: all underwater, all trailing at the moment, Corny and Key
1:43:29
Speaker 1: Cassidy Colins, that is true. Number five on the list
1:43:31
Speaker 1: is somebody who's not trailing. And I have to say,
1:43:34
Speaker 1: here are the people I had to choose from who
1:43:37
Speaker 1: I think are all vulnerable incumbents At the moment. You
1:43:40
Speaker 1: have the governor of Nevada, Joe Lombardo, being a Republican
1:43:43
Speaker 1: and a dem leaning state. You know, he knocked off
1:43:47
Speaker 1: a one term incumbent. He's going to be facing a
1:43:50
Speaker 1: wealth on the challenger. Nevada is as swinging of a
1:43:53
Speaker 1: state as there is. I think he's holding up as
1:43:56
Speaker 1: well as you could under the circumstances, but he is
1:44:01
Speaker 1: the wind is decidedly blowing against him. And the Governor
1:44:03
Speaker 1: Arizona in this case, I think she's got the wind
1:44:06
Speaker 1: at her back a little bit Katie Hobbs, but and
1:44:10
Speaker 1: she you know, if Andy Biggs is the nominee, I
1:44:12
Speaker 1: think she's in better shape than if Schwikert. David Schwikert
1:44:16
Speaker 1: is the nominee there, So there, that's a nominee for
1:44:18
Speaker 1: the fifth slot. See Katie Hobbs, Joe Lombardo, Dan Slivon Alaska,
1:44:24
Speaker 1: John Ossoff and Georgia and Pete Ricketts. And I have
1:44:30
Speaker 1: to tell you right now, at the moment, I think
1:44:33
Speaker 1: that the incumbent and then that right now is in
1:44:36
Speaker 1: the toughest shape. Who has who has the most well
1:44:39
Speaker 1: formed challenger is Pete Rickets in Nebraska. Look, he's still favorite,
1:44:44
Speaker 1: It's still Nebraska. But man, it is fascinating to watch
1:44:51
Speaker 1: how well how resilient Osborne is. He's already taken a
1:44:55
Speaker 1: bunch of incoming claiming he's a Democrat in independent clothing
1:44:59
Speaker 1: and it has a really budget his numbers. So, you know,
1:45:03
Speaker 1: while I'm still you know, let's see he can get
1:45:05
Speaker 1: to fifty. I think the path to forty seven is
1:45:08
Speaker 1: pretty clear for him, somewhere between forty five and forty seven.
1:45:11
Speaker 1: But can he get to fifty? But right now, right now,
1:45:17
Speaker 1: I think Ricketts more so than Sulomon, more so than
1:45:19
Speaker 1: John Houston in Ohio, another candidate for my incumbent list here,
1:45:25
Speaker 1: and you could make a strong case, although I'd argue
1:45:27
Speaker 1: John Houston's an appointed so he doesn't count as a
1:45:29
Speaker 1: real incumbent in that front. So my fifth slot a
1:45:34
Speaker 1: little bit of a Huskers surprise, just like they've been
1:45:38
Speaker 1: to me. I know they're a four seed, but I
1:45:40
Speaker 1: still think of Nebraska basketball as a bit of a
1:45:42
Speaker 1: dark horse here, which translation means I'm probably betting on Iowa.
1:45:49
Speaker 1: But there you go. There's the top five most vulnerable
1:45:52
Speaker 1: statewide incumbents in the country. John Cornett, Dan McKee, Bill Cassidy,
1:45:58
Speaker 1: Susan Collins, and Pete Rippons. We'll love date the list
1:46:02
Speaker 1: again next month.
1:46:08
Speaker 2: Ask Chuck.
1:46:12
Speaker 1: All right, let's do a little last chuck, cue the music. Hey,
1:46:17
Speaker 1: this has been from Colorado. I saw recently that John
1:46:19
Speaker 1: Hickenlooper dropped out of the caucus assembly process because he
1:46:22
Speaker 1: was not getting the support that he needed to show
1:46:23
Speaker 1: up on the primary ballot. I also saw some polling
1:46:26
Speaker 1: that he is trailing fairly significant the primary right now
1:46:28
Speaker 1: to his challenger, Julie Gonzalez. If he loses, he would
1:46:31
Speaker 1: be the third single term Senator in a row in
1:46:33
Speaker 1: the Class two Senate seat from Colorado. How about that?
1:46:35
Speaker 1: I guess you're right that has been the case. Have
1:46:38
Speaker 1: there been other cases where this has happened in the Senate?
1:46:40
Speaker 1: Thanks Ben? Actually, yes, Ben, here's your answer, because it
1:46:46
Speaker 1: is the So I guess it would say, I love
1:46:49
Speaker 1: that you identified it as Class two. This would be
1:46:52
Speaker 1: the Class three seat in North Carolina. Okay, So let
1:46:58
Speaker 1: me give you this this run of one term senators.
