Latest / Question Everything / Can Satire Save Democracy? w/ The Onion CEO Ben Collins

Transcript

Can Satire Save Democracy? w/ The Onion CEO Ben Collins · Question Everything

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Happy Thanksgiving. Brian here. Got a little treat for you today.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: A conversation with the guy who runs the country's favorite
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: fake newspaper, America's finest news source, as they call themselves,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: The Onion. This interview ran not long ago on another
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: podcast from our partners at KCRW in LA, The Sam
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Sanders Show. Like me, Sam is a former NPR journalist.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: He covered politics for years, then culture. And now he
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: has a great show from KCRW where he tries to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: make sense of the culture of by talking each week
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to some of the most interesting comedians, journalists, celebrities, podcasters, influencers,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and in this case, the CEO of The Onion, who
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: took over the publication last year and has been doing
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting stuff since then, including something
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: that'll be meaningful to regular listeners of this show, the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: lies about Sandy Hook families being actors. He's trying to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: have The Onion buy Infowars out of bankruptcy to run
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it as a satirical Onion channel. Fascinating. as is this
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: whole conversation between Sam and the CEO. Stick around. Sam Sanders,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: nice to see you.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: So good to be here.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Long-time listener, first-time caller.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: For listeners who don't know, we kind of go way back.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Way, way back.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: We were both Kroc fellows.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we had the same fellowship at NPR, and times
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: have changed so much, it's no longer there, the fellowship.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: They said it was just a pause, right? But it's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: going to come back, I hope.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Sure, girl. You're a skeptical journalist. Be skeptical. Oh, man.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very cool program. It's like the reason
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I do audio journalism.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Same.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it was that program. It was a year-long
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: training program. Anyway, that's how we know each other, and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: now we're both KCRW hosts. So I'm excited to share
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: this interview you did with Ben Collins, the CEO of
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: The Onion. I'm curious, what made you want to have
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Ben on? Like, what's the background here? Like, what caught
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: your interest?
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Back when I was covering breaking news and still doing
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: that thing all journalists did five to ten years ago
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: where we were on Twitter all the time. He was
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: one of my journalist Twitter friends and always a great
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: follow and just someone who's reporting I loved.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: What was he doing then? He wasn't at The Onion then, right?
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: No, he was covering disinformation for NBC and beginning to
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: cover the alt-right, etc.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: And I just loved his reporting.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: He was always a sharpshooter. And he was very clear-eyed
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: and laser-focused on telling the truth about these things in
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: a time when a lot of newsrooms were looking for
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: words to be euphemisms to not say the real thing.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: And I became even more intrigued with him when he
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: left journalism and ended up running The Onion. And then
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: what really made me convinced that I had to talk
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: to him was finding out that almost overnight, The Onion's
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: newspaper had become like the 14th biggest in the country.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Just wild.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: The physical print newspaper.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, dude.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: They do a physical paper.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Which they just brought back, right?
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It had been defunct for a while. Ben brought
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: it back. And now it's a hit. And I'm like, oh,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I don't think this is just a good chat about
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: entertainment and politics. I think it's a good chat about
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: the roadmap forward for journalism. And maybe the onion can
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: lead the way.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So you think there's something that fact-based journalists can learn
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: from a fake newspaper?
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: A lot. And I think the biggest lesson is don't
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: take yourself too fucking seriously. Amen. Seriously. You can't, you know?
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: You know, you told me you no longer call yourself
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a journalist or not consistently. Like, where are you with that?
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Not really. I think it gets in the way. I
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: think as soon as I am in conversation with people
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: or meeting people and I say the J word, there's
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: a series of skeptical questions that come after.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Do y'all have any money here? is the industry bad
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: or what's going to happen next? And it's like, I
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: don't want to be burdened with those existential questions about
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: an industry that in general wasn't always supportive of someone
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: like me anyway. I think it gets in the way.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: When I want to be a journalist, I just apply
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: the skills of journalism in my work and I don't
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: have to like capital J it. I really don't do
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: it anymore.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I totally understand the impulse to not call yourself a
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: journalist and you're not the first journalist or former journalist
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: that I've talked to. especially one of color, who is
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: doing that. My approach has been, can't we make journalism
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: better or fix it so that someone like you feels
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: comfortable and even proud to use the word? That's been
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: kind of my thought. But is that naive?
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: I think for me, right next to the word journalism
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: is the word objectivity. And the pursuit of being a
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: journalist means a pursuit of objectivity. And I think the
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: very idea of objectivity is inherently structurally... Sexist, racist, and homophobic.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: And so I don't even care anymore to fix our
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: understanding of objectivity. Because why? It was actually never for me.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: It was never for me.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I think the idea would be to disentangle
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: those two ideas, journalist and objectivity, somehow. Or that's what
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I would propose, you know?
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: And then, like, what word would I want to tether
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: journalism to? Justice? Truth?
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Fairness? Originality?
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: You know? Exactly. Exactly. But I no longer want to
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: have conversations about journalism that take me back to an
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: argument over objectivity. No, never again. Never again. I'm not objective.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not objective. I am angry. Angry about media capture
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: and elite capture. And I'm angry about the way social
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: media platforms and video scrolls and AI have rotted all
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: of our brains. I'm angry. I'm not an objective journalist.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I'm an angry citizen who tries to, from time to time...
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: use the skills of quote-unquote journalism to have good conversations
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: about fixing some of the things I'm angry about.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, dude, this is what I need to come on
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: your show about. I'm angry too. And now, I don't
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: know if you've heard, but I'm an advocate now. I've
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: declared it on my show.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: I know, because I've heard you mention Section 230. I've
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: been on Section 230 for a few years now. It
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: is the most interesting story in media right now.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: You think so?
