Latest / Pod Save America / Stephen Colbert, South Park, and Donald Trump’s War Against the Media

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Stephen Colbert, South Park, and Donald Trump’s War Against the Media · Pod Save America

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• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vittorio. It is
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a very scary and unsettled time for the media business,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: especially political media. After decades of shifting business models and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: consumption habits, corporate consolidation and downsizing, news outlets now have
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to navigate the threat of lawsuits from the president of
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  Speaker 1: the United States, who is more than happy to use
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  Speaker 1: the full weight of the U.S. government to punish his enemies.
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  Speaker 1: In the last several months, we have seen Trump initiate
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  Speaker 1: lawsuits against CBS, ABC, against a pollster who released some
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  Speaker 1: data he didn't like. The ABC and CBS suits resulted
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  Speaker 1: in eight-figure payouts to Trump, reputational damage to the networks involved,
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  Speaker 1: and a major shakeup at 60 Minutes. And then earlier
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: this week, Trump filed a $ 10 billion lawsuit against The
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, News Corp, and Rupert Murdoch. You know
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that big lib, Rupert Murdoch. That context is why CBS's
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: decision to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert did
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  Speaker 1: not sit well with a lot of people. CBS claimed
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  Speaker 1: it was a purely financial decision, But CBS's parent company, Paramount,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was in the process of trying to get the Trump
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  Speaker 1: administration to approve a merger with Skydance Media. And firing
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  Speaker 1: a longtime Trump critic like Stephen Colbert sure seemed like
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  Speaker 1: a good way to placate the president. On Thursday, we
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: learned that the Federal Communications Commission has approved that merger.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: To try and make sense of all this, I talked
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: with Brian Stelter. He is the chief media analyst at
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: CNN Worldwide, where he also writes the Reliable Sources newsletter.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: It's an excellent newsletter, by the way. You should subscribe.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He's also the author of three books, the most recent
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: being Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy about the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: effort to steal the 2020 election. And look, as long
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: as we're talking about changes in the media business, I'm
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: going to ask you to help Crooked Media by subscribing
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  Speaker 1: to Pod Save America on YouTube. You may have noticed
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• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with Brian. Brian Stelter, welcome to Pod
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Save America.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: It's great to be here, I think. I don't know
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  Speaker 3: how this is going to go. We'll find out.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I think this is going to go great. All right,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: let's talk about some breaking news or big news. Last week,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: CBS announced they were canceling The Late Show, hosted by
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert. CBS insists this is a purely financial decision,
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  Speaker 1: but it came just days after Colbert unloaded on CBS
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  Speaker 1: and its parent company, Paramount, for caving to Trump in
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  Speaker 1: what most people think was a pretty frivolous, ridiculous lawsuit. Um, Now, Brian,
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  Speaker 1: you know better than anybody, these are tough times for
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  Speaker 1: broadcast media, for late shows in particular. The late show
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  Speaker 1: was reportedly losing $ 40 to $ 50 million per year. Do
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  Speaker 1: you buy the claim that this was a purely financial decision,
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  Speaker 1: or do you kind of entertain that the timing at
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: least could have been part of a broader effort to
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  Speaker 1: make Trump happy as Paramount sought Trump's approval for a
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: merger with Skydance Media?
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  Speaker 3: Narrowly, yes, I buy it.
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  Speaker 4: And if any other president were in office, that would
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: be the end of the conversation. You know, when I
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: would call up sources at CBS last week, even on background,
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  Speaker 4: even when they're given anonymity, even when they know I'm
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  Speaker 4: going to protect them because I've known them 20 years,
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  Speaker 4: They still say, they still insist that this was financial.
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  Speaker 4: And I do narrowly believe that. I wrote about James
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  Speaker 4: Corden ending the Late Late Show a couple of years ago.
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  Speaker 4: That was on after Colbert and it too was unprofitable.
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  Speaker 4: And that show went off the air in 2023.
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  Speaker 3: So there is a history here. It does make a
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  Speaker 3: lot of sense.
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  Speaker 4: But when the president of the United States hates Stephen Colbert,
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: wants him off the air, trashes him on True Social.
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  Speaker 3: When CBS is.
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  Speaker 4: Trying to get a merger approved, when you have this
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  Speaker 4: entire political backdrop, then I think you have to consider
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: the broader context of all of this. And Tommy, I
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  Speaker 4: think it's one of these situations where when you're really
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  Speaker 4: close to it and you're zoomed way in, you can
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  Speaker 4: talk about all the details of the financing and all that.
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  Speaker 4: When you zoom way out, you actually might have a
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  Speaker 4: better perspective of what's going on.
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  Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. Yeah, there's a lot of context here.
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  Speaker 1: You're also reminding me that a couple of years ago,
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  Speaker 1: I had breakfast next to James Corden at a restaurant
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and he kept saying to his little daughter, I believe,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: please stop playing bongos on daddy's bum bum. And I
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: thought that was the funniest, cutest thing I'd ever heard.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: It was this adorable little moment.
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  Speaker 4: See, maybe Tommy, that's what we're losing with the death
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  Speaker 4: of late night television. And that's the problem as a
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  Speaker 4: business story. That's an important business story. It's an important
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  Speaker 4: cultural story. It's just impossible to disconnect it from the politics.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Well, so my next question is, is it a matter
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  Speaker 1: of time until some of these other late night shows
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  Speaker 1: are canceled given the changes in the industry? People are
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: cutting the cords. Advertisers are moving elsewhere. Or does it
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: make more sense to downsize a show to make it
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: financially viable?
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, weirdly, in the short term, Jimmy Fallon and
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: Jimmy Kimmel might benefit. You know, yes, the pie in
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: general has been shrinking for years. The ratings have been
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: slowly declining. And that's not necessarily the fault of these comedians. Look,
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: there's a thousand other options now on our phones at
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: all times. actually millions and millions of other options. So
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: of course the late night audience pie has been shrinking,
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: but in the short term, once Colbert is off the
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: air next May, in theory, Fallon and Kimmel should benefit,
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  Speaker 4: you know, for the people who are up at 1135
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  Speaker 4: and are flipping channels with their old fashioned TV remotes.
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  Speaker 4: And I'm still one of them. I still have my
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: old fashioned cable connection for those folks. Maybe Kimmel and
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: Fallon will actually draw new audiences, but that's in the
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  Speaker 4: short term. In the longterm, the trend lines all do
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: look the same. And Here's the unanswered question that I
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: have about CBS. The late show trend lines were what
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: they were. The show was becoming unprofitable more so every year.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: Why not take action in 2023 or in 2024? Why
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: not right-size the budgets? Why not cut costs? Now, maybe
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: some of that happened and we're unaware. I've not heard
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  Speaker 4: that from sources personally. Stephen Colbert's contract was coming up
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: next May. So maybe in that contract cycle, there would
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: have been a renegotiation. Maybe he would have taken a
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: pay cut.