1:47:04
Speaker 1: So you had Robert Morgan elected in seventy four, lost
1:47:08
Speaker 1: reelection in eighty John East elected in eighty he ends
1:47:11
Speaker 1: up dying, it's vacant, there's an appointment in Broyhill. Then
1:47:17
Speaker 1: you have in eighty six, Terry Sandford is a Democrat,
1:47:20
Speaker 1: is elected, he's a one termer. Locke Faircloth is elected
1:47:24
Speaker 1: in ninety two, defeats him, defeats Terry Stanford, he's a
1:47:28
Speaker 1: one termer. He loses to John Edwards. John Edwards decides
1:47:32
Speaker 1: not to seek reelection, and then that's when Richard Berwin's
1:47:36
Speaker 1: that seat in two thousand and four. And that was
1:47:38
Speaker 1: two terms. So here we have Edwards one term, Faircloth
1:47:41
Speaker 1: one term, Sanford one term. So there's your three in
1:47:44
Speaker 1: a row. Really, you could argue four in a row
1:47:47
Speaker 1: because East got one term Morgan five in a row,
1:47:50
Speaker 1: so basically after sam Irvin, right, sam Irvin resigns early
1:47:56
Speaker 1: in his seat. After sam Irvin, you know, uh, and
1:48:01
Speaker 1: you know, doing the Watergate hearings, that North Carolina Class
1:48:05
Speaker 1: three seat had five straight one term senators. Some of
1:48:10
Speaker 1: them lost reelections, some of them chose not to run,
1:48:13
Speaker 1: one died, so yet a death presidential candidacy, and and
1:48:18
Speaker 1: incumbents losing twice. What a fun question. But like I said,
1:48:24
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are more than that. But if I
1:48:27
Speaker 1: found a five spot for you, I think and look,
1:48:32
Speaker 1: you know, for folks may not realize, Colorado has got
1:48:34
Speaker 1: an interesting little system you can if you go through
1:48:37
Speaker 1: the cock you can go through the essentially the state
1:48:40
Speaker 1: convention process, and I'm not going to get into the
1:48:42
Speaker 1: details here, where you can qualify for a primary for
1:48:47
Speaker 1: the primary ballot without having to do petition signatures. You
1:48:51
Speaker 1: can just get it and you can try to get
1:48:56
Speaker 1: the endorsement. But the obviously, the party apparatus these days
1:48:59
Speaker 1: are dominated by the base voters right base progressives with
1:49:03
Speaker 1: Democrats based mago for Republicans. So if you're sort of
1:49:06
Speaker 1: a center left or a center right politician, you're not
1:49:08
Speaker 1: going to be able to win an endorsement from your
1:49:10
Speaker 1: state conventions these days, no matter where you are, particularly
1:49:13
Speaker 1: in a place like Colorado. So I understand why he's
1:49:15
Speaker 1: going to try to go in primary his way. Here,
1:49:18
Speaker 1: my guess is, once he starts spending money, he's going
1:49:21
Speaker 1: to be quote unquote okay, especially because you'll you should
1:49:26
Speaker 1: expect to see a very large primary turnout. There's an
1:49:28
Speaker 1: open seat for Governor Michael Bennett, the other senator from
1:49:30
Speaker 1: the state is in the sitting attorney general or running
1:49:35
Speaker 1: against each other in the primary, So there should be
1:49:37
Speaker 1: a large turnout, and I imagine Hickenloopers should be okay
1:49:40
Speaker 1: in a large turnout. I don't know what the fireable
1:49:42
Speaker 1: offense is, and if the fireable offense is he's not
1:49:45
Speaker 1: progressive enough. I don't know if there's enough enough voters
1:49:49
Speaker 1: to knock him off. But we shall see, you know,
1:49:51
Speaker 1: he certainly I've said this before. I'd rather I think
1:49:56
Speaker 1: I think in being an incumbent on the ballot that's
1:49:58
Speaker 1: vulnerable this year, hearts up. Obviously, some vulnerabilities are greater
1:50:02
Speaker 1: than others, but I would keep that in mind. Next question,
1:50:05
Speaker 1: Matt Minneapolis Hey as a horse race election Guy. Elections, Guy,
1:50:10
Speaker 1: I've really been enjoying the primary night live streams. Nice.
1:50:12
Speaker 1: Please keep them coming. We will. Next one is going
1:50:15
Speaker 1: to be for the Virginia special referendum, by the way,
1:50:18
Speaker 1: in on April twenty first. Then we'll do all the
1:50:21
Speaker 1: May primaries. May's going to be a huge primary month,
1:50:24
Speaker 1: so mark your calendars. Recently, you said that if Antonin
1:50:27
Speaker 1: Scalia had lived, Trump wouldn't have been elected, which seems
1:50:29
Speaker 1: to apply. Hillary would have won in twenty sixteen, But
1:50:31
Speaker 1: you also said the year it said the year you
1:50:34
Speaker 1: thought she could have won was four. I do believe that.