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. If Meta could be sued, our problems would
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: be solved.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: That's our crossover. Let's do that. I love it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: Let's talk about it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: All right, here's Sam's non-journalistic interview with Ben Collins.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: Of The Onion. How do you feel when you get
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: called CEO of The Onion? Because CEO is such a
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: serious title. And The Onion is The Onion?
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no one really knows how to handle that. And yeah,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: it is really stupid. I grew up in a town
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: with a thing called a snuff factory. Do you know
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: what snuff is?
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: My first association is snuff films, and we're not talking
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: On this radio show.
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Apparently, it's named after that. Snuff is nasal tobacco. So
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: it's tobacco that's in little fine parts that you'd roll up,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: and people would snort it like crazy. You're not going
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: to believe this, but people don't do that anymore. Thank goodness.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Because it's really gross.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It kind of feels like I'm the CEO of the
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: snuff factory every day. I'm like- We'll see how long
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: this goes. We'll see how long people are into snorting tobacco,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: but that's, that's what it feels like on a day
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: to day basis.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I love it. I love it. So I am
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: guessing that you get to see a lot of the
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: onions sausage before it's pushed out to the world. What
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: is the last headline from the onion that stopped you
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: in your tracks? Ben Collins. Can I tell you one that.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Uh, Still has not made it out of the room
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: yet because we're trying to get the person involved.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I still laugh at this every time I say it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: So here it is. And it's been kicking around for
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: like nine months now. It's Steve-O comes clean about getting
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: CTE of the balls. Run that today. It's a perfect
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: joke in every way. I think the holdup is we're
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: trying to get Steve-O to say he got CTE of
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: the balls. Uh, it's, it's a perfect joke, especially if
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: you know what CTE stands for. It's like a, it's a,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: it's a great thing. So that's, that's the one that
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: most recently caught me in my tracks. I, uh, we
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: ran one yesterday, I believe a couple of days ago, maybe, um,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: that was, uh, Donald Trump colon. Another thing Jeffrey Epstein
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: and I didn't do was play nude charades, which is
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: just like something he would just, you know, you know,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: he just like randomly admits to guilt.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Uh, Yeah, that's one of those things.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: Those are two good ones. And just like speaking of
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Trump and thinking about how The Onion has been all
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: in on talking about Trump in the way The Onion
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: does best. I'm wondering, I had this question for later,
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: but I'll ask it now. Why hasn't he come after y'all?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: He's going after everybody. He's gone after CBS. He's gone
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: after Late Night. Y'all have said things worse about Donald
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: Trump than any of those other media or news outlets.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: Why hasn't Donald Trump come after The Onion? I don't know.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I would hope that he– whatever funnel of information he
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: gets from his assistants just– we're just not part of
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: that funnel. I think that's part of it.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Because apparently, as you know, I think there's a lady
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: who prints stuff out from the internet from him.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: I remember hearing in the first administration that all presidents
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: get the daily briefing. Yeah.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: He likes his shorter.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: And more image forward. That's me saying it? Yes. Nicely?
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like a baby. Like a baby is what you're saying.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Words you can say.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Sorry, that's what I'm saying. I'm not putting words in
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: your mouth. No, I think that's part of it. Also,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: we tell a little bit more of an advanced joke.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: We're more than a meme.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: More than a meme machine.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, it kind of slides under his radar. I will
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: also say, by the way, subscribe to The Onion, the newspaper.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: We have 57,000 subscribers. We're the I think now the
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: 11th biggest newspaper in the United States. A good way
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: back in Revolutionary War times of making it so you
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: could say stuff people didn't want to see is you
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: used to print it out on paper and distribute it. Well,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: we're back in that business, baby. We're back in those times. So, yeah,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: it does work out pretty good and I doubt there
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: are many Onion subscribers in the White House.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: Okay. Let's talk about that. You became CEO of The Onion, what,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: about a year ago?
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, almost two now.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Almost two.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Back in April of 2024. Congrats on that.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I have to ask you about what has been your
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: biggest business decision for The Onion since you took the reins.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: You brought back The Onion's print. Yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Physical newspaper print.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: We know what's going on with newspapers all across the country.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Even the biggest ones are declining by some 13% to 14%
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: a year in circulation. Why would you start up a
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: physical newspaper operation in 2024, 2025, reading the tea leaves
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: that we're all seeing and reading?
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of a perfect storm for us. The
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Onion tends to do the opposite of what everyone does,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: and it does work that way. It's helped us substantially.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I also, when we took over the company, it was
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: sort of in the death throes of what a lot
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: of the internet is in right now.
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: What did that look like for The Onion?
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: So our business was entirely based on getting people to
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: click next on a slideshow so they would get erectile
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: dysfunction pills underneath all of the content that we served.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And while the joke writing and the headline writing never wavered,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: we have the best staff in the world. Most of
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: our staff has been here for At least five years,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: most 10, over 10 years. Editor-in-chief has been here for
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: 27 years. They just really believed in the thing.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: The joke writing was great, but it was surrounded by slop. Yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: How much of the Onion's revenue before you came in
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: and changed things up, how much of the revenue was
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: erectile dysfunction ads for the Onion?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: It was about 70% of the revenue. And I know.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Stop right there. 70% of the Onion's ad revenue was
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: a retconned dysfunction ad.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: There were other ads. That's an Onion headline.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: That is an Onion headline.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. There were ads for like removing dirt
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: from your feet, I'm sure. It wasn't purely the bad side. Oh,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: not purely ED. Yeah, exactly. But it was not a
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: great business model. And that business model basically doesn't exist
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: now because of how advertising works and how AI ate everything.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And all these things.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: So we decided when we took over to just turn
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: it off. Just straight up turn it off. We'll figure
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: out a better business model.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: So you turned off 70% of your revenue like that?