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  Speaker 3: Who knows?
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  Speaker 4: But my point is, why not try to save the
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  Speaker 4: show rather than let it sink?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an iconic show. There's not a lot of
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  Speaker 1: monoculture properties like that. It does seem shocking just to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: kill it off 10 months from now, fully. Last question
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: on CBS. There's been a lot of rumors out there
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  Speaker 1: that CBS might hire someone named Barry Weiss to sort
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  Speaker 1: of oversee their journalism.
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  Speaker 3: Someone named Barry Weiss? Are you playing like you've never.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Heard of her?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So for our audience who doesn't know Barry Weiss, I'm
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: just trying not to assume knowledge. I'm trying to be
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  Speaker 1: a pro like you, right?
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  Speaker 3: Got it, got it, okay.
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  Speaker 1: Barry Weiss, she worked at the New York Times. She quit,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of like citing feelings of that cancel
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: culture had run amok within the organization. She started a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: company called The Free Press that she is now reportedly
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: trying to sell for something like $ 200, $ 250 million. But
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: there's also these rumors of her maybe going to CBS
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and just, I'm not entirely sure what the role is.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: What are you hearing about that?
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  Speaker 4: We know the talks are happening and we know the
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: talks are serious enough to involve bankers and lawyers, but
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: that does not mean a deal will get done. Barry
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  Speaker 4: Weiss has been at this with this startup for about
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: five years. She may well feel that another two, three, four,
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: five years from now, this is going to be twice
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: or three times as valuable. So maybe she will decide
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: not to sell. But I understand why from David Ellison's perspective,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: he's the incoming Paramount owner. He's the CEO of Skydance.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: Skydance is taking over Paramount now that the FCC has
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: approved the merger. I understand why from David Ellison's point
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: of view, hiring the free press, acqui-hiring Barry Weiss and
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: bringing over the free press as an acquisition, it's a
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: dramatic move that makes a statement. It's a way to
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: put your stamp on a news division. I can see
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: the logic. It's like an interesting and sexy story to
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: bring in an acquisition in this way. And yes, it
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: does also, again, you can't disconnect it from the politics.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: It says something about his politics, perhaps, and definitely about
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: his desires to change CBS News.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: This idea of.
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: The free press as an anti-woke brand, as being heterodox,
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: as being center, right? There's lots of different ways people
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: describe it. I think of it as a more centrist
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: or right-leaning version of The Atlantic. It's more of a
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: magazine than a news outlet, meaning it's about essays and
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: analytical pieces and columns and first person. It's not a
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: news operation gathering news 24-7 the way.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: CBS News is.
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: If you believe that CBS News and its website and
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: its digital assets need a jolt of energy, if you
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: believe they need a subscription business plan, if you believe
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: they need live events and podcasts, well, Bringing in the
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: free press can make a lot of sense on paper.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Do you buy it or am I totally full of shit?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying. I kind of think that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: there's a very small, very kind of elite audience for
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: what Barry's selling. It's sort of a center-right take on
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the world. I'm a little skeptical of people that are
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: kind of– say they're anti-cancel culture but then don't have
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a lot to say when pro-Palestinian activists are being thrown
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: in ICE detention centers for months, right? Like that seems
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to be the kind of front of the– cancel culture
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: wars that we should really worry about when we're talking
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: about government censorship. But I don't know, I'm not, I'm
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: not trying to, um, I'm not trying to diminish her
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: or cast aspersions here. I just kind of, uh, if
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I were like, it's hard not to divorce it from
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the context, as you just said, I mean, you know,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: in April, like Bill Owens, the executive producer of 60
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: minutes resigned, he told his staff, they said, quote, over
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the past months, it's been clear that I would not
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: be allowed to run the show as I have always
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: run it to make independent decisions based on what was
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: right for 60 minutes, right for the audience. So over time,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I did what I could. I'm stepping aside so the
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: show can move forward. That really struck me, Brian, because
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure what not be allowed to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: run the show as I've always run it meant. I'm
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: not sure if you know, but it does seem like
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: he felt like there was a chilling effect and the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: sort of corporate overlords telling them what to do.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Installing someone like Barry seems to be kind of the
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: next step in that. Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Bill Owens is referring to pressure from Paramount, especially from
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: controlling shareholder Sherry Redstone, who is the one trying to
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: offload Paramount to David Ellison. Pressure from the top of
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Paramount to try not to make a bad situation worse.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: And what I mean by that is Trump was already
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: suing CBS over 60 Minutes. There were signs that the
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Trump FCC was very slow walking the merger review process.
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: From the Paramount corporate point of view, guys, you're reporting
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: the news. We don't want to bother you. We don't
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: want to get in the way, but please don't make
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: our terrible corporate situation worse. From the Paramount point of view,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: they've been subjected to a form of corporate torture by
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: these government regulators who've been reviewing the deal and by
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: the president himself, whose criticism of CBS has been scathing
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: and very personal. So, From the corporate point of view,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: that's the kind of interference that Bill Owens was then
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: feeling in February, in March, in April. You know, paramount
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: bosses wanting to know in advance about stories, maybe trying
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: to view them in advance. That kind of interference that
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: he was not at all accustomed to. And it wasn't
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: just about Trump and politics. It was also relating to
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: Israel and Gaza. Sherry Redstone has been an outspoken supporter
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: of Israel. She has been very vocal about anti-Semitism in
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: the United States. She was upset about a CBS morning
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: show segment that she thought was unfair, that was bent
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: in the wrong way. And so that concern also was
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: affecting 60 Minutes. And here's the important part, I think, Tommy.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: David Ellison shares Sherry Redstone's point of view when it
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: comes to Israel.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: He is also a strong supporter of Israel.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: And I suspect that when we talk about Barry Weiss
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: possibly coming over to CBS... That has something to do
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: with what we're talking about because the free press shares
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: some values that Ellison has and that would potentially impact
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: the news division. Look, we don't know what Weiss's role
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: would be if she does decide to sell the free press,
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: if she does go to CBS. I've seen people describe
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: her as some sort of editorial shepherd or thought leader.
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: What I don't think, I don't think she's going to
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: be put in some actual management role. They're not going
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: to make her the president of CBS News. But they
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: would give her some sort of role looking at the editorial.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: And I think the relationship between Ellison and Barry Weiss
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: with regards to denouncing anti-Semitism and supporting Israel, I think
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: that's part of the stew in the pot, so to speak.