1:50:36
Speaker 1: Can you explain what you meant? Also, with Niel money
1:50:38
Speaker 1: and the transfer portal changing college basketball, do you think
1:50:41
Speaker 1: limiting players to one transfer could help fix some of
1:50:44
Speaker 1: the current issues and restore more team continuity? Matt in Minneapolis,
1:50:49
Speaker 1: go gopherst all right, you got three questions here, so yes,
1:50:53
Speaker 1: I think ultimately, I do believe Hillary Clinton's best shot
1:50:56
Speaker 1: at the presidency was actually two thousand and four, the
1:50:58
Speaker 1: year she didn't run, you know, not sixteen. What do
1:51:01
Speaker 1: I mean? Why do I say, oh, four more than
1:51:03
Speaker 1: any others? And I did this as a what if
1:51:05
Speaker 1: exercised by the way alternative history, she was the front runner.
1:51:09
Speaker 1: She had very high favorable ratings at the time, probably
1:51:16
Speaker 1: was higher favorable ratings than John Carrey did at the
1:51:22
Speaker 1: time or even elg War. But that would happen with Hillary,
1:51:25
Speaker 1: right like you know, when she was in the middle
1:51:26
Speaker 1: of a political campaign, then all the negatives would would
1:51:30
Speaker 1: negative negativity would come and it would lower her numbers.
1:51:34
Speaker 1: But still, look, we were in the middle of a
1:51:38
Speaker 1: war right after nine to eleven. I just think that
1:51:44
Speaker 1: being the former first lady with another president sort of
1:51:50
Speaker 1: with a former president as the first gentleman would have
1:51:54
Speaker 1: probably been enough to convince that slice of voter who
1:51:57
Speaker 1: didn't want to change horses in midstream during a war.
1:52:00
Speaker 1: And we were at ward twenty oh four. So that's
1:52:02
Speaker 1: why I believe the only Democrat that could have won
1:52:06
Speaker 1: maybe Al Gore as a sitting by former sitting vice president,
1:52:09
Speaker 1: former vice president, but I actually think that would have
1:52:12
Speaker 1: been the moment. I think Hillary would have been seen
1:52:13
Speaker 1: as hawkish enough, and frankly, those voters that might be
1:52:16
Speaker 1: a little hesitant about electing a woman president might have
1:52:19
Speaker 1: been reassured by the fact that there's a former president
1:52:21
Speaker 1: who she happened to be married to. I just think
1:52:23
Speaker 1: when you're changing, if you're asking voters to change commander
1:52:27
Speaker 1: in chiefs, they're going to want more familiarity. And that's
1:52:31
Speaker 1: a case where I think, this is where my point is,
1:52:33
Speaker 1: this is where her her being tied to a former
1:52:36
Speaker 1: president was an asset, and I think an four would
1:52:39
Speaker 1: have the only time was an asset. Right, it was
1:52:41
Speaker 1: a liability no. Eight because it didn't signify change, and
1:52:44
Speaker 1: by sixteen it was a liability frankly for the same reason. Now, yes,
1:52:48
Speaker 1: do I think that she ends up winning. I think
1:52:50
Speaker 1: she's only a one term or if she doesn't sixteen.
1:52:52
Speaker 1: If Scalia lives, I do because I do think Trump
1:52:55
Speaker 1: had been disqualified and I think the only thing that
1:52:57
Speaker 1: brought many Republicans back to hold their no and instead
1:53:01
Speaker 1: of voting Gary Johnson as a as a protest vote,
1:53:04
Speaker 1: but went ahead and vote to Trump was the fact
1:53:05
Speaker 1: that there was an open seat that was going to
1:53:08
Speaker 1: be that was that could chang literally change ideological hands
1:53:12
Speaker 1: depending on the election of the president. And I do
1:53:16
Speaker 1: not I think if Scalia is alive, I do not think.