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Like that, within a month. That meant we had to
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: hustle to get a better source of revenue. And we
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: knew enough people loved this thing. I mean, you love
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: The Onion. Everybody I know who knows what The Onion
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: is loves The Onion.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: So we decided, hey, look, people associate us with the newspaper.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: We were on the side of the road in every
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: major American city all throughout the 90s and the 2000s.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And I loved it. That's how I grew to love
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: stupid satire. So why don't we bring that back and
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: we'll get it delivered to people's mailboxes. People's mailboxes are
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: filled with slop right now. It's filled with weird flyers
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: for bad congressional candidates and bad credit card offers and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: predatory stuff. So to get something in the mail that's good,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: we're like, you know, it might be a nice surprise.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: So we, within three months, we Found a guy who
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: still makes newspapers out by O'Hare Airport. We found a
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: way to put them all in a– we have a
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: robot arm machine that shoves the newspapers into a package.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Then we ship them out to now 57,000 people in
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: over 50 countries throughout the world.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I was looking at the data on US paper circulation.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Y'all are definitely top 15 in the country right now
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: if not like top 12 or 10. Yeah. What is
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: the lesson for other makers of newspaper– What is the
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: lesson for them from the Onion success? Yeah.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: For us, everything that we do, we're lucky. We get
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: to say literally whatever we want. We get to make
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: fun of whoever we want. Our headlines are the most–
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: they drill down to the– deep to the heart of
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: what you're trying to think or what the sentence you're
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: trying to get at in your soul. Yes. So that
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: works for us. I would also recommend that you try
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: to do that too but adhere to facts. But it's difficult.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: It is a very difficult time for newspapers unless you
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: are in this like extraordinarily stupid space. I think it's like–
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: somebody asked us who our competition is and I was
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: like the New York Post because they don't like adhere
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: to facts. facts or reality either and they just come
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: up with the dumbest sentence they can think of that's
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: probably the closest thing yeah so it's it's difficult for
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: them but I would say lean into what you're good
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: at you know I grew up with the Boston Globe
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: they had the spotlight section and the sports section and
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: nobody could beat them in either space yeah lean into
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: what you're good at with those places.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: And yeah people will come to you well you're getting
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: out of here and what I like about the onion
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: is that the onion is all about extreme specificity yeah
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: don't dance around the words don't dance around the headline
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: don't Don't dance around the thing. Like say exactly what
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: you're talking about and mean it. And I think that
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: the general tenor of quote unquote establishment journalism right now
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: is not that. It is making sure it appeases corporate
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: shareholders or appeases politicians or appeases readers and listeners who
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: they think might not want to hear certain things politically.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: It seems as if The Onion is moving in the
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: entirely opposite direction of this general feel of appeasement that
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: I see quietly sweeping through, loudly sweeping through establishment journalism.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope we're at peak appeasement. I don't think
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: we are, but I hope we are. My job before this,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I used to work at NBC News.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you covered what? Dystopia and the right.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I covered disinformation, which is like a sentence you
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: can't even– a word you can't even say anymore because
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: they're like– Oh, my god. That's so heavy.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: I said dystopia, not disinformation, but at this point, same thing.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same exact thing. So, yeah,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I lived through that dancing around it and I lived
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: through us hemorrhaging people.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I remember when I was still in a newsroom, there
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: were serious questions, debates, meetings and conversations that went all
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: the way up to the executive C-suite about whether or
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: not we could use the word lie when talking about
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: things politicians said. Yeah. That was a level of newsroom
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: hand-wringing nine years ago. Yes.
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: And I think it's gotten worse. It has gotten considerably
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: worse in part because they are trying not to get
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: sued by the government or they're trying not to piss off,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: like you said, shareholders or people who are adjacent to them.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: They bend over backwards under the concept of fairness. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: in that process, they become wildly unfair. They are splitting
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: the difference between one billionaire's opinion and everybody else's thought
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: on the subject.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: And when you do that, you wind up weighting one
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: guy's opinion versus the actual truth of the matter. In
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: the middle of that is not the truth. In the
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: middle of that is some other third thing.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: I don't know. If it's raining outside and you get
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: one voice that says it's raining and one voice that
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: says it's not, you are not giving me an accurate
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: weather report.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. If a guy has a vested interest in telling
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: everyone that it never rains and it never will again–
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And he gets half the story.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Because he wants to sell you bikinis, you know?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And that's the beauty of the onion is
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: that we don't– we just say it's raining. But we also–
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: we say it's raining in the funniest way that we
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: can think of.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I also want to say the reason I am kind
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: of optimistic that the appeasement is at its peak is
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: because it's horrific business. It's really bad business unless you
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: are trying to buy TikTok illegally through the United States
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: government or something. It's just bad business. And people are
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: starting to understand this, that there's a couple of things
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: going on. One, everything is getting eaten by AI and
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: AI is bad. Like it's not making things better. I
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: haven't seen the great AI movie that you guys have
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: all seen. So leaning into humanity and your own reporters
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: and your own expertise and people who can pick up
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: a phone and ask a guy a question, that is
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: real valuable right now. I've seen that in independent media
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: throughout the world and I've seen it in– individual reporters
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: at specific places who are able to build big audiences.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: That's one side of it. And then the other side
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: is people just– people don't like what's going on and
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: they see everybody lining up to be with the bad guys.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: And if you line up to be on the opposite
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: side of that, Americans hate the man. So you can
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: absolutely be– you can be your own little rage against
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: the machine if you want.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: How can we describe– The Onion's Jeffrey Epstein mockumentary for
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: a general and broad broadcast audience.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: I will say, and I think you would agree with this,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: at every turn that you think it's going to go
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: in one direction, it goes in a completely different direction.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: There's one point where he ends up playing for the
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Chicago Bulls or something. Yeah.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: In this documentary, Donald Trump is on the 1995 Chicago Bulls. No, wait. Actually,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: he's on the Knicks, right? Epstein is on the Bulls.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Dershowitz is on the Bulls.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Ah!