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• 17:06
  Speaker 1: In the lead into our conversation, I talked a lot
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: about the lawsuits that Trump has waged against news outlets
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that include CBS, ABC, a pollster at the Des Moines
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Register that he didn't like, News Corp. Are you hearing
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: from your sources and various newsrooms that these lawsuits are
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: having a chilling effect on their reporting decisions? Are they
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: less likely to do tough investigative work on Trump given
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: that backdrop?
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: It's almost impossible to answer the question because We don't
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: know what we don't know. You know, we don't know
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: the stories that never get published unless someone else publishes
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: them and says, I wasn't allowed to print this at X, Y,
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: or Z. So I'm printing it over at ABC. That
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: dynamic is so confounding. And I've struggled with it in
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: the past few months because there is a chill in
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: the air. But that chill in the air does not
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: mean that stories are going untold necessarily. It means, you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: the temperature's dropped a little bit. I would put it
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: this way and tell me if this is naive. The
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: temperatures maybe changed a degree or two, but the climate
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: has not changed. Meaning there are lots of news outlets
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: doing fearless reporting on a daily basis. The kind of
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: journalism that President Trump does not want to see published.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: It's out there for everybody to read and view and see.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: I do get concerned that there's lots of people that
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: never interact with it because of media silos and media
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: bubbles and all that.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: But the work is being done.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: The climate hasn't changed. But the weather definitely has. The
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: temperature has changed. And so I'll give you a very
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: specific example. When the Wall Street Journal came forward with
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: that story about Trump's old relationship, his old friendship with
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Jeffrey Epstein, and now Trump is suing the journal, one
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: of the journal's follow-up stories mentioned that ABC News was
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: pursuing some of the same reporting the journal had. Not
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: exactly the same story, but ABC was going after it.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: ABC was digging into it. In fact, when ABC called
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: the White House for comment or called the DOJ for
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: comment on July 9th, There was a fight among some
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: of the Trump officials as a result of the ABC
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: request for comment. So I went on the ABC website.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: I tried to find, was a story published? Was this
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: reporting that ABC was pursuing? Did it actually air or
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: be published anywhere?
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: And the answer is no.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: ABC kept reporting it out, kept trying to confirm it,
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: but never published a story.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And this is one of those unknowables.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: Did ABC decide to hold back from the story because
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: it didn't feel confirmed? It didn't feel solid enough? The
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: bosses were not confident in the reporting? Or did they
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: hold back because Disney's, you know, the ABC's parent company, Disney,
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: settled with Trump last December for $ 15 or $ 16 million
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: as a result of a Trump lawsuit against the network.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: And as a result, the network is hesitant to go there.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: and break a big story about Trump.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: It's unknowable.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: And here's what happens when I call and ask this question.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: Number one, you're never going to comment on the record.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Number two.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: you'll hear some understandable defensiveness saying, you know, you can't
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: accuse us of going soft or of holding back or
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: of not having journalistic standards.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a real, you get it, I think, right?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I would be incredibly defensive about that.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's sort of like core to the DNA
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of not only these organizations, but the people who work there,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: like they live and they breathe this stuff. You're right.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it is sort of impossible to quantify.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I do wonder what it's like being a younger investigative
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: reporter in a very unsettled industry where there's more layoffs
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: than hirings. And you think, not only will my bosses
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: have my back if I report this out, but will
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: my bosses like this? Is this the kind of thing
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: they want me to pursue? Or am I a troublemaker
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: if I'm going after this Epstein document or whatever?
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Interesting.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: I can only tell you that from my personal experience,
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: I've been back at CNN now about a year. Every
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: time that I write a story that I find is
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: really tough, when I'm writing it, I think, is someone
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: going to wince at that paragraph? Is that going to
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: go too far? Am I being too analytical? First of all,
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: the answer is no. It's important to share with the
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: audience what we know, to be honest, to be very clear.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: But number two, I find that those stories that are strong,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: that are not holding back at all, those are the
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: ones that end up on the homepage. Those are the
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: ones that end up getting push alerted out to millions
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: of readers. Those are the ones that end up having big,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: big audiences. I find every time that happens, I view
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: that as a positive sign.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Take me out of it.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: I see that happening with colleagues at CNN. I see
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: that at other places as well where big scoops, tough investigations,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: really strongly worded pieces of analysis, they do get rewarded
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: with attention and traffic and engagement. even though the pressures
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: are so real and Trump's attacks against the press are
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: so intense, I want to recognize how much good work
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: is still getting out.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Absolutely. Reporters are doing amazing work. And one piece
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of this that I find fascinating, Brian, is kind of
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the Rupert Murdoch role in this world right now. Because
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, like the Wall Street Journal has done
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: some of the toughest reporting on Trump, period, especially there.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: The recent reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, The
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: journal's editorial page has been a harsh critic of Trump's
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: tariff policies. And now Trump is suing the journal, News Corp,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and Rupert Murdoch for, you know, only $ 10 billion, a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: little tiny lawsuit. You have reported on Fox News and
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the Murdoch family for years. How do you make sense
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of the disconnect between the journal's tough coverage and then
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the 24-7 propaganda and cheerleading we see on Fox News?
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: Rupert Murdoch wants to have it both ways. Having it
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: both ways benefits him probably, I would say, emotionally, definitely financially.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Because Rupert, in his heart, even though some listeners will
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: laugh at this, he views himself as a newsman, as
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: a newshound, as an old-fashioned newspaper man with ink in
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: his veins, so to speak. And that is how he
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: grew up. That's how he built his media empire. It
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: was through newspapers. So for him, he's really proud of
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: The Wall Street Journal. He loves a good scoop. I
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: think he also sometimes likes to poke the president in
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: the eye, as one person close to Rupert said to me.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: He doesn't mind being in these confrontations. We're talking about
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: a 94-year-old who filed a legal battle against his own
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: children a couple of years ago, trying to change the
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: family trust to figure out how billions of dollars are
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: going to be split up.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: This is a guy who likes to fight.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: So number one, we shouldn't be surprised that he's willing
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: to battle with Trump when he feels it's appropriate and necessary.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: But then number two, he has Fox News as well, right?