1:53:18
Speaker 1: I think you have more of those events those people
1:53:21
Speaker 1: that didn't like this character, who weren't ready to come
1:53:23
Speaker 1: aboard the Trump train probably end up in the Gary
1:53:26
Speaker 1: Johnson column, and Gary Johnson probably ends up closer to
1:53:28
Speaker 1: ten percent, which would have been the decisive figure for
1:53:32
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. So there's my explanation on that. All right,
1:53:35
Speaker 1: let me take one more question here, because I went
1:53:39
Speaker 1: long on both of those. This comes from Patrick in
1:53:43
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. He goes the talk of I five and
1:53:45
Speaker 1: I ninety five and political party messaging made me think
1:53:48
Speaker 1: of one of my favorite pop culture quotes that unintentionally
1:53:50
Speaker 1: sums up a lot of American politics. You see Homer
1:53:54
Speaker 1: meaning Homer Simpson. You see Homer. There's a place between
1:53:57
Speaker 1: New York and Los Angeles. We call it America. Do
1:54:00
Speaker 1: you have any pop culture quotes or moments that unintentionally
1:54:03
Speaker 1: carry weight politically, Patrick in Los Angeles, I'll tell you
1:54:06
Speaker 1: one that I use all the time. I always say
1:54:08
Speaker 1: my favorite political pundit is Buffalo Springfield, which of course
1:54:12
Speaker 1: is a group, not an individual, but some people think
1:54:16
Speaker 1: it Buffalo Springfield sounds like an individual. But there's a
1:54:19
Speaker 1: there's a great Buffalo Springfield song. So the song title
1:54:23
Speaker 1: this is a Buffalo Springfield song. The song title is
1:54:27
Speaker 1: for what it's worth it was written by Steven Stills,
1:54:29
Speaker 1: but it's but I always say, you know, I think
1:54:32
Speaker 1: the most important, the smartest political pundit we've ever had
1:54:37
Speaker 1: in handicapping elections is Buffalo Springfield because and this goes back,
1:54:42
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you the origin of why I became
1:54:44
Speaker 1: obsessed with this quote. The quote goes, there's something happening here.
1:54:48
Speaker 1: What it is ain't exactly clear, and it's that first half. Now,
1:54:53
Speaker 1: the rest of the stanza goes, there's a man with
1:54:55
Speaker 1: a gun over there telling me I gotta beware, so
1:54:58
Speaker 1: I leave the gun line out, But there's something happening
1:55:00
Speaker 1: here and what it is ain't exactly clear. It is
1:55:03
Speaker 1: my favorite cop out political punditry quote. And the first
1:55:07
Speaker 1: person I ever saw use it was actually Stan Greenberg.
1:55:11
Speaker 1: He was Bill Clinton's polster in ninety two. We made
1:55:15
Speaker 1: it our quote of the day in the Hotline, and
1:55:17
Speaker 1: it was just I just thought it was the funniest
1:55:19
Speaker 1: thing ever because it was like, it was clear to
1:55:23
Speaker 1: me that the reporter who was quoting Greenberg thought they
1:55:26
Speaker 1: were taking a serious quote from the polster, going well,
1:55:29
Speaker 1: you know, there's something happening out here, but what it
1:55:30
Speaker 1: is it ain't exactly clear. Stanton didn't say he was
1:55:34
Speaker 1: quoting somebody, so the reporter was sort of oblivious to
1:55:37
Speaker 1: the fact that he was doing a lyric, you know,
1:55:41
Speaker 1: And so I've always just thought, I mean, you know,
1:55:45
Speaker 1: when you're a political reporter, the weirdest things crack you up,
1:55:48
Speaker 1: and this one always cracked me up. So it's always
1:55:50
Speaker 1: actually been my go to Hey whenever I you know,
1:55:54
Speaker 1: if I've been asked for the empteenth time, which way
1:55:56
Speaker 1: are things going? Ye know, what did this poll mean?
1:55:58
Speaker 4: Well?
1:56:00
Speaker 1: You know, you know Leicester, there's something happening out of here,
1:56:03
Speaker 1: and what it is ain't exactly clear. You gotta stop. Hey,
1:56:08
Speaker 1: what's that anyway? So with that, I will leave you here.
1:56:12
Speaker 1: I've got a real great rant to come on the
1:56:14
Speaker 1: Wizards and Nationals. I do believe, and I challenge you,
1:56:18
Speaker 1: my listeners, to prove me wrong. Of all the form.
1:56:22
Speaker 1: If you want to count NHL as your fourth major sport, NFL, NBA, MLB,
1:56:30
Speaker 1: and NHL, is there a four major sports city in
1:56:35
Speaker 1: worst shape than right here in Washington. I don't think
1:56:40
Speaker 1: there is another four sport major city, major league city
1:56:45
Speaker 1: who doesn't have at least one team. Can actually contending
1:56:48
Speaker 1: for a title. The best we got is sort of
1:56:51
Speaker 1: the Caps and OV who you just had and can
1:56:54
Speaker 1: never count them out, and who knows, right hockey playoffs,
1:56:57
Speaker 1: anything can happen. But let's be honest, it's kind of
1:57:00
Speaker 1: weak tea, right, It's aging. You know, it's a mess here.
1:57:06
Speaker 1: The Wizards and Gnats are embarrassing, embarrassing their fan bases.
1:57:11
Speaker 1: And I have a lot more to say about this
1:57:12
Speaker 1: tanking thing, but I've got to wrap up this broadcast,
1:57:15
Speaker 1: so with that, I'll see you in twenty four hours.