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: But, yeah.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: So, yeah. What is this documentary for folks who are like,
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: what's going on here? Yeah.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So, I'll walk you through this whole story. About two
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: months ago, we started to see Donald Trump get really
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: skittish about talking about Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, yeah. We could
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: see in public he was very like, what's going on?
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: And in a way that I don't think I've ever
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: seen him sweat before, which is ripe for comedy, certainly. So,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: you know, the staff realized that we had to do
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: something bigger on this. And, you know, we usually run
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: this thing called the Onion News Network, which is we
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: are a CNN style parody thing. I said, you know,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: just take a leave from ONN for a minute. Go
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: whole hog on this. Probably not the greatest words to say.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Whole hog about this, but what are you going to do?
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: So they spent the next week writing a script. I
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: remember being outside of them– outside of the room of
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: them writing the script and it was just 15 consecutive
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: minutes of laughter. I remember walking in afterwards and on
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: the whiteboard it said– towards the end. This is not
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: a spoiler. It says, he went to heaven with a
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: frowny face on the whiteboard about Jeffrey Epstein. So yeah,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: we scripted this and did everything we could in about
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: six or seven weeks and it was done. And we
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: got a national distributor. to release this movie all throughout
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: the country. Which is incredible.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Like, incredible.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's really good. When people see it,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: they get really excited about it. So we were about
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: to release it on October 2nd, and then Charlie Kirk
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: got shot. Just what happened.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It was a horrible thing, a terrible day, all that stuff.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And within hours, we got a phone call, and they
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: were like, we're not doing this anymore.
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: Wait, so after Charlie Kirk was killed... your film distributor
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: pulled out of running The Onion's Epstein doc, mock doc.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, how did you feel when that happened? Because
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: they're two different topics.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Look, this is how I felt. Initially, I was like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: if it was releasing today, I would understand. It's in
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: a month, so relax.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: But then I was like, if we can't talk about
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: the world's biggest dead pedophile because he was friends with
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: the president and the president was friends with somebody else,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: then we can't talk about anything. Like at what stage
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: is this ridiculous? And that's what it was. We had
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: heard that their PR firm who refused to actually watch
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the thing just asked repeatedly if Donald Trump was in this.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And we said, yeah, but he's on the Knicks. And
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: it didn't matter at all.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Can you name this distributor? Are you allowed to?
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I don't want to. Here's why I don't want to.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: It's because everybody who worked there who was not at
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: that level at the C-suite busted their ass with this thing.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And they did everything they could to help us in
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: the next step with this, which was like, they were like,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: just call all these indie theaters. Here are a bunch
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: of indie theaters. So we called all these indie theaters.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And then we were like, okay, we'll launch this thing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Five theaters in like New York, Minneapolis for some reason, Chicago, LA.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: And then we said– when we told people about this thing,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: we're going to release it on October 2nd just as
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: we planned. We told them the whole story about us
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: not being able to release this as planned. Every indie
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: theater in the world reached out to us. They were like,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: can we run this thing? So now we're in, I
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: don't know, 30, 40, more than that. I don't know.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many indie theaters in the country.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: But we have sold out of– dozens of indie theaters
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: throughout the country because they want to air this thing.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Congratulations.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: In part because it's funny, but in part because that's,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: that's where everything is. And that's when we were talking
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: about the previous stuff earlier about how the, the, the,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: these news places are dying because of all these, it's
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: because of capitulation and people will come to your defense.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: People will vote with their dollars. If you stand up
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: for what's right, if you stand up for speech and
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: the concept of, of, of, uh, Being able to make
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: fun of stuff or being able to report accurately on
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: people without wavering. And I– yeah, we are– we're a
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: good use case for this. Again, this happened last week.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Last Thursday we announced this and within a couple of–
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: over the weekend, we had dozens and dozens of indie
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: theaters say, we will air your thing next week and
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: they sold out. It's a really remarkable story.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: When you are making something like this– a mockumentary about
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: Jeffrey Epstein. Is the goal of The Onion just to
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: get people laughing and thinking about it? Or is the
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: goal of The Onion to maybe drive some political change?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: There are millions of folks around the country asking for
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: the quote unquote Epstein files to be released. Is this
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: mockumentary from The Onion part of that call? Or do
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: you just want some laughs? Well, it's both.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I think that's what good comedy does. It opens up
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: your brain a little bit to what This could be–
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I think you've seen it. It has– in my opinion,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: it has a better laugh ratio than anything since like airplane,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: like laughs per second.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: OK.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: When we showed it in front of people and people
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: laugh over jokes. People like will have to watch it
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: again because people laugh over– High joke density, which I like.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: High joke density, which is really good. That's the number
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: one most important thing. But there is an element to
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: this that you will see at the end. I don't
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: want to give away the ending. Of media complicity and
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: how we've turned this– turned the Epstein story into every–
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: it feels like now the way we talk about Jeffrey
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Epstein is the way we talk about like the Super Bowl.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: It's like is it going to happen? Who's going to win?