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: So he has the journal. He's proud of the scoops.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: He loves the paper. He reads it in print. But
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: then he knows that Fox News makes him incredible amounts
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: of money. It makes the shareholders a lot of money.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: It is what keeps the profit machine humming along. And
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: so I think that's how he has it both ways.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Why do you think Fox has figured out how to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: make it work, providing like MAGA comfort food for years
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and years and years? And they're dominating the ratings. They're
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: dominating financially. at a time when other networks are struggling.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: MSNBC is getting spun off. There's major changes afoot. It
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem like there's a sort of equivalent network on
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the left that has been as successful.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: And that's been true for 20 years. If you go
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: back into the history of cable news, when MSNBC started
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: to become clearly left-leaning with Keith Olbermann, which really was
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: 20 years ago, MSNBC was never able to grow to
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: become as large as Fox News. CNN, of course, trying
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: to report the news and not be as much of
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: a talk show about.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: The world the way that Fox News is. That's how
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: you Fox.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: I view Fox not as a, it's got a small
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: news operation and it's got a giant opinion arm.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: It also has an entertainment arm, if you think about
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: it that way.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: Fox is mostly a rolling talk show about the news.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: And in some ways that is inherently more popular. versus
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: live shots from around the world and detailed reports. I
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: want to acknowledge there's just a difference in the marketplace.
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Fox is selling a different product than everybody else. Most importantly, Tommy,
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: to answer your question, Fox has a stranglehold on that
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: audience on the right. You hear about Newsmax once in
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: a while. You hear about One America News. These channels
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: are tiny flies on the back of the Fox elephant.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: And even though Newsmax has been out there for years trying, fighting,
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: it has struggled to become even one-tenth as large as
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: Fox News. So, you know, whether you buy into the
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: idea that it's a cult-like relationship or not, Fox has
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: that iron grip on the audience unlike any other channel
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: on television. And I have looked for signs of that changing.
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: I've written two books about this and wondered if it
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: would ever change. In 2025, I see no sign of
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: that changing.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, I have Fox on all day, every
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: day in our office. I don't agree with a lot
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of what they report, but the number of times I've
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: looked at a chyron on the screen and laughed out
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: loud is like too many to number. I mean, I
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: think they do a good job putting out an entertaining product.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: It's one that I don't find to be factual, but
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: it's fun to watch.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: Listen, Roger Ailes talked about this a long, long time ago.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: One of the only times I ever met the man,
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: he talked about how bright the screen was, how colorful
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: the screen was, how he wanted not just people, but
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: the banners, the pictures to pop. And if that's the
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: business you're in, which is an entertainment and political propaganda business,
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: then he built something that's still wildly succeeding a decade
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: after his death.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One duo that's not pulling any punches are Trey
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Parker and Matt Stone over at South Park, South Park's creators.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Did you catch the first episode.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Of this season?
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Well, I had to watch for work, yes.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, I did too. I was getting texts about it.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: What night was that? Wednesday night. I started seeing people
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: posting on Twitter. The final scene is the first scene
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I watched, which was an AI Trump crawling through the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: desert completely naked before his penis starts speaking. And then
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: it says, I think the tagline is Donald Trump He
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: has a teeny tiny penis, but he's for us. So
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the LA Times reported that Paramount rushed to finalize their
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: merger with Skydance before the premiere on Wednesday to avoid
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: a PR fiasco. And I think the creators were at
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Comic-Con in San Diego Thursday. Puck reported that South Park
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: flagged the content of the episode to Paramount execs, who
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: then told the top brass about it. And then those
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: top brass said, had to explain the episode to Sherry Redstone,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: what I would give to have been in that room.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Have you heard anything about, you know, look, ultimately they
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: decided to air this episode, right? I mean, they probably
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: were smart enough to know that if they tanked this thing,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it would be bad. But it's just, the context is
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: remarkable given that Paramount just gave Parker and Stone $ 1. 5
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: billion with a B for 50 new episodes and their
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: entire back catalog.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: This season premiere actually was delayed two weeks. So add
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: that to the mix here.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: The creators were working on the new season, ended up
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: not coming out till here we are almost the end
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: of July. And that does line up perfectly with this
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: merger review timeline. Because if you unpack the entire month
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: of July, Paramount settles with Trump on July 1st, agrees
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: to pay $ 16 million to make that 60 minutes lawsuit
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: go away. That court you know, settlement, that out of
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: court settlement was only finalized in court on Tuesday of
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: this week. So you then have on Thursday, the FCC
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: voting to approve the merger. So drop into the timeline,
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: South Park on Wednesday night. Here's why it's more complicated
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: than that though. South Park is on cable.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: It's not on broadcast.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: So technically, officially, the way the law works, the FCC
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: has nothing to do with cable, cannot say a word
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: about South Park, cannot make a peep about it. So
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: if we're looking at this by the book, then South
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: Park shouldn't matter. But of course, this world seems more
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: complicated than that.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Right, yes.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: Or more transactional than that. When people look at the
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Paramount settlement over the 60 Minutes lawsuit, they see a
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: quid pro quo. Elizabeth Warren has called this a bribe.
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: Other Democratic senators have called this a bribe. By the way,
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: how interesting it is that we've seen these Democrats even
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: bother to weigh in about a media merger. It speaks
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: to the environment we're in and the desire of some
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: Democrats to show that they are fighting that we've seen
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: statements from these lawmakers about what's going on at Paramount.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: Because right now, all roads lead to and from Paramount.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: The Colbert late night show is about Paramount. The Daily
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: Show and Jon Stewart, South Park, 60 Minutes, all of
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: this under the same parent company. And my take on
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: South Park is that because it is on cable, not broadcast,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: because the creators are known for taking shots at everybody,
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: they're equal opportunity offenders.
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: Emphasis on offenders.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: They've been going after the left for years and what
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: they think is excessive woke-ism. Well, now they believe the
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: biggest bully in the room is on the right. It's
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: President Trump. There's really no way to tell them to
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: knock it off without losing South Park, without.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: Losing the brand.
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: And that's why the most important number you said is 1.5 billion.
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: The Paramount just signed this new deal to keep streaming
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: South Park. Well, to be able to stream South Park
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: for years to come. So how do we square the circle, right?
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: Late shows going away, but South Park, vicious Trump criticism.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: It's worth 1.5 billion. The answer is in what matters
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: on streaming. What matters on streaming are shows like South Park,
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: shows that have a long shelf life.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: Right? It's a great library.
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: It's a 27-season library of television that people might be
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: watching 10 or.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: 20 years from now.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: Whereas, is anybody really going to watch an episode of
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert five years from now?
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Probably not.
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  Speaker 1: See site for details. And remember.
• 32:19
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• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Nice. Did I do it? Nailed that. Let's turn to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the sort of White House and the White House press corps.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: The Trump administration has cracked down on the White House
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: press corps in ways that would have been unimaginable to
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: me when I was, you know, a very young flack
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: working in the press office for Barack Obama. They took
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: control of deciding which news outlets are part of the
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: White House press pool and For those who don't know,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the press pool is the group of reporters that's much
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: smaller that attends events with the president when there's limited
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: space in the room. That process used to be controlled
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: by the White House Correspondents Association, by the journalists themselves,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: but the White House took it over. They banned the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Associated Press from pooled events for several months. They have
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: moved to fully restrict pool access for major wire services.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: The White House has also now barred the Wall Street
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Journal from some events because they're mad about the Epstein coverage. Brian,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: what do you think the impact of these sort of changes,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: when all taken together, has been?
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: You know, first of all, in Trump 2.0, if there
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: is a button that Trump or his aides can press
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: to punish disfavored media outlets... they will press it. That's
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: my takeaway from the first six months. We've seen a
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: dozen different examples of pressure points that have been exploited,
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: whether that's the FCC opening investigations, whether it's defunding PBS
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: and NPR, whether it's legal battles in the courts, all
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: these different pressure points. You're describing a really interesting one
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: that matters a lot to insiders that I think most
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: outsiders never hear about. This idea of who's in the
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: press pool and thus really who is able to ask
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: the president questions on a daily basis. This is now
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: a legal fight by the AP. The AP was basically
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: the first to be punished this year. And should we
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: refresh people's memories about why it was about the Gulf
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: of Mexico?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please, because it's so stupid.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I just feel like it's important to.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Bake it in every time I talk about this, because
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: otherwise you start to think, oh, maybe the AP did
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: something wrong.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: What did they do? Right, right.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: The AP, when you're growing up and you're in journalism school,
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: the AP style book is the Bible. It is the
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: manual for what names to capitalize and how to spell
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: certain words. So in the AP style book, the Gulf
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: of Mexico is still called the Gulf of Mexico. Trump's
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: proclamation that the US government must now call it the
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: Gulf of America is created a challenge for all.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: These global newsrooms. What do you do? What do you
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: call the Gulf?
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: And, you know, the AP and other outlets basically decided
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: other countries recognize it as the Gulf of Mexico. That's
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: been the name for hundreds of years. We're going to
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: call it the Gulf of Mexico, but also acknowledge Trump's
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: decree about Gulf of America. So, you know, when I'm
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: on TV, I call it the Gulf. I say it's
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by Trump as the Gulf
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: of America. You just explain it. You know, you just
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: bake it into the news coverage. Not a big deal,
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: not controversial, but Trump wanted to pick a fight. So
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: he started to ban AP reporters from White House events.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: And here we are, a big, giant legal battle that's
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: probably going to go on for months where the AP
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: is trying to fight for its access. In the meantime,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: the White House has totally rewritten the rules about access.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: So the legal fight may not matter as much as
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: it did. Basically, up until now, an independent group of
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: press corps folks, the White House Press Correspondents Association, decided
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: who was in the pool. And Caroline Leavitt and her
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: aides have taken that power. Now they decide on a
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: daily basis who is in the press pool. For the
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: most part, most news outlets that were in in January
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: still are. We should recognize, you know, for the most part,
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: it hasn't changed. But the mix has evolved over time.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: There are now explicitly pro-Trump outlets that don't do reporting.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: They're there to provoke and opine, not to report. They
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: are a regular part of the press pool now.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: And places like the AP are in the pool less often.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: What I think has changed this month and is, you know,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: we have to watch out for is The Wall Street
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Journal being kicked off a trip, kicked out of the
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: press pool for a trip because Trump didn't like the
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: story about Trump and Epstein, because he decided to sue
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: the journal. So that's a clear, very specific example of
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: retaliation against a news outlet for a story Trump didn't like.
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: And the fear, of course, among White House reporters is
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: that that's going to become more common, that Trump is
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: going to start to do that on a more regular
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: basis going forward. And there's nothing really to stop him
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: from doing so.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and for those who are thinking like, why are
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you guys talking about this? Why does it matter? I mean,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: just imagine if every pooled press event, you just had
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: questions to Trump from like Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, I'm
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: forgetting his name, Brian Kelly.
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: Brian Glenn, that's a real thing. He shows up regularly.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Now, yes.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: And you know what he did a couple of days ago?
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: He asked a question about a bill that his girlfriend
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: had introduced in Congress. Isn't that an interesting way to
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: promote the bill?
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: No conflicts here.
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is remarkable. You know, look, again, these are
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: like seismic changes. for the nerds like us who know
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: how this stuff used to work. I have found the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: White House Correspondents Association response to be basically non-existent. Like
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I think they sent a letter, they wore like pins
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: one day. I guess, I don't want to be mean
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: to them. I'm not sure they have that.
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know you do.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's pathetic, but I also think that it's
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: almost impossible to figure out a way to respond collectively
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: when you have a press corps with a bunch of
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: competing interests. And I'm just, I'm wondering if I'm being
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: unfair to them.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: No, you said it. You said it. Therein lies the problem.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: The audience can say and does say to me on
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: Blue Sky every day, show solidarity, work together.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: You should all walk out. And I don't think.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: We live in a world where if 10 or 20
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: or 30 reporters all banded together and walked away and
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: refused to ask Trump questions, I don't think we live
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: in a world where another 30 won't rush back in.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: We'll not rush in.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: There will always be reporters or people posing as reporters
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: who want to ask the president questions. And so I
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: think this is one of those areas where the White
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: House does have a lot of leverage in terms of
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: who is able to ask questions on a daily basis.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: And we should just, as people like yours truly, all
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: we can do is point out, is Trump doing any
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: real interviews? Is he only going on Fox? When he
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: goes on Fox, does he only go on with his friends?
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: His daughter-in-law is a host on Fox. The president recently
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: sat down with his daughter-in-law for a promotional interview. Is
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: the word interview even appropriate in those circumstances? All we
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: can do is observe it, point it out, recognize what
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: is happening. And this summer, at least, yeah, Trump holds
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of so-called gaggles where he answers questions from
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: the press pool. But he is almost never sitting down
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: for real interviews.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. Although I do find myself
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: wanting to kind of check my own views here because
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Trump is broadly more accessible than any president that I
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: could ever think of in history.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, he is doing constant. I mean, he there
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: was a time when he was having foreign leaders to
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the White House. Normally, when you have a foreign leader
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: come in, you bring the press pool in for something
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: called a spray where they basically just shout questions and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: take photos. They're out in two minutes. And he would
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: do like 45 minute mini press conferences there. And then
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: they would go to the East Room after the meeting
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: and do another 45 minutes. I was like, what the
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: hell are these guys doing? This is such a waste
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: of time. They've slimmed that down a bit, but he
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: is still willing to take questions from the press basically
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: every day, which is very different than Biden.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: It is very different. but whether he answers them honestly
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: is a completely different metric. And we live in an
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: environment now where the president calls a reporter a maggot,
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: where he decides to respond to South Park mocking his genitalia.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: You know, we live in an environment now that is just, yes,
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: it is an attention war. Yes, Trump is able to
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: win the attention war, but but at what cost and
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: is it at all tethered to reality are the really
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: hard parts to measure.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: That's right. That's right. Do you think that the wave
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: of media unionization over the past few years has impacted
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: or changed how outlets cover labor or cover power generally?