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: That's crazy. Like this guy was the world's biggest human trafficker.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Like this guy– and he's the president of the United States.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: It's crazy that we talk about it this way and
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: that's the overarching theme of the film as you will see.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: That said, it has a lot of really gross bits
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: in it that I'm very much– as you know from
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: The Mannequin, I'm not going to say anything else other
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: than that. You don't have to. It's really, really, really
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: nasty and really gnarly. So like the goal is to
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: make you laugh very hard and at the end leave
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: the theater feeling kind of unsettled about how we have
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: handled this as a country. And hopefully it will work.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: And it's only 20 minutes.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, relax. Everybody relax. It's 20 minutes. Just chill out.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: What were you going to do? Watch four YouTube videos? No, no, no.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Watch this instead.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: I interviewed– I actually hung out for a day at
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: the offices of The Onion in Chicago maybe in like
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: 2017 when I had just began solo hosting my first
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: solo podcast. And what I remember distinctly was how quiet
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: The onions newsroom was. Yes. Because y'all, they were all
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: just like thinking of headlines and writing. Is this still
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: that quiet?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Oh my God. Yes. I think people think that like,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: it's like TMZ or just like, yeah, nope. Uh, every day,
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: every day they go into a room with about 150
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: headlines and then they just like quietly needle them down
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: to like one or two, maybe at probably at most
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: yesterday we had zero, uh, the day before we had.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: To, what do you mean you had zero yesterday?
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They went in with 150 headlines and they left.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: None of them met the threshold.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: That's good, you said? That's good. That means the quality
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: bar is like insane. If you were to read these,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: like nine of them would be the funniest thing that
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: you have ever written as a person. They just throw
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: them away because like they don't hit the note in
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the way that they want to hit it. And you're right.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: It is dead quiet. I think lots of people come
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: to us wanting to do a documentary about like the
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Onion Writers Room.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: You can't do it. They're too quiet.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And I keep saying like, guys– No. I don't– it's
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: a mausoleum. Like it's not what you want.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I even went to the meeting– this was years
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: ago where they debate the headlines and see what's going
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: to make it. And I was like, oh, it's going
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: to be fireworks. There's going to be yelling, sniping. No.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: No.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Diplomatic and pretty quiet.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Diplomatic and pretty quiet. Exactly right.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. With videos, it's a little bit harder because you
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: really have to like– kind of have to rip off
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: each other and get to a point where– Each sentence works.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: But with this, it's very– like it is– it's monks.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: It's like a bunch of comedy monks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: And there's a reason like other places– other places have
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: a much higher miss rate than us because of that.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: Like we are– we're Coca-Cola. Like we're not going to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: mess with this formula. And the second that you mess
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: with it, it could ruin the whole thing.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Are you all going to make a soda now?
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: The onion cola?
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Do it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: That's going to taste great. It's definitely not going to
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: give you any heartburn. That sounds great for everybody. Yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I also remember when I was in the onions
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: offices some seven, eight years ago, it was during the
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: first months of the first Trump administration. And my biggest
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: question for those onion writers was, does Donald Trump as
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: a president and all of his celebrity and all of
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: who he is, Does it make it easier to write
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: the headlines or harder? Same question for you today. Now
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: for the onion, is a president like Donald Trump making
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: it easier to make the satire you're doing or harder?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: It's complicated. I will say like, I think the good
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: part about being about the Coca-Cola thing where you just
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: have a formula and you stick to it is that
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: you can kind of go at anything.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Like we go at like 1.25 speed. I would say
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: we don't like, A lot of other places are turning
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: up the podcast thing to 2X.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: And it's unlistenable. It's too much. It's like too heavy.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: There's some podcasts.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Now that I kind of like that are publishing like
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: three times a day.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: To give you all the headlines. And I'm like– Anyhoo. Yeah, exactly.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: I will say I find him completely unfunny as a person.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So like– Donald Trump?
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: I got to say he's funny. He's funny.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: He's funny.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: Like just watching him move through the world, his physicality,
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: I find hilarious. I find it hilarious. The way he
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: says things, I find hilarious. And that is not me
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: endorsing or not endorsing him. I'm just saying the dude's funny.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: He's funny in the way like Beethoven from the Beethoven
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: dog movies is funny. You know, he's like, oh, that's.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: And that was a hit film.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah. But I just find it correct. Good point.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: You know what? There you go. I find the cruelty
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: to be like. Overbearing. You know, he's– Jesus. He's a
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: theater hag, right?