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: What have you seen from this trend?
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: I haven't written about this, but I do think that
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: there's more nuanced coverage of labor issues as a result
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: of that unionization movement. And so that's the main thing
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: I've noticed is I personally, I see more coverage of
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: the topic and I see more nuanced coverage as a result.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Interesting. So, Brian, I spent like 30 minutes asking you
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: about traditional mainstream media because like I have all this
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: muscle memory of.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: It from when I was in government. Yeah.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Right. But podcasts, TikTok, social media, like that's the stuff
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: that everyone- I've heard.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: They're becoming popular.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's the stuff people think got Trump elected. I
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: may have co-founded a media company, a podcast company.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: You still haven't saved America though.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: God, people don't seem to always get that that was sarcastic,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: including Hunter Biden.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: I read that this week.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he had some thoughts. It has been interesting to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: watch a lot of these new media voices turn on
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Trump over Jeffrey Epstein. I'm also fascinated by the ways
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: the Trump team is trying to spin these influencers and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: get them on sides. Like Trump is making calls to
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: people like Charlie Kirk. J.D. Vance invited a stand-up comedian
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and podcaster named Tim Dillon to Washington, D.C. to have
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: dinner with him. Now, it doesn't seem like any of
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: this has really worked, but I'm wondering if you think
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: there's a takeaway from this moment and the Epstein story
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and how diffuse media power has become and what that
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: says about your ability to control a narrative if you're
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: a White House.
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: In some ways, it is similar to the relationship between
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Trump and Fox News, even though that's an old-school brand.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Because the hosts on Fox News, they have a lot
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: of power. They benefit from proximity to the president. It's
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: a mutually beneficial backscratching relationship most of the time. And yet,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: they also can pull apart sometimes. They can go separate ways.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: There can be breakups and then reunions. And I think
• 42:03
  Speaker 4: there's a version of that now in MAGA media, social
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: media influencer world, where The relationship is clearly mutually beneficial.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: There's an element of propaganda underway. And yet, sometimes these
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: men and women will break away, or they will speak out,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: because they believe they're doing it for the good of
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: the movement. And in some cases, they're doing it to
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: help Trump. Some of the MAGA media influencers calling out
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: the administration over Epstein, they think, I believe they think,
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: they're actually helping Trump. They are guiding him to what
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: is the right answer or the right solution. Furthermore, some
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: of them clearly feel.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: Betrayed deeply betrayed.
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: And that's what's going to happen sometimes when you buy
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: into a years-long lie, an entire architecture of lies that
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: has been built around this topic.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: I don't know about you.
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: I found this hard to analyze and talk about on
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: TV because there's both a very real and horrifying scandal
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: about Epstein and his crimes and his accomplices. And there
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: is a lot more that could be revealed and there
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: are documents that have not come out. That's all real
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: and important and reality-based. But then There's also this, you know,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: sickening conspiracy theory that is festered and built for years
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: about a child sex trafficking plot in industrial scale, abusing women,
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: abusing girls on behalf of democratic elites. Like, let's face it,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: this conspiracy theory is about treating the other party as evil.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: And that made up conspiracy theory that's happening over there,
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: you know, A lot of people have conflated the two.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: A lot of MAGA media influencers see them as one
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: and the same. And they feel betrayed because they've bought
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: into those lies for years. They've also helped sell those
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: lies for years. Am I making any sense about the
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: difference between the two stories?
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I do think there's a lot
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: of different flavors of kind of where people are coming
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: from on this story. There is what you just described,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: which is like kind of almost like basically QAnon continuation
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: of where people think there is literally a cabal of
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: liberals that like maybe even drink the blood of children,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: like the adrenochrome thing. That is a real thing people think.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Then there's folks who just, you know, think that some
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: of their political enemies are on this list and they
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: were going to get to finally prosecute Bill Clinton, for example.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: And then there's folks who I think just thought Trump
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: is pledged to be, he says he's outside of a system,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: a system that we hate, and that he's going to
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: burn it down. And he's going to take down all
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: these elites that we hate. And now he looks to
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: be covering up for them. And I think that's why
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: it's been so damaging kind of across the MAGA media universe.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: And he has really struggled to get on the right foot,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: even with all this talk about summoning Ghislaine Maxwell to
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: testify before Congress or releasing grand jury testimony. That is
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: just clearly insufficient for a lot of people, including people
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: like Alex Jones.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: And maybe that's in part because Epstein, as this is
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: all shorthanded, but really the elaborate conspiracy theories, as well
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: as the reality of the unsolved mysteries, All of it
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: is content. All of it is fantastic content for some
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: of these producers, for some of these Instagram stars, for
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: some of these podcasters. It is a storyline that keeps
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: on giving. It will never be fully resolved. No matter
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: what happens, there will always be an unsolved mystery at
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: the heart of it. And that is, in some ways,
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: it's the reason why true crime podcasts are so popular.
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: That's what some of this alleged news content is about.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: It's really an ongoing thing in that way.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I've also....
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: I gave up a long time.
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: Ago on being able to convince people that their elaborate
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: fantasies or horrors about these crimes, that you can talk
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: people out of their beliefs about them. I remember there
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: was a meme that went around Twitter in 2018, 2019,
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: a picture of my face and a couple other CNN anchors,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: and it said, why are they on the Jeffrey Epstein
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: flight logs?
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: What are you supposed to do with a lie like that?
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: Now, I know you and your former boss have dealt
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: with this every day for a decade. That's terrible.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: Plus, but like, what do you do with a lie
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: like that?
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Obviously, you know, to say it's not true makes you
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: feel like an idiot because you're having to debunk nonsense
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: that comes from a fever or something. But the point
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: is when those kinds of me, you know, and everybody,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: what do you do? You cannot talk people out of
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: these lies.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's horrible. And they can say some pretty extreme,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: scary things. And you can feel like you're on a
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: real island, but how to deal with it. Right. You'll
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: hear more of my conversation with Brian Stelter in a moment,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: but first I want to tell you about some other
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: great listening. Donald Trump says he can end every war
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: with one phone call, but he just fired the four-person
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: team actually trained to resolve global conflicts. This week in
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the What Today newsletter, we dig into the exclusive story
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: of the State Department's quietly dismantled peace negotiations unit, what
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: they were working on, stuff like Syria, Ukraine, much more,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: and why gutting that organization could blow back big time.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: The What Today newsletter also featured an exclusive one-on-one interview
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: with with everyone from Columbia student activist Mahmoud Khalil to
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: California Senator Adam Schiff and much more. Subscribe for more
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: inside scoops and get the full story at crooked.com slash daily.
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  Speaker 1: Scandi? No, I have no idea what Scandi looks like.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: To me, that says minimalist. So I'm just trying to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: speak to the listeners out there like us and just say,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: if you don't know what that stuff means, it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: matter because it's really nice. Looks good. It's a thoughtful
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  Speaker 1: design approach. It makes it incredibly easy to mix and
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  Speaker 1: and stylish. Every item is chosen for craftsmanship, design, and
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  Speaker 1: new furniture, you can easily return it. This peace of
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  Speaker 1: Article is offering our listeners 50 bucks off your first
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  Speaker 1: purchase of $ 100 or more. To claim, visit article.com slash
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  Speaker 1: crooked and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: That's article.com slash crooked for 50 bucks off your first
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: purchase of $ 100 or more. more. I want to change
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: gears a little bit to the AI because I read
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: an interesting article by the Niman Lab. It was about
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: a newsletter company called 6amcity. com. 6 a.m. City purchased a
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: network of AI-generated local newsletters called Good Daily. So Andrew Deck,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: who's the reporter at Diamond Lab who wrote this piece,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: said that when he first discovered Good Daily, each local
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: newsletter tried to present itself as being run by someone
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: in the community. They were kind of like fake testimonials,
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: but really it was all run by one guy in
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: New York City. Now, 6am says we're buying this AI
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: newsletter network to kind of seed a bunch of small
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: markets with these AI newsletters. And then if they start
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: to see success, we'll invest in editorial with human beings
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: and the ones that get traction. Now, we'll see. But
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: for me, this was a reminder that AI is coming
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: for media jobs. AI is coming for my job, just
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: like any other industry. And I'm wondering if you are
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: starting to see the impact of AI across newsrooms.
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: You're making me think of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who,
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: when he was out on his media tour acknowledging the
• 50:34
  Speaker 4: CBS deal and the merger.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: Approval, he kept talking about trust.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: He kept claiming that his focus on Paramount, his trying
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: to get concessions out of Paramount, was all about restoring trust,
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: that the American people don't trust the media and they
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: need to rebuild trust. Well, I understand complaints about bias
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: and all the other topics that you hear about. But
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: the biggest source of distrust, the most damage being done
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: to trusted media right now is all this AI slop,
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: all this AI garbage. In some cases, AI-generated newsletters or
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: news articles that are maybe mostly true or might be
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: true or maybe seem true and it's hard to tell
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: what's true or what's human-made versus what's not human-made. The
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: biggest pressure on trusted media, I think, is coming from
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: this AI environment.
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: In that, there will, of course, be winners and losers.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: I hope that really, really handcrafted, human-made outlets are going
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: to be the ones that can benefit by promoting themselves
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: that way, by identifying that way, by winning over paying subscribers.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: We see some of that happening on Substack every day.
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: We do see some of these subscription models working. The
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: more human-made, the better. The more personal, the better. But
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: there's no doubt there's going to be further damage at
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: the local level with even smaller amounts of local news
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: being gathered in the first place. And then what little
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: local news is actually gathered by humans will be collected
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: up by the AI bots and spat back out at
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: you and regurgitated toward you.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: Maybe this dates me. Maybe this just shows how old
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: I am. But the piece of mail I look forward
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: to the most every month is a monthly newsletter from
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: the town near where I live. Human-made, real advertisers, families
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: who write in letters, pictures from the local schools. That
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: handcrafted newsletter is the most valuable piece of media that
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: I consume every month. I'd like to believe that if
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: we're all overwhelmed by AI slop on Facebook, then enough
• 52:34
  Speaker 4: smart entrepreneurs will want to go out and build more
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: of those newsletters. Also, obviously, digital versions and podcasts and TikToks.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: I have to believe that in an.
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: Environment where can't believe a word of what you're seeing
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: on your social media feeds, that hopefully people will seek
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: out more local, personalized, handcrafted versions. But now I'm going
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: to get a bunch of emails from people who say
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: this is just totally naive and the business model is
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: completely cratering and there's nothing we can do about it.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: No, I think you're, look, I think there's a lot
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: of truth to what you're saying. I think there will
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: be people like you and people like me, people of
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: a human beings to generate their news and who, like,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: really care about that kind of curation and seek out authentic,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: real stuff. And then I fear there's going to be
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: a generation, probably a younger generation, that's really not used
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: to consuming the news like we have. And they're like,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I don't give a shit if, you know, my local
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: town's newsletter is AI. Like, whatever. I just want to
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: know the sports scores of my high school.
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: Historically, though, as people grow up, as they get older,
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: they do age into news.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Meaning.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: You know, if you're a cable news network, a new
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: 25 year old is born every day in the 25
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: to 54 year old demographic that advertisers really covet. So
• 53:48
  Speaker 4: in theory, you know, as you grow up, as you
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: maybe have kids, you start a family, maybe you're going
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: to care more about the schools, you're going to pay
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: for your local news.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: You know, that has historically been true.
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: The big difference, of course, now is there are fewer
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: of those outlets to sign up for in the first place.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: There are more and more people doing the reporting themselves, right?
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: More and more citizen journalism efforts that you do see
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: on Facebook and other outlets, other platforms.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Some of them are not half bad, by the way.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: I suspect that if you're 35, you're 40, if you're
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: living in a town and you hear about some scandal,
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: you hear about something that went down, you see something
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: in your community, you're going to want to figure out
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: if there are reliable sources, whatever the zing, the reliable sources.
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: You're going to want to see if there are reliable
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: sources about it.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Around.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: If not, you're going to hunger for that.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: I'm hoping that basic human impulse will stick around and
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: that the business models can catch up.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: It can be, frankly, easier and easier to pay for news.
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: There are times where media brands make it very hard
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: to become a member, to become a subscriber, to support
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: the brand. The easier we can make it to pay
• 54:55
  Speaker 4: and become a part of it, the easier we can
• 54:57
  Speaker 4: make it to be a member, the more these brands
• 54:59
  Speaker 4: will benefit.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: God, amen to that. The number of times I have
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: paid for an outlet and for some reason, it just
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't keep me logged in when I like click a
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Washington Post link on Twitter or whatever. And it just
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: drives me insane. Like, how is this not seamless at
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: this point?