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: At the end of the day, if he had a
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: show on Bravo and he complained about, you know, the
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: most recent Les Mis thing that's going on– Which he would.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I mean– Yeah. He makes complete sense as a person
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: within that thing. He's just like a male Joan Rivers. Like,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: that makes sense to me. But like when you have
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: him doing like unbelievable cruelty on a day-to-day basis, I'm still–
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: if Joan Rivers was putting people in camps and shoving concrete–
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: shoving pregnant women on concrete floors and then deporting them
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: on untracked flights to Africa where they're not from …
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: I would be like, I'm not sure this Joan Rivers
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: lady is funny anymore. That's how I feel about it.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: But their job is to find a way to make
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: this both funny and poignant. And they're much more professional
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: at this than I am. And that's why I stay
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: out of the way. Like I have nothing to do
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: with what they do. Like all I say is like
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: if you would like to make a movie about Jeffrey Epstein,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: we're here. We'll find the money for it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. We've talked about the newspaper.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: We've talked about the Jeff Epstein mockumentary that's hitting theaters,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: actual theaters. That's major. There's also another big business venture
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: that The Onion has kind of jumped into under your
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: leadership or before you came in, but you're still involved
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: in it. It's been kind of stalled. The Onion is
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: still trying to purchase conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's website, Infowars.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Alex Jones is the guy who said so many bad
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: things about the Sandy Hook shooting that the Sandy Hook
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: families sued him and won. In the fallout from that,
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: The Onion wanted to buy Alex's website because he couldn't
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: have it anymore. It's still in limbo. What's going on there,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: number one? And two, why in the world does anyone
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: want Alex Jones's Infowars website?
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I understand why no one would want it now. After
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: trying to purchase it for so long. So here's the deal.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Like basically we saw it was for sale. We put
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: in a bid. We thought it was going to be
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: like a Storage Wars style auction where we would just
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: be like, ah, yeah, we'll give you $ 50.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: It was more complicated than that. But we're like, we'll
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: figure it out. We'll go into it. And we also
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: forwarded anything else. We called the families of the Sandy
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Oak shooting to make sure that this was kosher. We
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: wanted to make sure that they were kosher. They're like, yes, absolutely.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Like we, you know, we want to see this, we
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: want to see this shut down. We also, you know,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: we want to, we, we want to, this guy owes
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: us $ 1. 5 billion. We would like to receive something. So
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: basically what happened is we were going to put in
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: a bid and we had lined up our money and
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: then the election happened. This was November 5th. And then
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: eight days later, the auction was scheduled. And we came
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: to realize that If we didn't bid on this thing,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Alex would have nobody else bidding against him. It would
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: just be Alex Jones paying peanuts. I don't know how much.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Probably like– it would probably be like a couple hundred
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars, a million dollars and things to just wipe
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: away all the stuff and then he would just receive
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: it on his own because he was being backed by
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: some secret third party. We don't know about it but
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: he would just be– He was going to sell it
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: to himself basically. Basically, yes.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: And– So we were like, OK, this is heavy. And
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember how scared everyone was
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and kind of still is, but really scared in the
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: days after the election. And we had to make a choice.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Either we join, we do a true cowardice and we
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: just back away from this thing and we let these
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: families down. Or we put in a bid and we
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: put in a bid and it won. And he's like he.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: scared the bejesus out of everybody uh and the judge
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: and everybody involved judge put a halt on it did
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: you expect the halt no obviously not like we uh
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: he basically wiped away like many months of of uh
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: of orders that he had previously given about this about
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: this thing to like put it put into an auction
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and do all these other things and then it was
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: just sort of in limbo for a while and we're
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: still we're still trying to figure out exactly the way
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: to get it from him but He still owes these
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: people $ 1. 5 billion. InfoWars itself is still in the hands
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: of a receiver, and we think we can get it
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: through state court. We're just not– we don't really know
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: fully the story yet, but we're trying as hard as
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: we can because it's the right thing to do.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Listeners, if you're having fun with us right now, please
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: tell a friend about us. I know you have a
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: friend who is probably obsessed with The Onion. Or a
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: friend who likes getting the newspapers sent to their house,
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: something The Onion does. So let's keep this party going.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: Share this episode with that friend of yours who needs
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: to hear it. All right, time now for a break.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: When we come back, Ben Collins breaks down our current
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: fight for free speech and reveals his hottest pop culture
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: hot take. Stay with us.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: I'll report it in a minute.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: All right. So I'm having this conversation with you and
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: you're making me feel optimistic about media and about speech
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: because you and The Onion seem to be going full
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: steam ahead on those ideals of free speech and speaking
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: truth to power that The Onion has believed in since
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: its start. But when I read my media newsletters and
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: listen to my media podcast and listen to like journalists
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: talk about the state of the industry, everyone is scared
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: and worried and ringing the alarm and speaking about the
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: state of speech in America as if we are entering
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: the end of free speech. Why are you so optimistic
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: about it? Why are– like– Yeah. Why are you this
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: optimistic about it? You came from a newsroom. You know
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: the media landscape. You see everyone else worrying so much
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: about the state of free speech and you seem less
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: worried than they are. Why?