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: A hundred percent. But conversely, you know, I was down
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: the shore. I live in Jersey now. So I was
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: down the shore with my family the other weekend. And
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: I wanted to know about 4th of July plans. Is
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: there a parade in town?
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Is there this?
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: Is there that?
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: I would have paid in that moment $ 3 via Apple
• 55:27
  Speaker 4: Pay for some sort of, you know, alert or information
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: for the weekend. Like, I might've paid five or six bucks. Um,
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: but of course it wasn't that easy. It wasn't that simple.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: So I'm, that's where I find a little bit of
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: faith about the future of media is that if we
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: can get to the audience, get to the consumer, if
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: we can make it really convenient, there is an audience
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: that wants to know if the parade's happening.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I think that's right. I think that's true across industries.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Like I want great curation, whether it's a playlist, a
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: menu at a restaurant, a wine store or news. I
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: don't need the Cheesecake Factory version. That's too much for me.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: I'm overwhelmed, right? I just want something good. Speaking of
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: sort of new types of media that's out there, this
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: is kind of a generational thing. I was talking to
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: a younger YouTube creator yesterday who was asking me what
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: I thought about Jubilee, which folks have probably seen clips
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: of this. You know, there's a bunch that went around
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: recently this week. Mehdi Hassan from Zateo News was basically
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: debating 20, like, fascists. And when I first heard about Jubilee...
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, it was like Pete Buttigieg with
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: 20 undecided voters. And I was like, oh, this is
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: really interesting. There's some real value here. And it has
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: evolved to this place where it is kind of everything
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I hate about media. It's like debate versus conversation and
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: owning people. The most insane, you know, out-of-bounds views sort
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: of pitted against each other. And, like, none of what
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: I'm saying is a critique of Netty.
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: No.
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: Credit to that guy, right? Like he could debate anybody.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: He did an incredible job. He is one of the smartest,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: sharpest people I've ever met or heard talk about the media.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: But I do wonder what you think about the value
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: of this product from Jubilee because it's very, very, very
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: popular with Gen Z and younger people, but I'm all
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: kind of skeptical of it.
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: This is gonna get me in trouble. I'm a big
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: fan of it, but I'm probably wrong. Like I feel
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: like I know I'm wrong deep down inside, Just before
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: we started having this conversation, I was about to read
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: a piece on the bulwark that's all about why Jubilee
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: is bad, a Sonny Bunch writing.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: These are really bad for society.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I haven't clicked the link yet, so listen to me,
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: but then go read his piece, and I'm sure that
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: he's right.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that he's right.
• 57:34
  Speaker 4: Here's what appeals to me about it, though. It is
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: very long form, almost two hours long. You hear a lot.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: People are moving quickly. You hear a lot. You get
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: a real sense of how people's brains work or maybe
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: don't work.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: You really hear those extremely online arguments that And you
• 57:52
  Speaker 4: come face to face with what politics is really like
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: in America. It's why I loved every diner story of
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: interviewing Trump voters, even though it was very popular on
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: social media to denounce diner stories.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: I always want to hear more. I always want to
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: read more of those stories.
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: Now, here's the caveat maybe, right? I am abnormal and
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: news junkies are abnormal. Jubilee appeals to that news junkie brain,
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: you know, but I also think Jubilee's, I think the
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: company was surrounded they're trying to appeal to a broader audience.
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: Like maybe they're trying to bring in people who have
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: not had these conversations for years and cannot anticipate every
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: counter argument. Maybe, maybe that's a good thing to be
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: making more forms of media for people who are not
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: already so saturated. Cause that's been my takeaway in the
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: past few years, especially when I was able to take
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: a little time off while I got fired, but you know,
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: take a little time off after being fired and I
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: could hang out with my kids, like to look around
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: the media world and realize, It's really well designed for junkies,
• 58:47
  Speaker 4: and it's not very well designed for normal people. If
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: you just want to know what happened today, there's some
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: CNN products I would recommend, but there's not a lot
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: out there compared to if you are a junkie, you
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: will keep scrolling. You'll never be able to stop doom scrolling.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: So if the intent of Jubilee is to try to
• 59:05
  Speaker 4: bring in people who are otherwise engaging in politics, I
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: would favor that.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. The most compelling criticism
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: of Jubilee I heard was actually from another Bulwark star,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Tim Miller, who said he started watching the Jubilee clips
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: because he had Mehdi on his show. And then he
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: started seeing Mehdi going back and forth with some of
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: these creators and looking at their feeds. And then all
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: of a sudden he his X algorithm was full of
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: these like neo-Nazis, right? And there is a change. So
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: like there's an interesting conversation to be had about how
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: consuming this content can impact your algorithm, which, you know,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: as we know, can fundamentally change what.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: You get served.
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: Of course, my favorite button on Instagram, it doesn't pop
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: up often enough, but sometimes it pops up When Instagram
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: feeds me something from someone I'm not already following, and
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: it says interested or not interested, there's an X or
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: a checkmark. I love when Instagram services that. I recently
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: said to an executive there, I wish you would show
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 4: me that even more often. I'm glad that you're giving
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: me at least the perception of having some power over
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: the algorithm. You're giving me a chance to opt out
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: of the junk.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: I like that.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: It would be nice to be able to watch Surrounded
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: on Jubilee and then say, I don't want to see
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: any more of it.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. Final question for you. Thank you so
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: much for giving us all this time. One of my
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: questions today was written verbatim by ChatGPT. Which one was it?
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Which one was it?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Shit.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: The union question?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: No. Yes, you nailed it. Oh, yes.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: Here's why. Here's why I went there.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Because it was short and pithy unlike all my other
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: fucking long-winded nonsense.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: No, because I thought it was the least related to
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: the other topics.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: Even though it's foundational, it affects unionization and labor. It
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: affects every other topic we've talked about.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: But it was a little bit out of left field.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: And so I don't think that the chat GPT understands
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: us well enough yet.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: You know me better than I do. You nailed that one. Brian,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing the show. Where can
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: folks find you? What should we promote here?
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: I suppose I'm on CNN, and when I'm not there,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: I'm writing the Reliable Sources newsletter for CNN.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: It's at ReliableSources.com. Thank you.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: Subscribe to Brian's newsletter, and thank you so much for
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: doing the show.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: That's our show for this week. Thanks for listening, and
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: see you guys Tuesday.
• 1:01:24
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