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Obsessed with Edward R. Murrow. And now, can you imagine
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Edward R.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: Murrow? They give out awards every year in his name,
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: honoring the pinnacle of American journalism. Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: And if you're at those places, I don't know what
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: to tell you. It's not going to be a great
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: ride for you. But if you're not, you're in a
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: pretty good spot. And also, you have more leverage than
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: you think. And I think that's where Jimmy Kimmel kind
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: of opened up some floodgates for people. I knew he
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: would fight back because he's a good person and he
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: also understands his role in history. I think a lot
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: of people don't understand that they are living in history
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: right now and they are the characters in history that
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: either fold or don't. I don't know how it's all
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: going to shake out. But I will say I'm not
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: going to be the guy in the book who's the footnote,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: who's one of the 50 people who said, yeah, whatever
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: government come in and just do what you need to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: do to me so I can maintain my mortgage and
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: send my kid to a private school. I'm not going
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: to be that. There are plenty– and by the way,
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I will say this. It might help you maintain your
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: position of power for a year or two and that's cool.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: But people are going to remember what you did and
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: they're not going to hire you after this. And I'm
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: going to remember it. People are going to remember bravery
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: and courage. And in my world, late night shows are
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: dying left and right. But I'm now positive whatever Jimmy
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Kimmel does for the rest of his life is– that
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: is what Late night is going to be in the
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: image of Jimmy Kimmel now because of what happened this month.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: And I am– that's what you see. There are so
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: many opportunities to set yourself apart now, to be– a
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: little bit of bravery gets you an incredible amount of
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: goodwill from people. People pay for the onion for a
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: lot of different reasons. They love the physical newspaper. Their
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: kids steal it and bring it to recess. Like that
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: is a real thing. That's my favorite thing about it.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: They like– they are– Like our primary audience is 12-year-olds
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: who love a really stupid joke that they can try
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: to convince their friends that Taylor Swift got arrested through
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: our newspaper by using this newspaper.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: That was a really good one.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: That was a really good one. Thank you. But another
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: reason people help us out is because we try to
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: do big good things. When we tried to buy in
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: for us, people came to our defense in trying to
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: do that. When we bought that ad in the New
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: York Times, when we supported all these independent theaters out
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: there by giving them this documentary for free. We're not
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: going to make money on this thing. We're just doing
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: it for their sake at this point. People want fight.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: People want people who Stand up in this moment. And
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: that is the reason I'm optimistic is because the incentive
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: structure here is that nobody likes what's going on. And
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the second you say it, people will run to your defense.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: It is a version of the Mr. Rogers look for
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the helpers thing, right? The helpers are all around and
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: they are living quietly because they don't personally want to
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: stand in the way. But if somebody stands in the
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: way for them, they will help you in any way
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: they can.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: Are you going to run for office? Absolutely.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: No. The answer is no.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: You know, I think about how to have this conversation,
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: the state of speech, preserving ideas of free speech. I
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: have been working in and around journalism since 2009. 15,
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: 16 years. Increasingly, I've begun to refer to myself as
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: a journalist less because people don't like us as much anymore.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: And I find that when I bring up the J word,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: it introduces more questions that get in my way than
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: access to just tell good stories. And I'm worried. You're
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: inspiring me right now talking about free speech, but I'm
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: worried because even if Journalism, media, satirists like The Onion
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: speak truth to power in this moment and push back
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: against the White House that they might find antagonistic. There
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: are other challenges that seem even more unstoppable.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I have many friends who are educators who teach young
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: children and all they tell me after the first or
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: second beer is the kids aren't reading. They watch a
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: bunch of videos. If they got to write a paper,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: they go to chat GPT and their media literacy is
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: just greatly diminished and they're worried about it. And on
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: top of just like the video forward nature of our
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: smartphones taking us away from reading and moving us towards
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: watching video, it is increasingly harder and harder to tell
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: what is real and or not, what was made by
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: a human or not, what is human or not on
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: our screens because of AI. And there's some days where
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: I say, okay, sure. Media, journalism, when that fight for
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: free speech against whatever politician you want, but the bigger
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: threat is from this tech that has already taken over
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: more of our lives than we realize, how much does
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: that worry you? And how do you fight that worry?
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really deeply. I think it's– my mom's a children's librarian.
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: And really, what does she say about this?
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Same deal. And that people like– people drag their kids
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: in August and say, my kid's in third grade and
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: can't really figure it out. And they try to fix
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: it the old-fashioned way like phonics and stuff like that.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: And there are ways to do it. It's scary. But
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: I think– an important thing, the through line throughout all
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: this stuff is that being scared is natural. Everything exists
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: right now to make you scared, make you feel out
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: of control. And you have to process that emotion and
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: go through. You have to get through it. I am
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: wholly aware, I am scared every day that all that stuff,
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: all the posturing that I do about how like, oh yeah,
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: we're going to be fine. I have no idea. I
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: hope so. But I will say that If you don't fight,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: they're going to come after you anyway. And if you
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: don't get your kids a book and turn their iPad
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: into just a Miss Rachel machine, which does work by
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: the way, all of my friends with healthy and good
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: kids have an iPad with only Miss Rachel on it
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: and nothing else. I'll just tell you. Because she's amazing
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: and she teaches kids how to read and know what
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: shapes are and things like that. There is a path forward.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: But they want you to be scared and they want
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: you to feel helpless. And the second we come together
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: and say, we're not actually helpless. We're people and we
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: work together as people. I told the staff this. This
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: was around the inauguration day. It was– I don't know
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: if you remember this, but there was this very like
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: ornate ceremony. Everything was gold. It was Donald Trump and
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: then it was the five richest guys behind him.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: I remember. It was Elon, Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google. Yep.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: Zuckerberg, Sam Altman. Yeah.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah. The AI guys. Yeah.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I said like this is the– we've never
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: had a more clear distillation of the man in my
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: entire life. And we are– if the onion is nothing,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: it is– it's a thing that is against the man.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: And so is America. Like the very basis of America
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: is like there was a guy who was going too far, right?
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Also, the basis of America is they don't want to
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: pay no taxes.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: They don't want to pay no taxes. They don't want
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: to pay no taxes. They don't want to pay no taxes.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Also, like we don't want to live in effectively serfdom
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to these weirdos. And that is the one thing that
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: brings us all together. And like all of it is
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: designed to drag you down and to feel helpless and
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: to feel like the robots are taking over and like
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: this machine is smarter than you. He's going to come
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: and take your job. But it isn't. I'm telling you
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: right now, like AI is not funny and it has not–
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: it probably won't be funny because the point of being
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: funny is to find the sentence that is not the
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: middle of something. And AI finds the middle of something
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: at all points. So like find your humanity. I think like–
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: I think if you lean into what you are as
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: a human, if you lean into your communities in real
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: life right now, you will feel less afraid. And I
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: think that more and more people will find a way
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: to do that. And I am– that's why I'm optimistic
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: is because– The people who are against this thing way
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: outnumber the people who like what's going on, regardless of
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: political affiliation. And if you market yourself as that, as
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: a journalist, if you live your life like that, you'll
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: have a lot easier time.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Do you ever worry that AI will get good enough
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: one day to write onion headlines, onion caliber headlines?
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Not really.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: You sure?
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you why.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: It's getting good, man. I've listened to the AI podcast.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: They're coming for my job. I know.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They can mimic a lot of stuff, right? But
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: they can't say anything new. That's the thing. It's like, again,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: AI is the synthesis of everything. And what we like
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: as people is novelty. We like surprise. We like things
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: that come out of nowhere. I'm not saying that it
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: won't occasionally come up with something funny, but like.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: The shallot. Sure.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: What if AI makes that? Yeah.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it will.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: But like, so, and there are people who will just
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: gladly eat up slop and that's the way it is.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: But also today, like for example, a lot of people have,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: all these AI companies have attempted to make the AI
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: only version of TikTok recently. And today, OpenAI came up
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: with a thing called Sora 2. And the reason people
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: think it's doing well is because they're like, it creates
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: TikTok style videos that are all AI. And the reason
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: they think Even like especially the AI guys, the big guy,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: they're like this is a game changer. And they don't
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: seem to understand why that is. It's because they're using
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: a human image in that thing. And what is actually
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: the game changer of that thing is like there is
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: a face that we know from real life that has
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: feelings and emotion and is unpredictable. And inserting that into
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: the technology is what made the thing take over.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: What I'm seeing in this business right now and our
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: business is journalism or publishing or satire or comedy. The
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: more human you are in this moment, the more likely
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: human beings are to give you actual money. We're like
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: in a two-tiered economic system right now. One is this
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: like extremely expensive, totally insolvent AI thing that is a
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: clear bubble and is going to collapse. And everybody– really
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: wants you to believe in this stuff and all of
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: the money is going towards that and they will get
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: real human comics, I'm sure, eventually to like put their
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: stuff on that thing. But on the other side, there
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: is this old economy that I thought was what the
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: economy was, which is like trading goods and services for cash.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: And The Onion is exclusively in that business and we're
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: doing well. And we're doing well because– People want human-to-human
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: interactions right now. It sounds like we're zagging when everybody
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: else is zagging, but really what we're doing is we're
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: just banking on the fact that people want to be
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: around people and like people and don't want to be
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: around a faceless machine.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Sounds good to me. Ben Collins 2020 whatever. I'm telling you. Don't, don't.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: The thing I like to do on this show is
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: ask all of my guests if they have any hot takes,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: pop culture hot takes that they want to get off
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: their chest. My hottest hot take is that 99% of
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: albums don't need interludes, spoken word interludes. A handful of
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: them deserve them. Usually we don't need it, Another hot take,
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: all movies could be 90 minutes or a little bit less.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Do you have any?
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: This has just been top of mind. I don't think
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: anybody young listens to Joe Rogan. I think when people
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: are like, we need a Joe Rogan of the left.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's 45-year-old guys who are like, oh, yeah,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: we need somebody. I just don't think anybody under the
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: age of 25 actually listens. I think it's like people
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: who are like painting their house who need something to
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: like drone and do this with. I don't know. If
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: you find me a 14-year-old that's like obsessed with Joe
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Rogan and I'll find you, I don't know, the cure
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: to cancer.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: That's my hot take.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: I like that take.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: And now my last question for you because I have
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: an answer to this question too. Ben Collins, CEO of
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: The Onion. What is your favorite Onion headline of all time?
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: It changes day to day. My favorite one.
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Probably my absolute total favorite one is somebody should do
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: something about all the problems, which is an op-ed that
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: we have from an old lady. And I just think
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: about it all the time. Like every day I wake
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: up and I see the new barrage of stuff and
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: I think somebody should do something about all the problems.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: My most recent favorite one is just the words prostate,
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: prostate honked. Like, prostate honked. That's on the front page
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: of our most recent paper, which you should get, by
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: the way. Your membership.daniel.com. Go get You'll get 12 papers
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: in the mail and we'll send them to you for $ 100.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: There you go. Ben Collins, whatever the heck y'all are
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: doing over there at The Onion, keep it up. I
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: don't find myself leaving many interviews optimistic these days, but
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: I did after this one.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: That was Sam Sanders with Onion CEO Ben Collins. This
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: episode originally aired on October 3rd. The Sam Sanders Show
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: is available wherever you get your podcasts or also on YouTube.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: It's actually really fun to watch. It's a great tiki
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: bar type set. Sam has great sweaters. Check them out.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Some recent episodes I recommend are Sam's live conversation with
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: author Michael Lewis or Sam's conversation with fashion writer Robin
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Gavan about designer Virgil Abloh.
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Sam and everybody who puts this show together
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: for letting us share this with you, including showrunner Tyler Green,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: senior producer Bennett Purser, technical director Phil Richards, and Andrea Batista,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: who produced this episode. Arnie Seipel and Sam Sanders executive
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: produced the show. Our associate producer at Question Everything is
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Kevin Shepard. We also had support from Emma Grillo and
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: our sound designer and mixer, Brendan Baker. Our managing editor
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: is Kevin Sullivan. We'll see you next week with more
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Question Everything.